Another Climate-Change Retraction 479
jamie writes "It seems every time someone twists global-warming science into 'good news,' a retraction is soon to follow, and so it must be for Slashdot. Yesterday, the conservative Wall Street Journal published yet another apologetic claiming 'the overall effect of climate change will be positive,' by someone who (of course) is not a climate scientist. Today, Climate Progress debunks the piece, noting 'Ridley and the WSJ cite the University of Illinois paper to supposedly prove that warming this century will be under 2C — when the author has already explained to them that his research shows the exact opposite!' We went through this same process last year, with the same author and the same paper, so it's pretty embarrassing that he 'makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again."
Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything to keep you from looking at the root cause of the problem. Pollution, waste, dumping, strip farming/mining, and so on and so on are never discussed. Problems that we see like the great pacific garbage dump are ignored, as are ocean dead zones and polluted water.
I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin? The same people pushing more and more pollution in most cases.
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I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin?
In this case, if you read both articles, it's hard to figure out which one isn't getting paid to publish. It's one crappy non-scientific angry opinionator against another.
Why are we getting articles here from politicians and bloggers? If we're going to get opinions, can't we at least get them from real [wsj.com] scientists? [huffingtonpost.com] We used to get stories on Slashdot when new studies were conducted. We don't need one every time some random person publishes their opinion (that's what the comments are for).
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
"If we're going to get opinions, can't we at least get them from real scientists?"
Partly because when people post things here from some of those real scientists, they are insulted, harassed, and stuck with the label "denialist".
Just recently someone insulted me, called me a "known denialist", and referenced a comment of mine here on Slashdot (with a link to a peer-reviewed paper) from 5 years ago. Mind you, this was in reply to a comment of mine that was not even about AGW.
Assholes like that don't bother me very overmuch, but I have no doubt that the tactic drives a lot of people away.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Partly because when people post things here from some of those real scientists, they are insulted, harassed, and stuck with the label "denialist".
That's because well over 90% of the people who hold that viewpoint on slashdot are flat-out denialists.
We get people:
* Insisting there is some conspiracy or that scientists are in it for the money.
* Bringing up the same tired, well covered talking points ("scientists are so stupid they've forgotten about solar output").
* Attacking news and opinion articles and using this to "debunk" the actual science.
* Latching on to the shrieking shrill enviro-nuts and using that to "debunk" the science.
* Pretending that economic consequences of action say anything about the science,attacking proposed action and using that to "debunk" the science.
* Cherry picking the actions of one or two scientists and using this to "debunk" all the other scientists.
* Confusing scientists with everyone else arguing about it and using that to "debunk" the science.
That makes the majority.
You also get a few people:
* Massively cherry picking the data.
* Claiming that it's so complicated anyway that we can't know anything and therefore it is not warming or its not our fault or whatever.
* Ignoring the climate models actual predictions.
I invite you to find someone here who doesn't do all those things.
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Me. I ask for a necessary and falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and despite hundreds of thousands of comments from true believers, not a single one has managed to quote or cite any such thing.
Please, if you're able to, explain what observations of CO2 and temperature, past, present or future, that would cause you to reconsider your current beliefs, and why the lack of those observations must lead
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Petition by American who have earned degrees in science fields including a few PhDs with an actual statement that the science is not solid with a short review of pertinent data - http://www.petitionproject.org/review_article.php [petitionproject.org]
That is not even a remotely interesting. it ends in a conspiracy theory statement about some sort of shady UN conspiracy for "global taxation", cites an article from the "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" , a crank organization ran out of a back shed, that once actually featured a couple of members who did biomedicine, but since its found its notoriety in creationism and far right conspiracy theorizing. The site also claims the paper is peer reviewed. It isn't. [blogspot.com.au] And it wouldn't pass peer review eith
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Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
The root cause are not those. The root cause is that there is profit to be made, and that profit justifies things like replacing cleaner transportation alternatives [wikipedia.org] with polluting ones.
