Thirty Countries Use 'Armies of Opinion Shapers' To Manipulate Democracy (theguardian.com) 181
The governments of 30 countries around the globe are using armies of so called opinion shapers to meddle in elections, advance anti-democratic agendas and repress their citizens, a new report shows. From a report on The Guardian: Unlike widely reported Russian attempts to influence foreign elections, most of the offending countries use the internet to manipulate opinion domestically, says US NGO Freedom House. "Manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 17 other countries over the past year, damaging citizens' ability to choose their leaders based on factual news and authentic debate," the US government-funded charity said. "Although some governments sought to support their interests and expand their influence abroad, as with Russia's disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe, in most cases they used these methods inside their own borders to maintain their hold on power."
getting paid? (Score:5, Funny)
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For free? It's been a while since I checked the exchange rate, but 1 /. mod point is worth at least 2 FB 'likes'. Replies trade even unless it comes from an AC - Nobody cares about those. We're not posting for free; we're posting for ego strokes.
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Wait, people are getting paid to post on social media sites, and I've been giving it away to Slashdot for free? I feel so cheap.
Well, your high karma lets you disable ads.
Oh, wait...
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Yes, where do we apply for these jobs? ;)
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Where do I sign up?
Everything old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that the Internet makes it much easier to make the propaganda seem to originate from within a country. Back in the Cold War, if the Russians wanted people to think there was a big movement for/against some policy, they would need actual people embedded in the US. Those people would risk being exposed and arrested. Nowadays, they can either pay some people within Russia or run some bots to post on Facebook/Twitter/etc from "totally American" accounts. Instead of a handful of agents risking arrest, they can have thousands of "agents" operating from the safety of their computers in Russia. If an "agent" gets outed, that account can be closed down and another one set up right away. (In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't have a bunch of accounts lying around waiting to be called into service as needed.)
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what you're saying is they any person who disagrees with me is a Russian agent. Got it.
Maybe this coming out will help the general population adapt actual critical thinking skills.
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget .. sexist, bigoted, hater. Duh.
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Only if they post exclusively during Moscow office hours, occasionally forget to disable location metadata and are being paid.
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So, what you're saying is they any person who disagrees with me is a Russian agent. Got it.
Nah, they're just the most obvious ones. Apart from all the cheerleaders and the obvious and not so obvious smear tactics and ad hominems you also have concern trolls and agent provocateurs. Concern trolls are people who pretend to be on your side but brings up lots of issues they have with your tactics and arguments trying to make it seem like you don't really know what you're doing, basically undercover FUD spreaders. Agent provocateurs are plants trying to rile up negative elements so they will hurt the
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So, what you're saying is they any person who disagrees with me is a Russian agent. Got it.
Not quite, It think the point is that anyone deliberately trying to divide or inflame a discussion should be treated suspiciously. I saw an example the other day of how the Russians hosted two opposing FB sites in small town USA. One pro-something, one anti, and then they just fed the flames. The even organised rallies on the same day to kick off some unrest.
The goal is to disrupt and divide. If you find yourself contributing to the division then you are unwittingly being played by our enemies.
Maybe this coming out will help the general population adapt actual critical thinking skills.
I doubt it.
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Or even worse, an American agent.
As for critical thinking, people use their intelligence to rationalize why their gut feelings are correct.
What's funny is (Score:2)
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The Internet significantly increased the efficiency and effectiveness of communications. Unfortunately, this includes "evil" as well as "good" communications. The world productivity jumps of the 1990s and 2000s were substantially assisted by Internet communications and IT in general. Unfortunately, the bad guys benefit along with the good guys.
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The Internet can definitely be used for good as well as for bad purposes. It's just a tool. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it. It's people who use the tool that make it either raise people up or sow chaos.
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Nowadays, they can either pay some people within Russia or run some bots to post on Facebook/Twitter/etc from "totally American" accounts.
Who cares about posts on social media? Those sites aren't reputable.
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For better or worse, a lot of people care. You can set up a real-looking website with a completely phony story and, with a few targeted social media posts, make a large swath of people think it's true. Do this in the right way and you can influence an entire country right from behind your keyboard.
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The difference is that the Internet makes it much easier to make the propaganda seem to originate from within a country.
