Isn't this what the global warming debate is actually all about?
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Gosh, I have so much work to do, I feel like blogging.....
A dialogue/debate is starting up over this whole concept of a "middle ground" on global warming, or the idea that one can be a "non-skeptic heretic." See here and here and just generally all over the place.
Labels are dangerous, so let me…
Does it bother you when people say: "Wow, it's been so cold this winter, so much for global warming."? And you have to remind them that global warming means that the average temperature of the earth is increasing, and that, in fact, the average temperature of North America is predicted to get…
Last week, the Star Tribune published an article on global warming that included this foolish statement:
"If we compare the debate over the theory of evolution with the debate over the theory of global warming — global warming's a whole lot more certain at the moment," said Jim Drummond, a…
I see that Tim Blair has decided to quote mine me. As part of my analysis of Cockburn's crankery I made the following statement.
Below the fold I'll summarize Cockburn's arguments and how they use the denialist tactics, George Monbiot's responses (including his amazing crank-fu!) and discuss why…
That god-fellah will sort things out, without any help from them ther pesky librels, eh!
FTW!!
Where was this succinct and cogent takedown when we needed it a day or two ago, to fight all that "Pascal's Wager" nonsense in the first Randi thread?
Oh how I wish the denialists are right, but they're probably not.
This image needs to remind us that even if AGW/CC is all bark and no bite, we still need to take much better care of the environment we live in and make some changes for the better.
Joel Pett's political cartoons are worth a visit at Pens and Needles
"That god-fellah will sort things out, without any help from them ther pesky librels, eh!"
I don't know about that. I'm pretty clueless on this whole thing.
Actually I think the crux of it is "What if it's all a hoax and we make a better world for everyone rather than the best possible world for us at the expense of everyone else?"
The Global Warming debate we are having in America is a product of our everyone is special and unique culture that produces nonsense like participation ribbons and the idea that everyone's idea, however ill-informed or idiotic, is worthy of consideration and respect.
Better world my ass. More bait and switch.
I didn't see the holy grail of exponential unsunstainable population growth on that board. Should have been the number one point.
but
but
ALLLLLLLLLLL
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE
I don't understand why the global warming issue has politicized the way it has, namely, the right's denialism that AGW exists or its questioning of the advocates' motives. You'd think the right, with its dominator world view, would latch onto AGW science as a new tool to increase man's mastery over the forces of nature. Don't conservatives and libertarians want man to have the ability to control Earth's climate, like an advanced civilization from science fiction?
@history punk,
While that might have something to do with it (the idea that every viewpoint is worthy, despite evidence or lack thereof), I think it has more to do with powerful self-interested parties that are willing to fuck over other people for their own gain (which is an excellent definition of evil).
In almost every case of AGW denialist propaganda, the funding comes directly or indirectly from parties that have a profit interest in arresting AGW research. They then have the balls to claim that AGW research is only interested in continued funding, that the scientists are only in it for the money. This ignores the idea that scientists can get funding for all kinds of things. Available public funding does not increase that tremendously. Sure, the total amount available specifically for AGW research goes up, but usually at the expense of other research.
Meanwhile, funding for AGW denialism is a fresh funding source, usually at the expense of PR budgets, or perhaps from the Christmas bonuses of oil industry workers. This is new money for any scientist willing to shill out for corporations, and cloud the actual issues with half-truths and misinformation.
Not that I believe these scientists are necessarily lying. They quite likely believe what they say. But it's easier to believe what you say when the paycheck is very nice, and you're not scrabbling for research dollars (which is usually predicated by results).
Aaaaanyway, all I'm say is that Purple Ribbon syndrome isn't the only (or even the primary) factor involved. Carefully crafted misinformation is more at fault than some strange view that all opinions are equal. The general public is getting views from "scientists" from both sides, so all other things being equal, it's hard to tell whom one should believe.
After all, not all laypeople are equipped to understand the scientific method, let alone evaluate empirical claims.
Unfortunately it also brings to mind that famous cartoon of the physicist deriving a complex equation with the key intermediate step being "and then a miracle occurred".
I too would like to see the end result detailed on that chart but I think it would be helpful if we were more explicit about step 2.
How do we get to the desired end result? I'm not a political analyst but I suspect the sorts of measures necessary to achieve these aims are incredibly difficult to achieve in the prevailing electoral systems around the world - with perhaps one exception, China.
Lets say we all agree that AGW is both real and serious enough to require concerted action.
What exactly is this action?
um?
What?
Still a fuckwit, Abdul?
I wonder why the real problem of there being to many people on the planet is never addressed.
Population growth isn't exponential anymore. If everything keeps going as it is – no Peak Oil, no gradual disappearance of Bangladesh –, the world population will have started shrinking before the end of the century, and there's a small chance (I forgot how big exactly) that it will be lower then than it is now. I'll look up the paper this evening.
Birthrates are dropping everywhere, even in countries where that means 4 instead of 8 children per woman. The only exceptions are France (rampant socialism – free crèche & kindergarten everywhere) and the most horribly theocratic countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman and the like – not Iran, IIRC).
Regarding the issue of global warming, there are not too many people on the planet. A small subset are using tremendous amounts of energy.
(Regarding food supplies, there may be too many people, but this discussion has very little to do with global warming.)
Yeah. I know what you mean. I'm still pissed about the lack of flying cars, too.
There's a great rant on YouTube that makes a similar point at the end. (it autoplays when I click that link, so be forewarned)
Yep, and the guy who is saying it is a hoax is like the T cell of a slowly dieing organism mustering an immune response to the dangerous new organism that is hell bent on speeding up the demise of the old system. Which by the way, will happen regardless.
However green BAU isn't going to work either unless population overshoot is addressed first. If we don't address it, no worries, there is ample evidence that nature knows exactly how to do it.
David correct me if I'm wrong (while growth rates are indeed declining the population is still growing, growth is defined by an exponential function)
The planet is fine, its the people that are fucked.
George Carlin
Nothing proposed as a solution to global warming strikes me as leading to a better world.
What I see are policies of profiteering, including by oil companies. The anti-big-oil-anti-capitalist line may pull in suckers, but the big guys will be taken care of.
Also payments to poor countries allegedly harmed by global warming, meaning subsidizing the goverments that keep them poor (and in some cases commit genocide).
No I don't have any "positive suggestions". Fuck Utopia.
I agree with the sentiment but the cartoon misses (or ignores) the critical point that people who oppose action on climate change often do so because they feel - or have been convinced - that it will make the world worse, not better.
Who said anything about Utopia?
Progress is not a synonym with utopia.
Nah, as several have noted above, it's not nearly cynical enough. They don't see it as "for nothing," they feel that they will be victimized. They weigh the short term against the long term differently than we do.
IOW, I don't have anything useful to contribute and I'm not afraid to let you all know it!
David. The end of the century? So, you will be happy for the earth to be supporting some 12 billion people by then, and that is a conservative estimate. When I was born the world population was less than 3 billion. By the time I pass away the population will have trebled, in one lifetime. At what cost to the planet, to our own species and to the other species we share this planet with, who are rushing inexorably to extinction by our overconsumption, and by the unstoppable habitat loss.
I hope you are right, but I fear we are already beyond the tipping point. As you have noted, Islam may also be a primary factor, unless they, and Catholism, learn to address the harm of overpopulation, which I fear, is beyond them, until too late, and we turn the earth into Easter Island.
Not everyone would agree that population growth is not a problem- more people use more resources and cause more pollution. Certainly, if we could dismantle developed economies and level everyone down, that might help with the global warming problem.
And are birthrates everywhere truly declining? No. But believing that makes it seem like a terrible problem doesn't exist and will just go away if we ignore it. People like Pat Robertson, though, rejoice in ballooning populations ("Texas can hold 20 billion comfortably")
At current rates of fertility, not the imaginary rates of a utopian AD 2499, or the presumed rates of 10,000 BC, the worlds population will be in the trillions in just a few centuries.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3302497.stm
Neither do I, but I don't attack scientists and other interested parties for trying to come up with some.
It's not a single action. Off the top of my head…
– Limiting energy consumption by replacing inefficient machines with more efficient ones, insulating houses*, replacing lightbulbs with fluorescent lights or (in a few years) LEDs, and so on. Did you know that, in 2000, the average US citizen produced almost twice as much CO2 than the average German, at the same or perhaps a slightly lower standard of living?
– Building more power plants that use renewable energy so coal-fired ones can be taken off the grid. There's a German project underway to build lots of solar power plants throughout the Sahara. Of course, the biggest problem when it comes to coal is China now.
– Building more railways, especially in the USA.
– Building more efficient cars, especially in the USA, where anywhere near reasonable standards were only introduced a few months ago – later than in China.
– Building more cars that run on something else than petroleum. We're not really there yet, but we're fairly close.
– Saving the rainforests. Easier said than done, but, really, it's just a question of political will about where to put one's money.
– And so on and so forth.
Note that several of these actions can be done by corporations that would make a handsome profit from them. In recent threads, several denialists have claimed that every "alarmist" wants to introduce global communism. I still don't understand where they get that from. Is it a knee-jerk reaction that just follows from them being libertarians, or something? ~:-|
* The museum building I'm sitting in right now has windows that don't close properly, and are obviously designed that way, so it gets cold right now. Despite already wearing a fairly serious pullover, and even though the sun just shone in a bit (that has a very strong effect in this strange room with its 8 big windows), I just put on my thick cardigan, and sometime in the evening I'll probably have to turn up the very powerful heating. This is Paris, which experiences negative Celsius temperatures every winter, if only for a few weeks. – Or take the biology building of the university of Vienna, in a somewhat more continental climate, which consists mostly of metal. It's actually hot in there in winter, because they heat like crazy.
Fuck Utopia.
Oops! Wrong planet!
Notice fuckwit doesn't mention preserving forests or using alternative energy to reduce the flow of capital to the Saudis.
Technically speaking, The EARTH cannot be saved. It is WE, that must be saved. The better living conditions are for us. If the deniers can't see that, they're morons.
Earth will be here long after we're gone. It's unfair the length of time our planet still has.
Let's face it. The future will either be "utopia" or "the apocalypse". Anything else is hyperbolic speculation from the ivory tower commie-pinko-fascist liberals, and which is certainly not based on any empirical evidence.
It isn't scientists who came up with cap and trade. Or the subsidies to slavemasters.
