NOAA Confirms June Was Earth's Hottest on Record (nytimes.com) 139
Last month was the planet's warmest June since global temperature record-keeping began in 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its monthly climate update on Thursday. From a report: The agency also predicts unusually hot temperatures will occur in most of the United States, almost everywhere except the northern Great Plains, during August. The first two weeks of July were also likely the Earth's warmest on human record, for any time of year, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Many daily temperature records were set in June across the Southern United States, particularly in Texas and Louisiana. Temperatures in Laredo, Texas, reached 100 degrees on more than 20 days in June. Austin, El Paso and San Antonio reached triple digits on more than 10 days each. The heat index, which also accounts for humidity, was well past 100 much of the time in all of these cities. Extreme heat can be dangerous for anyone's body, but older people and outdoor workers are at particular risk. Summer heat waves in Europe last year may have killed 61,000 people across the continent, according to a recent study. This year's heat and humidity have been devastating in northern Mexico, where more than 100 people have died of heat-related causes, according to reports from the federal health ministry.
Many daily temperature records were set in June across the Southern United States, particularly in Texas and Louisiana. Temperatures in Laredo, Texas, reached 100 degrees on more than 20 days in June. Austin, El Paso and San Antonio reached triple digits on more than 10 days each. The heat index, which also accounts for humidity, was well past 100 much of the time in all of these cities. Extreme heat can be dangerous for anyone's body, but older people and outdoor workers are at particular risk. Summer heat waves in Europe last year may have killed 61,000 people across the continent, according to a recent study. This year's heat and humidity have been devastating in northern Mexico, where more than 100 people have died of heat-related causes, according to reports from the federal health ministry.
The oceans are slacking (Score:5, Funny)
They're not cooperating and storing all the excess heat we're trapping with all the greenhouse gasses we spew into the atmosphere.
Stupid oceans, forcing us to experience some of the initial consequences of our actions.
Re: The oceans are slacking (Score:2)
You jest of course, the truth is that if the oceans weren't taking a large degree of the excess heat then most of the planet would have become uninhabitable already, temperature rises would have been in the tens of degrees.
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I don't believe that's how it works - greenhouse gasses increase the insulation effect of the atmosphere, but they're maintaining a heat differential. Radiative heat losses still apply, we just hold on to more heat for longer before those losses.
I believe that this means the oceans can only change the rate of temperature rise by acting like a buffer. Without them the rise would be much more rapid, but the new normal would be no higher. We'd probably have larger day/night swings too.
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Water has huge heat capacity and the oceans covering 2/3rds of the planet are large. The oceans have simply soaked up much of the excess heat energy due to global warming, this isn'y my theory, this is the way scientists say it happens and the physics is simple, 1 degree of warmer ocean is the equivalent of tens of degrees of heated atmosphere in terms of energy capacity of air and water. It's basic physics.
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But if those tens of degrees were in the air, they would radiate out into space more rapidly. The equilibrium point remains the same.
It is because of the oceans we are not in equilibrium yet, but we're still only heading for 1-digit increases even once the oceans are done heating up (if we somehow stop increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere).
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Ahhh yes, back in the good old days when "Global Warming was over!"
Damn it Ocean, you were supposed to have covered up our criminally stupid manipulation of statistics forever!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Historical Change Facts (Score:5, Informative)
Or you have no idea what you're talking about!
Here is a cartoon that explains it in the simplist clearest fashion.
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
Be sure to scroll to the very bottom. If you still don't understand I guess you never will.
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https://www.climate.gov/sites/... [climate.gov]
Maybe it would disprove his argument?
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I know this may be hard to believe, but the global average temperatures from the Cretaceous period are not very compatible with Earth's current biosphere. Even if the current period of global heating were principally driven by natural causes (and the scientific consensus is that it most certainly isn't, no matter how many arguments on Slashdot you win through attrition), we would have a duty to intervene as the de facto caretakers of our planet.
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Do you think birds will be able to adapt because they have a genetic memory of those warmer, lusher times?
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I am not an ornithologist, but I would hesitate to expect anything to be useful that hasn't been essential for millions of years. In general, though, it is fair to assume that (flying) birds are likely to do well during drastic global changes because they're already migratory and capable of following the climate.
