Panetta Labels Climate Change a National Security Threat 397
skipkent writes "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared global warming a national security threat [Wednesday] during a speech before an environmentalist group in Washington, D.C. 'The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security,' Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. 'Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.'"
War On Climate (Score:5, Funny)
... starts now.
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this translate into, in real terms? You know, contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel and the gang?
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The EPA will get it's own SWAT team.
2. Green subsidies will be moved to the defense budget.
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Funny)
Gawd, I hope so. So many heads asploding.
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Informative)
The EPA has [theind.com] a SWAT team. Plenty more examples come up if you search for "EPA SWAT team," too.
Re:War On Climate (Score:4, Informative)
The EPA will get it's own SWAT team.
Eh ,why not? The NOAA has one. In fact the EPA might already have one [wsj.com]. Guns and badges for everyone. Makes 'em feel all important and stuff
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Insightful)
What do environmental groups need with fucking GUNS and private cops?!?!
I wonder if there's any way to petition our elected officials, to pass legislation banning agencies from having their own police force and weaponry...? I mean, as far as gun play and all, I'd trust the FBI or Secret Service over these other home brewed forces. IF the EPA needs protection going on a raid...they should maybe have to coordinate with the FBI...keep it simple and separate.
I don't like the idea of these unelected departments making and enforcing all these rules...but at least lets start and be reasonable and take the 'teeth' out of them a little by mandating they can't have their own weaponized goon squads....
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Informative)
And back before the FBI was created, when federal law enforcement was almost exclusively contained within the Treasury department,* whether or not any federal agents should even be armed to begin with, was a controversial political issue.
Now of course the armed FBI (and the IRS, BATFE, ICE, DHS, and...) is accepted as perfectly normal. Shows how far down the drain this country has already gone, doesn't it?
_____
* Because the Federal Government doesn't actually have any constitutionally-granted "police power" to begin with. This power was meant to be retained by the States. Go ahead and try to find it in the enumerated powers clause of the Constitution (Art. I, sec. 8). All the Federal Government can enforce, constitutionally, is tax law. This is why, up until the 1940s, all Federal "law enforcement" was framed as a tax issue. The ATF is actually a tax-enforcement agency, and was part of the Treasury Department until it was moved to the DOJ in 2002 (Pub.L. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (Nov. 25, 2002)). The first federal restrictions on firearms are actually just taxes (72nd Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236 (June 26, 1934)). The first federal marijuana law (Pub. 238, 75th Congress, 50 Stat. 551 (Aug. 2, 1937)) was just a requirement to purchase tax stamps. And so on.
Re:War On Climate (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the tax stamps were themselves a sham Constitutional workaround. You couldn't actually get them and even if you could, you were basically admitting to a crime.
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Yup. That bit of trickery was, I suppose, their last attempt at even appearing to conduct "law enforcement" within the framework of the Constitution.
Re:War On Climate (Score:5, Funny)
What do environmental groups need with fucking GUNS
To show the Republicans that they support the Second Amendment!
Re:War On Climate (Score:4, Interesting)
The EPA will get it's own SWAT team.
Eh ,why not? The NOAA has one. In fact the EPA might already have one [wsj.com]. Guns and badges for everyone. Makes 'em feel all important and stuff
Why not, DuPont has Xe/Blackwater, the Gutterment has the NDAA. All the American citizen has, is the vote, for all the good that it does. The only person we can look up to is the elected Sheriff and look what THEY (The Hierarchy Enslaving You) are doing to Arpaio.
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[unrelated joking here]>Polls suggest liberal hipsters are not afraid of terrorist. Best to scare them with Enviro-Annihilation to get appropriate feedback response to vote rights away.[/end lame joke]
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How convenient... (Score:5, Funny)
Now everybody can be accused of terrorism: We caught this man attempting a global warming attack by emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, we had to put him down as he would not stop even after being caught, threatening the security of our agents.
Re:How convenient... (Score:5, Funny)
They found a recording from a surveilance camera, where he performed an even worse attack: the release of a greenhouse gas in an elevator, to the horror of the victims.
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The man was later tried and sentenced to three hours of hard labor at Burger King, where he will be required to consume six supersized combo meals to atone for his transgression.
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I think you're a little late. Nobody expects the Industrial Revolution!
War On Climate Change (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the "War On Climate Change" ... get it right.
The only "obvious" solution is a complete government take over of all things that produce CO2 ... in other words ... socialism. People, Factories, Vehicles, ect ... all property of the state and may only be used if they give the ok, but not before they make you feel horrible about it.