Bait and switch.
First apocalyptic hysteria, then the promise of a better world. And systematic slander. Science? Yeah right!
No-one likes to be told they have to "get off the planet".
Although I would be quite happy to leave if anyone feels like terraforming mars with me.
Cap and trade isn't a solution to global warming.
It would involve capping emissions at current levels. That is suicide.
But your portrayal of the science as "apocalyptic hysteria" demonstrates that you are a fuckwit.
Abdul Alhazred:
Your defeatism is noted.
Re: Mr T:
I've heard that before, from Buckminster Fuller back in the 1970's, only he framed it as "utopia or oblivion," even publishing a book with that title. He thought we'd reach either state by that mysterious, far-future year 2000.
In other words, Fuller underestimated man's ability to muddle through at a low level of efficiency.
Defeatism? Sure.
Better the alleged climate disater than be ruled by the likes of you (or rather those you support).
At the moment, there's enough food for twice the world population. Outside of North Korea, everyone who is hungry is so because they're too poor to buy food and/or because they live in war zones where distribution is a problem. Or as Jean Ziegler at the UN put it: "Every child that starves is being murdered."
Of course, current agriculture depends a lot on petroleum (tractor fuel and stuff, and fuel for nitrogen fertilizer production), and Peak Oil is near. Also, the amount of arable land has been maxed out and can only shrink anymore.
Yes.
No, where do you get that from? Growth can be linear, sigmoid, asymptotic, anything. ~:-|
Yes, the world population will have started decreasing before the end of the century if everything keeps going as it's now.
9, not 12, is the predicted maximum.
Of course, this calculation doesn't take into account what I wrote near the top of this comment: several resources may well be too limited for 9 billion to be ever reached. Let's hope Peak Oil won't be too catastrophic, for one. We're living in interesting times, as the curse goes.
In the long run I'm optimistic about both of those – half of Europe claims to be Catholic, but ignores everything the church says about contraception. The fundie Muslim countries consist mostly of desert and have rather small populations, so even if education never gets in there and those populations keep exploding, it simply doesn't amount to much. Let's just hope that "in the long run" won't be too late.
It's still entirely possible that we'll turn the whole planet into Easter Island. I'm just saying there are reasons for not being quite as pessimistic as comment 16 implies.
Did anyone say it's not a problem!?! I said it's not exponential.
The global average is declining, and the birthrates in most countries are declining, too. As I said, incredulous one, I'll dig up the paper later today.
Obviously it won't be, because there's just no way to get there. Barring science-fiction advances to food production and resource management in general and so on and so forth, the carrying capacity of the Earth is in the billions, not the trillions.
Then maybe it was "other parties," fuckwit.
David23 says: "I wonder why the real problem of there being to many people on the planet is never addressed."
Global overpopulation is a serious issue, but to pretend this problem would go away if we reached zero population growth is naive. I find that generally, those who quote this are merely trying to shift blame to developing countries where population growth is higher.
The fact is that consumption of resources has outstripped population growth--and that has mainly happened in the industrial world. Somehow we have to reach a situation where we maintain a dynamic, growing economy without growth in consumption--in other words, a sustainable economy. I know of no way of doing this except by a rapid expansion of science and technology.
Ironically, the most reliable strategy for controlling population is development in poor countries--which of course increases consumption. The most effective of all strategies seems to be the education and empowerment of women and girls.
Are there beer and bacon on mars?
But PZ... I don WANNA! I DON WANNA GO! NO MOMMY, I DON
WANNA GO TO DA DOCTER!!!
You guys realize of course that one major war will make a hash of all your plans, and there has never been a century without a major war?
And that Ahmedinejad likes climate control?
Hmm?
Yeah, sure.... I'm worse than global warming.
lol
Now fuck off.
#41 I have seen estimates above 9. These are usually based on everyone living more economically...and probably don't take into account our reliance on fossil fuels for food production though.
Stated by someone who clearly knows they won't be likely affected by AGW in the least (in their lifetime, anyhow), but might be by any potential solutions...
IOW, "We're all fucked anyhow, why should I be inconvenienced now?"
How very selfless of you.
me fail english? Thats unpossible
As with everything else Libertarians consider "evil", it always seems to come down to the money.
Unions are fine, until they cost a transnational hypercorp a few extra dollars per employee. Then the unions are evil bloodsucking communards.
That said transnational hypercorp offshored 90+% of its labor force is not looked upon as a bad thing, because, according to the Libertarians, labor is transportable. "Lost your job, well, MOVE you lazy fuckers! Move to where the jobs are!"
It's always about the money. Always.
Once the "obstructionists" take us past the tipping point, will you warm-mongers shut up and leave us alone? ;)
As the coastlines shrink and the displaced populations begin to move, in the resulting wars you won't have even the pretense of a choice who to be ruled by.
If you think energy efficiency standards are totalitarian, you're a fuckwit.
You might as well threaten me with Hell.
Abdul Alhazred,
Have you given any thought to how people will react when the climate catastrophe begins to unfold? The panic. The desperation. The willingness to follow blindly anyone who promises them safety and survival? Sound like a recipe for a demagogue to take power? If so, maybe you ought to think about the relative merits of action now while cooler heads are still being listened to versus waiting until the panic begins.
Are you honestly admitting that your worldview is impotent in the face of a challenge like climate change?
And there has never been a climate change threat without major trolling.
Not that I'm complaining. I find these exchanges to be educational.
About a better world? Well, that would be nice. But from where I sit, it looks more like the endless war between the haves and the have-nots. With the amount of energy that the haves use, the have-nots will never have, unless there is major change. But meanwhile, the almost-haves are saying "fuck all those other gomers. just let us get a taste of the have lifestyle for a little while." In spite of all the talking, it appears to me that everyone involved is perfectly comfortable with living for today, and leaving subsequent generations to deal with the mess.
And, of course, there's the pointless posturing for the crowd like:
IOW, "We're all fucked anyhow, why should I be inconvenienced now?" How very selfless of you.
...typed by someone sitting at a computer that's probably sucking down 400 watts of power while he's doing it. Holier than thou bullshit doesn't help, but I guess it might make you feel better about yourself. Wanna help? die. Wanna help more? die before you breed. You can do both of those without making a big fuss.
Of course...What else is terraforming for?
You bring the piglets, i'll bring the demijohns.
(and thus bacon-beer became the national drink of mars)
A good war will wipe out a few million people. Ease things up a bit. anyway, science and tech have moved on towards more efficiency in spite of (and sometimes because of) war. Shrug, whats your point?
Are you seriously such a fuckwit that you don't understand the sea level is already rising?
You get an F for the fallacy of guilt by association.
You really typed that out, looked at it and thought that was a good argument huh?
nice
Hitler liked climate control too.
Yeah you can paint a good word picture. So?
You are already panicking and ready to do that.
I'll take my chance. And so will you lie it or not.
Nothing that has been proposed as a remedy for climate change does anything but enrich and empower people who are already rich and powerful.
If your scenario is credible, they will do what?
Hi David, looking at several population charts, there is a high degree of uncertaintly about the population growth, with some models showing that the population growth is exponential, and many showing that the population will be 9 billion by the middle of the Century. Personally, I regard our population, at nearly 7 billion as already far too much, as evidenced by the shrinking water resources, the emptying of the oceans, the shrinking of habitat, the destruction of rain-forests. Indeed, the we are already closing on a human footprint of 1.5 earths, with the WWF predicting our footprint to equate to 2 earths by 2050.
Just this week, we saw that scientists are getting closer to curing cancer, and with increases in technology, lifespans may be increased by some measure.
I wish I was as optimistic as you, but that is not what I see on the news every day. Even here in the UK, professional breeding is encouraged, with one acquaintance of mine having had 18 children, yet never having provided for any of them, considering it his right to have as many as he likes, and his right to not have to work. The only way I can see to address such appalling selfishness is education, education, education.
In the long run, Mars is too small to hold a dense atmosphere – every little asteroid impact erodes a bit off. That's why it no longer has one.
I meant "thread" and not "threat." Please forgive me.
The sea level is rising and what exactly is being proposed that will remedy that?
You understand that plans that absolutely require universal cooperation will not work, right?
@13 "What is this action?"
Wow, there is so much we could be doing but are choosing not to. It's hard to answer such a broad question in a tiny amount of space.
Just by adopting laws from other countries for things like compulsory double glazing we can dramatically cut emissions.
There are all kinds of other more creative things that could be done as well - turning free space into vegetable gardens. There's a city in Brazil that gives people who help clean up rubbish free public transport tickets.
There's really nothing holding us back.
Although this is false, perhaps you'd care to offer other remedies.
-Nothing that has been proposed as a remedy for climate change does anything but enrich and empower people who are already rich and powerful.-
Yep, those damned super rich wind farmers and their gold plated cars will be the death of us.
Why? What did Todd Rundgren ever do to you?
There's a lot more to worry about than just global warming. Here's a relevant article which bears reposting.
"In spite of all the talking, it appears to me that everyone involved is perfectly comfortable with living for today, and leaving subsequent generations to deal with the mess."
Excuse me, but many of us here are trying to do something now--and I don't even have any children to bequeath the problem to. The situation is not in any way hopeless. Concerted action and foresight would be sufficient to triumph. Instead, we seem to be dedicating our efforts to providing an answer to the Fermi Paradox.
Abdul, I don't think I understand your position on this subject. Governments should not take action on GW because... um, that's where I get lost. Because greedy companies will find a way to profit? Because it won't improve your life, personally? Why shouldn't those with the power to do good, do good? Why NOT take the steps we can toward a responsible, sustainable human population?
I'm all for stuff like conservation and efficiency standards. And pollution laws. And use of zoning laws to control land use.
Hasn't already been said that this is will not be enough? Otherwise why the big deal international conference?
Ugh, you are nearly as bad as Abdul. Surely there is a way to get around that. Its only physics.
See #30, fuckwit.
I understand that fear has motivated humans to avoid nuclear apocalypse thus far, though we have the capability to utterly destroy civilization in a matter of hours.
Abdul Alhazred says "You understand that plans that absolutely require universal cooperation will not work, right?"
OK, Genius, let's hear the libertarian plan. Oh, I know, just let human civilization collapse, right? And you guys wonder why everybody thinks you are a joke.
Spare me your dishonest apologetics.