I think the more important difference is that the Internet can make propaganda seem to originate from average citizens. A skilful astro-turfing campaign can be difficult to detect, even by people who know what to look for - and when the noise coming from that campaign is further anonymized by the 'net and amplified in various other echo chambers, it can start to sound like consensus. When it reaches that point, it can actually become consensus. Chomsky and Herman identified 'manufacturing consent' when the
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Yes, and with much less effort than previous "average citizens support X" propaganda efforts pre-Internet. One person, behind a keyboard, can not only pretend to be an average citizen of any country, they can pretend to be multiple average citizens. Pay a person to be on social media all day and they can run a dozen "average citizen" accounts, each amplifying the others. Have a team of ten people and you can have a hundred "average citizens." Target this well enough and it will seem as if there's a growing
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back in my day we just called it propaganda. Folks do know the US Government does this every time we go to war, right? We did it before Iraq and we're starting to do it for North Korea.
Not to make too much of a fine point on this... You do realize that we ARE at war with NK now, technically. The Korean War never really ended, all we really got was a cease fire agreement...
Also, I'd like to point out that NK represents a "clear and present danger" (to use the legal term) to the USA given they have demonstrated both the technologies necessary to launch a nuclear strike on our main land and have expressed their desire to actually DO it. (ICBMs with sufficient range and Nuclear bomb techno
Re:Everything old is new again (Score:4, Insightful)
Your post feels like it is in itself propaganda. They already know if they did something bad they'd be wiped out instantly. Their political power comes from being loud and raucous, not from actions. China would no longer support them and the game would be up.
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So your thesis is that it is an act of war?
Right?
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back in my day we just called it propaganda. Folks do know the US Government does this every time we go to war, right? We did it before Iraq and we're starting to do it for North Korea.
I really wish more people understood this. Every time we go to war, it is under false pretenses. Every time.
Nice. (Score:2)
We already distrust the others. (Score:5, Insightful)
So it is an easy push to villify them.
Those godless Democrats are trying to push an atheist addenda source with those few people who happen to be democrats and push an atheist adgenda.
Those idiot republicans who are trying to bring the country back a century. Reference by those few people pushing a racist agenda who have red trump hats.
If you are on the side of the Democrats you may be a god fearing individual and you realize that these people are not representative of you but a subset group.
If you are a Republican however you are very inclusive and tolerant, you see the racist as not representative of you and the republicans on whole.
We see the news headlines liberals/conservatives are doing something you don’t like. Not a subset of the group is doing something you don’t like. So it just reinforces tribalism tendencies that we have and bypass common sense and you make sure those other guys don’t get power, because they are far more dangerous then your side is.
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The liberal* agenda is the atheist agenda: stop religious bigotry and separate church and state. It just so happens that a lot of religious people like the atheist agenda.
* The democratic party agenda at the moment, on the other hand, seems to be just to serve itself and let everyone know it's not Trump.
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There is also confusing religion with the will of the religious rulers and its followers who don't try to comprehend the message.
In short people are jerks and will be jerks no matter what faith or lack of they have.
There really isn't much difference in Kill all the people who disagree with me because God is on my side, vs Kill all the people who disagree with me because there is No God so I will not suffer any sort of afterlife punishment.
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It is news because 50 years ago doing this was hard, today it is very easy.
Quite the opposite. Doing it 50 years ago meant controlling a few newspapers, a few radio stations and TV networks. Today's propaganda requires that same level of control/influence and also a distributed campaign on social media. Much harder to keep a unified message with more people spreading that message.
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I'm not sure it was that much "easier" years ago. There were a lot more newspapers and in many cities they actually competed with each other, plus there were a lot of ethnic group centric newspapers, often published in a non-English language (although this is probably pre-WWII). You might swing some plurality getting Hearst on your side, but there were still a lot of people who weren't reading his papers or outright didn't trust them.
Plus I think in less media saturated times, people were more influenced
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The final tally of 30 countries seems unreasonably low to me, but it turns out TFA says "out of 65 surveyed." I think 46% still sounds low, but more believable than 30 of ~130.
Lol, "Opinion Shapers" (Score:5, Interesting)
That used to be anyone who had an opinion and shared it. Now we need a new phrase for it in order to generate clicks. I hate what the world is becoming....
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Meanwhile in the U.S.... (Score:2)
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Even before that, we had the Voice of America, since the 40's
Re:Meanwhile in the U.S.... (Score:4, Informative)
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (review) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/4... [jhu.edu]
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They used to be called "pundits." Now they are called "journalists."