Doing some very quick reading [royalsocie...ishing.org], the penguins are perhaps a useful case study. Estimates range on the clade being anywhere from 70 to 100 million years old, at a time and place which would have been q
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Mr Garak, it is against the values of your society to favour any agenda that imperils the survival of the State. As a former high-ranking member of the Obsidian Order, you of all people would know that ignoring the fallout from a disaster, even a natural disaster, would be a direct threat to civil order. It is the State's duty to protect its people, not to simply shove its hands in its pockets and shrug in the face of Nature's capriciousness. Should it abandon this mandate, it no longer has the right to gov
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https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]
You are clearly among the utterly worthless pieces of shit who keep posting legitimate links but misrepresenting them in order to cow unsuspecting readers. I hope a car runs you over when you leave your office in Saint Pet
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It honestly doesn't matter. Unless we are going to go back to pre-industrial revolution times, we aren't going to turn this thing around. According to this site https://ourworldindata.org/emi... [ourworldindata.org]
All transportation is 16.2%. So if we all stop driving or shipping goods or moving good around at all, it won't make a sufficient dent.
If we all go vegan, it's another 5.8%.
Stop using cement. 3%. Steel and Iron, another 7.2%. Our world is built on energy production. So unless we shift to 100% nuclear and renewables,
Re: Historical Change Facts (Score:2)
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How am I misrepresenting the information? I clearly said in the last line of my post that we should work towards 100% renewables and nuclear but it won't be fast enough.
And I posted the few data points to illustrate that several of the things often cited as being helpful (go vegan, walk) won't be good enough at all.
So once again, we should continue to work towards renewables and nuclear for 100% of our energy generation but it doesn't appear we are going to make it. The world's going to keep getting hot. Ic
Re: Historical Change Facts (Score:2)
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Re: Historical Change Facts (Score:1)
What may be normal conditions for the planet isnt for humans, we evolved in a cold period and so did all the plants and animals we use for agriculture. Also sea levels were much higher in the warm periods and unfortunately hundreds of millions live in cities on the coast. You figure out the rest.
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Oh dear, where to start.
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You know that the interglacials are about 20K years in length, and we are there now. It is not like interglacial periods go on forever. Recent ice ages have averaged about 100K years, and interglacials about 20K. To suggest that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have no bearing on where temperatures go is to deny all of the science. So you were modded down by people who are being more honest than you. The world temperature has been tracking the rise in CO2 rather nicely with a few deviations. Since we are suppos
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To suggest that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have no bearing on where temperatures go is to deny all of the science.
Try re-reading my comment. Expand it if you need to. Reading comprehension was in 3rd grade. Maybe repeat it?
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What's interesting is you couldn't have posted that garbage without learning enough to know it is garbage and why, unless you're just mindlessly repeating what someone else told you. You're either a liar or a fool.
I don't have mod points to mod down your ignorant anti-science blather, but Slashdot has a nice system that lets me mark you as a 'foe' so I don't ever bother wasting my time reading what passes for thoughts in your head ever again.
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If we marked everyone we didn't like as "Foe" what would the point of the site be? It's for discussion and proving each other right. Can't do that without "foes" now can we?
It's like trying to browser at 3+ and expecting to understand the discussion. Sure, 20 years ago that was a doable thing but we had a lot more people and the discussion was significantly more technical and rarely did we sit around and politic all day.
Politicing is about all we do here anymore.
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While you have a good point, there are a couple of users who are purely trolls and if no one responded to them, perhaps they'd move on. Otherwise the discussion gets derailed responding to the troll such as is happening here
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Yes there is slight warming from "exiting an ice age" but it's not the amount we're seeing. The warming we're seeing is because of the greenhouse effect where greenhouse gasses (like CO2 or methane) are released into the atmosphere and the heat is able to enter but is not reflecting out again.
Now it's possible that humans are contributing to "restoring earth's biosphere to its natural chemistry" but unfortunately for humans that state is not one that humans will be able to survive in.
So while the Earth mig
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Re: The oceans are slacking (Score:2)
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Re: The oceans are slacking (Score:2)
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For 90% of its history, it has been warmer than it is now.
For (over) 90% of its history, there were also no humans living on it. If that's not a requirement, well, then of course you're right.
