Climate Change Will Stir 'Unimaginable' Refugee Crisis, Says Military (theguardian.com) 333
Citing military experts, The Guardian is reporting that if the rise in global warming is held under 2 degrees Celsius, there still could be a major humanitarian crisis to sort out. From the report: Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of "unimaginable scale," according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the "new normal." The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency. Military leaders have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required. "Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century," said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. "Weâ(TM)re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people."
Unimaginable crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Time to build those walls..... (Score:2)
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No need to imagine -- it's already happened in Syria.
Not much. I do look at data which may upset you. (Score:5, Interesting)
The refugee crisis you refer to is actually the second Syrian refugee crisis.
The first refugee was an internal displacement of 1.5 million people (out of a population of 20 million) over the period 2007-2011 during crops failed due to unprecedented drought. Over two hundred villages were completely depopulated, and 40% of Syria's agricultural workforce was lost. Domestic wheat production crashed, and prices skyrocketed as it was replaced by imports.
So you had over a million hungry, unemployed displaced people crowded into cities, when a bad harvest in Russia caused a spike in global wheat prices. Check out the graph in this link labelled "World Monthly Grains Price Index [earth-policy.org]" and note the massive upswing in prices in 2010 - 2011. There was a similar price spike in 2007, but back then Syria produced essentially all the wheat it consumed. In 2010 Syria only produced 80% of what it needed, resulting in underconsumption -- aka "starvation". You can check out the figures here [usda.gov].
Finally note that the so-called "Day of Rage" which critically destabilized the regime took place on March 15, 2011. The timing was not coincidental.
Now you can talk to me about "political struggle" in Syria. The roots of that struggle are of course decades old. But the effects were exacerbated by the worst drought in 900 years [wiley.com].
Without the sarcasm, try to stay on topic lest you continue to be perceived as a shithead Troll.
I have stayed on topic. Shithead troll I guess is a matter of perspective. Syria is exactly the kind of scenario security planners are worried about. And one reason they are worried is that many in the public literally find the idea of climate-driven refugees unimaginable. People who've been paying attention find it all too easy to imagine.
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If Wheat was the problem, the US would be dropping food bags on the populace instead of TONS OF WEAPONS.
You'd need a time machine capable of sending three million tons of wheat six years into the past.
As to why we didn't do it that the time, you may recall we had a financial crisis to deal with. Very few Americans were paying attention to what at the time was an internal crisis in Syria, and if they had they wouldn't be interested in spending a billion dollars addressing it ($350/ton * 3 million ton shortfall).
Re:Not much. I do look at data which may upset you (Score:5, Interesting)
Attempting to simplify the crises in Syria by pointing at climate change seriously under states all other factors. Hell, one of your own links (the usda one) clearly shows that Syria has been able to meet its needs IF allowed via imports
The USDA link shows no such thing; it shows Syria eating up its reserves as it fails to import enough wheat to make up the shortfall. Yes, Assad underwrote the price of bread, but there wasn't enough subsidized bread to meet demand, forcing people to buy non-subsidized bread which increased in price six-fold. The net bread expenditure went up by 20% in a country where many people spend half their income on food.
I'm not a reductionist; situations like this have multiple important factors. The Assad/Islamist thing had been simmering for decades -- generations really. Had that situation been different, the climate shock might not have destabilized the country. In point of fact bread prices were an issue throughout the Middle East and a major factor in the Arab Spring. Syria was arguably better positioned than most other Arab countries, but the stress of having 5% of your population displaced on top of the deep and old fault lines broke the country apart.
This is precisely how climate shock is going to work. It won't be like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water; it'll be formerly rare occurrences happening more frequently and stressing vulnerable populations. Take sea level rise; cities won't drown slpowly, but what was once a hundred year flood will become twenty year flood. That will stress coastal cities, and the results depend on how stable and wealthy a particular city is.
For example were sea level to rise almost a meter by 2100 (as is now within the scope of mainstream positions), the very wealthy coastal city I live in would go the Venice route and build a tidal barrier, which would conservatively cost at least ten billion dollars. Chittagong Bengladesh, however, will be screwed [wikimedia.org]. My city has twice the GDP of Bengladesh as a whole even though it has 3% of the population.