Who cares that the US Debt:GDP has surpassed 1:1 and that true unemployment is well over 16% ... let’s focus on the climate and stop worrying about that whole economy thing.
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The use of the word "War" has inflated in a very hilarious way, especially among retarded politicians.
This isn't a war.
This is a fight against climate change.
Just like there is no war on terror, only a fight against terrorism.
There's a big difference between a fight and a state of war.
Deus (Chevy) Volt!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Be Very Afraid: The Church of The Climate is getting it's own Armed Inquisitition.
Life Imitates Super Bowl Ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml54UuAoLSo [youtube.com]
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Our chief weapon is surprise!... Excessive paperwork and fear... fear and excessive paperwork... Our two weapons are excessive paperwork and surprise... and ruthless inefficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Sierra Club... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Hmf... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, excessive... I'll come in again.
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Hmm. Two Anonymous cowards, fighting it out. *Grabs popcorn*
No one sees... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No one sees... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, damn it. False equivalency. One side lies about it for political gain, the other is desperately trying to get the public to understand that it is a scientifically accepted truth that must be dealt with.
Tell me, in what way would flooding in NYC and global famine not affect our security?
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By exaggerating the effects of the problem and making out like a change that happens so slowly you almost can't see it is suddenly an emergency.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
"That group of politicians are self-serving liars, but this group is benevolent and trying to help everyone!"
I knew there were still people like you out there, but I thought we'd pretty much fixed this kind of ignorance on Slashdot. I guess we've got some more work to do.
Here's a hint: neither side gives a shit about you. You're not even a pawn in their little game. At best, you're the chair they rest their fat, sweaty ass on while they play the game and get rich and powerful. That you believe you're on the same side or working towards similar goals is, quite frankly, pathetic.
If you want to see politicians who aren't stepping on every man, woman, and child to get a little higher up, look for the ones who've been marginalized as fanatical zealots and kooks. After all, in the game of politics, anyone who isn't crushing everyone else to get more money, power, and glory must be a lunatic.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
While your assumption is very simplifying, and thus attractive, I don't think it's correct. The reality is that politicians feel corrupt to us because they live in their own echo chamber, and they do believe a lot of things that are just plain stupid because of that. They listen to the wrong people, the people who have the loudest voices, and choose who to ally with based on what they think is right, or in some cases what they think is beneficial to them.
Saying that they are just looking out for themselves is oversimplifying. Saying that nothing they say is ever valid is incorrect. It's comforting either to think that politicians are basically good, and looking out for us, or basically evil, and trying to screw us. It's much harder to live in the real world, where they are much more complicated than that, and require our involvement if they are to serve us.
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Which side is the one lying about it for political gain? The side that's trying to: Create all sorts of new taxes, laws, and regulations; expand their bureaucracies, create entirely new ones, and massively expand their budgets; hire swarms of new bureaucrats and "experts," who will come up with even more and more reasons for more taxes, regulations, and bureaucrats? You did mean that side of the debate, right? :)
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which side is the one lying about it for political gain?
The side that is LYING!! Truth is REAL. I know that it's trendy to deny it these days, but there are such things as objective facts. All of the science proves that global warming is a fact. You don't like it? Too fucking bad, go cry me a river. Your opinions hold absolutely no sway over fact. You can disbelieve climate change, you can disbelieve evolution, you can disbelieve the moon landing, you can disbelieve that passenger jets brought down the Twin Towers, you can disbelieve gravity. But none of that fucking matters. Because truth is true whether you believe it or not.
And tell me, how is there "political gain" for the Democrats in raising taxes and creating regulations? How does it help them? Cause from where I stand, they'd be able to win a lot more power if, like the Republicans, they simply denied objective fact and promised tax cuts for everyone. They don't do that. Instead they accept the truth and try to deal with it.
Fuck you for waging this war on objective truth. We cannot survive without science, and we cannot have science without objective truth.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem confused so I'll break it down for you:
Small list of observed facts:
-Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, and Methane Gas are all greenhouse gasses.
-Human behavior at this time includes producing or releasing these gasses.
-Government regulators in the United States have mandated that cars run at reduced fuel efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
-Our records indicate that average temperature over time has increased.
-There are lakes of methane hydrate crystals on the ocean floor.
-Changes in temperature and pressure can cause heavier-than-water liquids and solids to change phase in to lighter-than-water gasses.
This is a theory:
-The recorded change in climate is caused by the human release and production of greenhouse gasses.
These are hypothesis:
-A tipping point exists where the Earth's climate will cease to be habitable to human life.
-We have passed, or are approaching this point.
