We're Creating a Perfect Storm of Unprecedented Global Warming (popsci.com) 620
An anonymous reader shares a report: If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by the end of this century the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, according to a new study out today in the journal Nature Communications. This period -- roughly 15 million years after dinosaurs went extinct and 49.8 million years before modern humans appeared on the scene -- was 16F to 25F warmer than the modern norm. [...] During the Eocene, it took more atmospheric CO2 to influence temperatures than it does today. In fact, if we don't change our behavior, 2100 will be as hot as the Eocene with much less atmospheric CO2 than was present at the time. A hotter sun means we get more bang for our CO2 buck. "Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about," said lead study author Gavin Foster, a researcher in isotope geochemistry and paleoceanography at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton. "It's certainly true, that the CO2 was high in the past and that it was warm in the past. But because the sun was dimmer, the climate wasn't being forced as much [as it will be] in the future if we carry on as we are."
Not our problem. We'll be dead by then. (Score:5, Funny)
The kids and grand kids are on their own. Best of luck to them.
Re: Not our problem. We'll be dead by then. (Score:4, Informative)
YOLO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
But 9-14C is way outside of the consensus view. They need to have strong evidence of this fantastic claim.
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Ooh, can you do me a favour? Can you just quickly remind me of the last time that it was much hotter than this and there were 7bn humans on the planet and a civilisation I'm really quite attached to? Cos I really couldn't give two fucks if dinosaurs or voles or tree ferns or sharks can survive, or if humans can survive but only in apocalyptic conditions. I'd like our civilisation to survive too.
Re: Not our problem. We'll be dead by then. (Score:3)
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Well, I *could* do you that favour, but if you've managed to get to the stage in your life where:
1. you're able to string a coherent sentence together
2. you haven't already seen information on the devastating effects of a 4degree rise that you consider credible
3. you consider that a point about summer/winter temperature to be facetious-yet-worth-making-anyway
it's pretty clear you're a lost cause and not worth the effort.
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Science doesn't happen by consensus
Science itself has nothing to do with consensus, but policy does.
and still throwing out or "adjusting" data to fit the predetermined conclusions
If data is not adjusted, people rightfully complain about urban heat islands, and changes in thermometer technology/placement. If data is adjusted, people scream manipulation. So, what is it ? And if there's something wrong about the methods that are used, why don't deniers grab the raw data and run their own analysis ?
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No, it takes a moron to think that all the climate change doom and gloom is bullshit -- a moron or someone with a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
And, as I'm sure you've ignored before: The problem isn't about the absolute temperature we're likely to reach. The problem is about the rate that the temperature is changing. In particular, its changing faster than many forms of life (especially plant life that isn't very mobile) can adapt.
Will all life on earth go extinct? Probably not. Will human
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Science doesn't happen by consensus. It happens by rigorous proof and verifiable, repeatable testing of a (hopefully null) hypothesis.
But consensus does happen by science. Consensus in science is an organic thing that happens when most of the scientists in a field accept a concept and move on to arguing the details. The over 90% consensus in climate science that global warming is caused primarily by the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that the increase is mainly anthropogenic in origin is not based on models but on basic physics.
The Earth isn't going to "die" from global warming but it may well cause the collapse of o
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Science happens by consensus. How else do you tell if the science is good? We look for a lot of smart people who have studied the subject. When most of them agree, we're pretty confident in the science. Of course, someone can always come along and upset the applecart, but that doesn't happen all that often, and so far nobody's done it in climate science.
Re: Not our problem. We'll be dead by then. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a very serious accusation. Do you have any evidence to support it? Climategate tried but failed to find any scientific misconduct, but if you know something the investigators didn't, please speak up.
If claims of "doom and gloom" are all it takes to convince you that something is false, then please be aware that you are an easily manipulated person. You should learn to become more skeptical.
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As I said you are idiot. Even to dumb to check my posting history.