Re:Unimaginable crisis (Score:4, Funny)
The Internet, the.
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Better up the Military Budget (Score:2)
Just in case their crazy-sounding warning happens to come true.
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A wall won't stop them, but it will slow them down enough for people behind the wall to shoot them dead.
Don't be naive, if refugee/migration pressures are this severe do not think of a second that the people with will demand the invading hordes without be stopped by any means necessary.
I'm of the opinion that it's happening already. We argue around the margins about immigration, pretending it's about jobs, racism or some other bullshit but I think at the heart of it people really are nervous about long-ter
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The wall is getting built but its not going to be made of concrete. Its going to be made of overpriced US made Carrier ACs that noone will buy . Donald probably guaranteed Carrier he will buy all the ACs they make . (Not really different from the Department of Agriculture guarnteeing to buy all the corn farmers can grow). And the illegal Mexicans? He will give them jobs building the wall but he will ask them to work from the Mexican side. When the wall is finished they will be on the right side. And since h
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Yes, really. Once resources become scarce enough, and suddenly a catastrophe eliminates a large chunk of them, there will be a lot of people fighting for survival and a share of the planet's resources.
(Idea: the government should tax us for clean air and clean water. It costs money to add pollution controls. People should have to pay for it. You don't think clean air grows on trees do you?)
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It's all those Marxist SJWs in the US Military pushing their climate change agenda based on a Chinese hoax just so they can get money from George Soros.
Give me a second, and I'll work in a reference to #pizzagate, pedophilia, third-wave feminism and corrupt games journalists.
Re: Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, +1 insightful, but perhaps not for the same reason as yours.
Temperatures are trending upwards. Ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. These are observed facts.
Look at human history. War is a frequent consequence of competition for limited resources. In the case of climate-change, that resource will be land. Land that is not underwater. Land that you can still grow crops on. Land that has not been rendered uninhabitable due to violent weather-fluctuations.
Sadly, preparing a military that can manage such a dystopic future may be a grim necessity.
Re: Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, desired land perhaps.
All of the people in Florida could fit in Wyoming, at half the population density of Florida currently (estimated in my head).
Even the worst models have water rising a few feet in 100 years. Which wipes out almost all coastal cities, but not a huge percentage of land - for the US at least. So people will have to move. Orderly. Because even at an extreme 1" per year, they can walk away from it.
Now, several other countries are truly fucked. But we don't really need a huge military increase for that.
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So, in other words, a very large fraction of the population of the United States of America is looking at either moving, or paying vast amounts of money to build levees and dykes. Yeah, no big deal.
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Over 100 years. Imagine the US before World War 1, imagine it now. That's the change that can happen, slowly, in 100 years. So, no, not a big deal.
Or reduce/mitigate pollution.
Which one is easier?
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Reducing CO2 emissions is a lot cheaper than building vast dykes around New York City.
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Not disagreeing at all. And it's probably a lot easier.
But, very oddly, building dykes is probably an easier political move.
People are weird, and short sighted.
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The problem here is that the dykes wouldn't be built now. They'd built once storm inundations meant lowlying areas of New York City spent large amounts of time underwater. In other words, it wouldn't be the 2016 taxpayer paying for it, it would be the 2036 taxpayer paying for it.
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Or just get the R proposal over with, defund social security to pay for that wall.
I think I smell a Trump plan in the works...
Re: Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Informative)
You do know there decades of scientific fact about actual rising seas, right?
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ [colorado.edu]
Or that 2 quadrillion pounds of ice melted off Greenland alone in 4 years, right? A quadrillion is a thousand trillion.
https://weather.com/news/clima... [weather.com]
Like to the point that municipalities have to deal with that actuality coming soon:
http://www.miamidade.gov/plann... [miamidade.gov]
Or, you're yet another Troll. I'll go with that.
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So your definition of a "sane party" is a party that ignores mountains of research and data?
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I am buying land in Nunavat.
