International Climate Panel Cites Near Certainty On Warming 510
mdsolar writes "An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace. The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors. The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound."
This comes alongside news of research into one of those short-term factors: higher than average rainfall over Australia. "Three atmospheric patterns came together above the Indian and Pacific Oceans in 2010 and 2011. When they did, they drove so much precipitation over Australia that the world's ocean levels dropped measurably." According to Phys.org, "A rare combination of two other semi-cyclic climate modes came together to drive such large amounts of rain over Australia that the continent, on average, received almost one foot (300 millimeters) of rain more than average. ... Since 2011, when the atmospheric patterns shifted out of their unusual combination, sea levels have been rising at a faster pace of about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) per year."
Money and age (Score:4, Insightful)
sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century
- Only governments have the power to change this.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably won't be alive by the end of the century.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he is rich enough to move his beach mansion three feet higher.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably doesn't give a fuck about what happens to those who aren't.
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
The good news is that governments don't have to do a lot. Increase taxes on fossil fuel, lower taxes on income, fund basic research and other promising but currently unprofitable research into energy saving and energy production and distribution.
The details are going to be a bit tricky, but not prohibitively so if all political parties agree that it needs to be done. That 'if' is admittedly a rather significant one, but it may help to talk more about the carrot part of the deal, i.e. the lower income taxes.
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'increase taxes on fossil fuel' part is a deal-breaker in the US. Even with the current very low petrol tax, the national pasttimes include grumbling about the cost to fill up. People there aren't going to be at all happy about losing their cheap gas - the car is more than a means of transport, it's a symbol of individual freedom and independence.
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Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't even have to "care about staying in power"; representative democracy uses voter preference as a proxy for ability, and therefore ultimately the people who are elected are those who are best at being elected and not necessarily those who are best for the role.
The beauty of democracy in practice is getting electability as strongly coupled to performance as possible, and the ugly side of ever pre-election campaign is the effort to decouple the two wherever convenient.
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
The tax isn't just low, the petrol is subsidized. (With about $4 billion annually.)
You just need to convince people that subsidizing is a sign of communism and let them weigh their fear of communism against their symbol of freedom and independence.
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I'm convinced that there is a conspiracy in place, in which the parties agree on which issues are not permitted for public mention. Not a smoke-filled room conspiracy like you'd expert of a foil-hatter, but just an informal agreement among all those involved, and an unspoken agreement not to promote anyone who breaks the taboo. It'd just upset too many people.
It'd explain why no politician in the US ever even mentions publically the subsidies on oil or corn production. Not even to support them - they are ju
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's also not forget we have 50 contiguous US states, many of which are the size of the whole of UK ( Louisiana is probably closet ). Our 'symbol' of individual freedom is often times the means by which we visit family, go on vacation, and for some unlucky people commute for over an hour in to get into work. Then there's the people who work on the road, as well as the haulers.
I'm really glad some of you EU nations have managed to put up a full service light rail system connecting all your major cities, in an area about as large as the five boroughs of NYC.
Our lack of "petrol" tax has more to do with keeping our economy strong then remaining 'independent'.
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There are quite a few countries in the EU bigger than the UK. Quite a few of those countries have managed to create decent public transport systems, something that the UK has been destroying for the past 5 decades.
Re:Money and age (Score:4, Insightful)
National travel is not the issue*. Almost all gasoline vehicle use in the United States is local, and that really needs to be cut back. You shouldn't have to drive (as I did) five minutes to the supermarket, and ten minutes to work, because you're in spitting distance but walled off by major roads.
*Anyone who thinks you can have transport in a nation the size of the US without air and long-distance road is fooling themselves.
Re:Money and age (Score:4, Interesting)
This. Coming from Australia, a country similarly sized to the US and also lacking high speed rail (and thus essentially dependent on the car and air travel), there are a lot of short trips that I am forced to make in my car here (in the US) that I could have walked in Australia. This is because many (not all, but most) US cities are terribly designed. It's not suburban sprawl that's the issue (Australia has just as much of that as teh US), but rather that there's no sidewalks, random uncrossable highways (walls, no pedestrian underpasses/overpasses), isolated far-flung strip malls and malls far from residential neighborhoods (instead of the little local shopping centres like you have in Australia).