There is just no profit in building an economy over renovable energies. The pipe that make everything run must be controlled, specially if is done by a few (and if new players come in the government is always willing to help them [theguardian.com]). And if that non-renovable but tight controllable energy is polluting, too bad, but they will do anything in their hand to avoid that the dependence on them weakens.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?
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It works pretty well if we pay attention. If we just sit around playing videogames, then yeah, it turns into a catastrophe. But pretty much anything works if we pay attention. Your argument is self-fulfilling—you are telling us we can't win, so there's no point in paying attention. That's exactly the wrong thing to do. It's almost as if you want regulatory capture.
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Plague or total war might do the job but regulation is a far better idea.
Carbon tax (Score:2)
Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?
Depends on what you call regulation. A carbon tax-and-refund scheme would let the market find a solution by attaching an appropriate price to an externality. That would be significantly less government interference than a cap & trade or straight up permit-based regulation scheme.
However, if "tax and let the market figure it out" falls into the camp of (evil) regulation, then no. It turns out that the main reason laws exist is to keep people from doing stuff that benefits themselves at the expense of
Re: Carbon tax (Score:2)
Carbon tax like the one the Australians are about to pitch into the trash bin?
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Before I start seeking solutions, I'd like convinced, the problem is anything but an excuse for more regulations. While the time given in long-term projections has not arrived yet, certain short-term ones have already been shown bogus. Such as Al Gore's claim — made in his UN speech — that Arctic ice will disappear by 2013 [cnsnews.com]...
Considering the fact, that he himself just recently purchased a multi-million estate not in, say, Colorado mountain
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How about we subsidize power sources that actually work, specifically nuclear and hydro-electric. Stop blowing up dams and accept the fact that some fish might go extinct in order to reduce global warming. Reduce the governmental barriers to nuke licensing and build some modern designs not the BWR designs left over from the 1960's. Accept the fact that your populous is going to whine about "scary" nukes. Accept that there might eve be an accident or two.
When I see some AGW protesters in front of San Onofre
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Randall says: (Score:2)
Wait for it.
Don't like the solution so the problem can't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
Your right, we SHOULD be listening to the people pushing for more taxes for the government instead, because they OBVIOUSLY have your best interest in mind.
Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?
What is being said here seems to be "I don't like the solutions that I think will be imposed, so therefore I will vehemently argue that the problem doesn't exist, or if it exists that it's not as bad as projected."
The logical fallacy of that should be obviously: whether a particular solution is right or wrong has no logical bearing on whether the science-- that human-generated carbon dioxide contributes to temperature according to well-known models-- is correct.
If you don't like the solution, perhaps you should work on figure out a proposal for a solution that is acceptable, rather than denying the science is right.
Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex (Score:5, Insightful)
And. "But, but, but Feel Better Inside." is not an argument I care to hear.
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You do not have to believe me. Just look at some of the environmental laws we already have and try to find a way in which they are not fucking stupid.
Have you looked at the evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
The logical fallacy of that should be obviously: whether a particular solution is right or wrong has no logical bearing on whether the science-- that human-generated carbon dioxide contributes to temperature according to well-known models-- is correct.
I don't believe I have seen anyone argue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
You haven't paid attention, then-- among the garbage-dumpsters of junk pouring out from the so-called skeptics, yes, that argument is there, in truckloads.
The arguments are over the "feedbacks" and the "forcing factors" in the models
Uh, why are you putting these words in quotes?
Also, according to this, the warming contribution of CO2 tails off asypmtotically.
The word you want is "logarithmic," not "asympototic." (a logarithm does not have a horizontal asymptote). This has been known since Arrhenius made the first calculation back in 1896, so I'm puzzled that you're suddenly amazed at it. It is why climate sensitivity is conventionally quoted in terms of doublin
Re:Have you looked at the evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you actually read the IPCC working-group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change. I don't mean, a summary of it ... Have you actually read the report?
I beg to differ. Even reading the Summary could be greatly beneficial for many of the victims of the disinformation campaign. The full WG1 report is a lot of reading. There's an overwhelming amount of science to get through and expecting non-specialists to tough it out is not entirely realistic. That, after all, is why the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) exists.