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Yes, they are.
But we know this is happening. So we can deal with it in two ways:
1. Reduce output of pollution/heat to reduce greenhouse effect & rising seas
2. Start to move stuff away from the ocean. The rise is happening slowly, so require new infrastructure to be 20 feet, or whatever, above sea levels.
Or I guess we could just keep hoping it goes away, or the idiots on the House Science committee pray it away...
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Well, someone disagrees with you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
First sentence:
Sea level rise has been estimated to be on average between +2.6 millimetres (0.10 in) and 2.9 millimetres (0.11 in) per year ± 0.4 millimetres (0.016 in) since 1993[3] and has accelerated in recent years.[4]
Re: Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Interesting)
There's plenty of land. There will also be plenty of useful farmland - it just might not be the same land that makes good farmland today.
The problem isn't really an overall resource shortage, it's that which land is valuable will change. Wars have certainly started over just that. People will need to move, likely across current borders. How will that end up?
No need for some flood of refugees, though. This is a slow change, by human measure. Plenty of time to work on moving, perhaps emigrating, to where you want to be. It can take years to relocate, but we have years. Make good use of them if you believe in all this.
If your worried about a flood of refugees ruining your home area even though you found a good place, promptly, well, join the club.
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`This is a slow change, by human measure`
Plants also need to migrate, and they might not move fast enough :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Humans are really good at adapting to change. Lots of the species we rely on for food and clothing and such may not be nearly as adaptable.
Re: Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.
Not skeptical enough (Score:2)
The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.
You are missing just how much money there is to be controlled through carbon taxes and carbon markets. Furthermore, to have a military adviser declaring that topic X is an important reason to increase military funding hardly seems surprising. Call me when the military volunteers their budgets be cut to help offset climate change because it's more effective.
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The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.
Do you really think those two numbers are comparable?
Re:Better up the Military Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
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A migration over 100 years or more is a comfortable migration, not a refugee crisis.
You can't even imgine the tech in a hundred years.
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A migration over 100 years or more is a comfortable migration,
And frankly, it's going to happen no matter what we do, because of climate or otherwise (as there have been many migrations in the past century.......some positive, some negative).
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In other news the wall is getting built but its not going to be made of concrete. Its going to be made of overpriced US made Carrier ACs that noone will buy . Donald probably guaranteed Carrier he will buy all the ACs they make . (Not really different from the Department of Agriculture guarnteeing to buy all the corn farmers can grow). And the illegal Mexicans? He will give them jobs building the wall but he will ask them to work from the Mexican side. When the wall is finished they will be on the right sid
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There are currently 60 million war refugees according to UNHCR [unhcr.org]
So either our military commanders havent kept up with whats been going on the last decade, or they can't even imagine current reality.
I understood that quote to count only refugees from Bangladesh—not worldwide.
He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. "We're going to see . . . 30 million people."
It's like I said the other day - if San Francisco (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of something I mentioned here on Slashdot just the other day. Though it's not looking like San Francisco will really be underwater by 2020, if it is, refugees from San Francisco will come *here* wearing their assless leather pants. That's worrisome.
Now back to News for Nerds.
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refugees from San Francisco will come *here* wearing their assless leather pants. That's worrisome.
I have seen San Francisco on TV, and this is exactly how all of them dress all the time.
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This reminds me of something I mentioned here on Slashdot just the other day. Though it's not looking like San Francisco will really be underwater by 2020,
Correct. San Francisco is very hilly. They may have to elevate the freeway, but most of it will be fine.
http://www.floodmap.net/Elevat... [floodmap.net]
Hm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Money ruse a man.
Ah, oh, I get it.
Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Key word being "military". The U.S. military is the single largest user of carbon fuels. The U.S. military gets most of it's funding to ensure the world's gas station (the Middle East) keeps pumping oil.
So, yeah, you might want to pay attention if even the Pentagon is saying climate change is going to have serious consequences. It's like Philip Morris talking about the cancerous substances in tobacco - if even they are admitting it's a problem, why are you continuing to deny it?
