Climate change broke houston weather again. (The official everyone gets a h[w]oosh thread)
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I don't know.
You made my concerns about the policies being proposed (and backed by IPCC), into I don't believe that the Earth could be in a warming trend.
But if there's any concern when you look at AGW, it's that the temperatures are not reversible.
Otherwise, you might say, sure we have 20 years of warming, with another 80 years that looks like warming if we collate all this data and fudge it with calculations to fit into the data we know to be accurate. But this is followed by 15 years of cooling that we know to be accurate too. We think we have some reasons why it is warming, and if the trend continues then we have evidence for it. But otherwise, there's not enough data.
And when we get enough data, and it turns out we are right, we can even explain why it cooled for a bit.
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Yeah. Obviously NASA needs to stick to space and not writing.
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All we've done, by creating a big barrier to discussing the topic (you're not a scientist, you can't rationally determine this information, so you must trust everything I say!), is polarized the discussion to the two extremes.
The world is ending.
There is no warming.
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All we've done, by creating a big barrier to discussing the topic (you're not a scientist, you can't rationally determine this information, so you must trust everything I say!), is polarized the discussion to the two extremes.
The world is ending.
There is no warming.Eh, the only people in here saying anything about the world is ending are the people saying there is no warming....
so................ you are the to your own discussion?
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left as an exercise to the reader.
hint: I haven't made either point
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The hilarious part is that we should be working towards economic change anyway -- no matter what our CO2 output is doing to the Earth's climate, we'll still likely need to use it as a knob on fuel consumption because we don't have that many other ones to play with that are politically acceptable, sadly.
We'll have to figure out some way to have the infrastructure in place so that when that black gold stops coming out of the ground (technology can delay that date, but not indefinitely), there won't be anybody sweating at night wondering if they'll be able to commute the next morning, or make their deliveries for the day, etal...
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If we let the market slowly adjust, then these oil companies will become alternative energy companies, as they have started to do already.
Chevron had 1.216 billion R&D 2011, and invested 500 million of their R&D into alternative energy in 2010.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/biofuels/oil-companies-promoting-alternative-energy1.htm
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Alternatively, the Cubs will win the World Series.
Poll: Which of these events is more likely?
[poll]- H. sapiens will become extinct due to AGW.
- The Cubs will win the World Series.
[/poll]
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Can't answer. There is no third option.
Poll: Which of these events is more likely?
[poll]- H. sapiens will become extinct due to AGW.
- The Cubs will win the World Series.
- The flying spaghetti monster will return to devour us all.
[/poll]
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The Cubbies are at least an actual baseball team (I mean...recognized by the league and stuff).
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So there is consensus on the team being real?
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So there is consensus on the team being real?
Real? Yes. However, there does not appear to be consensus on the probability of the Cubs winning the World Series, which I estimate to be 1/G.
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1/G.
Seriously, that's the best you can do?
Specific integers known to be far larger than Graham's number have since appeared in many serious mathematical proofs (e.g., in connection with Harvey Friedman's various finite forms of Kruskal's theorem).
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Real? Yes. However, there does not appear to be consensus on the probability of the Cubs winning the World Series, which I estimate to be 1/G.
I stand by my vote.
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And I stand my my claim that the world will end first — no matter how unlikely that particular version of the end of the world may be.
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But you didn't put that as an option in your poll, jerk.
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I would think that the other 4 horsemen adequately cover all the results of any doomsday scenario.
In our AGW case, being primarily Famine, followed by Death.
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Brothers, we have a new horseman.
Global warming...
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Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion and “unbridled consumption,” and will become extinct, perhaps within a century, along with many other species.
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I 'd you on that somewhere up there.
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Ah, so you did. But no linky, so only
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But you didn't put that as an option in your poll, jerk.
I stand by my poll as-is. Given the extremely low probability of the Cubs winning the World Series, however much you disbelieve AGW, it's more likely than the Cubs winning.
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it's more likely than the Cubs winning.
Nah...player's union goes on strike, season / playoffs played with replacements. Meteor strikes in NY and San Francisco. It could totally happen.
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Maybe, but
Meteor strikes in NY and San Francisco
brings us sufficiently close to the end of the world scenario that I suspect not too many people (outside Chicago) would care who won the Series.
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Or exactly when Louisiana turned into Greater Gulf of Mexico.
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not too many people (outside Chicago) would care who won the Series.
That's true. I know I'd be focused on how SF finally got what was coming to it.
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Perhaps, but since my son lives there, I'd be more than a little unhappy.
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If we let the market slowly adjust, then these oil companies will become alternative energy companies, as they have started to do already.
The problem is that market adjustments are cyclical -- crude prices are too noisy to suffice alone as a long-term driver away from fossil fuels, although they do provide a good starting point. Hence, the need for funding for alternative-energy research (whether it be mainstream or obscure) during low points in the fossil fuel markets.
I agree re: fuels companies contributing to renewables research though -- in the long run, this won't kill companies that have a long-term vision, or the inherent ability to be a part of the renewables ecosystem. (Liquid hydrocarbons and alcohols will likely outlive fossil fuel extraction, for one.)
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I'm much more concerned that we'll either break the economy, or yellowstone will explode and kill off North America, than I am about +5 degrees increase in temperature.
Now do anti-vax!
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need to use it as a knob ... because we don't have that many other ones to play with
To me, the hilarious part is that the conservatives are the ones trying to maintain our current rate of progress, and the liberals are the ones trying to slow it down.