And the advantage is that on any area of science where you want to get your hands dirty, you can navigate from the SPM, into the the appropriate place of the Full Report proper and via the citations to the original publications in the scientific literature.
And on that point, don't waste your time right now reading the AR4 report. The AR5 report is due for release from the 27th of this month, starting with the SPM, from here [climatechange2013.org].
And the SPM makes it so easy for non-specialists to get a handle on the science, it's simply unforgivable for anyone who presumes to venture an opinion on this issue not to have digested it.
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>For ppm increases in gas concentrations
You do realize that you aren't helping the AGW cause with your melodrama, right?
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are hundreds of millions of people on this planet who have no legitimate prospects for "adapting" in time to avert catastrophe. Your flippant (and ignorant) proposal, if implemented, would lead to hundreds of millions of deaths. Or, it will lead to hundreds of millions of angry, desperate, poor people who are are going to force you to "adapt" to their needs.
Now, do you have something NOT ignorant to contribute to the conversation?
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I think the point is, if millions of high carbon Americans 'adapt' then catastrophe might be averted.
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And not a single climatologist (scientist) even attempted to claim any relationship as those storms were not really outside of previously recorded maximums. A few climatology "spokespeople" (non-scientists) tried to make those claims just so idiots like you would reprint them. They were rebuffed by the former group.
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You claim there is some impending or inevitable catastrophe - what is it? You don't know anything, and all we know is the global temperature is increasing.
I realized something this weekend, out enjoying a beautiful mid-September day, that ultimately even knowing global warming to be true, a large amount of people simply will not care.
We will continue to get weather disasters, but you know what, they're really no more frequent than before. People have short memories. And know what? This is wh
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Where weather is concerned I agree. Where I disagree is with pollution and other ecological problems that persist and only get worse in time. Ocean dead zones do not get better without cleaning up pollution. This means places that already have food shortages will have less as population grows. It means that O2 levels continue to drop as we mass strip greenery that converts CO2 to Oxygen. We continue to lose agricultural areas due to pollution, which means that food becomes more expensive at a minimum
Yo
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Unless they're unlucky enough to live next to nicer areas where the locals won't let them in, or where desertification is picking up the pace.
You really are a simpleton.
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Guns are cheap. Your expensive guns might be better, but a thousand people with cheap guns will overrun you without difficulty.
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I don't think it's a matter of ignorance alone. It's ignorance and callousness. There's a certain breed of conservative who doesn't even try to had their underlying pathology. They're damned proud of it. They're the kinds of guys who buy small arsenals and fortresses in the hills and masturbate to the idea of an apocalypse where they get to shoot anybody in sight and declare themselves king of their domain.
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And doubtless when you're proven wrong you'll be back with more fabrications.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Informative)
While the anti-Americans world-wide are wagging their fingers at the US, China is killing itself with pollution [rainbowbuilders.org]...
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Interesting)
While the anti-Americans world-wide are wagging their fingers at the US, China is killing itself with pollution [rainbowbuilders.org]...
Just in the news: China And California Partnership To Address Climate Change [thinkprogress.org].
It doesn't look like is an "us and them" attitude (i.e. you better stop approaching the topic from a "who's-shitting-more contest" PoV).
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
The US, on the other hand, is a developed nation that has had decades to take care of its problems, and instead it's regressing. We need to tell the US to get their act together just as much as we need to for China.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
I see. So your solution is to simply ignore the ecological catastrophe, fuck future generations (and even some current populations) and live with the consequences of a perfectly avoidable disaster.
In a way, you're even worse than the denialists. You have adopted an ideological position and have decided that maintaining it should trump any change in human behavior.
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Simple calculations suggest it would cost 50 time more to mitigate any possible "global warming" than it would to simply adapt.
I suspect that I'd be wasting my breath suggesting you might want to spend even 5 minutes of your life investigating an alternative view: http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/
So yes, lets live with the (extremely unlikely) possiblility of "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming" and just get on with our lives. Your approach is to doom future generations of
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Funny)
"Simple calculations suggest..."