Bet it happens before 2100 (Score:5, Funny)
Trump is hell bent on making it happen by 2020.
This is the best global warming in the world. It's fantastic global warming.
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Trump is hell bent on making it happen by 2020.
This is the best global warming in the world. It's fantastic global warming.
And Mar-a-lago will be under salt water, probably a lot sooner.
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Hey now, let's be fair. These same flappy heads were claiming that Manhattan Island and Florida would be under water by 2000(when I was a kid in the 1980's), and again by 2010, then 2012, and the latest ones screaming it'll be by 2025, and then there's the ones saying 2060 and then there's the others saying by 2100 too. You also can't forget the other alarmist stuff, like acid rain will destroy all the trees by 1995. The ozone hole will make it so you can't go outside except at night. The world will run
Re:Bet it happens before 2100 (Score:5, Insightful)
And the real problem is that the averages of what scientists are saying are longer term than people's attention span. Regular people don't think a few inches of ocean rising or a few degrees of average temperature are a big deal, but they can't comprehend that it's because of how QUICKLY the changes are happening, not how MUCH it's changing. Unfortunately, the only way to get people to pay attention to humanity-ending long-term (for humans aka short term for nature) problems is to be alarmist about them.
And we REALLY need to stop talking about "saving the Earth". The Earth will be fine, we couldn't destroy it if we tried. It'll be spinning along around the sun way after we're gone. It's HUMANS and lots of animals / plants that will be wiped off the planet if we don't drastically change how we interact with nature.
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You are mixing up scientists with news reporters ....
No scientist ever claimed that enough ice will have melted till what ever year you pick from your list ....
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Do you people actually believe this shit, or are you being paid by Shareblue?
They probably get paid for it. They have to find some way to distract from the fact that Susan Rice has likely committed multiple felonies and mass constitutional violations.
and that would be a bad thing... because? (Score:2, Insightful)
Short of completely wrecking the global economy or starting a major nuclear war, no government policy is going to have an appreciable effect on climate.
Good climate for primates and mammals, and generally life on the planet. Milder, wetter conditions everywhere. [wikipedia.org] More arable land, fewer deserts. We should be so lucky. Unfortunately, that's not goi
Re:and that would be a bad thing... because? (Score:5, Insightful)
Short of completely wrecking the global economy or starting a major nuclear war, no government policy is going to have an appreciable effect on climate.
I find it interesting that many pooh-poohers have suddenly switched from no, not true, not happening to nothing can be done. I mean, this is something like the fourth or fifth one in this thread, whereas even a week ago this was an unusual response. Was there a focus group somewhere that said this is more effective? Didn't your marketing people think this message is a bit too dark for the average mark?
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There is nothing "sudden" about it; the view that government is incapable of having meaningful, long-term positive impact on the economy has been the primary message of free market economists since Adam Smith.
Have you read Adam Smith, because that's not what he says...
Re:and that would be a bad thing... because? (Score:5, Informative)
There is nothing "sudden" about it; the view that government is incapable of having meaningful, long-term positive impact on the economy has been the primary message of free market economists since Adam Smith.
What is sudden is this belief. Adam Smith, all modern economists and all economists in between those two see an absolutely massive long-term meaningful positive impact of government on the free market....they're kind of the only entity out there that is capable of freeing markets and creating a playing field that a market can thrive on. Without a solid governmental foundation, all markets become non-free or in best case massively shrink. Adam Smith spends huge chunks of his page counts about the need for a government in order to create free markets....he just then cautions that too much meddling in the economy is very bad. But he sees a major role of governments in allowing and encouraging accumulation, and investment in capital, as well as enforcing contracts, providing for safety of markets and goods, weeding out counterfeit goods, and in general setting the rules of the economic game. Without proper government intervention in the economy, he explicitly states that the markets would fail. He was liberal-democratic for the time, and definitely not libertarian or laissez-faire.
clickbait? (Score:3)
Warning; turn scripts off before following the link
Great news for Chicago... (Score:3)
Re:I also performed a study. (Score:5, Insightful)
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
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the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
We need to STOP letting the low IQ spout their stupidity. Point at them yell "STUPID" and do it in public and in groups.