I really hate the media these days. I am not a huge fan on Trump, but I see that the media does not give him a fair shake. Every media outlet has an agenda, whether it is to praise Trump, or (mostly) vilify every single thing that he does. Both sides promote some stories while ignoring others, and ignore the facts that ruin their narrative
I have seen a great double-standard where Democrats get away
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Where does one go for truly unbiased coverage?
No such place exists. Best you can do is get information from many points of view from different perspectives and inform your opinion knowing that all participants involved, including you, are biased. It's also helpful to learn each specific bias and find the narrative they try to create with the stories they run, how they run them, and the facts they include or omit so that you know what is missing and what is being crafted.
I think my big pet peeve is a news outlet conveying themselves as unbiased or balan
i bet the USA is just as guilty (Score:3, Interesting)
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When we elect the correct lizard.
factual news and authentic debate (Score:2)
Where can I get this, so called, factual news?
All news sources have a slant. Some much worse than others...
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You just gotta feel it in your guts. Deep down in the bowels of the truthiness-sphinker you have to pucker the truth out into a malleable morass you can work with.
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>> "factual news and authentic debate" Where can I get this, so called, factual news? All news sources have a slant. Some much worse than others...
Best bet is the Wall Street Journal. Stay away from opinion sections but for raw news you can consider it fairly well confirmed. The reason is that it is what people read for their news to make money. If they misrepresent the news, somebody making a business decision on that information could looks millions if billions. Murdoch's ownership is worrisome, but the people that make money still need to get their news someplace and there's no room for bias in facts when money is on the line. new York Times used t
The Comments of August (Score:2)
If nothing is done to stop the nations of the earth from talking, we're but a single crisis away from World Argument I. Imagine an entire generation of youth lost to the comment sections of the Western Front.
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LOL. Deserving of skit on whatever passes for a pythonesque TV show these days.
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So everyone on the internet ... (Score:2)
.. that disagrees with me is a paid shill. Got it. I feel smugger already!
Manufacturing Consent (Score:2)
It's bad enough when it happens without people even conspiring to make it happen [wikipedia.org], but now people are actively (and openly enough to be caught?) conspiring to make it happen, too?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've seen quite a bit of it on here, mostly when it comes to politically charged things like climate change.
There appears to be an Apple reputation protection version of it too that occasionally wields mod points.
the comment subject is comment subject (Score:2)
Doesn't specify a 50 cents club per se, but https://xkcd.com/1019/ [xkcd.com] was the same idea.
consider the source (Score:4, Insightful)
From: [wikipedia.org] It describes itself as a "clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world". The organization was 66–85% funded by grants from the U.S. government from 2006–15... Freedom House is a nonprofit organization. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has field offices in about a dozen countries, including Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Jordan, Mexico, and also countries in Central Asia.
So when they talk about government funded 'opinion shapers', they know the business.
Meanwhile, the Smith–Mundt Act has been repealed, and that 90% of the media is owned by just six major corporations allowing for near total consolidation of message. We're rife with super PACS that have millions for funding groups like Correct The Record and other astroturfing agencies. The major social media sites are deplatforming, shadow banning, and outright censoring anyone with an opinion they don't like under the guise of combating 'extremism'. Net Neutrality is being dismantled, to help ensure that competing platforms that actually support free speech can't compete.
But, Russian meddling!
Just like a flakey patent (Score:2)
The Press (Score:2)
The rest of us have Rupert Murdoch telling us what to think.
Competition (Score:2)
we Are guilty (Score:2)
Democracy is so overrated. SAD. (Score:2)
All countries (Score:2)
30 countries? What about _ALL_ countries.
Re:Is climate change one of the topics? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only reason one would have to doubt that climate change denialism is being promoted by foreign adversaries is the same reason one would doubt that our adversaries were trying to convince us Trump would be good: You don't like the implications and are too stupid to realize the damage will happen no matter what you believe.
Re:Russia wins by climate change... Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
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Plus I doubt bending over backwards to reach out to rednecks is going to do anything. Progressives have done fuck all against them. We haven't made serious attempts to ban guns or make our votes for president count as much as theirs have. Yet they act like us not wanting to live in buttfuck alabama means we're the bad guy.