Bingo.
Duh.
We'll just try not to have one.
There has also never been a war between two modern democracies. How convenient, then, that the days of big authoritarian empires are over.
O NOEZ!!! Hitler ordered a campaign against smoking, therefore smoking is good for us!!!
Are you trolling?
I don't disagree with any of that. I just said the growth is not exponential anymore.
Of course.
Richard Eis
I'd be happy to go to Mars. It'll be a grand adventure :)
AGW worries me because of the food issue. If the arable land moves to places where there's no topsoil (the Canadian Shield, for example) then we're going to have some serious issues feeding people. I've become rather attached to eating everyday. If fact, if I don't eat, I feel sick and tired. Funny thing, that.
Now we are in the territory of my words being deliberately tiwsted.
I'm not a "libertarian" or even a "small government conservative".
I'm not against cooperation. I am merely realistic about the chances of universal cooperation. Someone will inevitably defect.
OK folks. Bye for now. Have fun piling on, and I will read it later.
Y'all are doomed and I am happy. :)
Fuckwit, it is a fact that simply reducing energy use will not benefit the already wealthy, except insofar as it benefits all of us.
I suggest we make Mars bigger. The plan is fairly simple.
First, we build some oceans. Asimov showed us how with "The Martian Way." We go on out to Saturn and pick up some icebergs from the rings. We set up nuclear thrusters, and use some of the ice as thrust mass. Drop a few of those on Mars, wait for oceans to form, and we're set for Phase 2.
We can drop both Deimos and Phobos into the new ocean. This won't help much, but we need to clean up the asteroid belt anyway. We'll just dump a couple of million asteroids into the new ocean. This will take some time, as the asteroids will evaporate much of the water, causing clouds, which will cause a greenhouse effect, heating up Mars even more. We'll still need more mass to keep the atmosphere in place, though, so I calculate (using my hindquarters) that we can probably drop about 1.214 × 10^22 kg a year. In about 300 years, we could double Mars's mass.
Either that, or we can swap orbits with Mars and Venus. We'll need a contained black hole for a tractor. That would only take about 62 years, if we moved them both simultaneously.
Well, weeks maybe. There aren't enough nuclear warheads to do that in one go. Fallout and lack of food/water/medicine would be the main cause of death probably.
Taking the stance that actively advocating for actions that reduce AGW, and calling those who could give a shit if it inconveniences them "selfish" is being "holier than thou" is a pretty sleazy attempt at redirection and projection.
Go fuck yourself you pretentious, self-concerned halfwit. You can do that without making any fuss at all.
Universal cooperation is not required. There is such a thing as an emission that is too small to count.
Numbers please.
<headdesk>
To get each other to take more of the actions in comment 30, and perhaps even support each other in that financially? To coordinate the efforts a bit? To show the voters (and the potential rebels in dictatures) that "we're doing something", if nothing else?
Man, you can ask stupid questions. That Lovecraftian madness is getting to your head.
Isn't this the same as asking "why do we do good things?" in general.
The religious person will say they do good things to avoid being sent to hell. They need the whole carrot and stick thing because they are inherently evil and will just naturally go to the dark side without God's prompting.
The rational person doesn't believe in hell and does the right thing because of the greater good. There is a natural goodness to us all. We have self determination and can see for ourselves what is right and wrong.
I could at least understand a Ranum-style counsel of despair: "yes, global warming is real, but there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well learn to die."
Anti-depressants would be in order, but I could understand where it's coming from.
You, Abdul, are merely intellectually dishonest. As you refuse to acknowledge the reality of the science, there's no point in engaging with your evasiveness. You are motivated by a love of lying.
Does anyone know how centralized farming is in America for corn/maize? I heard it was mostly in one or two states but damned if I can remember where that info was or if i didn't just make it up.
Well, see comment 82.
Weeks for humanity. But hours for civilization, no?
I have a few questions that I hope may get answered here. I am not a global warming denier but I am a sceptic on issues that seem a little light on the evidence, hence my enjoyment of this site. Why was global warming not evident in the early part of the last century when there was uncontrolled industrialization with absolutely no action taken to reduce or eliminate emissions? Picture Detroit, the Ruhr valley, the English industrial midlands etc. during the first half of the 20th century. Wouldn't that have had a large impact? If not, why not then, while today with a much lower level of industrialization in the western world and even among developing countries with little regard for the environment a lower level of emissions then existed 75 years ago climate change is blamed on industrial output and emission.
I am old enough to recall in high school that immediate action was required to slow greenhouse gas emissions because the world would experience a devastating ice age before the end of the 20th century due to CO2 emissions. Missed that cold snap I guess. Of course now reports are that polar ice caps are melting although since the temperature at the poles remains well below zero for much of the year, I am not sure of the mechanism for melting ice at those temperatures.
I have some pictures of my grandfather, taken in the 1910's or 20's in which he is standing on some rocks at Pinellas Point Fl, at the south end of St. Petersburg Fl, where I live. Those rocks are still there, at high tide they still look identical as they did almost a century ago. If they climate is changing so radically wouldn't there have been at least some sea level change? Florida is constantly being threatened with disappearing below the water and indeed would seem to be at high risk but there seems to be little evidence of same. Another example, years ago (before it was bulldosed for an apartment complex #*&@!!!) there was remains of a village, believed to be of the Tocobaga people also on Pinellas Point. This village dated from the 11th or 12th century, was directly on the coast as evidenced by middens which showed a diet of oysters, fish and other marine animals. This village was in existance at the same time the Vikings were growing crops and raising cattle in Greenland and the earth was much warmer then it is today, yet sealevel appeared to be relatively similar to today.
We are constantly being told the evidence for global warming is overwhelming and definitive. As a non scientist who never the less trusts the scientific process ( I am an Emergency Room RN) could someone direct me to a solid, well researched book that would lay out the evidence. For example, the evidence for evolution is readily available to anyone who cares to look at any level from basics to advanced, in any bookstore or library. I have not been able to find any book, laying out the evidence for climate change that is readable yet truly scientific in its approach.
NigelTheBold although I like your plan for bringing bacon to mars it has a couple of teeny issues that could take a little too long to overcome.
How about parking ourselves in a crater and doing more of a "colony" thing, rather than world domination. Or some such.
Well, qualified and good point. But since I must get the last word in I would have to say that some small civilisations would survive on small islands.
You may have heard such bullshit -- it was high school, after all -- but that was never the conclusion of the scientific community.
Richard Eis,
Every link I found to corn production by state is a workbook page for kids...
http://www.kycorn.org/kycgaprojects/education/corninclassroom/3uscornpr…
I'm not sure how accurate this is, but it's a place to start. If something happens to the ability of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest to produce agricultural goods, we're going to have some serious problems.
Thanks Pygmy...your a star...
Ah, its more or less as I remembered. Your main corn producing areas are actually quite close together. This would probably magnify the effect to food production of any warming.
Strange Gods.
Good point, not to mention that I am not sure I recall all that much accurately about my high school years. Damn the drugs were swell! But the 1960's were the beginning of the environmental movement and global cooling was pretty well publicized in the popular press as your useful link indicated. There were specials on TV etc warning us of our impending doom and multiple popular books at the time outlining the "evidence".It was certainly taught in my earth science class as a real threat.
TampaDave,
If you are sincere in your desire for more information, you can go to realclimate.org for lots of helpful pages. Also, there's this article about the mistaken idea that Greenland used to be good for agriculture.
Carbon dioxide emissions are much higher now than they were are the beginning of the 20th century. The first graph on this site is a graph of carbon dioxide emissions over time. Notice the dramatic rise since 1950. The world is far more industrialized now than it was then.
Pygmy Loris & Richard Eis-
According to this climate wizard, the midwest should maintain it's rainfall, but average temperature will go up. I hate that everything is made out of corn now, anyhow. Thank you, Earl Butz.
Fuck! I spelled "its" wrong.
This village was in existance at the same time the Vikings were growing crops and raising cattle in Greenland and the earth was much warmer then it is today, yet sealevel appeared to be relatively similar to today. - Tampa Dale
No, the Earth was not much warmer then than it is today. Globally, it was colder. The Medieval Warm Period was a regional phenomenon. The evidence is clear that the Earth was warmer in the 20th century than at any time in the last millennium, probably considerably longer.
Thanks daveau!
I do wonder how the higher temps will affect crop production. Corn is a tropical plant, so maybe it'll be okay. Will wheat?
One thing I think is important to remember is that the USA, Canada, and Australia are the top exporters of food in the world. If AGW severely affects our abilities to raise crops, people all over the world are going to suffer.
Oh, the Medieval Warm Period.
Pygmy Loris;
Thanks for the links, both very useful. Having read the Viking accounts however I do dispute some of the statements made in the first. At least for a while, the Vikings did pretty well on Greenland and were able to grow crops and raise cattle, No doupt they had to leave after a few hundred years due to climate changes. Of course everybody who knows anything about Viking history knows the story of how Eric named it Greenland to attract settlers. That's why they called North America Vineland!! For the grapes on Newfoundland that no longer can grow there due to cold! So, in history as in Science, there can often be different interpretations of incomplete data! Personally I have little doupt the earth is trending warmer, that is pretty evident, I think the evidence that man is causing it and that we can change it is another matter. Another way to look at it, as the west is no longer primarily industrial and much production is shifting to third world, read poor countries, it seems the west has a newfound desire to curtail industrialization. HMMM. The sceptic in me does detect a political thread in the climate change evidence.
Does this mean you're leaving the human race or the earth?
As far as crop production goes, some places (USA) are at least temporarily experiencing some benefit from AGW. I, for one, would be very happy if the Midwest transformed from the bread basket into another salad bowl. The people of Tuvalu, Jakarta, and Mumbai would probably beg to differ, since they're the ones who will be racked by droughts, floods, cyclones, and plagues. It's a bizarre and bitter irony that the worst offenders will likely experience the least harm.
TampaDale,
You are managing to pack so many false or uncertain factoids into your comments, that it's hard to keep up.
Of course everybody who knows anything about Viking history knows the story of how Eric named it Greenland to attract settlers. That's why they called North America Vineland!! For the grapes on Newfoundland that no longer can grow there due to cold!
There is no firm evidence that Eric named Greenland for that reason, there is no evidence at all vines grew in Newfoundland.
I think the evidence that man is causing it and that we can change it is another matter.