Re:I also performed a study. (Score:5, Funny)
the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
You sound like an elitist. The opinions of those who say west is just as valid. Who are you to tell them they're wrong?
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I don't care about your "facts" and "definitions". I have alternative facts that show the sun rises in the west!! You sound just like one of those know-it-all academics.
Next you'll probably try to convince me that homeopathy isn't real and that it's just water, and that all the people who believe otherwise are wrong.
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Then the answer is still correct but is less meaningful to that person.
Re: I also performed a study. (Score:2)
In what way is that answer still correct? The sun rises in the South at the North Pole.
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If they took a step or two backward from the North Pole then the Sun would then appear to be rising in the West. So the ones who believe things like this are the ones who are a little backwards.
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Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
Forget the real world.
Because real-world results don't matter.
What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
Sunrise: east or west? Comparing prediction (Score:3, Informative)
Forget the real world. >Because real-world results don't matter. What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
If you are snarking about climate models, in fact the climate models have been remarkably accurate over the last fifty years. Here's the Berkeley Earth comparison between models and measurements: http://static.berkeleyearth.or... [berkeleyearth.org] (See also: https://www.skepticalscience.c... [skepticalscience.com] https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com] )
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
You ARE aware that satellite measurements are heavily corrected, right? The satellites see a line-of-sight average of microwave emissions, and there is a rather long and controversial process to turn m
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At a guess?
The one backed by considerably more than 90% of the academic experts in the field.
But who knows. Maybe unqualified Anonymous Coward #7687123 is correct...
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Considering the way truly insane places like Iran and North Korea are building Nukes and ICBMs I predict that by 2100 we'll have a nuclear winter that will solve the global warming crisis.
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I predict that by 2100 we'll have a nuclear winter that will solve the global warming crisis.
That would solve the population problem as nuclear winter will present a different set of problems.
The relativity of wrong (Score:5, Informative)
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Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people.
No, he wasn't. He only won 44% of the vote in his election in 1933, and less in previous elections.
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Wow, so he was an authoritarian fascist who won the election without winning the popular vote!
Re: I also performed a study. (Score:5, Informative)
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people
To which election do you refer? The 1932 Presidential one, where he got 30.1% and 36.8% in the first and second rounds respectively, or the 1933 Federal election, where NSDAP (the NAZI party) got 43.91%?
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The number of Hitler supporters was undoubtedly inflated by fear and the social inability to form adequate resistance.
The number of doctors who believed in bloodletting was inflated by the lack of technology which now allows for advanced research and instantaneous communication.
Both of these are improved in our culture today.
Re:I wish I could trust "academic experts". (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, just look at all of the colleges that still teach UML, despite industry having tried it and rejected it almost two decades ago now.
Two points:
The defense industry actually uses UML. Of course, the defense industry has paid $400 billion for a crappy fighter jet that can't dogfight...
"Industry" came up with the Windows 8/10 "Metro" UI, and the current flat-UI fad, with frameworks upon frameworks and web pages that take forever to load because they're loading many megabytes of crap so they can display a little bit of text. The computer industry these days is a complete disaster on the software side.
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Re:I wish I could trust "academic experts". (Score:5, Insightful)
The first problem can be summed up with the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, research.".
That's not the old saying. You just made it up.
Re:I wish I could trust "academic experts". (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? We're going to mark an evidence-less rant against researchers as +5, Interesting?
Look around your life. How many people do you know? How many of them would stab you in the back for a buck? I hope that number would be very small. If it isn't, you're in the wrong place.
I went to a school focused on science. Of the number of folks I hung out with, extremely few (less than 10%) struck me as idiots, cheats, or liars. The rest I'd trust with my life. I find it extremely hard to believe I went to the only university where the majority of students were honest, dependable folks.