I work from home and thus don't need to commute. I live in a similarly sized city than I did in Australia (400,000 vs 360,000). But nonetheless I am noticing I'm putting approximately twice the miles on my car per year than I did at home, despite living a similar lifestyle. I used to be able to walk 10 minutes and get to my local shops, which had a supermarket, butcher, baker, post office, newsagent and a few cafes and restaurants. Now I have to drive ten minutes to get to that stuff. And I'd still have to drive even if I lived closer, because it's a giant mall surrounded by 2 square miles of concrete parking lot, right off a major highway with no way of crossing.
In both countries, long distance travel relies, and will continue to rely on air and the car (though Australia is seriously considering an east-coast high speed rail line - the 600 mile long Sydney-Melbourne corridor is the fourth busiest air route in the world so it'd probably work). But car use could be reduced locally in the US with some urban planning changes (and incentives to get people to change their habits ... which may or may not include raising the price of fuel, which is very low by developed-world standards anyway).
Geography fail (Score:3)
The area of NYC is somewhere between 650 sq.km and 950 sq.km, depending on how [hypertextbook.com] you measure [wikipedia.org]. There are 44 European countries larger than 1000 sq.km [wikipedia.org] - NYC is only larger than Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco and Vatican City. Even the 44th largest on the list, Luxembourg, is more than two and a half times bigger than NYC.
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I'm really glad some of you EU nations have managed to put up a full service light rail system connecting all your major cities
Light rail isn't used to connect cities. Light rail operates within cities, and out to the suberbs. Inter-city is proper railway(railroad).
And the longer the distance, the better rail competes with road. So don't think there's a distance argument for it being rare in the USA.
For sure the longer the distance, also the more air competes with them both. But that's still a fraction of passenger miles, and less still of freight.
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Increase taxes on fossil fuel, lower taxes on income, fund basic research and other promising but currently unprofitable research into energy saving and energy production and distribution.
You have unilaterally decided what needs to be done, and want to argue about how it should be done.
Methinks you should first, scientifically, prove that the actions you so blithely assume as a given, have the best outcome.
And before you do that, get unanimous consensus on what "best outcome" means.
Return when you have finished this task I have set you.
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Well, there are other ways.
You could cap and trade. You could ration fossil fuels war-time style. You could plain outlaw them. Finally, you could decide to don't fix the problem and let people, businesses and local governments adapt to the changing climate.
None of these options seem feasible and/or nice if you ask me.
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a threshold of evidence required of exactly 0 other taxes and government activities, and in the face of pretty substantial economic and scientific research saying exactly that. I think that it's fair to reject your special pleading.
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T...we want to make a significant dent in AGW before it's too late.
Where is your scientific and economic proof that this is the appropriate response?
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Heck, if they'd just switch the subsidies from oil/gas to renewables, and still expect the same kickbacks, they'd help themselves and the rest of us.
But that seems too logical.
Re:Money and age (Score:4, Insightful)
I like how you've clearly defined "environment movement" to only count the people who are actually rabid lunatics, while ignoring the overwhelming majority of environmentalists who would be happy to see funding for alternative energy research and better climate monitoring.
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I'd love for you to demonstrate how that is true.
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Re:Money and age (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing short of humanity committing mass suicide will ever make them happy.
But that's already predicted to happen, at least on a grand scale.
As education and technology improves the birth rate decreases. Worldwide population is expected to spike to over 10 billion, due to increasing age, before declining to below current levels.
If ... actually this is ironic ... the only way this could go awry is if humans decide to decrease their level of technology on purpose. Which is basically what the carbon taxes are about. So basically these people are asking to get the opposite of what they want because they think they're sooo smart but don't consider second, third and beyond -level effects.
What we actually need to do is to push as hard as possible on the economy, creating excess wealth, some of which will fund additional science (the more the better IMO) and rapidly get to the point of having sustainable non-fossil fuels (safe nuclear (eventually fusion), static towers, convection chimneys, perhaps solar, etc.). This stuff is only going to happen organically, not by some industrial model of the population where a few self-appointed "smart people" tell everybody else what to do.
Stalling out the economy will produce exactly the opposite effect of what these people claim to want. Which makes me question what they really want.
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You confuse environmentalists with the VHE movement, or possibly Fox New bogeymen. The first two are real but all are separate things.
Re:Money and age (Score:4, Funny)
Yup. One week it's President Obama, next week it's the muslim in the white house, the next week it's the Kenyan in the white house, then it's the socialist president who hates America.