Given the number of misconceptions you have repeated, what you think is of no relevance. Learn something about the actual state of the science, at least.
the west is no longer primarily industrial and much production is shifting to third world, read poor countries, it seems the west has a newfound desire to curtail industrialization.
This is of course a load of crap. The vast majority of industrial production remains in rich countries, and much of what has moved to poor ones is production for rich company markets.
HMMM. The sceptic in me does detect a political thread in the climate change evidence.
Denialists make this claim that climate science is a plot to do down the poor countries almost as often as they claim it's a plot to introduce socialism and cripple the industries of the west. Sometimes both at once. Do you actually have any evidence for your silly conspiracy-mongering?
*crickets*
It's already been said enough times, but I want to add my (AU$)two cents. I have seen enough fallacies from both sides that I find it near impossible to distinguish as to which is correct. What matters the most to me is the goals, and those on the AGW side I agree with the most. We do have finite resources on this planet and should aim towards preserving what we have whether we are running out, overwarming or not. Even if AGW is wrong and it's just GW, only the AGW side has goals that will help.
It's a win-win situation supporting them in the long run. Capitalisation may hurt at first, but it WILL find a way to survive and flourish off it. Our society as we know it WILL continue.
That's just climatologists and their incessant demands for luxury goods.
Humans have been fascinated by doomsday predictions for thousands of years, always believing it's right around the corner. I think it's what drives a lot of religion. We revel in destruction. I guess it's provided some sort of evolutionary advantage, which is why we are this way.
Though AGW is likely taking place, so many people project it into some kind of huge end-of-the-world event, rather than the relatively minor, gradual sociopolitical shift that is more likely to happen. Look at you people. You're talking about huge wars and the end of civilizations here. Don't you see this is just the current doomsday fascination that's been going on throughout human history? Don't let those primal tendencies cloud your judgment.
And you've come to this proclimation in spite of the science how?
--- headdesk ---
--- headdesk ---
--- headdesk ---
@skeeto #110,
Thank you, your words are very soothing, but the fact remains that we have a problem, and inaction up to a point worsens the problem, and past that point most likely renders it catastrophic and irreversible. No, the planet won't explode, nor will God intervene to judge the righteous and the damned, but the reason we get our hackles up over this is because very powerful factions have got a lot of allies spewing junk science and nonsense to lull people into a false sense of security, or to terrorize them into believing in a global conspiracy to take away their SUVs. I agree it's easy to slip into apocalypse mode, but let's not deny the urgency of the situation.
strange gods before me@61:
So, if you invoke the Godwin rule for snark purposes, does that mean you win or lose?
Either way, it's a win for me sgbm. Thanks for the lulz.
TampaDale, First, the Vikings never had farms outside of the coastal valleys, which are warmer than the rest of Greenland. Second, the North Atlantic is very dependent for heat on the flow of the Gulf Stream. It is likely that during the MWP, Gulf Stream flow was temporarily accelerated, and the North Atlantic was somewhat warmer. On the Tree-Ring thread we have been pointing out that all the contentions that the MWP was global rely on proxies--and none of the proxies line up temporally. Thus, what you have are in fact many independent, local warm periods, not a single global MWP.
@skeeto
Just because you cannot imagine the sheer unbridled horror that a relatively minor, gradual increase in the sea level could cause doesn't mean we should ignore what would result. Although it does imply you might want to, you know, go out and read some of the literature.
Do you really think large portions of some countries going underwater would result in "relatively minor, gradual sociopolitical shift"?
ok I'm blaming AGW for my piss poor and declining typing and proofing skills.
> And you've come to this proclimation in spite of the science how?
There's no science for the sociopolitical outcome of AWG. Just wild speculation from people enjoying doomsday predictions.
>Do you really think large portions of some countries going underwater would result in "relatively minor, gradual sociopolitical shift"?
Worse things have happened and we're all still here having a good time.
Jeremy O'Wheel@67:
SOCIALISM!!! Those sick pinko commies. How dare they provide payment in exchange for services.
Wait, what?
Interesting... you don't seem to require science to assert this:
Is that intentionally selective? Or do you just love good irony?
Don't you see this is just the current doomsday fascination that's been going on throughout human history? - skeeto
Remind me of the peer-reviewed scientific studies that supported the various religious claims of forthcoming apocalyse throughout human history.
*crickets*
skeeto,
If you were not so obviously invincibly ignorant, I'd suggest you go read about some of the past civilisations that have collapsed due to climate change.
Care to name them, and in doing so remember that it would not be a one time disaster, but an ongoing, steadily worsening event, and make sure it's an apples to apples comparison?
such as?
O.o
I guess you also don't think the Black Death was all that bad, either...
David@ 41,
Yes, growth can be any of a number of types but population growth is exponential as long as it is still growing and last time I checked the global population is still growing at about 1.3%, representing a doubling time of 54 years.
RBDC, Jadehawk...
I framed the question the way I did because I'm guessing skeeto will point to things like the Plaugue, Hiroshima, Holocaust, etc... without realizing that those events were singular, time specific events and would not continue to happen the way the effects of GW would, and I wanted to make sure he gave a fair, apples to apples comparison...
Actually thats a good point, what effect is this going to have on that underwater heat stream thing that circulates around the earth...I forget the fancy name. I just know its important.
To point out about the doomsday predictions, most of those were probably over hyped news stories. Not actual proper science. You know newspapers and their wacky way with science "interpretation".
I mentioned the plague because even though it killed a fuckload of people, "we're all still here having a good time"; so apparently unless something leads to total extinction, it ain't that bad. which is a disgustingly callous attitude
Knock goats:
I admit I am not a scientist, I really do not understand the science of global warming. Most of my background is in history which I admit is open more to interpretation. The evidence is very suggestive that Eric named Greenland so as to attract more settlers as he came from Iceland which didn't sound very hospitable. Some of the other posters here have ponted out that the warmer conditions in Greenland at that time were possibly a local occurance and that does seem very plausible. Of course the west is still the dominant industrial culture but that is changing rapidly. The bottom line. Are there or are there not a few good books that outline the facts about climate change, similar in nature to Richard Dawkins excellent series of books on evolution? Here is where I am. I readily admit I am self referencing here. You show me graphs charts etc saying the world is warming, sea levels are rising etc. I go to the ocean, I see that sea levels have not changed in my lifetime (I am AARP eligable!) What evidence should I believe? are seawater levels rising or not? If so, when and where. I really do want to read more, I just want a solid, scientifically sound overview that does not have an aqenda. I know there are many titles, I am asking the posters on this blog to help me out, to sort through the garbage. I just want to be informed, I don't want to take a degree in climatology. I had a professor once who stated if you cannot explain a concept so that a 6 year old could understand it, either the concept is flawed or you don't understand it very well.
Yeast invented beer. Therefore, they are my heroes.
They have also shown me my plan for dealing with overpopulation and global warming: I shall build an impenetrable cocoon, within which I shall go into stasis until such time as the environment improves.
I take it he did not teach quantum physics. Not everything is simple, and not everything can be made simple.
The Gulf Stream?
Gulf Stream. and it could shut down, thus turning Stockholm into Churchill, Manitoba
> Remind me of the peer-reviewed scientific studies that supported the various religious claims of forthcoming apocalyse throughout human history.
Remind me of the peer-reviewed scientific studies that supported the various AWG fanatic's claims of forthcoming apocalyse.
*crickets*
>Interesting... you don't seem to require science to assert this
Where's the science that predicts the end of human civilization? I'm just saying that things probably aren't going to change any more than they did over a couple of world wars.
>I'd suggest you go read about some of the past civilisations that have collapsed due to climate change.
When in history did all of human civilization collapse from climate change? You're either confused or misunderstanding me.
Ok, I'm done here. I see even atheists can be thickheaded, making stuff up ("Science predicts the end of the world!"), and subject to religious tendencies of doomsday wishing. Trust me, you'll feel silly in a few decades when it turns out everything worked out fine and civilization, in general, went along without a hitch. Just ask someone who got tired of following Peak Oil for a decade or so, thinking doomsday was "any day now". Or someone who stocked up for Y2K. Or someone who thought nuclear apocalypse was imminent during the Cold War.
I'm not saying that nothing should be done, but that this isn't the end of civilization like so many of you here like to think.
Y2K and Nuclear War? you mean the sort of things that were entirely possible but prevented by human cooperation and great effort to PREVENT it from happening?
you're even more callous and clueless than I thought.
That cartoon pretty much sums up the whole 'email-gate' manufactured scandal about climate science perfectly. Still, I have to wonder if it is not a little superfluous.
I can think of few things that are simultaneously as funny and disturbing as listening to climate deniers, like the Saudi Arabian delegation to the Copenhagen conference, desperately grasping at straws by trying to claim that a few willfully misinterpreted e-mails somehow invalidates decades of careful climate research and mountains of mutually supporting data.
It is all the funnier (and disturbing) when their true motivation in protecting the river of petrochemical dollars flowing from the oil fields is so transparent and yet much of the mainstream media (Faux News being a particularly prominent offender) continues to treat their position as if it has some scientific validity.
I suppose it is true what they say. You can take an idiot (or someone with a vested pecuniary interest) to the facts, but you cannot make them think.
TampaDale @ #91
Try this:
"Plan B 4.0"
by Lester R. Brown
or visit:
http://www.earth-policy.org/
The climate data sets are all there. Take a look.
TampaDale | December 18, 2009 11:28 AM:
And the climate did warm from about 1860 until about 1940. (Although not all the late 19th century warming was due to CO2.)
But climate is not simple; among other factors, industrial activities - especially with primitive engines - also generate a great deal of sulphate aerosols, which cause cooling. Between about 1940 and 1970, aerosols masked AGW. (In the long run, CO2 has an advantage over aerosols: aerosols leave the atmosphere with the rain, while CO2 accumulates.)
Keep in mind that global warming is a slow effect; the oceans have an enormous heat capacity (it takes about 6 * 1024 Joules to warm the oceans 1 C). They warm very slowly, and they're coupled to the atmosphere.
You will find a number of those here.
A nice gentleman has made a movie just for you. No doubt you've already bought into a pack of lies about it though, so I guess it's not much use asking you to watch it.
It sounds like the only evidence you'd believe would be The Netherlands going underwater, but they're actively working on preventing that, so if they succeed, you'll probably just see more evidence of the "myth."