Science Deniers (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't deny the science. The earth is 1.8 degrees hotter than the last 100 year average. Not sure why I would relocate over a 1 degree change in average temperature, but I just follow the science not hysteria.
There is only crisis (Score:2)
There is only crisis if 'we' allow it. Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.
Re:There is only crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Well not until we can build a wall and have the oceans pay for it....
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Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.
But what if your boarders decide to stay somewhere else?
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we will take their documents so they can't cross the border
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There is only crisis if 'we' allow it. Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.
Who's 'we'?
Preventing migration will make the crisis worse, not better. Unless you don't consider tens or hundreds of millions of people starving to death just outside your beautiful wall a "crisis".
Sure General, Sure (Score:2)
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Radical Islam can't be a factor here.
Fundamentalists can cause the sea level to rise? Holy shit, we're fucked!
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There was that guy they called Moses. Not sure if fundamentalist is the right word for it, but he did have a way with the sea level.
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Radical Islam can't be a factor here. It's all due to climate change.
I find it interesting that you believe that Radical Islam is capable of flooding Bangladesh. Can I follow your twitter feed?
Send them to Canada! (Score:2)
Climate Wars: Interesting series on this stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop the presses (Score:2)
So fucking things up immensely on a global scale leads to shit getting immensely fucked up on a global scale? Color me surprised. I just hope it doesn't affect the skeptics and deniers, it might bruise their egos.
What happened to the 50 million climate refugees? (Score:2, Interesting)
You know, the ones we were already supposed to have?
By 2010?
That was according to the United Nations Environment Program. You know, a bunch of those experts who are telling us about all of the disasters global warming was supposed to have caused by now.
All of the "endangered" places that they talked about have had population increases since then, and no serious out-migration.
Of course, they noticed that prediction had failed spectacularly, so in 2011 they changed the date to 2020.
And no, the trend still has
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Well you can count the Syrian, Ethioian and Eritrean refugees as Climate refugees. Mega droughts have triggered the fighting in Syria and the exodus from the Horn of Africa
Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. Plain old wars and good old fashioned political corruption did that.
The "drought caused the Syrian civil war" theory is, frankly, crap. It was based off of one paper, which built a big statistical mountain off of a molehill. They exaggerated the number of people affected by the drought, and failed to show any sort of cause and effect. For that matter, the ACTUAL cause of the migration was a financial - subsidies for diesel and fertilizers were cut.
The civil war in Syria, by the way, started two years AFTER the drought ended. If it was caused by the drought, it seems like the events would have been closer together.
I already told you my plan (Score:2)
You wanted to go "lalala, I can't hear you", so if you now leave your shore settlement to climb the mountain I'm on, I'll shoot you.
Problem solved. I don't care whether climate change is real anymore. If it ain't, great. If it is and your shores get flooded, drown or get shot.
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Oh, good fucking God.
People's lifestyles are going to change whether they like it or not. Nature is going to force them to, not the Evil Gubmint. The "climate change police" are pointing out that if people act in their own best interest now, that change will be less disruptive than if they sit around stroking their dicks and opining about conspiracy theories about "social control". But the change will come.
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Its interesting that you mention Qaddafi. He led a low carbon lifestyle living in a tent in the desert
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You have to create a totalitarian state with the full apparatus of secret police, surveillance, detention camps and summary executions ...
Actually, a carbon tax with the revenues applied to subsidies for renewables would do the trick pretty easily.
But by all means stay locked and loaded. They're coming for you.
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I would invest in land in Nunavat and Siberia.
Also in companies like Caterpillar which will be building Dikes.
Also short real estate firms like Euity who are mostly on the coasts
Buy Rail compnies like BNR. Once the Sea comes upto the coastal ranges the interior will get populated and rail will be important for the relocation
Military Committee wants more money (Score:2)
It's entirely unsurprising that a military committee would recommend that a good response to ANYTHING is increasing military spending. When the military advises that defense interests are better served by redirecting their own funding to offsetting climate change that's the point you know they mean it. Otherwise you've got guys with little to no climate background declaring climate change as a good reason to give them more money, which isn't entirely convincing.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, some oil company-funded think tanks and a couple of climatologists who have never published any of their AGW-crushing research must be speaking the truth, whereas the overwhelming majority of experts in the field are faking it.