Beware when the simple start calculating. It never ends well.
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Mitigating global warming is cheap. Just use less carbon. Adapting is expensive. How many Boulders, Joplins and so forth will we have to rebuild? The sad irony is that the carbon economy continues to sputter along not because it is cheaper than a clean economy, but simply because it is the incumbent, and the incentives favor it. Switching would certainly cost a lot of tycoons an easy fortune, but for the average Joe? Switching away from a carbon economy means more, better paying jobs. Who car
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Careful with your examples. Boulder is the poster child of what happens when you build on a flood plain. They're having a 100 year flood about 100 years from their last 100 year flood. Little to do with global warming, everything to do with increased population density.
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You are a moron. Those things had been happening long before global warming was supposed to be a problem and it will happen long after you supposedly fix it.
Why do you think there are statistics like 100 and 500 flood levels that governments use on a regular basis for their zoning and planning?
As for the "clean economy", the only way the oil tycoons could suppress it is if the carbon economy was cheaper. Otherwise, everyone would be jumping on board to save a buck. It's why people know walmart pays crap wag
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, I looked at the 50:1 PDF in your link. Say we assume for now it's right. What's the _long-term_ cost of not stopping it? The temperature isn't going to magically cease rising at midnight on 2100AD. The oceanic acidity isn't going to magically neutralise. The methane clathrate traps aren't going to magically un-thaw. We can't halt physics like we can halt a stock market. How much extra CO2 can we continue releasing into the atmosphere and ocean before it dooms future generations to extinction instead of poverty?
Humanity can recover from poverty. Extinction, not so much. What's the date at which your ROI on not abating human pollution drops to a null value?
Where does this shit come from? (Score:3)
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Oh bullshit. The world's largest economy could afford to basically arm its allies in a world war. The world's largest economy could fund a pointless decade in Iraq.
Don't blame the "liberals" (who are hardly the only ones responsible for the debt), and don't act like the United States, if it had the will to do it, could make significant strides. After all, whatever the economy is being banged about with now, in a hundred years will seem laughable.
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....and lets not forget, dumbfuck, that when Clinton left office there was a projected 10 year surplus of ~5.6 trillion dollars
Can you point to the last year in which the national debt actually decreased - meaning we had an actual surplus? HINT: start with the Eisenhower Administration.
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You should read the link I posted instead of oversimplifying and trying to sound like you're teaching me something you obviously have not studied. Federal surpluses don't necessarily mean a decreasing debt. I was trying to be polite, but you are being rude, so let me say this again: your question is stupid.
The most recent surplus was the month of June 2013. There were annual federal surpluses in 1998, 1999, and 2000 [factcheck.org] under accrual accounting... even if you don't use unified (including social security sur
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Yes. Adapt.
Yeah, right. Because so many companies and individuals are so good at long-term thinking and planning.
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I realize that you are an anonymous coward, therefor prone to being mentally deficient or perhaps a sock puppet but for the benefit of others.
Why would Government that already has an EPA, FDA, and DOJ not be able to handle what is wrong? Determining environmental impact and regulation is exactly what the EPA was designed to do. The FDA is supposed to be protecting consumers food and medicines from corporate abuse. The DOJ is supposed to be prosecuting anyone that is found to be harming the public where l
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
"All of the woes that you mention such as pollution are caused by excessive population."
That explains why India pollutes more than USA.
Oh, wait!
No, I was joking: It's progress not population.
That explains why Denmark pollutes per capita as much as USA.
Oh, wait!
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Interesting)
A comfort lie first-worlders tell to absolve themselves of responsibility for their resource consumption. It's not people living in Cuba dumping all that plastic waste into the ocean. The average American uses the same amount of resources as 32 [nytimes.com] Kenyans.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
I submit your argument is moronic. The average American does not want to live like an average Kenyan and I suspect the average Kenyan does not live like the average Kenyan by choice. ( I am aware parts of Kenya are quite affluent and modern, but we are talking average which means the desperately poor areas pull the mean condition down a great deal).