"Endear people on the fence?" The warning lights and alarms on that fence ha [youtube.com]
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Specific predictions are vain attempts to get morons to care. The general prediction that gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere is going to have effects we don't like is unambiguously true. That the specific predictions haven't come true is only comfort if you're a fucking moron.
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Eh, if it weren't for alarm clocks, I wouldn't wake up until all the butternut donuts had already been eaten.
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Al Gore got it wrong some 20 years ago, so what makes you think we have it right now?
Al Gore was basically just shooting off his mouth, and was not representing the scientific thinking of the time. It was a big mistake that climate scientists didn't distance themselves from his alarmism and "alternative facts", and instead let a partisan politician become the figurehead for climate change. That pretty much destroyed the possibility of a bipartisan approach to policy.
Also, it was 12 years ago [wikipedia.org], not 20.
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Excuse me... I'm not arguing that the earth isn't getting warmer...
My point is that the dire predictions being made are invalid being overstated alarmist over reactions to what we are seeing. Al Gore (and others) where wildly wrong with their predictions about what would happen. Why? Why did Al do this? To sell tickets, to sell his ideas for carbon credits (which would make him a load of money), not to save the earth from a fate worse than death. Where are those hurricanes he talked about being more f
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There will always be alarmists. There may be some specific statements made by Al Gore that were exaggerated (I don't know, and you haven't provided any examples, but I would say it's at least broadly correct [skepticalscience.com]). But to claim that because there have been some unrealistic dire predictions, all dire predictions are false, is so obviously fallacious that I'm surprised deniers even bother to make that claim at all.
It's also to be noted that Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist, and of course his work was writt
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Where are those hurricanes he talked about being more frequent and stronger that he said would happen?
Maybe you should ask the residents of Houston, Puerto Rico and Barbuda.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-season-2017-maria-irma-harvey-2017-9
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One hurricane season in 13. Excellent work pointing the the exception as if it is the rule.
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One hurricane season in 13. Excellent work pointing the the exception as if it is the rule.
You AGW deniers are so predictable.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ClimateStorms/page2.php
It is a trend, not just one year. You could find that out yourself if you cared to look.
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So.. ONE year out of 12 since has a couple of bad storms since Al Gore predicted higher and more intense hurricanes and you think he was right?
We are running WAY below average for 11 out of 12 years since Al, made his wrong prediction. I think he was wrong, even with 2017's season (which seemed about normal to me.) Do you have any better information than Al had 12 years ago?
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So.. ONE year out of 12 since has a couple of bad storms since Al Gore predicted higher and more intense hurricanes and you think he was right?
We are running WAY below average for 11 out of 12 years since Al, made his wrong prediction. I think he was wrong, even with 2017's season (which seemed about normal to me.) Do you have any better information than Al had 12 years ago?
How did I know this would be your answer? You asked about more powerful hurricanes, I show you that there have been more powerful hurricanes, and you move the goalposts. There is a trend of more powerful storms since the 1970's. https://earthobservatory.nasa.... [nasa.gov] Storms have been getting more frequent and more powerful. It's not just one year..
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Oh, and by the way.. 2017 was only the 7th most active season recorded with EVERY other season which is more active except two (2005 and 2004), being years BEFORE Al made his ill fated prediction. And another By the Way... The WORST year recorded so far was 1933... I'm laughing about this.. I didn't realize exactly how wrong Mr. Gore actually was...
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If my antivirus program falsely triggered a remediation effort that cost me boatloads of money replacing hardware and software in the past and had a history of making false claims of serious virus infections which turned out to be untrue, you bet I'd be asking the same kinds of questions.
So, Mr. Virus Software Vendor, what makes you think the software is correct this time? What have you done to make the product produce fewer false positives?
So, Mr. Climate Change Alarmist, what makes you think your dire
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"the dire predictions being made are invalid being overstated alarmist over reactions to what we are seeing."
Are they?
So far the worst case stuff that was being predicted is happening 20 years earlier than expected and if the Leptav Sea clathrate methane emissions(*) destabilise the Siberian continental shelf as it looks increasingly likely to be the case, we could see a Storegga-style outgassing which will result in much worse things than simple climate change(**)
(*) Which are cause by incursions of warm A
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I'm growing weary of the trumped up "the sky is falling" ("the temperature is going up") global Armageddon coming from the press and the obvious confirmation bias by the likes of you who claim "the science is settled" on this. No it's not, Actually the jury is still out on the big question on this whole thing and that is "What does this mean?" What's going to happen because of this? Apparently Al Gore got it wrong some 20 years ago, so what makes you think we have it right now? Are we somehow working with better models or data? Have the theories changed any? Nope, same data, generally the same models and the theories are the same. Al was wrong, why do you now think we understand this better now?