Or, in this case, one week it's the liberal scientists, then the greedy scientists protecting their million-dollar profits, then the corrupt scientists who alter data, then the enviro-nazis who want to kill humanity, then the conspiracy of scientists who don't allow studies which push an alternate view!
Re:Money and age (Score:5, Insightful)
And the same can be said for Christians, Republicans, Sports fans, people who insist chocolate ice-cream is better, and all those people who try to tell me how awesome emacs is even though they're wrong. The rabid people have a fixed position which in their minds is unassailable -- that's true. That doesn't mean that anybody who has any intersection with that group exhibits the same level of zeal or irrationality.
See, if you throw out the entire notion that we're fucking up the planet (or anything else) on the basis of the most lunatic element of any group you're being an idiot. I'm a vegetarian, but I look at half the stuff PETA does and just shake my head.
That, however, in no way changes that climate change definitely seems to be happening, the actual overwhelming scientific consensus is that we're causing it, and that if we don't do something about it then long-term we're probably fucked.
So, if we judge this based on all idiots called TWiTfan, since there are people who have extreme environmental ideas, fuck it, lets burn everything because there's no point in trying to do anything.
If we judge the world according the Westboro Baptist Church we're all evil sinners and God is doing this to punish us,
If we judge this by the most 'free market' position there is, then clearly 'the market' has indicated it wants pollution and global warming as a desirable outcome.
Sorry, but you have just acted as extreme and idiotic as the people you're bitching about. Big deal, you have identified that there will always be people who take their ideas to extreme -- and you've managed to say nothing at all intelligent about the topic at hand.
The world isn't a black and white "everybody who slightly disagrees with me is wrong". And, as anybody who has ever dealt with a rabid idiot who makes such assertions can tell you, they often act like irrational douchebags -- so, congratulations, you're in good company.
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sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century
- Only governments have the power to change this.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably won't be alive by the end of the century.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he is rich enough to move his beach mansion three feet higher.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably doesn't give a fuck about what happens to those who aren't.
Why would a rich person not care about his grandchildren?
Any 1000 average people are richer than one rich person. If they act as a group, they are just as influential.
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Why would a rich person not care about his grandchildren? Any 1000 average people are richer than one rich person. If they act as a group, they are just as influential.
Who says they wouldn't care about their grand children? They're rich enough to look after their own and give the rest of us the fuck off. Good luck getting the 1000 average people to agree to a consensus.
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Any 1000 average people are richer than one rich person. If they act as a group, they are just as influential.
That is incorrect. Discretionary income is what matters here. If the 1000 average people make just enough to cover their basic necessities, and assuming the 1 rich person has the same basic necessities, than he has a near infinite greater discretionary income, which is the source of influence in this argument.
Re:Money and age - Counterpoint (Score:2)
Only individuals have the power to do anything.
Regardless of the purported effect on climate, we, as individuals, should be using all our resources as efficiently as possible.
Do you hate fossil fuels? Then why do you own an SUV, walk so little, and consume plastic in such abundance?
Do you hate coal-fired power plants/nuclear plants? Then why do you have so many electronic devices, an airconditioner permanently on, and a swimming pool in your backyard?
Do you hate the cutting of forests? Then why do you ph
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Have you tried to walk in a US city lately? Even use public transport in one? The barrier to reducing vehicle use for the individual is enormous, so nobody can do it. Yet if everyone did it, it would suddenly become trivial.
Sometimes collective action is the only way to get over a hump.
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Only governments have the power to change this
Patently false. There are other possibilities. Ultimately, through one mechanism or the other people will change their behavior, or not. And then attempt to deal with the consequences.
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- Only governments have the power to change this.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably won't be alive by the end of the century.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he is rich enough to move his beach mansion three feet higher.
- If someone is rich enough to have any influence on governments, he probably doesn't give a fuck about what happens to those who aren't.
Worse, they're funding campaigns to undermine belief in climate change:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial [wikipedia.org]
(Taking action will be bad for oil barons, etc.)
Yup, we're boned (Score:3)
Those organizations with the power to do something are steadfastly pretending the problem doesn't exist.
On the upside, the Great Lakes region where I live is likely to become prime real estate, because it will be (A) not underwater, (B) well-supplied with fresh water, (C) relatively safe from hurricanes, (D) not on fire, (E) not a prime tornado target, and (F) less cold.