In general the Environment is better served by affluence than poverty for a given population. Affluent people have resources to invest in things like waste water treatment, proper trash disposal, the replanting of forests, defense of nature preserves etc. Its politically fun to try and shame American's for polluting and energy consumption but it has mostly to do with how we generate electricity ( largely a function which natural resources happened to be abundant on our continent ) and all the driving we do ( largely a function of our nations physical size ). Measure something besides CO2 and we don't look to bad compared to anyone else.
No I think the problem is very much one of population. The CO2 envelope is a solvable problem or isn't at all if the number of people is small enough.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Informative)
"The people in Boulder Colorado are feeling global warming rather directly today."
The people in Boulder are experiencing an example of extreme WEATHER, not climate.
This has been a cool year. Record cold weather in much of the southern hemisphere and a cooler summer in the Arctic. Total global cyclonic (hurricane-type) activity is at a near-record low.
Global trends are important. Individual incidents of WEATHER do not equate to "global warming" unless the average over the whole planet does, and for a period of years, not a week or so.
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No, it's resource consumption. [nytimes.com] The planet could support double the number of people we have now if we restrained ourselves to Cuban levels of consumption.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
"makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again"
It's not a "blunder" - he's figured out he can get paid for conferences and keep himself in the spotlight by doing this sort of thing.
Bottom line: He's a fraud.
Sad thing is, a lot of people are prepared to believe him and pay to listen to him. And the planet could be wrecked because of people like him.
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Believing in it? Something you can measure has not need to be believed it exists. You can claim the source is not humans, but you cannot claim it does not exist. You will note neither your "believer or non-believer" deny it exists.
We can measure thing and we know that moving the growing zones north will be bad for our economy.
Remember folks: (Score:3)
WSJ and Contrarianism (Score:2)
"pretty embarassing"? more like "pretty revealing" (Score:4, Funny)
"Whoops! I meant to make the same argument with a *different* paper!"
repeating the mistaken info (Score:2)
Perhaps the author is a Birther? :)
Science News Cycle (Score:5, Funny)
Relevant: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 [phdcomics.com]
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"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Black lie is what I call it. These scum knew what they were doing. They've been told, repeatedly, that they are wrong and why they are wrong, and they just dismiss and ignore everything and say those lies again anyway. They were printing propaganda. Throwing raw meat to the conservatives. That's all the WSJ's opinion section has been since Murdoch bought it.
It's like the black knight skit in Quest for the Holy Grail. "It's only a flesh wound" and "The earth has had worse." Won't quit fighting even after his legs have been cut out from under him.
Re:"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:5, Funny)
That's pretty much all the WSJ opinion page has ever been, at least since the 1980s when I used to steal it. The newspaper itself could have a great in-depth and well-researched story saying X, and on the opinion page the bloody editors would declare Y. George Will used to be particularly bad at doing that. He could lay out all the facts that would show why one of Ronnie Raygun's programs were going to be yet another disastrous unending money pit of fail, and then declare that the program should be supported 111%. All Murdoch has managed to do is get rid of some of the good investigative reporters that it used to have and change the format to something that no one likes.
Re:"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:4, Insightful)
YOU should read the article carefully. Superficially, it looks nice and all sciency. However, it is a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.
What I'd love to see (Score:2)
What I'd love to see is reporting on climate change that presented facts without the hyperbole. I'm reasonably certain that I'm far from the only person that's fed up with having hyperbole rammed down my throat and would really rather just have the actual "science" reported.
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If you want clarity in climate science then try browsing the articles on realclimate [realclimate.org]. Of course you could just read the IPCC reports, they are easy to find on the net too.
Thing is, I can't tell if you're a) trying to be funny, b) being sarcastic, or c) trolling.
My people meter must be out of whack today...
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http://realclimate.org/ [realclimate.org]
There is a wealth of real science out there. People just read tabloids like the WSJ and assume they are going to get solid science news out of it. That's like watching Fox News and complaining that there is no journalism alive in America.