And I have grown weary a long, long time ago of people that keep putting words in Al Gore's mouth and then declaring he was wrong. What exactly did he say, documented by a transcript or a video, that was so wrong? And don't come up with some tiny detail: was the overall message wrong?
The models were actually pretty good at the time, and the predicted effects have been observed. And yes, the models and data are better nowadays. Besides, some of the effects are basic physics: water gets hotter -> water exp
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Are you saying sea level rise is due to *expanding* water because it's warmer??? Hmm... I would point out that the thermal expansion of water is pretty small, being 2% over about 60 degrees C. Isn't global warming only showing up as 1 or 2 degrees over the last 10 years?
So a couple of Al's predictions which where wrong after 10 years: 1. Hurricanes stronger and more frequent. (false on both accounts) , 2. Sea Level rise predictions where overstated by an order of magnitude.
There is more.... But you are
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Average ocean depth = 3.7Km.
3.7Km times volumetric thermal expansion coefficient of water (@20c), 0.000207 = 0.0007659Km, or 0.77m/degC.
Just a very rough back-of-the-envelope calculation - it doesn't account for ice sheet/permafrost melt and the warming of the ocean wouldn't be uniform, it ignores that the ocean is not a pit of constant depth, and even with circulation it takes decades for the deep ocean to change temperature. But it should be in the ballpark, and shows that the effect on sea level of even
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thermal expansion of water is pretty small, being 2% over about 60 degrees C. Isn't global warming only showing up as 1 or 2 degrees over the last 10 years?
The average depth of the ocean is 12,100 feet, and the thermal expansion of water is 0.000207. So a 2C rise in ocean temp will result in a rise of 2*12100*0.000207 = 5 feet. This is in addition to any rise from melting ice.
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Just on the paper napkin calculation, I can already see a flaw in it. You're assuming (without facts in evidence) that the thermal expansion is based on uniform 2 degree increase in Temperature. Please show me the calculation for how much energy it would take to increase the entire mass of ocean by 2 degrees, and then show me where that energy came from.
Until you do that, then you're back of the napkin calculation is not "science" but "sciency".
And my point is showing just how stupid the AGW debate is, beca
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You're assuming (without facts in evidence) that the thermal expansion is based on uniform 2 degree increase in Temperature.
No I'm not. I assuming an average increase of 2C. Whether it is uniform or not would not make a big difference.
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Average increase is the same thing as I asked. Same amount of energy required. Or is your understanding of average different than mine?
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Or is your understanding of average different than mine?
Perhaps. You said I was assuming a "uniform 2 degree increase", which is not the same as an "average increase of 2 degrees". If you think they are the same, then your understanding is different than mine.
Most climate projections forecast more ocean warming near the poles, and less in tropical seas.
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On top of this average, there can be marked local increases in sea level.
If the Atlantic conveyor (Gulf stream) is interrupted, one of the effects would be an _immediate_ mean sea level rise along the North American eastern seaboard of around 3 feet, with the greatest rise in the Chesapeake Bay area.
Changes in prevailing winds also affect regional sea levels quite markedly.
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Climate scientists don't get their science from CNN, though.
Deniers do get their science from AM radio and cable news!
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Is climate change one of the topics being manipulated in this way?
Yes, but by the fossil fuel industry. I find it really ironic that those working to sow doubt about the reality of climate change have convinced so many people that the conspiracy actually exists among the scientists.
Re: They are on /. too! (Score:2)
America uses volunteer armies. Thatâ(TM)s how you know we are better.
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They are on /. to the extent that it's challenging to find the actual discussion.
Re:Every time you talk to someone... (Score:4, Funny)
Stop oppressing me with your violent words. Call the thought police! I think I'm bleeding.
Reminds me of a story. Stevie Wonder was given a cheese grater for Christmas. He said it was the most violent book he's ever read.
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In a world where free speech is king. Propaganda is an another opinion. Democracy requires the seditious and the patriot to convince you. If the patriot fails then so do we all.
bought (Score:2)
I had a friend tell me NASA didn't believe