I'm sure as heck not going to trust the trillion dollar fossil fuel industry whose entire existence is on the line.
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There's very little real competition in academia.
On the contrary, there's a lot of fierce competition in academia. The problem is that it's all about grant money or politics, and has little to do with academic excellence.
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The one backed by the vast majority of scientist trained in the subject matter.
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If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,
but.... we HAVE been doing things to reduce our CO2 emissions. so.... fear mongering??
Dude, we're already IN an Ice Age. . . (Score:3)
. . . .and merely between continental glacial advances. Another of which is due Real Soon Now*
(* Real Soon Now in Geologic terms, meaning some time in the next ~10,000 years. . . .)
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Informative)
No, they said the INCREASE in average temperature had nothing to do with increased output from the sun. (Smacks AC with sandal).
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The sun isn't hotter compared to a few decades ago. The sun is hotter compared to millions of years ago. There's no contradiction.
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Why would anyone look at Mars to see if the Sun is getting hotter, when you can directly look at the Sun ?
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Informative)
A few years back they were saying the average temperature has nothing to do with the output of the sun. I found that strange. Now they are saying that things will be hotter than predicted because the sun is hotter?
Suns output increases by about 10% per billion years while it remains close to the main sequence.
50,000,000 years ago is 5% of 1 billion
Industrial revolution started about 300 years ago.
300 is 0.000003% of 1 billion.
Change in solar output since 50 million years ago is a small but substantial 0.5% percent. Change during the period of concerted human meddling is less than a rounding error at 0.0000003%
To put all of this into perspective an increased solar output of only 10% of todays output is sufficient to trigger irreversible moist earth runaway leading to surface temperatures measured in thousands of degrees.
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As the temperature rises, the volume of air increases.
Either the air is expanding outwards and/or pressure increases.
If the case is the latter; the sky IS falling!
Re:Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Informative)
Really. Isn't this getting old and tired.
Yes the climate is changing. Yes it's caused by Humans. No it can't be fixed.
It is impossible to change or reverse. Sorry - we can't stop murdering each other as it is. How can we stop global warming? Answer. We can't.
Just plan for the inevitable and stop screaming the sky is falling. O.L.D. F.*.C.K.I.N.G. N.E.W.S.
Ughh
There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
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No, there is no difference at all. It's lunacy to think that the rightwingnuts are going anywhere any time soon, and in fact, we just elected them into power here in the US.
We just need to get used to it, and figure out how we (some of us, not the rightwingnuts) can deal with the effects during our lifetimes.
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Don't think it's the #rightwingnuts who are busy saying "we'd rather have coal and gas than nuclear for our baseload"....
IOW, when the alarmists start calling for new nuclear construction, I'll start taking them seriously....
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"The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
The problem is the left wing nuts' plan is...pay lots of taxes to be redistributed to other countries while the political elite scrape trillions off the top, and we exempt China and India so the planet gets cooked anyway.
Vote for the right wing nuts and we all die. Vote for the left wing nuts and we all die poor. Tough choice.
Acid rain (Score:5, Informative)
I do however agree it's "old news".
Re:Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Insightful)
Strongly disagree. We have the technology, money, and the bit of willpower needed to fix it. I don't like to believe "the future will solve it" but there's a chance that the prices of renewable vs. fossil energy may even fix global warming for us. The only things standing in the way of victory are denialists, their fossil fuel company puppetmasters, and defeatists like you.
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No it can't be fixed.
Humans could fix it.
Sadly, capitalists are in power.
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No, humans can't fix it. Humans elected the politicians who say it isn't a problem, and humans (even here, or should I say "especially here" as this site is a far-right-wing haven) will argue till they're blue in the face that climate change is a "hoax".