Re:Yup, we're boned (Score:5, Insightful)
It just boggles my mind that anyone could be so naive as to think emissions can be curbed significantly, in a relevant time frame, by multilateral international agreement. This to the extent that they will even spend decades trying to convince the doubters that "no, it really is anthropogenic" - as if the problem is people just don't believe enough.
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Actually, for me, it's just an issue of "I don't care". Let the oceans rise three feet. Couldn't bother me less. What does bother me is the huge amount of government (at whatever level) that it would take to actually implement the "mitigation strategies" you present.
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If you're worried about too much government then you should be wanting to do as much as you can to slow down or stop AGW. Once the effects of global warming become manifestly obvious so "the people" start demanding action in sufficient numbers to make the politicians worried the government involvement is going to skyrocket.
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What I've never understood about all the climate "debate" is this: how can anyone look at the state of international politics, then at a giant problem that requires cooperation and sacrifice from every single nation to solve it, and conclude anything other than "this is fucked, best start mitigation strategies ASAP"?
Yes, we're screwed (and my children / grandchildren are screwed). I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm convinced that there are corporations / government cronies that will prevent us from solving the problem for all humanity. (Yes, I'm doing what I can to support causes opposed to them, but my guess is that they will lose and we'll continue to cause climate change). So, what to do to protect myself (and descendents)?
I've considered buying land in Canada. Prince Edward Island is supposed to be nice.
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An analogy:
A train heading towards a bridge over a chasm, but the bridge is actually out. 15 km away, you find out about the problem and starts telling the train staff "Hey, you really ought to hit the brakes now!", but the staff say "We can't do that, we'd be late to the next station!" Now, you may start making plans to somehow get off before things get worse, but you're still going to do your best to convince the engineer to stop as quickly as possible. And of course there will be some folks on the train
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not a prime tornado target
Until Sharknado hits New York and magically travels 800 miles inland.
Re:Yup, we're boned (Score:4, Insightful)
Correction: The US is refusing to do something about it. Europe has made a lot of progress.
Since someone will inevitably bring it up, China is not an excuse. Clean your shit up.
What to do? Some science, please. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish that a similar amount of scientific effort would go into deciding what (if anything) to do about it.
Instead there is a rush to reduce greenhouse gases, without any scientific or economic analysis to ascertain whether this is the optimal response.
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Unfortunately when anyone even proposes research into another response - geo-engineering, perhaps - it's branded apocalyptic climate alarmism and shouted down. As long as there's a well-funded lobby arguing that the problem doesn't exist, it's going to be an uphill battle to even test alternatives, much less actually apply them.
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We are still learning about the climate; we know enough, probably enough to say that pumping CO2 into the air is not a good idea and is likely the cause of climate change, but not enough to consider all the options and determing a geoengineering fix yet. But, people _are_ working on
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For what it's worth, I think geoengineering is a terrible way to solve the problem right now - like you point out, it has a low probability of a very, very bad outcome - but it's hard to engage in any discussion of, say, social solutions, when even the idea of billing someone for their CO2 output is considered utterly unacceptable.
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"There is only one reason to consider deploying a scheme with even a tiny chance of causing such a catastrophe: if the risks of not deploying it were clearly higher. "
Why does this caution not apply to policies and regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
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Water vapor and methane are both greenhouse gases. Both have a => effect on the greenhouse effect when compared to CO2. But the Global Warming crowd only focuses on CO2 because it is politically convenient for them. Meaning they own solar/wind companies and want to profit greatly from government subsidies.
This is mostly incorrect. Sure, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but its residence time is nothing. Moreover, greenhouse gases are regulated on an equivalency basis, as "CO2e", where each is given a weighted impact. So, methane has a factor of 310 applied to its emissions. The same is true for N2O as well as HFCs / CFCs; those factors are in the ten-to-hundreds of thousands. These actually persist in the atmosphere, hence the reason for their high factors.
Troll harder next time. All of this is availab
Re:What to do? Some science, please. (Score:4, Informative)
NASA does not agree with you [nasa.gov]. They seem to believe that water vapor is a "major player in climate change".
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My issue here is that environmentalists are more concerned with their so-called "proven science" than they are with the impact on people's lives and the actual effects of their "solutions".