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If you want science read some articles with a fair number of citations. You won't ever get science out of journalists.
Sometimes even that's not enough [slashdot.org].
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If I wanted to read the science I would, and I have, it's something I have done for the last few decades, which is quite a few years before it was politically correct to do so. That isn't the point though, the point is that "science" isn't supposed to be politically charged, it's supposed to be "science".
Science, and reporting on science should rise about the type of petty hyperbole that I see on infecting many other types of reporting. When I read articles or studies about astronomy they tend to be fairly
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Whose blunder is it really? (Score:2)
What's embarrassing is that you continue your association with an author who has shown himself to be of poor credibility.
Forbes, WSJ others (Score:5, Interesting)
Forbes WSJ FoxNews and of course all of wright wing talk/hate radio, and others , consistently misrepresent the facts of climate science, what climate scientists are saying and how climate modeling is done.
Either they're, for reasons unknown, persistent and unlucky victims of poor reporting, poor analysis and mistaken inference or there is a persistent and deliberate determination on their parts to knowingly and with malice of forethought lie about climate science to the American , British Australian and European public.
If it turns out it's the latter, we can ask some interesting questions., Since persuading people that climate change is not as the scientists represent it -a ticking time bomb we are running out of time to defuse and one whose consequences include the mass death of humans, is lying about climate science not the equivalent to shouting (no) fire in a crowded (and burning) theater?
If it is, then are they not already criminals and are they not already responsible for those deaths? I think this is called "manslaughter" and when the number of people you caused to die numbers into the millions, I think that's elevated to "crimes against humanity".
Of course the US will never go there, but what about other nations? Hasn't the US demonstrated that people who threaten Americans are subject to executive action irrespective of where they are or whether the host nation is inclined to turn them over?
Could China or Japan or Germany or Russia or any other country just legally and unilaterally decide that say, David and Charles Koch represent too much of a threat to human civilization to permit them to go on living? Would they be within their legal right to quietly see to it that the perps are silently and quietly and discretely brought to final justice?
And what about the money these organization make from their climate denialism? Isn't that money, even if it's been dispersed to their heirs and partners actually. ill-gotten gains and subject to something like international civil forfeiture? The money to cover the catastrophically high cost of attempting to turn back climate change at the last possible moment has to be extracted from someone.
Obviously this is all beyond the pale for the current times, but time change and when they change, attitudes change, often suddenly and dramatically. What was just an amusing thought experiment one day becomes harsh reality another.
Laws exist to make society livable. They are defined according and in reaction to the environment. If that environment changes dramatically, then we can expect that near future generations of people will look back see the times we are living in now quite differently than we do, just the way we look back on slavery as an abomination or the post WWII generation of Germans were completely appalled at what their parents had done.
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:5, Insightful)
Merchants of doubt (Score:3, Informative)
It is, in fact, many of the same people who helped obscure the underlying science in both cases. Nicely documented by historians Naomi Oreskes and Naomi Oresekes in Merchants of Doubt [merchantsofdoubt.org].
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But here's the thing. A lot of the smoking and cancer studies WERE lies also. Particularly some of the studies on second hand (or third hand) smoke. I'm not arguing that smoking is good for you or anything, but if you dig a little you will find that the current crusade to ban smoking outdoors or pretty much anywhere because claims that even a little exposure is going to kill you are patently false.
OBTW, if a pack of cigarettes cost $6, and $5 of that is tax, who exactly is in the tobacco business?
And such I
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So
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:4, Insightful)
If it turns out it's the latter, we can ask some interesting questions., Since persuading people that climate change is not as the scientists represent it -a ticking time bomb we are running out of time to defuse and one whose consequences include the mass death of humans, is lying about climate science not the equivalent to shouting (no) fire in a crowded (and burning) theater?
The answer is an obvious "no". We are tired of loud-mouthed, would be thugs and bullies, such as yourself, trying to shape disagreement on the presence and severity of AGW as some some sort of "crime against humanity" - to use your own words.