Richard Eis@129-
This thing?
But that was before Brett Farve...
Something about folks who don't cooperate.
Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.
Heh. Those poor schlubs. As someone from the computer industry, I didn't worry at all about Y2K. None of us figured it was going to be bad. Well, except Ed Yourden, but he had an interest in selling sensationalist books. The rest of us, though, knew everything was OK.
Y'know why? Because we took it seriously long before the media started trading in on all the millennial fever. We rolled up our collective sleeves, dug into those hundreds of millions of lines of COBOL and MUMPS code, and started fixing it.
See, we knew there was a problem. We knew how to fix it, and there were hundreds of millions of dollars spent worldwide to fix it.
If the industry hadn't paid all us geeks to audit decades-old code and fix the two-digit years, there could've been major potential economic fallout. This would've been far worse than the leap-year bug that bricked a few Zunes a couple of years back. Those doomsday predictions? Yeah. Probably not that bad, but bad enough. Not end-of-civilization bad, but end-of-your-retirement-fund bad.
Uh... you do realize how close we came to nuclear war with the Soviet Union, right?
Remind me of the peer-reviewed scientific studies that supported the various AWG fanatic's claims of forthcoming apocalyse. - skeeto
Start by reading the IPCC AR4 report, and the thousands of peer-reviewed studies referenced therein, fuckwit. That human activity will cause global climate change sufficient to disrupt human agriculture, fisheries, and coastal settlement is, simply, the conclusion of almost all the relevant scientific experts.
When in history did all of human civilization collapse from climate change?
WTF are you on about, fuckwit? "Because X has not happened, X cannot happen" seems to be your bleat. There has not been, within the Holocene, global climate change of the magnitude now underway. Regional climate change has indeed caused the collapse of regional civilizations (the Maya, for one). Explain why global climate change is unlikely to cause the collapse of our global civilization.
Richard Eis-
This is a better link. Thermohaline Circulation.
Skeeto,
Spoken like a man who hasn't looked into the science. Sea level rise gets all the press, but mainly because it is the most certain. And the consequences are pretty severe. Never mind the loss of coastal cities, increased damage from higher storm surges and inundation of fertile crop lands, one of the scariest consequences is the contamination of aquifers with sea water.
Now let's look at agriculture. A temperature rise of a couple of degrees will render it impossible to grow winter wheat in much of the North American Great Plains. Now, you may suggest that we just move North. Big problem: The glaciers stripped the Canadian shield of most of its topsoil--it's one of the reasons why the Great Plains was so fertile before the dustbowl.
If we go to higher temperatures, we could get into some severe issues. At 5-6 degrees, the ocean's shift to favor H2S producing bacteria over O2 producing bacteria. This is what caused a mass extinction in the PETM.
You will forgive me if I do not share your sanguine attitude that everything will work out OK. The thing folks like you ignore is that the reason we haven't faced a real catastrophe is because scientists have worked their asses off increasing crop yields, opening up new crop lands and generally addressing threats to human civilization. Survival doesn't just happen.
This has to be one of the dumbest arguments I've heard against AGW.
Oh look, somebody is siting how well the Vikings were able to adapt to cooler temps after the MWP! Heehee!
Except I believe most of them adapted by starving to death. Not such a good example for us to follow, I think.
There's already some major fallout from warming. This is all kinda personal to me, as I grew up in Alaska. It's painful to go back and see acres of dead trees.
It's hard to predict exactly how extensive damage will be, when you can't even predict the source of the damage. All it took was a long-term average increase of a couple of degrees, and suddenly some forests in Alaska are being decimated.
People who say this sort of thing obviously don't know anything about y2k. But I see others have already answered that charge quite well. I will have to remember this thread so I can link to these responses if it comes up again. This is just a hint at the sorts of things that could have happened if y2k had not been recognized and thwarted by the expenditure of millions of programmer-hours of work, and a lot of money.
skeeto @ 136,
I guess you're one of those folks who ignores warnings such as:
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results"
BTW if you are one of those who are also tired of following "Peak Oil" You're really going to love this:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2009/12/monte-carlo-of-dispersive-disc…
Here is my solution to both climate change and energy depletion.
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll225/Fmagyar/ChineseMagicMotor.jpg
Skeeto--
By definition, everyone reading this is a survivor, and descended from survivors. That doesn't mean there haven't been past disasters.
You might just be saying "it's okay, you still have two children" to someone whose daughter just died in a crash. Or you might be saying "it could be worse" to someone who just lost their whole family. Things could always be worse; as intelligent humans, we can find a higher standard than "we aren't all extinct yet."
Posted by: David23 "I wonder why the real problem of there being to many people on the planet is never addressed."
The solutions are politically and socially unpalatable (rationed births, rationed health care to the elderly, sterilizations, and 2 of the biggest religions are totally against it) and few politicians are prepared to threaten their position by acknowledging it.
Does anyone know if rising temperatures have resulted in increases in sea levels significant enough to require tide chart adjustments?
I think to properly (and honestly) represent skeeto's argument, you need to replace those we's with me's...
Seems to be a common theme regarding this issue... pity.
TampaDale, here is a good place to start.
Please stop with this fancy academic science talk. I'm not able to follow.
***
Seriously, boneheads: Stop mistaking your ignorance or incomprehension for the actual state of scientific knowledge. There is no connection. Nothing falls out of the sky because you can't grasp aerodynamics. If you don't understand evolution, living beings will continue to evolve.
apparently, the same thing is slowly happening to Horse-chestnuts in Central Europe, because of some butterfly that is extending its range northwards
Tampa Dale asked for books:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/books-08/
Also, read Six Degrees (review here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/11/six-degrees/
)
And Spencer Weart's Discover of Global Warming:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Now that's what I'm talking about--a skeptic who actually wants to know the evidence.
This is absurdly simplistic.
If AGW is happening, then the measures needed to combat it will cost a lot of money, hold back economic growth, reduce the production of consumer goods, and lower the standard of living for many people. A cleaner environment isn't going to come free; dirty industry currently employs a lot of people and produces a lot of wealth. Reducing industrial production will inevitably increase employment and throw more people into poverty. And even "saving the rainforest", which might sound like an unambiguously good thing, will not be great for those people in the developing world who currently make a living from logging and slash-and-burn agriculture.
Nevertheless, if AGW is as much of a threat as some are predicting, we should take these measures despite the economic cost, because the consequences of failing to do so are even worse. But this doesn't mean that we can make simplistic statements like "if we turn out to be wrong, we've created a better world anyway, so where's the harm?" The potential harm from environmental protection measures is immense - and so it is absolutely critical that every measure taken is based on sound science. That's why it's important to have these discussions.
It also incurs enormous medical costs. Your assumption that the additional wealth produced by being dirty exceeds those medical costs is unwarranted.
A living they will no longer be able to make when said rain forests are gone.
This was a big part of The Great Global Warming Swindle which conveniently said nothing about all the other crap that was being dumped into the atmosphere at that time, such as the sulfer compounds which have a strong cooling effect. As we have cleaned up those pollutants we are left with the effects of CO2 alone.
Walton, you've embedded the response to your argument yourself. "Those people in the developing world who currently make a living from logging and slash-and-burn agriculture" are going to starve within a few decades because their efforts are unsustainable. Endless economic growth models in a finite world will ultimately prove self-defeating. Nobody said putting a stop to AGW would be quick, easy, cheap, or painless.
I sense Walton sliding back into Libertarian thought processes w.r.t. AGW... que sera...
I wonder why the real problem of there being to many people on the planet is never addressed.
You could start.
@Bill Dauphin: Those are two different arguments.
Saying that you had better believe in Global Warming because of the consequences that will come upon us if don’t is Pascal’s Wager, aka an Appeal to Fear. Just because you managed to scare somebody into believing something it doesn’t make it true. The fact that Global Warming happens to be actually true (which we know because of the [i]evidence[/i], not because of fear-mongering) doesn’t make the argument any less fallacious.
Saying that it is a good idea to make the world a better place regardles of whether Global Warming is true is a completely different, valid argument.
No, no no no NO... dammit have we not already covered this ad-nauseum?
---headdesk---
The sceptic in me does detect a political thread in the climate change evidence.
--
That's not the sceptic in you. It's something down closer to the colon.
Wait, you can demonstrate empirically what will happen if you don't believe in god?
This is also irrelevant. All that is necessary is for it to effect some countries which are already *in* financial, social and ecological messes, enough that they find war a more convenient solution than asking for help (which many such countries won't do, since they already blame the problems they have on the western world "conspiring" to do them harm). Civilization doesn't need to collapse to result in the collapse of countries, or the death of millions in all of them, due to some new global war, triggered by a refusal of either help, or of those that could have helped to do anything. And, some of those countries may get their hands on nukes, if they are desperate enough, and *would* use them on countries that would have otherwise remained completely unaffected otherwise.
Hell. Think about it. You are starving, and you just got your hands on a couple of long range nukes. Do you target NY, and kill a few people, or nuke and contaminate a large portion of the "green belt" in the state, leaving your "enemy" in the same state you are, so they starve too? I would think, if anyone had half a damn brain, they would at least *consider* that as a possible consequence of radicals on some country, wracked by loss of arable lands, and mass death from starvation, due to something we knew about, but decided to not act on, getting their hands on such weapons.
For that matter, it doesn't even need to be nukes. A large enough dose of defoliant, or some other contaminant could devastate crops in any country where the growing area is sufficiently limited to a relatively small region. The US has a bigger on than could maybe be effected, without something like fallout, but some others...
because in the perfect world, everybody would have a singing bass
This is absurdly simplistic.
One might almost say comically so.
If AGW is happening, then the measures needed to combat it will cost a lot of money, hold back economic growth, reduce the production of consumer goods, and lower the standard of living for many people.
Acheiving a post-greenhouse world will likely necessitate a redefinition of "standards of living" and an acceptance of the fact that economic growth has been defined as an unadulterated good by keeping external costs such as environmental degradation "off the books" or even by counting them on the positive side of the ledger.
A cleaner environment isn't going to come free; dirty industry currently employs a lot of people and produces a lot of wealth.
Doesn't "not coming free" imply spending money? As in, economic activity, albeit toward a different goal than untrammeled corporate wealth, employing people and producing wealth?