I am from the Central Valley in California, where the Delta Smelt [wikipedia.org] has reduced the available water supply to farmers by 90%. The entire region is in the middle of a drought and bordering on dust bowl. Hundreds of thousands of acres sit unused, covered in tumbleweeds, with the families in poverty because there is no wat
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My problem is with the flawed "scientific method" used by environmentalists to justify their actions. They can't get their agenda by popular vote, so they file lawsuits and make an unelected government official enact legislation through judicial diktat. Meanwhile, these same environmentalists have 10,000 square foot mansions, fly in private planes, drive armored Hummers, etc.
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Actually, methane is an important area of discussion, in particular with a view to the impact of agriculture (cows) on the climate.
I'm not sure what control we have over our water vapour production, though.
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Methane is not discussed because it is not politically convenient. It is easier to demonize some power company burning coal making EVIL profits than it is to demonize some rancher in New Mexico whose family has been raising cattle on that land for 150 years and 100% depend on raising cattle to support themselves and their families. Now, if the same man-made global warming crowd had stock or patents in the fields of lab-grown beef or genetically modified cows with reduced methane emissions, they would be c
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Err, no. Even the most cursory examination of the popular or technical literature would have relieved you of this incredible misconception. Methane is an active area of policy, discussion, and research.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=methane+global+warming&hl=en&authuser=0 [google.co.uk]
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=methane+global+warming&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= [google.co.uk]
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.. as far as the economic analysis? Seriously? We're going to worry about the economic impact of reducing our CO2 emissions...?
Sorry, but yes. It is quite possible that the cure may be worse than the disease. If you feel strongly that something should be done, without weighing the pros and cons carefully, I feel justified in calling you a religious nut.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" -- Benjamin Franklin.
The people / companies / governments that are rapidly increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are 'doing something' and they have not weighed the pros and cons carefully. Not producing CO2 is the default, it's been the case for human history; rapidly changing atmospheric composition is recent and people that want to do that, without weighing the pros and cons carefully, are the religious nuts.
I'm not saying that reducing emissions should never happen, just that all factors and alternatives should be considered, unintended consequences evaluated.
Hysterical people running around as if the planet is on fire will not make good decisions.
Humans are changing the atmosphere
The "green" movement is an oxymoron. (Score:5, Insightful)
The earth is a cold place. snow and ice are relatively new things in earths history and on geologic time scales they just started ocurring. The earth has historically had higher levels of CO2, and far warmer temperatures, Did this cause any problems? No it did not.
There were more species, greater plant growth, and more bio diversity than at any other time in earths history. Sea levels were higher but there were no ice caps and far from being a climate disaster, the warmer, higher CO2 earth could support MORE life.
Contrast that with the global cooling that's occurred in the last 20 million years and it's plain to see that having entire continents like Antarctica frozen solid and under miles of ice is not a normal or healthy state for our planet.
The irony is that so called 'green' movements actually seek to keep the global thermostat set on deep freeze, which HURTS plants, limits bio diversity, and we all suffer cold winters, countless deaths caused by incliment winter weather and millions of dollars of damage every year during winter months. Entire continents of our planet are uninhabitable frozen wastelands, and the most fertile soil in the northern and southern hemispheres goes to waste under months of permafrost every year.
There is nothing "green" about climate alarmists. They want to keep the earth cold when the greatest benefit to actual plant and animal life is to let it warm back up.
always worth linking to (Score:3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE6Kdo1AQmY [youtube.com]
A video worth thinking about.
Near-certainty is as good as it gets (Score:3)
There's no such thing as absolute certainty in science.
What about the last couple decades? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am still trying to figure out was the *disadvantage* is (in terms of climate and environment) to less pollution.
I know some fat blowhard will make less money, but excuse me if that doesn't concern me much.
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:4, Insightful)
No no no, that's only true when the little people fail to take advantage of something. If you inconvenience our monied overlords in any way, you're either an economy-killing, wealth-redistributing commie or a jackboot-licking statist parasite, depending on which flavor of fiscal conservatism you're up against.
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There are many solutions which do not involve economic destruction, which a quick glance around the world and through history show will be far worse for human life than global warming adaptation would be.
We would decidedly not be better off had people in 1900 slammed the brakes on economic dynamism, leaving us in 2013 with less gw and a 1956 level of technology. History shows the more government burden and intervention, the more Soviet Unionlike you get. Goodbye to not just iPads but integrated circuits,
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I am still trying to figure out was the *disadvantage* is (in terms of climate and environment) to less pollution.
I know some fat blowhard will make less money, but excuse me if that doesn't concern me much.