I understand wanting to blame things on the people at the top, I really do. But this is unfair and counterproductive here. The "climate deniers" are everyday, regular people all across America, people who just elected our new President and stuffed Congres
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This is basically the way I feel about it now. It's pointless to worry about it or fight it; we're just fucked, and that's it. There's nothing we can do, because we're simply too stupid as a species to fix the problem in time. Some small well-managed countries full of smart people should probably work on anticipating the effects and working proactively to mitigate them, but the rest of us are screwed.
Re:Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Interesting)
After climate change the next extinction level problem is the Y10K problem. When four digit years need to be expanded to five digit years. In about the year 9997, everyone will start talking about this problem. But I'll get a jump on this. In the year 9995 I will seriously start learning COBOL which is a skill that will offer many consulting opportunities for the Y10K problem.
Your plan? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US and many western countries have been curbing CO2 emissions. China, India, Russia, and others have been increasing. The US can control it's own policies, but not those of foreign States. Hell, we can't stop the DPRK from developing nuclear weapons and missile technology, which has a far bigger impact on the environment than global warming. We can't stop China from creating man made islands in the South China Sea, which again has far bigger impact on the climate (loss of ocean habitat, destruction of ecosystems, etc..)
So what is _your_ magic plan exactly? Tell China to give some entity money so that they can ignore your request? Tell Russia to stop industrial work so that they can laugh at you? How about having some invisible entity with no plans either selling you "Carbon Credits" so that you simply lose money yourself?
In case you haven't noticed, the latter question is the only one that has been proposed. Al Gore, supra genius, flying around in his private jet with his entourage renting massive bullet proof SUVs is proof that people in power don't give a rats behind about fixing any Climate problems. They want power, which includes your money and livelihood.
Until you come up with a solution, there is no possible way to deal with this issue with any immediacy. You are on par with demanding world peace and harmony, in that it sounds good but won't work because "human nature".
Re:Your plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Carbon cap and tax. No trade. That is the answer. If you want to emit more carbon than the cap, you have to fix carbon. And the cap should be small.
Carbon trading is a scam which should never have been permitted to become a thing. Cap and trade is not really capping. But cap and tax is completely viable. If a business can't survive under such a scheme they should get out of the way so that someone more efficient can get the job done.
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No business can survive a tax of $300/tonne. Which is what Trudeau wants to push here in Canada, it would crash our economy overnight.
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It's brilliant, really. Economies allow your government to enslave you (via debt and consumerist treadmills of dopamine loops). Crash it, and you become free.
Well that's one way to look at it if you're a malthusian, or have a pro-antipopulation agenda or something. Or just want people to die because they can no longer afford anything.
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Not even if those businesses put up solar panels or buy their electricity from carbon-free sources?
Not even if that $300/tonne were used to eliminate the need for a minimum wage or otherwise reduce the cost of doing business?
Faced with a $300/tonne tax, wouldn't new businesses sprout up that help other businesses find ways to avoid that tax?
I think you underestimate the ability of people to innovate.
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No business can survive a tax of $300/tonne. Which is what Trudeau wants to push here in Canada, it would crash our economy overnight.
It's $50/tonne by 2022 [theglobeandmail.com]. Which is 1/6th of what you claim.
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You must have a very strange idea what a "tonne" is.
$300 tax on CO2 per tonne, that is nothing.
Suppose you have car that uses 10l diesel on 100km, that would be 2.6kg CO2. You can make nearly 400 (384) 100km far travels with a car to produce one tonne of CO2. That would mean each travel would roughly be $1 more expensive. Or in other words: to pay $300 in CO2 tax for your car you need to travel something like close to 40,000km (and need a car with a relatively high diesel consumption)
Usual fear-mongering (Score:3)
We had a carbon tax in Australia, back in 2012. Started out at A$23/tonne and increased slowly, with initially-large (90%) waivers for major polluters that were also set to phase out over time. Proceeds from the tax were largely returned directly to the population via tax cuts to offset the small projected price bump, with the rest invested in carbon-neutral energy alternatives and climate mitigation.