-Human influence on climate is significant.
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Your facts are incomplete. The biggest greenhouse gas, by orders-of-magnitude, is water vapor...not the condensed vapor we see as clouds but the vaporized water that we experience as humidity and which your list does not even include. Human behavior has no effect on atmospheric water vapor. Your assertion that our records indicate that average temperature over time has increased is misleading. Our 'records' of temperature measurement that mean anything at all wrt to climate conditions go back only a few
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I'm not arguing over the factuality of global warming. I'm arguing over whether not, whatever the truth be, it justifies the government interfering with people's freedoms and liberties. "Just because they can, doesn't mean they should." I've posted enough other comments in this thread to make my point so I won't reiterate it here.
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Fair enough. And what of us who are Pro-Climate Change? ^_^
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I'm a scientist, and all I've found in years of research is an increasingly desperate attempt to confuse correlation with causation.
Show. Me. Proof. Of. Your. Theory.
Ferret
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Higher taxes + more bureaucracy = bigger government = more power. How do you not see how this helps them? Good Republicans are for smaller, less powerful government.
I'm going to ignore your lies about the science. It's settled, and it doesn't matter that you choose to ignore it. But I will respond to the quoted bit, because it's an oft repeated bit of bad logic.
How, exactly does big government help the Democrats?
Republicans benefit from cutting spending because it gives them an excuse to cut taxes, and those tax cuts go to the 1%, who then return the favor by giving enormous kickbacks, er, donations to the GOP. And at the same time, they get to gain the clear elect
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Done, dumbass
Define a question - Done
Gather information and resources (observe) - Done
Form an explanatory hypothesis - Done
Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner - Dones
Analyze the data - Done
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis - Done
Publish results - Done
Retest (frequently done by other scientists) - Done
So either you can realize you are wrong, by your own claims, or you can keep sticking you head u
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Funny)
Higher taxes + more bureaucracy = bigger government = more power. How do you not see how this helps them?
It may help them.
Good Republicans are for smaller, less powerful government.
Unless you have a working vagina:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/87be7156f5/republicans-get-in-my-vagina?playlist=featured_videos [funnyordie.com]
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which side is the one lying about it for political gain?
The side that doesn't have facts supporting its position.
Was that a trick question?
Can we next debate whether or not smoking tobacco is bad for your lungs? [staticflickr.com]
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In the UK we reward people for being green with tax cuts. For example my old car attracted a Road Tax of £145, the new one only pays £35 because it is more efficient (and still pretty quick). Okay, if I had bought a 4 litre off-roader it would have gone up, but pollution and extra weight causing wear on the roads does cost money so it seems reasonable that owners of such vehicles pay their fair share.
Much of the green agenda is about getting rid of bureaucracy and reduce wasted spend
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying shit like that is the equivalent of saying that if we don't have mandatory internet ID and censorship, that pedophiles and terrorists are inevitably going to break into our homes in the middle of the night and rape our daughters, and take control of the nuclear power plants and run them up to 1000% causing Chernobylfukushimas at every generating station, respectively.
Both are hyperbole, and do nothing to get logical folks considering your point of view. Try being rational and practical instead of religious and fanatical for a change, and I bet you'll find people are a bit more receptive to your ideas.
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On the right side, you have people who think everyone should still be driving 1969 Pontiac GTOs that get 6 miles per gallon on leaded gasoline, that we should just burn through all of our nonrenewable resources until they are gone, and just pray because God will give us the answer. On the left, you have pe
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish the Democrats would yank the window around. The sad fact is that they don't.
Twenty years ago, the Republicans supported cap & trade as a free market alternative to the Democrats' policies. Today, they've renamed it "cap & tax" and it's politically toxic. Their new alternative is to do nothing because they don't even acknowledge the scientific truths that they did years ago.
Twenty years ago, the Republicans supported the individual mandate as a free market alternative to the Democrats' policies. Today, it's a "government takeover of health care" that will institute "death panels". Their new alternative is to sell state insurance across state lines, meaning that all insurance companies would move to the state with the most lax regulations, meaning the quality of care would drop like a stone.
Twenty years ago, Medicare was a beloved program and considered untouchable. Today, the Republicans, including their presidential nominee, have announced their intention to end the program, replace it with one that covers only a fraction of seniors' medical costs, and give the savings to the super rich in the form of the largest tax cut in decades.
Twenty years ago, waterboarding was an evil torture technique used against American servicemen in WWII. Today it's a useful "enhanced interrogation" technique.