The "shouting fire" example is fundamentally broken because there is no fire. There is a potential problem, yes, but the urgency just isn't there.
Could China or Japan or Germany or Russia or any other country just legally and unilaterally decide that say, David and Charles Koch represent too much of a threat to human civilization to permit them to go on living?
Well, some of those countries aren't based on law. So what is legal changes from moment to moment. And the countries of law such as Japan and Germany could not arbitrarily kill unpopular people because that would be illegal.
Laws exist to make society livable. They are defined according and in reaction to the environment. If that environment changes dramatically, then we can expect that near future generations of people will look back see the times we are living in now quite differently than we do, just the way we look back on slavery as an abomination or the post WWII generation of Germans were completely appalled at what their parents had done.
Well then, let us all work to prevent your dystopia from becoming a reality. Your role could be real easy or real hard - I really don't know. All I ask of you is to try to become a better person and put aside this pointless hate.
Positive (Score:3)
Well it all depends on what you consider positive and negative. Warming overall, I imagine,would probably increase life density, and the complexity of a global warning weather system is probably likely to inspire species to improve over time, after the short term mass death.
It will be horrible for human civilization, but that is good for the environment as well.
Re: (Score:2)
This is no different to declaring the charge on an electron to be negative.
J.J Thompson only declared the electron negative because he wanted the pointy end of his Duracell to be positive.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just a simple matter of "add water & CO2, get more plants." Increasing temperatures start to kill plants and animals that aren't adapted to the new temperature range. That starts knocking out portions of the food web, and ecosystems start to collapse. If soil cover is eroded by a lack of protective plants, increased rain will actually worsen matters as it gets washed away in floods (which will be more frequent without the "evening" effect of mountain snowpacks as slow-release water reservoir
Lying (Score:4, Insightful)
The bottom line is that lying works when you are dealing with low-information people.
When it happens twice it's not accidental (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing new (Score:2)
Just another case of right wing media and politicians consistently denying climate change.
I guess US big oil must be the force (read: money) behind them.
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:5, Informative)
He also admits, he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about:
"my objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have."
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151 [yale.edu]
He's not an expert on the current science. Taking his advice is like asking a guy who wrote COBOL in the 60's about something like open stack.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a physicist, not a climatologist. He certainly would be better in some respects at assessing the models, but nowhere near as competent as, oh, I dunno, a climatologist. On the flipside, if a climatologist starts making grand declarations about quantum electroydnamics, I'm sure I'd be turning to Dyson for a rebuttal.
Re: (Score:2)
He needs one of these:
http://www.dyson.com/Fans/FansAndHeaters/Fans.aspx [dyson.com]
They're great for climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Where are YOU?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah! Stupid Melanesians! Micronesians! Polynesians! WTF were they thinking?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not completely decided that there isn't some other fundamental cause for climate change (I mean, the climate has changed in the past and the models are still frequently incorrect) BUT...
Going to those to sites for information is equivalent to using the daily mail in the UK or the national enquirer in the US (hmmm or maybe Cosmo- they make up more stuff than the national enquirer).
Re: (Score:3)
Which is why the criminals responsible for this whole charade renamed it 'climate change'.
Wow! I guess they must have had a lot of foresight then to publish this paper in October of 1970:
"Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change" [nih.gov] by George Benton.
Re:Apologetic doesn't mean what you think (Score:5, Informative)
The word was used properly. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an apologetic for climate-change denial—a defense of their previous statements. Today, Climate Progress debunked that apologetic.
There has been no apology.
Words are important.
Re:Apologetic doesn't mean what you think (Score:5, Insightful)
One of these days I really hope they'll add a "I'm an idiot and want to indicate that I no longer stand by this comment" button here on Slashdot, since this is one of those moments for me. I stand corrected, and with good reason, since I was apparently just skimming the summary. Honestly and sincerely, thank you for calling me out on not reading it properly, since I definitely deserved to be called out on it. :)