The (right-wing) opposition, egged on by our big coal sector, swore up & down that it would lead to spir
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Canadians are mostly white. I'm sure the white Canadians will be welcomed by those trying to curb immigration in the US.
I'm an immigrant, but because I look white, I don't get much ire directed at me. I'm sure you Canadians will be equally welcomed.
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Canadians are mostly white. I'm sure the white Canadians will be welcomed by those trying to curb illegal immigration in the US.
I fixed that for you. Just a FYI, Canadians feel the same way for the most part about illegal immigration as Americans do. But if you travel into one of the cesspools like Toronto, you'd find it's more like San Fransisco in it's view. And even your average Canadian is getting tired of it. [financialpost.com]
Not a plan (Score:2)
And your plan as I said has no impact on what other people will do, or have been doing. China does not give a shit about your position, they care about economic power and growth (as well as protecting that power with Military). The same can be said of India, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, etc.. etc.. Are you going to stop purchasing cheaply made goods from China and India to support your plan? Are you going to demand companies in the US stop all foreign trade with carbon producing countries like China
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And the cap should be small.
Because nothing is more important than climate change. Not even the factors like overpopulation that make climate change a problem in the first place.
Re:Your plan? (Score:4, Interesting)
So what is _your_ magic plan exactly?
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
And we had it too - a nuclear reactor that used up spent fuel from the old reactors and was easy to scale without weapons proliferation concerns. The US Labs had one running very well for a couple years ("thanks GHWB?" omg) until the project was attacked, defunded, then cancelled by the hit squad of: Hazel O'Leary, John Kerry, and Senate President ... Al Gore.
We should have had 1100 of these things running by now but we're talking about "bringing back coal" because politicians fuck everything up. Oh, but they want more money and power to "save us" from global warming.
If you want to stop AGW you either need to believe that this time Lucy will hold the ball for the field kick, or examine the empirical evidence and accept that as long as politicians are in charge, this problem will not be solved. The AGW crowd is chock-full of history deniers, unfortunately.
Re:Your plan? (Score:5, Informative)
The US and many western countries have been curbing CO2 emissions. China, India, Russia, and others have been increasing
At the moment it is actually Europe, China and India who are seeing the need for climate control and pushing for renewable energy sources, whereas it's the US trump administration who is singing the praises of fossil fuels and degrading environmental policy to a footnote.
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The whole climate change debacle is a power and money game, with more power going to centralized government and more money being collected and redistributed by said government.
Now cue the shrieking teenagers and downmods.
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Agreed, you being pissed off is retarded and irrelevant.
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Re:An Industrial Revolution 50 million years ago?! (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
Re:An Industrial Revolution 50 million years ago?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
I never understood this argument (the one you are replying to, not yours). Even if it is natural, do they think that it is somehow not going to affect us? I mean, we know it's happening. The cause won't make a difference to people in a hundred years or so who are having to deal with the fallout of it if it keeps on the course we are on now. We (well future humans, not most of us) are fucked if it's natural or man made. At least if it's man-made we have some options to prevent it. If it's natural, then maybe we can at least slow it down or reduce the effects somewhat by curbing our own contributions to it. So either way, isn't it kind of a good idea to go that route? I realize it comes at a cost but isn't it worth it either way?
Re:An Industrial Revolution 50 million years ago?! (Score:5, Interesting)
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In all fairness, there's nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is going to be fine. Give it another couple million years and it will once again be full of all kinds of diverse life in every corner, with hardly any indication that we were ever here beyond a thin little geographic layer containing traces of plastic and other things. The planet is going to be fine. We aren't, but the planet is under no threat. The push to solve climate change is a push to help people, not the planet. We're trying to
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Can anybody tell me more about the humans and their Industrial Revolution that happened 50 million years ago to cause this earlier global warming incident?