Twenty years ago, a ban on assault weapons was a reasonable compromise in gun control. Today, even after the near assassination of a Representative and murder of several bystanders, we can't manage to pass a law against extended magazines -- weapons that have no purpose other than mass murder.
The only area in which the Democrats have gained any ground is gay rights. Sorry, but truth doesn't get through to people. The average American is way too stupid to recognize a logical fallacy when he hears one. You can either lose every argument and watch the country go down the shitter, or you can fight fire with fire.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you spent a week or two among [Republicans], away from your friends of a similar mindset and comfort zone, where you are forced to interact with them on a minute by minute basis?
Yup, a week, two weeks, my entire childhood, every single holiday since then. Try listening to your aunt talk about how the Jews are using Hollywood to brainwash society, while your Jewish mother sits awkwardly in the corner. Try watching your supposedly devout Christian father argue that torture is good. Try arguing with your uncle that his daughter, your cousin, is not a "race traitor" just because she's dating a black man. Do all that for decade after decade, and then come back to me and say that these people can be reasoned with.
Sometimes people really are just too far gone, and society's only option is to move on without them.
Re:No one sees... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes Yes because no one really checked
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/03/climate_change
!!!
and the initial reluctance to release the raw data had noting to do with the huge effort it took to get permission form all the thousands of individuals and governments who produced it
www.newscientist.com/article/dn20739-ok-climate-sceptics-heres-the-raw-data-you-wanted.html
and no one ever went back and re collected it for public release either!!!
and the freedom of information requests where all completely innocent too!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/25/freedom-information-laws-harass-scientists
Re:No one sees... (Score:4, Informative)
I see... FUD (Score:5, Informative)
This issue has been investigated to death by the following organizations:
4.1 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
4.2 Science Assessment Panel
4.3 Pennsylvania State University
4.4 Independent Climate Change Email Review
4.5 United States Environmental Protection Agency report
4.6 Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce
4.7 National Science Foundation
No scientific wrong doing has ever been found. The quotes that the tinfoil heads have used to show that "Phil Jones admitted manipulating data" were taken out of context and completely misunderstood. So please go take your willfull ignorance and hang out with the young earth creationists and the flat earthers, and stop interfering with the rest of us while we try to save our asses and your sorry ass from this building world disaster.
Re:No one sees... (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA does climate research with data from North America only, not valid on world wide scale.
BwaHaHa!!!!! Do you seriously believe that? And Phil Jones is the only scientist to see the unmanipulated data? What a crock of shit.
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If Panetta wanted more money for his department, he wouldn't have worked with the President and Congress to try to rein in military spending to the minimal extent he did. I would certainly like a Secretary of Defense who actually *cut* the defense budget instead of just decreasing the rate of increase, but claiming that he is trying to maximize his budget is simply counterfactual. If he were trying to maximize his budget, his behavior over the past year would have been very different.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, in your earlier post you basically said that everyone who disagrees with you is lying for political gain, and everyone who agrees with you is a sincere communicator. Don't you see a serious logical problem in that? If you don't, I'll make it explicit: just because people agree with you, that does not mean they are kind, sincere, or even right.
Let me explain how politics works. People will attempt to gain power wherever they can. It doesn't matter if AGW is 110% real, and serious threat with fires erupting on the equator, people dying of starvation, and oceans rising to the Rocky Mountains. Politicians are STILL going to try to use it to their advantage.
We see this all the time. In the 1950s, communist spies WERE a reality. A guy named McCarthy twisted this fact to destroy his political enemies. In the 2000s, anti-American terrorists WERE a real threat. A guy named George Bush used this fact to invade a completely unrelated country and destroy its government.
It doesn't matter if an issue is real or not. If it has captured attention, people will try to use it for their advantage.
Re:No one sees... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, in your earlier post you basically said that everyone who disagrees with you is lying for political gain, and everyone who agrees with you is a sincere communicator.
That's a very misleading way to phrase it. You're implying that I believe that the liars are lying because they disagree with me. That is false. I believe that they're lying because all of the evidence shows that they are. I disagree with them as a consequence of that fact.
I'm quite happy to admit when I'm wrong. Example: I voted for Bush, twice. I believed Iraq had WMDs. I believed that the United States wasn't torturing detainees. Go back to my pre-college years, and I was even a creationist! By 2006, the evidence of torture and lack of evidence of WMDs was such that I had to admit that I had been wrong, so I abandoned the GOP that had misled me so. And I was wrong about another thing: I thought at the time that a lot of other people would follow me, and that the GOP would collapse under the enormity of their lies. O, how wrong I was. Most of my former peers simply blinded themselves to the truth. Others rationalized by deciding, "Well, sure, I supported the bad guys, but the other guys are just as bad, so it's okay!" That's a defense mechanism, used by a brain that doesn't want to face its former mistakes.