Oh, and I think at this juncture useful to remind this AC that those aforementioned oil companies knew about AGW forty years ago [scientificamerican.com].
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Oh, and I think at this juncture useful to remind this AC that those aforementioned oil companies knew about AGW forty years ago [scientificamerican.com].
Yes and I remember US Pres. Carter trying to bring the issue to the forefront, he even installed solar panels on the White House which Regan ripped down as soon as he took office. Pres. Carter stated we need to start to address it now before it gets too expensive.
Maybe something will be done when most of Florida is under water. Some very young people here may even see that start to happen and people will still be voting for deniers. Well, when Florida 1/3 it's size maybe that will solve the issue of elec
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In reality, physicists studying CO2 at the end of 19th century understood its solar absorption properties and hypothesized that if CO2 levels increased in the atmosphere, that it could lead to greater heating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There is absolutely nothing controversial from a scientific perspective about even fractional increases in CO2 in the atmosphere causing increased trapping of energy in the lower atmosphere.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:4, Insightful)
And where is your evidence for that claim?
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: I have no evidence.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound exactly like you work on the @HouseScience committee.
Who yesterday tweeted out an anti climate change article. From Breitbart. Because it got colder. In winter.
Holy Fucking Shit.
https://twitter.com/HouseScien... [twitter.com]
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What winter :) Last year it was a cool spring here in December, January and February with no snow. So far as of today it hardly went below freezing a couple of days and by now when I was young, we would usually have had a few light snow storms now, with maybe a permanent covering on our lawns of 2 inches (~5cm) or so.
Great for my heating bill anyway
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:5, Insightful)
They literally meant colder from last month. Exactly the same as the Hawaii senator holding a snow ball, or Trump saying it's colder during a snowstorm.
These people are guiding science funding at a national level. And literally don't understand seasons, much less anything at a global scale.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of the people living in low lying areas, particular in Asia, don't exactly have the resources to pick up and leave, and if you bothered to read the article you would realize this is exactly what these people are talking about, large numbers of people living in areas that climate change will make relatively uninhabitable, or at least considerably more unpleasant to live in, getting up and leaving. You know... migrations.
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Anyone with even a bit of knowledge of the history of major migrations knows that it is often the sedentary populations who suffer the most. The Western Roman Empire fell in no small part due to the first wave of migrations from the Asian Steppe, and the Eastern Empire's collapse occurred in no small part because of later Turkic migrations from the Asian interior.
But more to the point, you're a fucking monster, and I hope you die of the most horrible disease one can imagine, so awful that your family litera
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But more to the point, you're a fucking monster, and I hope you die of the most horrible disease one can imagine, so awful that your family literally prays to God every night that you die quickly... but you won't. I also hope the nurses and doctors who treat you are Muslims, and they are nice to you until your dying breath, so you can know fully what a disgusting subhuman you really are, you monstrous ugly piece of excrement.
Damn! A simple, "Go to Hell," might have sufficed.
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On the flip side, if Climate Change is your religion, and yet you live in low-lying coast land, you're kind of an idiot at this point. If you Believe, then topographical maps are free and you should be taking care of yourself and your family - live and work where it will remain safe, and make the move now, not after everything goes crazy. Heck, buy a bunch of safe property while you're at it, great money to be made when the waters rise!
I believe in Climate Change and the resulting sea level rise. I live about 10 feet above MSL (and about 2 miles away from the water) and my region recently voted to tax ourselves to help pay for mitigations against that rise.
But instead of paying those taxes, I'd rather pay a bit more in goods and services to cover the costs of reducing carbon emissions to reduce the rate of global warming and slow the sea level rise.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:4, Insightful)
But instead of paying those taxes, I'd rather pay a bit more in goods and services to cover the costs of reducing carbon emissions to reduce the rate of global warming and slow the sea level rise.