It will cost industry billions and billions of dollars. Of course this is the price they pay for polluting the environment. It has always cost a lot of money to clean up their messes (and there have been many). Rather than thinking ahead and being good stewards of the Earth they act like greedy bastards knowing full well that this won't come back to haunt them in their lifetimes.
The rich guys will still make their money. They'll just have to raise rates on those of us who are dependent on their industries.
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't hyperbole, just look what Bio-diesel did to some of the world's poorest.
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no disadvantage to less pollution. It's HOW you go about doing it. Ignoring China's and India's environmental impacts while taxing the hell out of every American and European person to line the pockets of politician and political benefactor's carbon market schemes, not only is pure crap, but is stagnating an already bad economy to certain ruin.
But apparently that is what some folks desire, for some reason.
I am not anti-anti-pollution. I love the outdoors and nature. And I can tell you that even basic laws and ACTUAL enforcement has turned a lot of rivers I could not fish, due to pollution, in the 70s and 80s into thriving ecosystems in the 2000s and 2010s. You don't have to ruin world economies to clear up the pollution, no matter how much certain politically motivated parties would have you think otherwise.
Re: Is It Just Me? (Score:3, Informative)
China builds a new coal powerplant every week but I'm ruining the environment because I don't ride my bike to work? It makes me wonder if the motivation for these "anti-carbon" scare tactics is to preserve the steady flow of grant money.
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the choice between forcing China and India to take the idea seriously while doing nothing, and forcing China and India to take the idea seriously while getting our own house in order, I'm going to take the high ground. Of course, if it's a net economic loss, that's bad - the whole idea of carbon taxation and trading is to be economically neutral, with the taxes offset by reduced harms from climate change - but that's a point of debate.
Re: Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
China is heavily investing to reduce carbon output, as its technocratic leadership understands the issue. When they reduce their output to less than that of the US, the US will have to come up with some new avoidance excuse.
They talk a good game, but you're apparently willing to ignore the over 350 new large coal-fired power plants they're building over the next few years [theguardian.com]. China will reign supreme in CO2 generation (per-capita means nothing to the environment BTW) from here on out. India also plans to build over 450 new coal-fired plants.
As to a new "US avoidance excuse", US CO2 production is down to 1994 levels due to fracking and therefore increased use of natural gas [wsj.com], among other factors. Now all we need is a sane nuclear power policy, with nuclear plants replacing almost all coal-fired plants here, and CO2 production would be way down without harm to the economy. In fact, by exporting high-tech thorium generators, the US could make a ton of money.
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Unfortunately, all that fracking and natgas usage is increasing the amount of methane being released to the atmosphere and that has a much stronger warming effect than CO2 in the short term.
Re:Is It Just Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am still trying to figure out was the *disadvantage* is (in terms of climate and environment) to less pollution.
I know some fat blowhard will make less money, but excuse me if that doesn't concern me much.
The issue isn't that we're concerned about the über wealthy losing money. The issue is that, unless you can get every single nation in the world to agree on certain environmental and worker health and safety standards, you're fighting an uphill battle. We enact stronger regulations so they just pick up their factories and move them to Burma or some other place. Then they have even less incentive to reduce their emissions. You have to solve the problem of globalization in order to solve the problem of industrial pollution. Otherwise we'll lose the jobs and pollution will likely get worse.
hurts the poorest MUCH more (Score:5, Insightful)
For rich people, such as 90% of Americans, it costs a few thousand per year. For the uber-rich, it doesn't matter much - they just need to invest in fake solar companies rather than energy companies. It's the very poor who are deeply, even fatally affected
Take ethanol fuel, for example, which has tripled the cost of corn. Before, $10 could buy corn for three people. Now that same $10 can only feed one person. That's a big deal if you're poor, or if you're average income by global standards.
It ripples through food prices generally, of course. Most processed food that used to have corn starch is now made with wheat flour, increasing the cost of wheat. An extra $500 / year on food isn't a big deal if you're rich, making $40,000. It's a very big deal if you make $2,000 / year.
It's the same with any non-optimal production. When stuff is more costly to make, less is made, and people have less. Hardest hit are those who can't get by with any less. Any food you burn in your gas tank is food that could have fed a starving person, so in the end the cost is in lives.
Obviously that doesn't mean you shouldn't think about environmental costs. It does mean you better carefully balance them against other costs. You dont want to engage in policies which have as their primary benefit making you feel good because you're "green", at the cost of having people starve to death. Irresponsible use of CFLs are a good example of this. A CFL is great in the bathroom. For the attic or hall closet, it makes far more sense to use a 50 cent non-toxic standard bulb and give the $10 you save to United Way. You'll keep mercury and other toxins out of the environment and help someone who needs the help.