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But on the other hand it does not matter at all anyway. Why? Because we humans are still breeding like rabbits, and our impact on the climate is 100% linked to our population. Everything else is irrelevant. If there was only 1000 people in the world, those 1000 people could pollute as much as they wanted without ever impacting the ecosystem or the climate. With today's 8 billion and climbing, everyone is being "blamed" and told to be more frugal and more cautious. When we hit 16 billion in under 40 years, i
plane (Score:2)
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Declare US a no-fly zone.
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This is not new (Score:3, Informative)
He's saying what's been said many times before, e.g. this from 2009 about the Pentagons simulations:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?pagewanted=all
"Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change."
"The National Intelligence Council, which produces government-wide intelligence analyses, finished the first assessment of the national security implications of climate change just last year. "
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Toppling governments and feeding terrorist movements and destabilizing entire regions. What's the big deal. That's all in a day's work at the Pentagon.
The American Way (Score:2)
Even if it's for the right cause, I can't help but find it weird that dealing with climate change in the US starts by the military declaring it a terrorist.
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Everything is terrorism!
Think of the children!
Re:The American Way (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you have central and southern America which are heavily populated and they will likely have issues with water as well. With the overpopulation that exists there now, ppl will leave to go to Argentina, or northern America. Northern Africa will have massive wars as it dries up further.
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and yet no-one is even attempting to deal with the cause of all of these problems: human overpopulation.
(Well, except China and their famous one-child policy of course)
Reducing the environmental impact of people is kinda pointless if you keep adding more people. In fact, it just worsens the problems because when you finally have to deal with the population problem you've got a larger population to deal with.
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Possibility of GW known since the 1970s/SCEP (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:Possibility of GW known since the 1970s/SCEP (Score:4, Insightful)
The average sea level rise in the last few decades has been about 3mm/year. So the sea level rise in the last thirty years has been about 3 inches since 1980. Your situation may vary due to geology. In Alaska sea levels are falling due to uplift of the land.
Take out a 3mm allen key and ask yourself, would you be able to eyeball that much change from year to year, given that the diurnal tides at Galveston are over two feet, and vary by several inches depending on weather and the moon. That's not counting the effect of wind and waves, which have to be averaged out.
You *can't* eyeball this magnitude of change without special instruments, even if it happened overnight, and you'd still need a long sequence of measurements to know what you are looking at. The practical effects of recent sea level rise are statistical, rather than directly observable.
Re:Possibility of GW known since the 1970s/SCEP (Score:4, Informative)
I have been hearing that Global warming will cause the seas to rise for 30 years. And yet the concrete piers in the gulf are still at the same level as they were 30 years ago.
This is the worst sort of nonsensical argument. You equate scientific predictions of sea level rise with a sea level rise that is so large that you would be able to observe and notice it with the naked eye by casual and randomly timed observations when you go to the beach. Did you take measurements? Did you account for tide level when you were there? Were you a kid with a totally different sense of scale 30 years ago?
No scientist ever predicted a rise so large over the last 30 years that casual observation would be able to observe it. The reality is that the predicted sea level rise has matched the reality quite closely. During the last thirty years that you referenced the three-year-average sea level has risen by about 5cm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png [wikipedia.org]
The scientific predictions I am aware of predict that the rise will accelerate over the coming century. Some effects, especially big systemic effects lag behind the cause. For instance it takes time for rising CO2 to trap the amount of heat to increase average ocean temperature (which requires a gargantuan amount of energy that is really beyond most humans ability to grasp) then it takes more time for the warmer water to undermine the Antarctic and Greenland Glaciers, but if they do start to fall apart in a big way the Army Corps of Engineers will have to really scramble to keep Huston dry.
Re:Possibility of GW known since the 1970s/SCEP (Score:4, Interesting)
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The temperature has risen a degree or two, and the seas have not.
Here ya' go. [wikipedia.org]
Now is an inch going to inundate Houston? No. But it's entirely possible for the effect to lag the cause.
If the current trend of an inch each hundred years keeps up, I'm pretty confident in humanity's ability to cope :)
Talk about human nature! Gullibility. (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is human nature, and precisely why nothing ever gets done before it's too fucking late to make any difference whatsoever.
And THAT is human nature. The ability to believe dire warnings that benefit someone else without any proof whatsoever.