Reducing industrial production will inevitably increase [un]employment and throw more people into poverty.
Retooling industrial production for a new energy regime will inevitably employ people and averting various disasters related to a changing climate will ameliorate the impact of AGW on the poor.
And even "saving the rainforest", which might sound like an unambiguously good thing, will not be great for those people in the developing world who currently make a living from logging and slash-and-burn agriculture.
AGW or no, such practices are patently unsustainable over the longer term. Some of the perspective you need is to think about these people's children and grandchildren too. Yes there will be disruptions to the way of life of millions, but if the outcome is alternative, more sustainable means of making a living for millions, the net effect on these communities will be positive.
Nevertheless, if AGW is as much of a threat as some are predicting, we should take these measures despite the economic cost, because the consequences of failing to do so are even worse.
Yes.
But this doesn't mean that we can make simplistic statements like "if we turn out to be wrong, we've created a better world anyway, so where's the harm?"
The current energy regime that our industrial society operates under is simply unsustainable, whether or not it is causing GW (moreso if it is). We can change it, with planning and an eye to minimizing the inevitable disruptions to traditional modes of generating wealth and sustaining life, or we can do nothing while it catastrophically fails, plunging much of the overpopulated world into one of Malthus's worst nightmares.
The potential harm from environmental protection measures is immense
So say lobbyists for Chevron, et al.
- and so it is absolutely critical that every measure taken is based on sound science. That's why it's important to have these discussions.
Not exactly an earth-shattering conclusion, and I doubt anyone here disagrees, on either count.
Walton,
recommended reading : The Stern Review
The Stern Review
I had a professor once who stated if you cannot explain a concept so that a 6 year old could understand it, either the concept is flawed or you don't understand it very well.
Either you had a really cruddy professor or you must have been 5 at the time and didn't understand what he was actually saying.
Walton,
This is especially for you but a good read for anyone who still doesn't quite get it...
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/12/political-ecology-of-col…
Jadehawk,
No - I'm talking about the kinds of consumer goods which are essential to our modern quality of life, but which use substantial amounts of energy to manufacture and operate. Things like cars, central heating, refrigerators, and the like. The likely end result of hardline environmental measures is that people on low incomes will be unable to afford these goods - leading to a lower standard of living for many people. Not to mention that restrictions on air travel and long-distance transport will make it more expensive to import food from around the world - making it harder for poorer people to maintain a varied diet.
One of the great triumphs of the modern age is that, thanks to the consumer goods industry, the average person in the developed world today lives a life of comfort and luxury which would have been unimaginable a century ago. Unfortunately, if the most dire predictions of climatologists are correct, we may not be able to maintain this lifestyle any longer with Earth's scarce resources. If that's true, then we have no choice - but, because the consequences are so dire, we urgently need to be very, very sure that the science is correct. That's all I'm saying.
At some level, I agree with Walton--it's a mistake to say that we should carry out the reforms needed to combat climate change whether it's true or not. However, it's only a mistake because it understates the strength of the evidence showing that we are changing the climate.
The current petroleum-based economy is unsustainable. We will have to revolutionize our economy in any case. All climate change does is force us to opt for other energy alternatives than coal and other fossil fuels.
We should not underestimate the sacrifice that will be needed to beat climate change. At the same time, I have every confidence that the technologies we develop will ultimately lead to higher standards of living for our progeny. If, on the other hand, we don't get our act together, our prospects are not good.
Walton says, "One of the great triumphs of the modern age is that, thanks to the consumer goods industry, the average person in the developed world today lives a life of comfort and luxury which would have been unimaginable a century ago."
One of the other great "triumphs" of the modern age is the fact that we've distorted the economy enough that it's cheaper to have slave labor in China build our furniture and ship it across the globe than it is to have our neighbors build it. It's also cheaper for me to buy durian (a very perishable, exotic and weird tropical fruit) than it is to buy locally grown apples (if I can find them).
Walton, when an avalanche took out the power lines from the hydro-electric plants that supplied power to Juneau, the capital had to generate its power with expensive diesel generators. People managed to cut their power consumption by about 35% at the drop of a hat. Nobody died as a result. This is doable. It will require hardship, but it also carries opportunity. And we have no choice.
*shrug*
Some kind of change is on the horizon, anyway, Walton. And we're racing toward that horizon. The last clause of your statement would be accurate no matter what the climatologists had discovered. CO2 or no CO2, the coal and petroleum aren't going to last forever. And they're going to get really fucking expensive before they're gone.
At some level, I agree with Walton--it's a mistake to say that we should carry out the reforms needed to combat climate change whether it's true or not.
I think the point of the cartoon is the opposite. Everything on that list makes sense to do in its own right. You don't need AGW to defend their benefit and utility. Yet, at the same time, these are the type of things that need to be done to address AGW.
Remember, a good chunk of denialists also think DDT is the greatest thing in the world and ... surprise ... that the science about DDT is all "wrong" because of a leftist scientific conspiracy.
cars are not a necessity; they are merely the prevalent solution to (and in some cases the cause of) a series of problems. they can be solved differently, without diminishing quality of life.
as for food transport... there is a reason the "local food" movement exists. it's perfectly possible to feed the entire world on (relatively)local agriculture (ignoring for a moment such aberrations as Las Vegas, which really shouldn't exist to begin with), but this isn't done because the free-ish global economy doesn't allow for that. and it will become increasingly difficult to do as more and more arable land disappears.
Amen, sister.
For the purposes of terraforming, though, the long run doesn't matter. If it lasts just 2 million years, that's longer than man has had use of fire; 20000 years is twice as long as human agriculture; 5000 years, and that's as long as written history; even just 500 years could be more than enough as a stepping stone to the next waystation in the colonization project.
Not with the method you described. There aren't enough asteroids. Their total mass is substantially less than a quarter of the Moon. You'll have to add in a lot of Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects.
That depends on your definition of "civilization". Getting knocked back to Sumeria-level, for example, is still civilization. The worlds depicted in things like Mad Max, Waterworld, and most other apocalyptic fiction also still count as civilization.
I also think that humanity as a species is very likely to survive a nuclear exchange. A single tiny pocket of survivors is all it takes, and I don't see that as all so unlikely, and we've already made it through one similar bottleneck already.
The flaw in the beginning of your argument: when the Romans fretted about the threat to their civilization posed by barbarian invasions and overexpansion, they were right. When the Inca prophecised the end of their world, they were right. When the Easter Island birdman cults predicted the end of their world, they were right. Humans may have always been fascinated with doomsday, but guess what, sometimes the threat is real.
The flaw at the end of your argument: World War II was not doomsday (the good guys won, after all). The London Smog was not doomsday. The Great Stink was not doomsday. The Irish potato famine was not doomsday. The collapse of the Classical Maya was not doomsday (the Mayans are still here, and the current population is estimated to be about the same as it was during the peak of the classical period). The American Civil War was not doomsday. If it had been possible to foresee and avoid any one of these events beforehand, are you saying that it would not have been worthwhile to try?
And the big, gaping, jagged, cracked flaw in the middle and throughout the substance of your argument: this time there is solid, real-world evidence behind the concerns.
I'll give you a moment to get a broom to sweep up the mess that remains of the splinters of your position here. Be careful not to choke on the dust.
Please see this video from Greg Craven.
because the consequences are so dire, we urgently need to be very, very sure that the science is correct. That's all I'm saying.
What you're saying is totally upside down. The larger the threat, the less exact proof you need to take action, because the risk of taking no action is so great. And this threat is irreversible. Once temps. go up 2-3 C there is nothing you can do to bring them down for centuries or millennia.
You appear to be saying that unless you are very, very sure that your gun is loaded, it's okay to put it in your mouth and pull the trigger.
Prudence dictates the opposite approach.
I also liked this cartoon.
Amphiox,
Here is the thing that I worry about. Modern Man has been around for over 100000 years. And yet, it was only about 10000 years ago that we started to practice agriculture and so to lay the framework for the eventual defelopment of civilization. Why?
If you look at Earth's climate, things fluctuate quite a bit in recent history up to about 10000 years ago and then we wind up with an exceptionally stable climate that has persisted to this day. Now this is speculation. But could it be that that extra stability tipped the balance between generating more calories from agriculture than from hunting and gathering? And if our current experiment in anti-terraforming Earth ends that period of stability at a time when we have depleted the planet's ability to produce AND we have 9 billion people AND we have depleted the Himmalayan glaciers as a water source AND... then I think we could be looking at the sort of massive dieback that could well spell the end of civilization (though, as you say, not of humans).
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in anthropology or climate science than me could put my mind at ease. Still, I don't think it is a concern to be dismissed lightly.
The problem is the combustion of fossil fuels. We can produce and operate these goods using other sources of energy.
Walton, it's interesting that you so often sing the praises of our current unsustainable consumer-industrial culture. Even as one of the few who benefits from it materially relative to billions of others, you are manifestly an unhappy person. Deeply unhappy, and you're certainly not alone. (And you haven't really started work yet...) I wonder if you've questioned the real meaning of a "high standard of living" and its relation to a good life. You may wish to think, as the ancients did, about the elements of a good life, and then consider, in modern terms, how we can create the conditions to make a good life possible.
Also good reading for trying to figure out why it's a good idea to combat AGW is Collapse.
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033…
In his Pulitzer Prize–winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, geographer Diamond laid out a grand view of the organic roots of human civilizations in flora, fauna, climate and geology. That vision takes on apocalyptic overtones in this fascinating comparative study of societies that have, sometimes fatally, undermined their own ecological foundations. Diamond examines storied examples of human economic and social collapse, and even extinction, including Easter Island, classical Mayan civilization and the Greenland Norse.
(Oh look, Greenland Vikings!)
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in anthropology or climate science than me could put my mind at ease.
I think it's more likely that such a person will agree that your surmise is eminently plausible. You've expressed very well an idea I've often tried to get across to people who don't deny AGW but who fail to see the problem with such a seemingly small disruption to the climate. The point is not that there's an ideal climate from the perspective of "the environment," it's that there manifestly is an ideal climate from the perspective of a massively interconnected material culture of global scope that is dependent on it.
It's a shame that the right wants to debate weather global warming is happening. They should be arguing about what to do about it. (Answer: Geoengineering!)