$200 / week puts you in the top 14% (Score:3)
United States MINIMUM wage, what high school students earn, is far higher than average adult income in the rest of the world.
If you make $200 per week , you are richer than 86% of people. So yes, given that US welfare recipents have more than most workers, Americans are rich -virtually all of us. Not as rich as we were in the 80s and early 90s, but much better off than most.
If you're a nerd on Slashdot, your total gross income including benefits is probably over $31K. Is so, congratulations - you're a 1%
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Humans crave religion, but since we all agreed that the whole Sky Fairy thing was a bit far fetched, we're onto worshipping the Invisible Hand (Green be upon Him) now. So, unless the Invisible Hand (Green be upon Him) deigns to deliver us a solution, it would be sacrilege to intervene.
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Oh, a lot of people pretend to follow a god, but few still live under the yoke of that belief.
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We're onto selective reporting. Within a day expect to see a few right-leading sites headlining 'SCIENTISTS SAY SEA LEVELS NOW FALLING!' and implying that this means that scientists made a mistake and therefore can't be trusted to get anything right.
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Hey so you're subscribed to The Register's RSS feeds too!
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We're way past that, we're in the middle of the transition from "it's happening and humans are causing it but it's not bad" to "it's happening, humans are causing it, and it's bad, but it's cheaper to adapt."
Then just one more stage to go, "It's happening, humans are causing it, and it's not cheaper to adapt...but we're not going to cooperate."
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In fact, natural events like volcanic eruptions gave us a rest [nasa.gov], we should been far worse by now.
Regarding being expensive, put it this way, the rich responsible of this (and that influence government) will keep living comfortably, even if thing go wrong badly, so, why slow down the income? "After me, the deluge", is the motto for them, and probably will be accurate for most of the populated world if sea rises enough. And if they still live and things are becoming not comfortable here, they always can inves
Re:Ready...Set.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I'll bite.
TFA says "a change of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr–1 for the 20th century". Meanwhile NOAA http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2012.pdf [noaa.gov] says 1.1-1.3 mm for the years 2007-2012. So for a layman, it would appear that the rate of ocean rise is slowing. Furthermore, if we project the most recent 1.2mm/yr average, it works out to be less than 5 inches over the next 100 years. Maybe enough to make me move my beer, but nothing to panic over.
Finally, this paper http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL052885.shtml [agu.org] (which I only read the abstract) suggests a 60-Year Oscillation in Global Mean Sea Level. So, the choice of where in this cycle the measurements are taken, the results will vary drastically. And depending on the agenda of the funding source, the published conclusions can be drastically different.
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No, they deny ANTHROPOGENIC global warming. That's my biggest beef with IPCC: they started with a conclusion, and the inherent bias of that made their conclusion inevitable.
The BETTER question to have asked is "Why is global climate changing ?", so that all possible causes and inputs could have been considered. . .
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Oh man you are so wrong.
Fact: CO2 is actually a very small contributor to the "greenhouse effect" the main contributor being BY FAR water vapor. Moreover MOST of the CO2 come from NATURAL sources not human.
Fact: The skewed numerical models created to prove global warming through CO2 DO NOT WORK.
Fact: It has been showed that changes in CO2 level in the past was followed by a corresponding change in temperatures with a lag of ~800 years. Therefore it's not a cause... it's a consequence !
Fact: In recent histor
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Here you go: http://grist.org/series/skeptics/#Stages%20of%20Denial [grist.org]
You are at Stage 2: "We don’t know why it’s happening" and a bit of Stage 5: "Climate change can’t be stopped"
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. The greenhouse effect is well understood. So is the amount of CO2/methane/etc. we're putting into the atmosphere.
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The greenhouse effect is well understood.
It's not, though - that's basically the crux of the current arguments. The sensitivity of the various variables in the model are unclear because many of the underlying mechanisms and confounding variables (e.g. cloud formation) are poorly understood. Many of the theories are built on models which are built on theories - the assumptions become self-embedding, not built from first-principles.