Man in inherently gullible, as you so aptly demonstrate. Those few simply asking for some small bit of proof are so often shouted down by the panicky mob insisting something "must be done" "for the children".
On the other hand the willing suspension of disbelief
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I just get a kick out of the people that want to "Save the Planet" by making reasoned argument "Troll" but may have a device or two on this list... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_power [wikipedia.org]
Re:Possibility of GW known since the 1970s/SCEP (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it goes further back than that. In the 1950s climate scientists, reasoning by extrapolation, expected the next climate swing would be toward cooling. If you do a Google Scholar search you'll find papers starting around 1956 suggesting (tentatively) that anthropogenic CO2 generation would drive climate the other way, toward warming. Scientific consensus shifted over the next two decades toward a warming trend.
My wife was a physical oceanography grad student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic in the early 80s. I distinctly recall her telling me about a symposium in which CO2-driven AGW was discussed. It wasn't controversial -- nobody outside of geophysics and climate research had heard of it. Nor was the position that global warming wasn't happening controversial, although it was increasingly a minority opinion. Over the next two decades I watched the back and forth as evidence for warming per se was challenged, then vindicated in the pages of the journals she read and in geek publications like Science News. It wasn't until about a decade or so ago that the term "global warming" started taking off in the popular press.
Then there was Al Gore's *An Inconvenient Truth*, which was a blow against actual science having any influence in the public debate on pollution. It's not that the movie was scientifically inaccurate on the whole, although it was stated in much more positive terms than scientists are comfortable using. It's that a lot of people had been taught to hate this man, and for those people scientists and science as a whole was tarred with the brush of partisan distrust as well.
Re:Possibility of GW known since 1890's (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect [wikipedia.org]
if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
Waiting for the hypocrisy to start (Score:3, Insightful)
When anyone who isn't a climate change "expert" voices skepticism on climate change, all the believers pile on, outraged, about how the person isn't qualified to be making such statements, how they're abusing their position/authority to sound like they know what they're talking about, &c.. (Remember Bjorn Lomburg?) So I'm sure we'll see the global-warmers express similar outrage about this, right?
And... "national security threat"? This is the same government agency that thinks that bearded malcontents hiding out in desert caves is a "national security threat." This is the same agency that spent decades fighting the "national security threat" posed by tiny little countries like Vietnam and Cuba going communist. I seem to remember an awful lot of progressives dismissing the lunacy of the War on Terror and the Cold War. So I'm sure they'll dismiss and mock this latest attempt by the U.S. military to imagine or invent new threats, right?
Right?
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't take long for that to get modded down. Cognitive dissonance too much for you? :)
Oh, and the U.S. Military is the biggest user of fossil fuels [energybulletin.net] in the nation, and the biggest polluter [projectcensored.org] too. Maybe if this bureaucrat thinks climate change is such a big threat he can start by not wasting 395,000 barrels of oil per day on the useless wars he's prosecuting in the name of "national security."
Re: (Score:3)
Scientists do research, policy makers act on it. Is your argument that policymakers should completely ignore science? Panetta is not a scientist, and it appears he's not talking on science but the policy that stems from it.
This is pure political games that Panetta doing giving speeches to environmental groups. But he's also right, it's his job to consider possible threats. DoD plans for things that aren't a certainty all the time. What if China invades Taiwan? What if strait of Hormuz gets blockaded?
Re: (Score:3)
That's a bullshit comparison. When a denier who has no experience in climatology starts lying about the science, they rightfully get torn down, just as a creationist with no experience in biology gets torn down when they start talking about "irreducibly complex" organisms.
When someone not in the field of climatology acknowledges the fields conclusions, then that's perfectly acceptable, just as it is perfectly acceptable when a person with no experience in biology accepts the existence of evolution.
It's oka
Re: (Score:3)
"It's okay when people agree with me, but it's not when they don't."
Strawman. What I said was that if you agree with the experts, you don't need proof of your own. It's only when you go against the scientific consensus that you need supporting evidence. I can say "evolution is real" even though I really don't understand it beyond a superficial level, because I know that the scientific consensus supports that position. If I were to say "evolution is a lie, God made the world in seven days", I better have some damn good evidence to back that statement up.
Really, this is s
National Security Theater Company (Score:2)
In the U.S., EVERYTHING is a threat to national security, it is much easier to get military funding when your enemy is the bogeyman.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you get a conservative to jump on the environmentalism bandwagon? Call climate change a "national security threat."
How do you get a progressive to start lavishing praise on the U.S. Military? Get the military to tackle "climate change."
It's a win-win for the political establishment.