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Yes but the thing their trying to maintain is progress. Conservatives hate progress. Irony!
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Are those words no longer synonyms?
Not when we're talking politics. An American conservative is what used to be called a liberal (now you could say classical liberal).
Yes but the thing their trying to maintain is progress. Conservatives hate progress. Irony!
They hate it or they're trying to maintain the current rate? Asking for a friend.
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I figure they like the technological and economic progress, because who wouldn't, but then they turn around and complain about the social progress it inevitably brings with it.
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Why would I?
Vaccines have a proven track record, with real experiments with control groups, and actual observations on long term effects. And they exist because we know exactly how the body interacts with vaccines.
Again, the problem with criticizing any aspect of "global war...climate cha... token word" is that you get strawmanned into being a flat-earther.
"You don't think the earth is warming?"
"You don't think the climate can change?""That's not the discussion"
"OMG, do you think the earth is flat? What cult did you join"
The problem with that form of patronizing is that it just polarizes all the conversations until both sides start making absurd claims and rhetoric.
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Again, the problem with criticizing any aspect of "global war...climate cha... token word" is that you get strawmanned into being a flat-earther.
"You don't think the earth is warming?""You don't think the climate can change?"
"That's not the discussion"
"OMG, do you think the earth is flat? What cult did you join"
here he goes again. how meta, making a strawmen about strawmen.
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All we have to do is live another 50 years to see!
“They had two guys whose job it was to go around and persuade everyone that we’re all trying the ruin the economy.
“We pinned them down on this hiatus… they were arguing that yes, there might have been a hiatus, but warming might be going into the ocean, or it could be due to volcanic activity. So we asked at what point would you begin to accept there had been no warming. If there is no warming for five years, or ten years?
“Finally they conceded they would wait fifty years.
“We asked would that be fifty years from now, or fifty years from 1997, when the hiatus started? They said they wouldn’t change their mind for fifty years from now.
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a quote from a politician paraphrasing scientists?
clearly THAT is the one truth.what with all the posts made here, it sounds to me like all the pressure is AGAINST scientists on global warming, which by apparently most logic here means we should believe the scientists because the politics are evil. <!-- :trolleybus --->
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what with all the posts made here, it sounds to me like all the pressure is AGAINST scientists on global warming
Are you suggesting that we here at TDWTF are in any way representative of the general population?
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what with all the posts made here, it sounds to me like all the pressure is AGAINST scientists on global warming
I don't know what you mean by "pressure." I'm just pointing out that based on what the scientists are finding, saying that it looks like we're headed for catastrophic climate change is unsupported.
which by apparently most logic here means we should believe the scientists because the politics are evil.
Are you trying to imitate @xaade here?
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I'm just pointing out that based on what the scientists are finding, saying that it looks like we're headed for catastrophic climate change is unsupported.
Oh, we're headed for catastrophic climate change alright; it'll happen any time between now and ~5 billion years in the future when the Sun turns into a red giant and boils the planet ;)
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Oh, we're headed for catastrophic climate change alright; it'll happen many times between now and ~5 billion years in the future
FTFYAll that remains is to (try to) figure out when, and in which direction, the next such change will be.
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“Finally they conceded they would wait fifty years.
It was 1% chance at 20 years hiatus.
TIL 1% is still certainty.
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More political polarization.
People commit mass murders because they don't agree with climate change.
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He didn't quite make that leap.
But isn’t ignorance at the root of racism?
Maybe. I don't think it's all as simple as that.
But critically thinking individuals recognize racism as wrong and undesirable, even if they aren’t yet able to eliminate every morsel of bias from their own psyches or from social institutions.
I think this guy thinks critical thinking means "thinks like I do."
Whatever his IQ, to some extent he is a product of a culture driven by fear and emotion, not rational thinking, and his actions reflect the paranoid mentality of one who fails to grasp basic notions of what it means to be human.
Interestingly, this is what I think is at the root of most people's belief in CAGW. They certainly don't have a rational understanding of it. Several commenters (or at least one) have said that we can't have one, unless we devote our lives to its study. I think that's wrong, of course, at least at a basic level.
Corporate influence on climate and environmental policy, meanwhile, is simply more evidence of anti-intellectualism in action, for corporate domination of American society is another result of a public that is not thinking critically.
Americans have allowed their democracy to slip away, their culture overtaken by enormous corporations that effectively control both the governmental apparatus and the media, thus shaping life around materialism and consumption.
Of course, he doesn't say it, but everything he says seems to put him in the camp of people who want to give more power to government, because that would surely make it a less interesting and useful thing for powerful / rich people to influence to their benefit.
I'm very critical of his thinking.
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Interestingly, this is what I think is at the root of most people's belief in CAGW.
Citizens Against Government Waste?
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Probably. I'm sure I'd be amazed at how ignorant people are if I wasn't so ignorant about how ignorant they are.
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this is what I think is at the root of most people's belief in CAGW. They certainly don't have a rational understanding of it. Several commenters (or at least one) have said that we can't have one, unless we devote our lives to its study. I think that's wrong, of course, at least at a basic level.
One of the arguments that has been profferred here AGAINST scientific global warming hypotheses is that it's too complex for scientists to possibly fully model and predict, surely you wouldn't then turn around and claim that you could understand it well enough by yourself to feel certain that those scientists are wrong?