Re: The oceans are slacking (Score:2)
The NPCs are out in force today
And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://condenaststore.com/fea... [condenaststore.com]
It's not just about money (Score:1, Interesting)
Cities need to be made walkable. Oil & gas need to be made into near worthless commodities only occasionally used for power generation. Public transportation needs to replace private cars. Electric cars, even self driving, won't solve our problems. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as "American" and "Chinese" and "Russian" so we can function as global citizens and work together not just ac
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Pretty simple really, stop funding the fossil fuel industry with subsidies, etc.
And invest that same money in transition.
This is the supposedly the same amount as would be needed to do the transition.
Re:It's not just about money (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to stop thinking in terms of an absolute magic bullet. Better is a step in the right direction. There are many other better steps that can/should/are being taken. Rejecting better while waiting for perfect is a fool's agenda.
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Electric cars are better. The average life of a car is considerably over ten years (I'm not bothering to look it up). For the duration of its lifetime, the internal combustion car is going to consume fossil fuels and emit CO2. The electric car will take any electricity, and, as that shifts to renewables and (I hope) nuclear, it automatically becomes cleaner.
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Not really (Score:1, Troll)
Now, there is one thing I don't know how to solve for: Teenagers fucking. Right now teenagers can get in their dad's car, drive out to the middle of nowhere, and fuck like rabbits. It's harder to do that o
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the quality would be the same or better (except for the top 1 or 2% maybe). Walkable cities and public transport mean not spending hours in commute. It means better access to schools and clean drinking water. It means access to the amenities of a city without spending 90 minutes driving and/or parking.
No, it means spending hours walking/biking and having to live within a specific distance from your place of business.
That shit simply doesn't fly in the US. And hasn't since before WW1.
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The livestock industry contributes more to the greenshouse effect than transportation.
Post an article about that, you will get hostile replies, snark, and jokes.
The hottest day reports nobody likes to get are about corporate greed AND the personal failures of many people to make even small adjustments to the way they live.
Queue the real life copies of the comic book store owner from the Simpsons to lecture us why he is top of the food chain, and smugly should not even b
Re:Rational planning (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, the tragedy of the commons. Let's look for someone to blame, and then use that blame to deflect for serious effort.
Re: Rational planning (Score:2)
puts the lie to the claim that we're doing nothing
Go take a look at the Keeling Curve and tell me again that we're doing _anything_. As you'll notice, it's on an accelerating trajectory.
Re:Rational planning (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not wrong necessarily but "go bother other country" isn't a real answer and doesn't apply when those who live in the USA expect more from the USA by the fact that we are citizens and in fact live here. China or India perceived inaction is not a reason for me to let me own country off the hook from what I would ideally like them to do.
Combine that with the fact that the USA is still in fact both the wealthiest of all nations (and growing that number still) but also the global hegemon. The fact that other countries are lagging behind doesn't mean I am going to stop pushing for change in my own country.
Personally to me I want the USA to not just be "doing enough" but I want the USA to "set the example" because the only realy thing we can do for a country like say, China, is really shame them on the global stage by doing it better and faster than they are. Kindof like they are putting the US to shame with the amount of rail network and other infrastructure they have built out.
If they told Romney to "pound sand" then I want us to double down on our efforts in response.
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An other way to look at it: please point to a country which is doing enough.
I think their might be: 0
(because we didn't do enough in the past, so we need to do MORE now)
So we need to keep pushing all countries.
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Yes but "pushing all countries" really means "everyone push their own countries".
How do I, an American citizen, "push" China, or India or even Europe for that matter? Really the best way to do that is by action in my own country with the goal of policies in America being adropted in these other nations and voting for people open to international agreements with these nations.
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They do care when other countries in their sphere take notice. They are after global approval just the same as the US is, they want to be the hegemon, can't do that alone.
But the US is supposed to revert to paleolithic standards to "save the planet"?
If just straight up lying is the only way you can support your argument then maybe it's not very good.
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Is there an industrialized country that's ignoring any call to reduce greenhouse gasses, a country that's responsible for more of the problem than other countries in the world, a country that's not particularly known for research into improvements in technology that would mitigate climate effects?