So easy for all of us to solve this, and yet, .... (Score:4, Interesting)
If we want this solved, America is the solution. We are the largest importers. At this time, we should put a tax on ALL GOODS, both local and imported, based on the CO2 (and later add other pollutants) that is emitted from an area. The CO2 should be measured by satellite and it should be a case of (co2 out - co2 in).
The important part is that the tax is then based as a % of CO2 PER GDP (unleveled) or a combination of CO2/GDP and CO2/land size (deals with farming which can add a lot of CO2).
If America was to do this, it would impact the world over. Basically, nations that have been working on lowering their emissions will have lower taxes. Those like China which continue to cheat, would have top taxes applied to them.
Ideally, ALL nations that care should do this. They will encourage all other nations to move quickly towards dropping their emissions.
Since the economy is fragile, the maximum tax should start low and build yearly. That gives nations time to adjust.
Re: (Score:2)
It would probably be workable if you also applied it to native products. To make exports competitive, you could give them back a credit for any exports (let the other countries enact similar taxes for their imports).
Of course, this is just another way of implementing something like Kyoto, but without all that pesky international co-operation :)
On the surface it sounds like a budgetary decision (Score:2)
Overstated (Score:2)
Yes, there is an effect or at least a potential effect on national security, just like climate change has potential impacts on everything from where and how people live to agriculture to industry. In fact, the effects in all those areas will be more important and deeper than the effects on defense.
But to say it has a dramatic impact is just bullshit. Its effects will be gradual and we will see them as they happen and they will be slow enough for us to adjust gradually to the changing situation.
Meanwhile,
CO2 emission =terrorism (Score:3)
Then build more nuclear power plants (Score:3)
If the DOD is concerned about the effects that CO2 will have on the atmosphere then they, as one of the largest consumers of energy in this federation, are in a unique position to actually do something about it.
Every US Navy ship of a certain minimum size should be nuclear powered. They've retired the last oil fired aircraft carrier not too long ago. As far as I know all the submarines in the fleet are nuclear powered. Now move that technology to the amphibious assault ships, frigates, destroyers, oilers, supply ships, hospital ships, and so on. Only the smallest vessels of the Navy should still run on oil.
When it comes to tanks, jeeps, helicopters, airplanes, and other vehicles where nuclear power would not be practical the DOD has the opportunity to invest in research in synthetic fuels. It appears that they are doing this but it's going to take a lot more research before the price can compete with petroleum fuels. Even if the process works the energy has to come from somewhere. That "somewhere' is likely going to be nuclear power.
The DOD has all kinds of large bases in this federation (and other nations) and these bases require all the infrastructure of a city. This includes needs for electricity. Because of things like radar, communications, heavy equipment, and other such necessities to run a military base the power needs are often much higher than your typical city. Also, to avoid panic and issues of warrior morale there should be a means to provide power to the surrounding community as well. A soldier is not going to be as effective if they know that the base is all lit up and running but his/her family is off base, in the dark, stuck in traffic, or whatever. In this case all military bases should have an on site nuclear power plant capable of powering the base and the community that surrounds it.
While I feel that nuclear power will play a very very large part in the future of our federation's security and independence I do see needs for investment into wind and solar power. I recall a Marine General talk about the "river of diesel" that has to flow into the small bases out in the battlefield. These places are where the trucks, tanks, and self propelled artillery go to get refueled, repaired, and take on a new crew. These vehicles need fuel. The people working at these bases need electricity for cooking, refrigeration, heating, cooling, lights, communications, and so on. Right now that mean diesel generators.
For every truck carrying diesel fuel there is a risk that some driver will lose his or her life to an attack. Reducing the need to bring in that fuel means fewer lives lost. It's not likely that they can remove the need for diesel fuel but they can reduce it by not running those generators. This could mean putting up solar panels and windmills for electricity. If the technology becomes more advanced then we might see nuclear reactors that fit on a 40 foot ISO trailer.
My point is that the DOD should not be complaining about the problem that carbon output has on the climate but should instead do everything in its power to remove their own need for fossil fuels. They are already doing some of this but this does not yet seem to be a priority. If it were a priority then there would no longer be a debate on whether the next generation destroyers would be nuclear powered or not. If carbon output were a priority then we should be reading about how every military base is building nuclear power plants, putting up solar panels, and seeking out the best spots for windmills on base.
Even if we got all these windmills, solar panels, and nuclear power plants the DOD will still be sucking up large amounts of petroleum to power existing aircraft, surface ships, trucks, tanks, and so on. This will likely continue for more than thirty years since that is the typical lifespan of a military design. With that in mind we need the DOD to speak up in favor of sources of petroleum that is domestic and from friendly nations. The DOD needs to speak up in favor
Old news (Score:3)
Several years ago the DoD listed it as one of the primary threats to national security for this century.