We'd have a model that makes great predictions if we understood all that st
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:5, Informative)
Climate modellers are well aware of the uncertainty in their parameters. That's why in modern work, they run their model with ranges of parameters determined to be plausible based on empirical observation, and output a range of possible outcomes. Future observation and comparison with the model allows them to refine the parameter range to be more realistic.
very true (Score:2)
scientists can calculate the forcing effect of greenhouse gases with certainty. The IPCC convinces people of that (which should be easy since it's true). Then they switch from talk of forcing to talk of feedback which is what "is going to kill us". There is no certainty of feedback and they don't make a significant claim of certainty but they fail to point out that they've made the switch, so people believe that feedback is also certain.
If feedback is so deadly, we need to be talking much more about soo
Re:very true (Score:5, Insightful)
scientists can calculate the forcing effect of greenhouse gases with certainty.
Except they can't....Sure, they can do it in a jar without any difficulty, but on an earth with a dynamically changing atmosphere, where not all parts even contain the same amount of greenhouse gases, it's very very hard. Currently, we can calculate the total warming effect of the atmosphere to within roughly 10 degrees of accuracy (ie, compared to an atmosphereless earth acting with black-body radiation).
To compensate for this, instead of calculating the total forcing of the atmosphere (check the IPCC report, it's not there), they try to calculate the change that would occur. For example, if CO2 doubled, how would the global temperature change? Unfortunately, even there we have a huge range of estimates, from less than 1 degree C to over 7 degrees. That's the difference between 'nothing happening' and 'total chaos.'
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Isn't the book's argument that in a situation of low knowledge, facing low-probability high-impact events, we should actively prepare by adapting our social and economic structures in such a way that they are more resilient? That sounds a lot like the kind of preparatory work climate science is arguing for.
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if you're doctor said he is 95% sure that you have cancer, i guess you wouldn't mind your insurance refusing to pay for any health care because there was not 100% certainty.
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:4, Informative)
Good grief. Have you even read the wikipedia page, let alone the book itself?
From the wiki page:
"The philosophical problem is about the decrease in knowledge when it comes to rare events as these are not visible in past samples and therefore require a strong a priori, or an extrapolating theory; accordingly, predictions of events depend more and more on theories when their probability is small. In the fourth quadrant, knowledge is both uncertain and consequences are large, requiring more robustness."
There has never been as rapid a rise of CO2 as is happening now. The rare event that is happening now is not visible in the geological record.
We started to understand the greenhouse effect way back in the 1850s. By the 1920s we had the knowledge to completely understand it and the data was collected to verify it all by the 1950s.
We've built excellent models for predicting the long term behaviour of the climate due to the CO2 forcings we've introduced. Even the early models from the 1970s predictions have held up to scrutiny and later models are better still. If anything, the various models have tended to underestimate the changes to the climate.
When we extrapolate the current models the potential costs are absolutely catastrophic. In the worst cases it's hard to see how civilization can survive and even human extinction isn't inconceivable. If we'd started mitigating strategies in the 80s it might have cost us a tiny fraction of growth but we chose not to and every year we wait the evidence that we must act gets stronger and the costs higher.
And you're saying that "well we don't completely understand absolutely everything so we should continue running headlong to where the majority of scientists say there is a cliff to fall off" and then you quote a book that says that financial experts tend to underestimate the downsides due to incomplete knowledge as support for your inane views.
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Better sacrifice a couple of goats, just to be on the safe side.
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The worlds oceans had been rising, then due to increased rainfall over Australia they dropped (Australia outback is sort of like a saucer so the water didn't (yet) make its way back to the ocean). Now that the rainfall pattern has returned to its norm in the last two years, the oceans have continued their rise at a somewhat faster clip.
Time, it makes a difference.
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Unless, given that the Earth is a dynamic system, we manage to perturb it to such an extent we cause a runaway greenhouse effect such as Venus. Would you like your fries cooked on the sidewalk or just wave them through the air a bit?
Oh, and the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is changing the acidity of the oceans which is helping to destroy biodiversity there. And the oceans are the base of the food chain. It probably wasn't a big problem during the young Earth or when the dinosaurs still roamed, but now th
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Yeah, and those maps were generally accurate before a lot of current construction, creek re-routing, etc. were done.
IOW, don't trust them at all. They may give a hint, but examine the land as it is now, and be accompanied by a decent hyrorlogist (who will probably refuse to give an opinion without taking sample cores in many places).
FWIW, I currently live on a hilltop that's marked at in the 100 year flood plain. This is because before the creek was re-routed it flowed through a small valley that is now a