Developing countries with billions of people are cranking out coal fired plants. Any meaningful reduction in the level of CO2 looks politically impossible. And what is wrong with trying to have some control over the climate. Geoengineering looks like something that will create jobs and what are we going to do when Yellowstone Park goes off?
Seriously? Geoengineering?
Does anyone else remember Biosphere?
Perhaps the ultimate example of how conscious planetary engineering can go awry, Tosteson points out, is what happened with the original Biosphere 2 experiment. "The story of oxygen loss and the rise of CO2 and the ways in which the Biospherians tried to combat those problems," he says, "is a sort of case study unto itself of how we don't have the intellectual resources at the limit to solve problems of this complexity. I think it illuminated just how difficult it is to do conscious management of a little mini-world." And if we can't manage a mini-world, what business do we have experimenting on the big one?
See? You're just drumming up money for your own field. Trying to take away the profits of big oil and into the hands of quasi-scientists...
*shrug*
Some of us are going to die.
Canman | December 18, 2009 5:14 PM:
Every proposed geoengineering scheme - whether it is injecting sulphate aerosols into the upper atmosphere, global planting of bio-engineered trees, global seeding of plankton growth, building giant mirrors, or whatever, will require global agreement that global warming is indeed dangerous, and that said geoengineering scheme is the best way to improve the situation. To believe that global agreement on the very well-understood and very well-evidenced proposal that GHG emissions should be reduced and later eliminated is "politically impossible", but global agreement on poorly-evidenced and poorly-understood geoengineering schemes - all of which may have serious disadvantages - is possible, is quite foolish and self-contradictory.
Oh, right, I guess we all forgot there was super-volcano eruption scheduled for December 21st, 2012.
Yes, I know, the Yellowstone super-volcano is real, and it really did go off big 3 times in the distance past, but 3 irregularly spaced eruptions are poor evidence for a cycle, and even if the theory that it erupts cyclically is true, the 150,000+ year variance in the spacing of the last 3 eruptions indicates the chance of an eruption in any particular century is tiny.
Meanwhile, it looks like current proposals by variouscountries in Copenhagen are not yet ambitious enough :
...failed to embed the Climate scoreboard !
gee, what am I doing...
Climate scoreboard
It's inevitable, because he won't commit to learning any science and he won't commit to the intellectual honesty that would require him to really shut up about things he is unwilling to learn about. Learning is stressful, but refraining from running his mouth is more stressful, and blithe dogmatism provides comfort and stress relief.
A very pithy cartoon. Sums it up beautifully.
So is this an argument for or against AGW and trying to correct it? Because we currently are "experimenting on the big one" by dumping megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. So if you are saying we shouldn't try to control the climate, maybe you're right and the first step would be to stop breaking it!
I am not a global warming denier
And yet you repeat a slew of denialist talking points that have repeatedly been refuted.
but I am a sceptic on issues that seem a little light on the evidence
Anything can seem light on the evidence to someone who willfully avoids the evidence.
Jim Hansen:
No food or any other type of bulk cargo is transported by air. Air travel is by far the most expensive form of transportation. The cheapest form of transportation is by water. A VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) tanker of 100,000 tons GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage) needs only 30,000 SHP (Shaft Horse Power)/22,000 KW (KiloWatts) for a sustained speed of 15 knots (28 km/h). Such a VLCC has a cargo capacity of 1.5 million barrels/255 million liters of crude oil.
The cheapest form of land transportation is rail. An EMD SD90MAC-H has a 6,250 hp/4,660 KW engine with a continual tractive effort of 200,000 lbs/90,000 kg on straight and level track.
Canman,
At present there is no viable geoengineering technique. Sulfate aerosols last on the order of months, while CO2 lasts centuries. They also have undesirable consequences and the efficacy of the scheme is uncertain. Note that aerosols are among the most uncertain forcings, while CO2 is among the best known.
There are no carbon gulping trees, no magic algae, no carbon capture and storage. Bupkes. And that is why we need to conserve, so science and technology have time to come up with solutions--in other words to buy back some of the 20 years we've wasted arguing over the known science of climate change.
Hearing all these people talking about how it will destroy the economy makes me incredibly infuriated. And these are the people who are meant to have faith in the system! It's like they think things are going to be exactly the same as they are now, except with sacrifices. Not creating an entire new industry (which needs to take place), not creating research and development opportunities, not creating new and different jobs - just that what we have now except without driving our cars anymore and we communicate by carrier pigeon and drink rats milk and eat tofu burgers and whatever else this fantasy socialist ecofascism will take its form.
In the Dawkins documentary Nice Guys Finish First, he put forth an application of game theory and how it related to the actions of the planet. There was a public grazing area in England which had been accidentally overallocated. Because of too many farmers using the land, weeds were taking over and it was gradually becoming more and more unusable. So what could be done? Each farmer if they reduced their own size of their grazing herd would not fix the problem and would only put them at a disadvantage. While if many all decided to withdraw and that being enough, then the others who didn't withdraw would benefit. So they kept on going as they were, gradually destroying the land.
The moral to the story should be pretty self evident. If we know the path we are going down is destructive, and we have the capacity to change, then why the fuck aren't we? The way we are doing things now is unsustainable, and sooner or later we are going to have to work towards making a sustainable future. Pretending that this system of consumption and growth can go on ad infinitum is absurd, and if we can recognise this then not acting would be a great moral failing.
Wolfgang Lutz, Warren Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov: The end of world population growth, Nature 412, 543 – 545 (2 August 2001)
There's no real abstract, so here's the first paragraph, which is in boldface in the original:
(Endnote 1 is a reference, as usual in Nature.)
Next paragraph...
Further on...
Most of the First World is considerably below that fertility level. Even China is, and so is the poor state of Kerala in India with its comparatively highly educated population.
At the end of the main text...
Then comes the methods section, which starts like this:
Prediction:
1) Successful obstruction (cf India and China walking out of COP15 + nothing particularly effective from Washington).
2) Curses foiled again, that is to say much hand wringing for a while.
3) A bit of a rest followed by a different pretext for the "better world".
Abdul Alhazred | December 18, 2009 7:10 PM:
If United Nations Climate Change Conference achieves nothing, AGW will continue to be a real and present danger, and risks from global warming will continue to worsen. You've no evidence that AGW is merely a "pretext".
Himself @209,
Huh?
Air Freight Exports from Australian Airports, 2006-07.
290,000 tonnes is not inconsiderable.
Abdul Alhazred,
If nothing gets accomplished this time around, we'll be back at it in 5 years, with new record temperatures, new evidence and more certainty. Idjits like you will still be trying to obstruct things, because after all, you don't care about the truth.
Eventually, though, things will get bad enough, that even YOU will get concerned.
Kel, OM @211,
Why the fuck aren't we?... this is something that the regulars over at the Oil drum have been discussing for quite some time. This post by Nate Hagens is an example of the complexity and the depth of this particular dilemma, there simply may be no solution at all. I think what we all agree on is that the current paradigm is a dead end, what comes next is just about anybody's guess.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node?page=2
So is this an argument for or against AGW and trying to correct it? Because we currently are "experimenting on the big one" by dumping megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. So if you are saying we shouldn't try to control the climate, maybe you're right and the first step would be to stop breaking it!
He was responding to Canman's nonsense about geoengineering.
why the fuck aren't we?
Category error -- individuals have minds, but a group of individuals doesn't; actions belong to the former but not to the latter. The tragedy of the commons described by Dawkins is one example of the consequences; the Prisoner's Dilemma is another -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality The problem with Hofstadter's so-called "Superrationality" is that it is not in fact rational; it relies on an expectation that other people will act in a way that there's no reason to expect them to act other than wishful thinking.
Walton, what – if anything – makes you think that the actions listed in comment 30 will cost horrible amounts of money?
(Also, what is a horrible amount of money in a world where a war can cost three trillion dollars in three years?)
It used to be 1.3 mm per year. Now it's 3.4 or something.
"To alcohol – the origin and the solution of all of life's problems!"
– Homer Simpson
Except in Australia, where the weather isn't stable – precipitation is so unpredictable that agriculture never developed on that continent.
Interglacials in general have a much more stable climate than glacials.
What Josh said. We'll look deep into your eyes and say "today is a good day to die".
Also, "sulfate aerosols" are sulfuric acid. Does "acid rain" ring a bell?
We have already tried that. It even worked – that's where the slight cooling of the 40s to 70s comes from (as mentioned above in this thread). The side effects were just a bit too much.
P.S.
sooner or later we are going to have to work towards making a sustainable future.
No, really we are not going to have to, any more than a meth user is going to have to quit. Of course, following the current course has undesirable consequences, but logic doesn't care.
And we'd already have our New World Order, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
A cleaner environment isn't going to come free; dirty industry currently employs a lot of people and produces a lot of wealth.
So cleaning it up requires laying them all off?
Sometimes, Walton, you go so far out of your way to be stupid.
Yeah, true. Though I thought that was implied.
But isn't that what we have governments for?
CJO said somewhat the same above, but you do need to remember that the money spent on attempted ameliorative measures is in itself economic activity that follows the normal course; people get paid to do stuff, they spend their pay on living which pays other people to do their living and so on. It doesn't just evaporate or go down some sinkhole.
The only thing that can save us becoming extinct in the medium term future is a serious space program. The only thing that could stop us becoming extinct in the long term is a new branch of physics that offers hope of migrating to other universes as this one wears out.
That sounds exciting!
Is it just my impression, or this cartoon gives away that AGW is a hoax?
I think knowin the causes of global warming, or the non-causes, is essential to fight global warming, so what is the point of making agreements to fight global warming, without knowing the its causes? What's the point of driving the biggest slice of the money to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, when there's no evidence of Co2 caused warming?
The money can be driven better, with better knowledge, UN has a history of imcopetent decisions, is not the trustful organization that the media presents us to be, UN let 2 million east-timor people being killed, who is UN to save the planet?
Euphoria is not a good decision making system.
joaodiogo #227
Another denialist slinks into the thread.
Notice the denialist talks economics and not science. That tells us he has nothing cogent to say on the science. Just political blather.
A cleaner environment isn't going to come free; dirty industry currently employs a lot of people and produces a lot of wealth.
Walton is a talking point from a money-laundered southern Dixiecrat in Louisiana arguing against passage of the Clean Water Act in 1971. It only exists as a quantum-probability talking point still floating in the virtual/non-virtual vacuum.
Euphoria is not a good decision making system.