Here we go again (Score:3)
Its a war on ${topic_of_the_day}.
And of course this means suspending civil liberties, the Constitution and public discussion. We'll need to reinstate HUAC [wikipedia.org] and drag all of you SUV drivers into congressional hearings before McCarthy Jr.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse [wikipedia.org]
Now go ahead and slaughter me for not posting this AC. I can spare the karma for people who disagree. Feel free to ignore that the science is really split on how the global feedback mechanism actually works. Feel free to ignore that the oceans have not risen and buried Houston, like they said they would for years...
Re:AGW ? (Score:4, Informative)
Only in some conditions for some plants see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorespiration
Higher temperatures above a certain point decrease efficiency, to differing levels for different plants, and can lead to death or decreased yields. This could well render California's wine industry economically unsustainable with only a few degrees change see http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/june/wines-global-warming-063011.html.
It is true that to sea level rises will be minor, more a problem for a few cities on coastal swampland and some protected habitats but this is not the damage that real scientists have been most worried about, at least for America. If you got your idea on climate scientists opinions from newspapers understand that the often twist the subject to use fear to sell the paper and are often too scientifically illiterate to know when they crossed the line form exaggerating into lies. This is a problem they also have with everything form climate yes and diet advice eg super foods and medicine eg cancer drugs and even computer science (have you read a computer security article in a normal newspaper recently?).
The real problems are smaller but still important like the desertification that is currently happening in places like Texas, Global warming increases average rainfall but also makes it more "patchy" and increases evaporation. Also how do you like hurricanes? Because increased surface temperature and sea level moisture directly drive stronger storms in the American "hurricane ally" http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html. How a bout a bit of malaria or Lyme disease ect, as increase temperatures will drive the movement of biting insects. Note that none of these are a global doom scenario but go tell a Texan farmer the drought was not important, even if they do not believe in global warming reality is not a matter of opinion and the pain it has caused them is very real.
Warning, your videos have been rigged (Score:3, Informative)
There are all kinds of problems with the videos you presented. See here for a very clear step by step instructions and video showing what your videos are claiming to show, have results that have been fabricated:
Real CO2 in a bottle experiment [wattsupwiththat.com]
The problem is you and so many others not actually understanding the effects that CO2 really has, and only believing in a simplistic view of warming promoted by your cult leaders.
Re: (Score:2)
So your position is that you can model the global climate with a high school science project more accurately than can all the climatologists in the world. Perhaps while you're at it you'd like to use the water-in-pipes model for electricity to disprove quantum mechanics?
Re:Warning, your videos have been rigged (Score:5, Informative)
Here's Bill Nye's response [billnye.com] to WattsUp's experiment, explaining why they failed to reproduce results that have been successfully reproduced over and over and over again [physicsforums.com] by other scientists, organizations, and amateurs.
What's sad is that the AGW skeptics give so much link-love to this bungled demonstration, that the other experiments get pushed down in the google results. AGW Skeptics are a lot like evolution-deniers in this regard, who also push anti-evolution nonsense to the top of all google results. It must be nice to have so much free time to promote this propaganda, while real science is so careful, nuanced, and time-consuming it gets lost in the politics.
Re: (Score:3)
There is also a simple issue with the experiment; the amount of CO2 in the bottles. In 2009 the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 0.0387%. That is 387 parts per million. By allowing the CO2 from the generator to freely flow into the bottle and the fact that CO2 is heavier than air it will displace the regular atmosphere out the top of the open bottle. In effect one will have nearly 100% CO2 in the bottle, lets say 90% to account for some mixing. Between 1960 and 2010 atmospheric CO2 at Muana Loa [wikipedia.org]has
Re: (Score:3)
Of course the outcome will be the same. Plenty of new justifications for eliminating freedoms, just different ones and different excuses (e.g., stealing more of your property by taxing you for your "carbon footprint"). And it'll be a bunch of Blue State contractors cleaning up on this (e.g., "green energy" producers).
Re: (Score:2)
Arguing over the factuality of climate change misses the most important point, though: It bypasses the whole moral/ethical question of whether or not the government should be regulating people's lives and livelihoods to this extent to begin with. You've already accepted the progressives' idea of utilitarianism ("the State should do whatever is good and ban whatever is bad") and technocracy ("political decisions made by experts"), and rejected the principles of liberalism and freedom that our society is supp