There are so many potential candidates to that description though. If we look at the cumulative CO2 emissions from 1750 to 2021 [ourworldindata.org] (cumulative emission is an important figure because once the CO2 is released into the atmosphere, it is very stable and tends to stay there), we can see that the US wins by a huge margin. The Accord de Paris planned for countries to try and stay below +2C at the end of the century. Guess who was one of the first to withdrew from the accord [bbc.com]?
If so, go bother that country. Leave the US to research, development, and the fairly rapid change over to green technologies that it's already doing.
Oh wait, your previous comment was suppose
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Starting at 1750 is extremely disingenuous. Let's look at the last 20 years or so.
No it is not, not unless you only want to be able to deny responsibility (and accountabiity). CO2 is extremely stable once emitted. See this graph [www.ipcc.ch] from the IPCC report 2014 (if you are interested in the actual details, go read the actual report, IPCC AR5 2014, I swear it is not that big or complicated). Basically, after 100 years, 40% of the CO2 you emitted is stil lthere. After 1000 years, 25% is still there. So cumulative emissions, even back from 1750 are important.
Another reason why starting at 1750 is
Re: Rational planning (Score:1)
CO2 has a half life of about 120 years, but is even shorter once it gets to the upper atmosphere and the radiation from the sun hits it where it is estimated to be broken down in 20-50 years. So, if most of the stuff that happened 20 years ago is half gone by now, the stuff that happened 200 years ago is irrelevant.
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There isn't really a need for the elaborate parable of the fat man and the thin man. Since the 1990s the US has outsourced it's most energy intensive and dirty industrial processes to China.
The US can *easily* cut its measured emissions[note 1] by insulating its buildings, raising its auto fuel efficiency standards -- and switching from coal to natural gas, which is *easy* because natural gas is cheaper and more profitable to make electricity with. For China to reduce its emissions, it's got to find ways
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The US can *easily* cut its measured emissions by (...) and switching from coal to natural gas
Please note that I don't want to fall into the Nirvana fallacy [wikipedia.org], but here is some info I already posted in a previous discussion.
Gas is almost as bad as coal in terms of CO2 emissions. What we learn from the last issue of the Statistical Review of World Energy from BP [energyinst.org] (or from the Energy Institute since this year apparently):
- when it is burned, gas emits half as much CO2 as coal. This is why we often hear than gas is only emitting half the CO2 emissions of coal, which is good (200g CO2/kWh vs 350g CO2/kWh).
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Now look at how energy-intensive the QOL is in each country.
For the most part, it tracks with their energy (and thus, CO2) output.
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Nah...the world isn't gonna blow up and die for at least 100+ years, LONG after we're all dead and gone.
Long after anyone there then will know who's name to curse...so, what do we care?
I'm not going out of my way to
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Sorry, I'm tired of trying.
I've been trying for the longest time to keep the planet in a livable shape. I really did. Until I noticed that, hey, I'm 50. I only need that marble for another 20, maybe 30 years. I have no kids. And if people who are younger and do have kids can't be assed to at least make an attempt to keep it habitable, why the hell should I forego my AC?
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Sure, because Millennials and Zoomers *never* buy a pile of novelty crap they don't need and have it shipped from overseas.
records only go back to the 1800's (Score:1, Insightful)
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remember we've only been recording temps back ~200 years. earth has been way hotter at many times in the past 5 billion years
Yes, indeed, it has been hotter. At one time, the entire planet was believed to be covered in rain forest.
The issue is not how hot the planet is, the issue is how fast is it getting there. Someone already posted this link, but it's very relevant:
https://xkcd.com/1732 [xkcd.com]
Note how slowly the planet's temperature has changed over time. Now look at the bottom of the chart and see how it has skyrocketed in comparison. Your claim that we don't have records going back further than 200 years is wrong. We have other m
Re: records only go back to the 1800's (Score:1)
The biggest problem is that going back, we canâ(TM)t measure the temperature day by day or even year by year. Weâ(TM)re taking an average of many years deposited in trees over decades, or the average over millennia when weâ(TM)re talking geological evidence. Comparing todayâ(TM)s weather with the average climate thousands of years ago is statistically disingenuous, making policy decisions and recommendations on that is even worse and doesnâ(TM)t help at all with the cause of conserv
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earth has been way hotter at many times in the past 5 billion years
Well the earth used to be a molten ball. It's pretty important for our survival that it doesn't get hotter again, and humans have been doing dumb shit that makes it hotter and hotter.