That's rather ... optimistic. Maybe that could work. Maybe it's already too late. Maybe China will talk a good game while quietly doubling their CO2 output. Maybe it's all solar activity and Antarctica is gone regardless of human activity. When it comes to important things, it's best to plan for more than the optimistic case, especially for years-long efforts.
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China is incredibly vulnerable to overall sea level rises, considering that large portions of its population live in low-lying areas. I know China is the anti-emission control crowd's favorite bogeyman, but countries like China and India are at great risk in multiple ways if even the more moderate models for the latter half of this century come to fruition.
Re:Liars will Liar (Score:4, Insightful)
On the flip side, if Climate Change is your religion, and yet you live in low-lying coast land, you're kind of an idiot at this point. If you Believe, then topographical maps are free and you should be taking care of yourself and your family - live and work where it will remain safe, and make the move now, not after everything goes crazy.
So ... your solution to global warming is that impoverished villagers in Bangladesh should be buying condos in Aspen?
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It doesn't matter if you believe in climate change or not. What matters is what actually happens. A meter or less by 2100 seems likely, and someone who's living 2m above sea level has plenty of time to move.
I live something like 180 or 190 meters above sea level, personally.
Few people are mentioning the big lies (Score:3)
The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.
This sort of donkey shit is part of the reason why the anti-climate change movement has so much steam behind it. Even blaming stuff like Hurricane Katrina on climate change was pretty bad, but this? It shouldn't be mentioned. It's senselessly injecting tangential politics into an already senselessly politicized issue. I'm sure someone has a very clever conjecture-heavy explanation for these claims, but I highly, highly, highly doubt that global warming was remotely significant in the genesis of any of th
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Indeed, from TFS: "having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency."
No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.
Which brings up a point. If you're serious about doing something about AGW/climate change, articles such as this one move the cause backward, not forward, by giving ammunition to AGM/cc opponents.
Re:Boko Haram? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, from TFS: "having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency."
No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.
Which brings up a point. If you're serious about doing something about AGW/climate change, articles such as this one move the cause backward, not forward, by giving ammunition to AGM/cc opponents.
Actually, not so much of a stretch. The civil war in Syria was preceded by a massive migration of people from rural to urban areas due to an unprecedented drought:
https://news.vice.com/article/... [vice.com]
Global warming doesn't directly cause civil wars, but migration and the resulting social instability most certainly does, and will.
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>No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.
Likely your bias contributed to your reading into this a claim never made, and that is that all climate change = Man made Global warming. Some are related, but if you re-read this article with that difference in mind, it is then true. That small localized changes will get worse as the world gets hotter is made more important by understanding how vulnerable the world is to small changes in local climate
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Re:Will? Would! (Score:5, Interesting)
Models predict temperature rises, temperature rises are observed. What you're doing is moving the goal posts so you can make it sound like your childish denial has any basis in fact.
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the only thing you proved is that the media has been sensationalizing and misreporting science for a very long time.
and you get modded down because the things you say are discredited BS, the same tired BS that gets trotted out by "skeptics" every time.
only thing is, a skeptic only gets to question until his question actually gets answered.
it is then, when begin ignoring science and still post the same BS that you are no longer a skeptic.
you are not a skeptic.
you are a troll, posting BS.
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There hasn't been a serious claim of global cooling in nearly half a century. This is like saying "Well, you know, up until relatively recently lots of people believed the sun circled the Earth."
Re:Climate change skeptic (Score:5, Insightful)
1. A primary method of convincing others is to ridicule and insult them. Notice the responses and downvotes this post will get.
Repeated ignorance in the face of facts deserves ridicule.
2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows. We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities.
Not in human history.
And the level sat at ~280pp for several million years without a die off in sight.
3. The temperature change we are seeing now is far from unusual, we've seen similar changes in both rate and magnitude before. In fact, what we are seeing now does not stand out from background noise.
Completely wrong.
The current rate is over 333,000x faster than anything that has come before.
4. Measuring temperatures from millions of years ago to tenths of a degree with any certainty is not realistic. Yet, that's what we're doing.
Wrong.