Well, we could point you at the Wikipedia pages that explain all this [wikipedia.org], but you'll only accuse it of being warmist fake science and cherry-pick this for any uncertainties or unknowns which you can claim disprove the whole thing... While also missing the point that these were changes that took place over tens of millions of years and could have been driven by things like continental drift and very slow variations in orbit or solar output... rather than a few billion stupid apes digging up and burning every sc
Re:Hotter sun (Score:4, Informative)
You mean to say the sun is hotter and, as a result, is having an effect?
The sun is slowly getting hotter, over millions of years, due to hydrogen slowly turning into helium, with greater density, following a standard progression for stars of this type.
This means that for the same CO2 levels, the Earth is getting hotter now than it did before.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Over the few hundred years of industrialisation, solar impact is negligible. Over the 50 million years since the Eocene, obviously less so.
Edit: diatribe, how appropriate
Re:Hotter sun (Score:5, Informative)
The AGW experts(and media, and talking heads) have been telling us for decades, that the sun(aka solar changes) have no impact. None
You seem to have problems understanding the difference of "decades" vs "millions of years".
Re: (Score:3)
You seem to have problems with reading. A quote from one your articles:
Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity
Which is exactly what I said.
Re: (Score:3)
Which is exactly what I said.
Sure, but you're continuing to miss the point. You figure it out yet or no?
Gentlemen please, this can be settled with simple science.
All we need to be absolutely sure of AGW is a duplicate Earth, but without the humans. We implement a second Earth as it was 200 years ago, remove the humans, and run the clock out.
To increase the fidelity of the test, we simply create more Earths.
Re: (Score:2)
We live in a society where we are expected to provide for ourselves, exception being libtards, millennials, and Hitlery voters.
The same self-sufficient people who don't know that Social Society and Medicare are government programs that Republicans would love to eliminate and may get a chance to do so under Trump.
[...] and start working on environmentally friendly alternatives to fuel and coal.
Wind and solar? Oh, wait. That was a priority under Obama. Coal mining jobs are a priority for the Trump Administration, looking backward and not forward.
We can't walk 40 miles to work every day.
I and 40 other people take the express bus to travel 50+ miles per day.
Re:Don't be stupid... (Score:4, Insightful)
His point was that the government need not be the primary driver in this change.
Who else is going to pay for this change? Industry will not if they can get away with doing business as usual. For example, the civilian electrical grid is vulnerable to EMP attacks. A well-known problem that no one industry wants to fix much less pay for.
If solar/wind are viable, then private industry, driven by concerned environmentalists, are absolutely free to go out and change the way we generate power.
Has the oil industry given up their tax subsidies?
Our electric companies aren't owned and run by the government.
No, but they're regulated by the government. If the government says, "coal bad, natural gas good," as it has been for decades, the industry will move towards liquid gas generators. One of the reason why coal is dying as an industry, and will continue to do so not matter what the Trump Administration does, is that natural gas is inexpensive and natural gas plants are replacing coal plants.
Re: (Score:2)
haters like you make life worse for everyone
As a moderate conservative, I can reassure you that the Republican Party is already extinct. Just like the political dinosaurs before them, it'll take a while for the memo to circulate.
Re: (Score:3)
Thank you for your input. Your concerns have been noted. But at this time we're unlikely to suspend scientific inquiry for a site that proclaims to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"
People usually won't stop shouting that your house is on fire when you're sitting in your easy chair shaking your head "no it's not". That's just human nature, even if it is tedious and annoying.
There are plenty of other doomsday religions that are way more popular than this one. Perhaps we could convert to one of those.
Re: (Score:3)
The unusually tough drought in Syria contributed to the civil war there.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Then unfortunately, you thought wrong.
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_o... [ar5-syr.ipcc.ch] does describe solar irradiance and even puts a figure on the estimated amount it provides to the total radiative forcing. So solar (and other natural forcings) do have something to do with climate change, its just that they are swamped by our activity.
Feel free to use hyperbole, but because this is a site for nerds, when you do, it just makes you sound like a bit of a pillock.