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remember we've only been recording temps back ~200 years. earth has been way hotter at many times in the past 5 billion years
It's also been colder (snowball earth). Neither facts are particularly relevant to right now, though.
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True, true. Especially during the Hadean.
Then again, no humans tried to live on that planet back then, but if that's not a requirement, you're absolutely right.
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remember we've only been recording temps back ~200 years. earth has been way hotter at many times in the past 5 billion years
Apparently you don't see the irony in what you wrote. It kind of reminds me of the Slashdotter years ago who posted that the government should stop funding weather satellites and buy satellite weather data from Accuweather.
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earth has been way hotter at many times in the past 5 billion years
Just curious, how do you know?
useful graphs (Score:4, Insightful)
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
https://xkcd.com/2500/ [xkcd.com]
Not suprising since we had a water volcano (Score:2)
https://eos.org/articles/tonga-eruption-may-temporarily-push-earth-closer-to-1-5c-of-warming
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere
100 degrees, eh? (Score:1)
So I went to Almanac . com for my city (Score:1)
And looked up every July 18th from 1980 to 2023.
Did you know that for all of the 80s, it was basically 5 degrees cooler during the at night and more during the day in Houston, Texas?
It's gone from 75/88F (82 mean) to 80/98F (86 mean) in the 2020s.
I am *not* looking forward to August. We might see 105 to 108.
Good litmus test (Score:2)
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Re:New Delhi had its coolest June in 15 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Weather changes. It always has and always will.
The adults were talking about climate, not weather.
Re:New Delhi had its coolest June in 15 years (Score:4, Informative)
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We used to be constantly told they were not the same. But now they apparently are, or at least now good weather is still just weather, but bad weather is climate.
They are when:
a) There's a definite trend in weather, not just ups and downs
b) It's the same weather all over the world, not just in a single place
Re:New Delhi had its coolest June in 15 years (Score:5, Informative)
I realize statistics is a difficult subject. But surely not saying stupid things in public is within your abilities?
First sentence of the second link you shared:
Top climate scientists have blown the whistle to reveal that they were “ordered” to “cover up” the truth about the alleged “global warming” on Earth.
Does that really past your smell test? It fails mine. About 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-made global warming is happening. Let's consider the hypothesis that thousands of scientists are in on a cover up:
First what is the possible motivation, is risking their career worth the pay offs that Big Green Energy could offer them. Is George Soros wealthy enough to place these scientists in a life of luxury. If so, where are their mansions and yachts?
Second, have you met anyone in academics? They are a gossipy bunch, unable to keep a secret. The personalities of those in the hard sciences are pretty much as depicted in the TV series the Big Bang Theory. Can you imagine a thousand of those goofballs pulling off a massive world wide conspiracy?
The problem with a conspiracy built around lies is that it is hard to keep standing once exposed. Once people start to question it and poke holes in it, it can't hold up. But climate change theories are holding up. The models are narrowing in and providing useful and testable predictions.
I'll offer a counter hypothesis: That there have been business interests that suppressed the dissemination of information for decades. Either by hiding their own research, or by disinformation to discredit or downplay the state of the environment. And there are political interests pressured by powerful lobbies that have impacted policies on transportation, energy use, and have be caught blocking funding for climate research. Imagine a world where climate change is happening at a rate faster than we realized because a small number of powerful people intentionally hide the truth from the majority. But these kinds of conspiracies can't go on indefinitely, after 30 or 40 years the truth eventually catches up and overtakes the lies.
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are you a child? do we let 2nd graders get slashdot accounts? this is a child's response
"it got hot in one place so it can never get record breaking cold in another." what are you even talking about
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No, YOU are making the claim. You have to show that the "whether" is always going to change.
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Do you accept that thermodynamics is an accurate model of how energy behaves? Yes or no?
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no.
#maga2024
Ignorance (Score:2)
Isaac Asimov
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Unlike you, he knew the difference between fact and fiction.
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NOAA is US only. There are plenty of climate scientists everywhere, and they all agree. Please tell me why Japanese scientists should care about NOAA's research funding.