5. The measuring devices we use, known as Stevenson Screens, have approximately 70% of them improperly cited in such a way as to produce more than 2 degrees of error making it appear hotter (see http://www.surfacestations.org... [surfacestations.org]).
Still wrong.
6. We know some, perhaps a lot, of data has been fabricated (e.g. Yamal tree ring data) or manipulated in such a way as to produce the desired results (e.g. the so called hockey stick graph) and how it conveniently always gets colder in the past as data is adjusted.
Yep, wrong again.
7. We know from the ClimateGate email leaks that coordinated efforts to suppress any conflicting information/studies occurred and were successful.
Manufactured scandal.
IE, lies.
8. Many times the data and methodology of studies supporting AGW is not shared and that even occurs illegally in the refusal of FOIA requests.
Total fabrication
9. So many of the predicted side effects of AGW have not come to pass. For example, we were supposed to be seeing Katrina like hurricanes as the norm but instead the exact opposite happened and we have the longest stretch of reduced cyclonic activity since we began keeping records or the millions of climate refugees that were supposed to be created by now - the UN 62nd General assembly in July 2008 said: it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. They now say it'll be by 2020 - only a little over 3 years from now. It's not happening. [More here](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions/).
Actually 2012 was a record year for tropical storm damage, especially in areas that don't typically see much of them.
Cherry picking for only hurricanes, a geographically restricted term, leaves out rather a lot of the globe.
10. Experiments allegedly proving AGW are sometimes blatantly faked ([see here](https://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/)).
Link to nonscientists who lie about science, and get paid to do so.
11. The breakdown of the scientific method as it becomes science by consensus with massive reliance on appeals to authority and popularity as well as theories that are not falsifiable.
Myth.
12. Computer models are based on assumptions that may or may not be accurate, computer models are not necessarily "proof" of the future. For example, the "pause" of the last 15 years that is causing all the confusion now.
There was no confusion.
The Garbage Dumpster Argument [Re:Climate chan...] (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, the garbage dumpster argument: pile enough garbage up, and tell the reader somewhere in the dumpster one argument might be real; you need to wade through all the garbage to find it.
I don't have time to wade through all the garbage. I'll go with the three strikes you're out approach: if your first three arguments aren't convincing, I'll stop there.
There are lots of reasons I am skeptical of this: 1. A primary method of convincing others is to ridicule and insult them. Notice the responses and downvotes this post will get.
Not relevant.
2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history
Yep. And, you know what? All of those higher CO2 levels were associated with higher global temperatures! That's not evidence against the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming-- it's evidence for the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming
and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows..
Nope. Current levels are higher than it's ever been for as long as we can measure the CO2 record from ice cores, well over a million years. I think you're talking about really long ago. In that you'd be correct: carbon dioxide levels were higher before the Pleistocene. These were also, however, times when the Earth didn't have an ice cap or glaciers. So, again: this isn't evidence against the effect of carbon dioxide on climate-- it's evidence for it.
We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities.
Slightly misleading. Carbon dioxide increases plant growth-- but only in environments in which CO2 is the limiting resource, not other nutrients, water, or sunlight. In a greenhouse, where you make sure that the temperature, nutrients, and water are all optimal, sure, it's worth adding CO2. Outside, though, it's only one effect among many.
3. The temperature change we are seeing now is far from unusual, we've seen similar changes in both rate and magnitude before. In fact, what we are seeing now does not stand out from background noise.
Doesn't stand out from the background... over tens of millions of years. Even so, actually, the current rate of warming is pretty exceptional. It does, however, stand out from the background over the period in which we have good measurements of both temperature and of all the other forcing factors, such a solar irradiance. So: no.
Re: (Score:3)
"2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows. We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities."
We have seen vastly higher?
When? [wikipedia.org] Some time before 400,000 years ago?
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard to tell with some of the ACs whether one is reading a complete idiot's rant, or a satirical post. I'm assuming in this case that this is satire, because otherwise this would require such an extraordinary ignorance of basic geography that I'd have to assume the poster is likely a low-IQ halfwit.