You might want to lay off the glue.
joaodiogo:
Probably not just your impression, but it's an unwarranted one, since one major point is that moving away from a fossil-fuel-dependent economy would have many benefits other than preventing further climatic complications — i.e. though taking action to ameliorate the anthropogenetic climate forcing is a very strong reason, it's not the only one.
It's not even a "decision making system" :)
But I take your meaning, and counter that wilful ignorance of science isn't, either.
Eventually, after you talk to denialists, you will find you're talking to a weird, hobbled, knock-kneed contrarian who is just waiting to bust out his proof that Einstein was wrong that has been sitting in his backpack getting moldy since he got it printed at Kinko's, next to the lemon eclair that's all squished.
This is not about science or anything. This is about that weird dude who is sitting under a 50 watt light bulb with nothing but a 4 month old bottle of flat ginger ale in his refrigerator, with Art Bell blaring on the side, saying, dood, fucking perpetual motion is possible. I did some calculations.
Either that or this is "free internet time" at a high quality "facility" which advertises in magazines catering to mental health practitioners.
joaodiogo says, "What's the point of driving the biggest slice of the money to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, when there's no evidence of Co2 caused warming?"
[FACEPALM]
[Bangs head on desk]
FUCK!!! Did the short bus arrive late today?
Dude, Go! Read!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
Now!
Quoth Walton:
Good Lord. Hasn't that argument been trotted out ad nauseam to oppose every pro-environment policy for the past 40+ years? I think I remember William F. Buckley bloviating back in the day about how clean air was not a "free good". Why wasn't the economy ruined by the Clean Air Act? The Endangered Species Act? The Clean Water Act?
If we manage to avert the worst effects of AGW in spite of the FUD spread by vested corporate interests and their lackeys in elected office, the first item on the agenda should be to get corporations out of politics: Abolish corporate personhood by constitutional amendment.
It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but I hope the kids get wise and make it happen. That is, if they're not preoccupied with flooded coasts, dwindling agriculture, wildfires, drought, and waves of climate refugees from increasingly uninhabitable regions of Mexico and Central America.
Knockgoats Post 107:
Your right about grapes in Newfoundland however your comment about Eric the Red and no firm evidence about why he named the country Greenland, well The Greenlanders Saga says:
Eirik's Saga says almost exactly the same thing:
It does appear to be the case that the name Vinland had nothing to do with attracting settlers and does in fact refer to grapes. However since it seems that Vinland refers to a lage area and not just the area of L'anse Aux Meadows it would seem tyo include areas further south like parts of New Brunswick where grape vines did and do still grow.
It's comforting to know I can blame that D+ I got in Calculus either on my professor's inadequate understanding or on calculus itself being flawed.
Ah, well, you should've taken it in first grade.
[I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love calculus. Calculus is beautiful. If I get another doctorate, it will involve calculus.]
Australia may be screwed anyway. Isn't there evidence that it's been unusually wet over the last two centuries, and that the current "droughts" are actually just the climate going back to normal? And yeah, there's a reason that the indigenous inhabitants never used agriculture and it's not stupidity.
Of the so-called "grapes" of Vinland, I remember reading that Eirik's colonists made wine out a local berry, the "squashberry," Viburnum edule, a relative of the honeysuckle, and not actual grapes.
(That, and I was under the impression that most wild grape species had tiny fruit that are regarded as squintingly edible)
Is it just my impression, or this cartoon gives away that AGW is a hoax?
No, others with room temperature IQs have the same impression.
Groucho: "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
But isn't that what we have governments for?
Yes, and I almost wrote that very thing, but decided that going into how and why governments often fail to achieve outcomes that are rational in terms of the interests of the governed would open too big a can of worms. Governments are our best bet, but not a very good one -- look at Copenhagen.
So get out there and invent! Leave no turn unstoned!
I had a professor once who stated if you cannot explain a concept so that a 6 year old could understand it, either the concept is flawed or you don't understand it very well.
Either your professor was an idiot or you are lying. Considering how often I've seen this stupid line -- about as often as I've seen the one about people only using 10% of their brains -- the latter is almost certain.
Anyway, the point is moot because there are 6 year olds who are capable of understanding what you choose not to understand. There are also 6 year olds who are more knowledgeable of Viking history than you appear to be.
Yeah, and that's what in my mind is the most disappointing about it. There's a chance to actually do something useful in terms of forward planning, yet it seems that any excuse not to do anything is enough to avoid it. I still find it astounding how many are using the fragility of the economy and the resistance to change as excuses not to implement even the most minor of measures to start to plan for a long term solution - as has happened in Australia recently.
Outcome as expected... see prisoner's dilemma.
You find it astounding ? The whole of human history on this planet is evidence that we have a very strong bias to focus on short term threats and heavily discount more longer term ones.
I thought it was
but I may be confused because there's a Least Tern refuge just up the road.
I find it astounding that those who champion such a system for its versatility and efficiency wrap it in cotton wool whenever it suits them. The advantage they propose disappears behind a black curtain the moment it is asked to do what it proposes. No faith in their own system whatsoever.
I remember a decade or so ago BHP ripping into the Australian government for not signing up to Kyoto. Because if there were laws requiring better practices then they would have to oblige, but without such laws they wouldn't be able to justify such costs to shareholders.
What system ?
We're nothing more than a collection of tribes that we call nations, engaged in a vast prisoner's dilemma who, as always, choose to focus on the short term, so that we are extremely ill prepared to tackle a common threat that is a bit longer on the horizon.
We've never had such a problem, so we have zero system in place to handle it. The first thing humans should do it to recognize our shortcommings. On top of that, the overdevelopped nations (that we call advanced) have already accumulated such mountain of debt from their consumption binge (the equivallent of more than 5 years of their entire annual output) and ressemble more addicts on meth than healthy nations who might eventually be able to super-reason their problems.
I'd like to be optimistic about the future, but honestly, I can't.
Outcome as expected... see prisoner's dilemma.
That's what I said.
I find it astounding that those who champion such a system for its versatility and efficiency wrap it in cotton wool whenever it suits them.
You're astounded that people do what suits them?
No faith in their own system whatsoever.
You're advocating faith now?
a_ray_in_dilbert_space,
You say "at present there is no viable geoengineering technique". Things like making roofs and roads more reflective must help a little bit. I saw a show on TV where people were putting fabric on a glacier to keep it from melting. It's been argued that this kind of thing is more cost effective than cutting carbon.
llewelly,
You call my belief, that significant cuts in greenhouse carbon are politically impossible, foolish. Consider this. Reducing carbon causes a lot of displacement right now, while the benefits (and they seem small to me) happen decades in the future.
I don't know how effectively the climate can be engineered, but I think it is desirable to be able to do so. I brought up the possibility of Yellowstone going off. Mabe it's unlikely to happen anytime soon along with an event of the type that caused Meteor Crater Arizona. But how about the Tunguska event or a "minor" nuclear exchange?
It's been argued that this kind of thing is more cost effective than cutting carbon.
It's also been argued that Obama is the anti-Christ and wants to kill grandma.
ressemble more addicts on meth
I said that too.
I'd like to be optimistic about the future, but honestly, I can't.
I argue with deniers, sign petitions, urge political action to my friends, etc., as if I believed we can turn the ship before it hits the iceberg, but really I don't; in fact, I think we've already struck and are taking on water and no amount of bailing will keep us from sinking.
Canman,
*facepalm*
actually, "addicts on coke" would be a better analogy. They can continue for a longer time than meth.
My father pointed out a few days back that when he got his first car, it cost $1 per pound. His second on weighed twice as much, and still cost $1 per pound. Then we had certain unions (not to disparage the work of unions) in the auto industry that managed to get their wages run up to the point of pure idiocy, where even attaching a door knob netted you the same pay as the guy building the engine. Cars are now about the same weight as that second vehicle my father bought, but they cost more like $25 a pound. In other words, instead of the cost going "down", they went up to absolutely stupid levels.
One has to wonder how much of this kind of idiocy you would find in the management levels of most major companies, especially when some estimates place the highest paid CEOs as *making* $50 for every $1 the guy on government food stamps, with a minimum wage pay rate, who works at the lowest level of the company is making.
We are already "lowering the standards" of people that can afford stuff now. The next major financial disaster is likely to be more "credit" BS. Why? Because the financial institutions haven't learned a damn thing, and people whose parents would have **never** taken out credit on anything have 10 credit cards, just to buy the *equivalent* junk their parents did. And its only going to get worse, until even the credit cards are not going to be enough to get Joe Nobody to buy a new, even *cheap* TV, if he can't get credit any more, it costs $600, because Chad Moneybags needs a raise from $2.1M per year to $2.5M, and the other 10,000 people that want one are in the same situation Joe is in.
I mean seriously, look at the "real" price of something like a cell phone. A cheap, almost useless one, costs like $500, and without that being "offset" by the service plan, no one would have one. The service plan? You get to make phone calls. If you want to do **any** of the other 500 things your phone can do, well.... That is where the price gets offset. Instead of getting "all" of the features, you pay extra for every damn thing it does. Kind of like if you bought a car and had to pay extra to use more than one gear, extra to wash the windows, extra to go in reverse, extra to "open" the windows, extra to have access to the trunks, etc. Oh, and extra to drive on roads outside the town you bought it in. After all, *none* of those things are any more necessary than all those added feature of the phone, right?
Its pure, complete, madness, and the result of it, in cases like California and light rail, is also stupid stuff like running study after study, after study, which says, "We need it, but this time around it costs too much, so lets wait until it costs even *more* too much." As I said on the other thread, no one wants to risk their business on actually inventing, if its easier to scrape tar off a rock, and keep dealing with the "same" technology, until you can't even find any tar, and not only the auto industry is hosed, but **every other industry** that needs oil to do anything, like making cell phone cases, or the protective material around your computers CPU.
strange gods,
That is not fair. (In case you've formed the wrong impression of my current political position from certain recent comments, I'd like to draw your attention to my self-correction here on the endless thread.)
When you put it that way...
Nope. Can't get away with using any hyperbole employed as a rhetorical device when you're around :P
SC,
My periodic unhappiness (which is not as bad as it was; things are getting better in my life) is primarily a result of my personal failings, not of the society in which I live. Compared to the vast majority of my ancestors and of all human beings throughout history, I'm very fortunate in almost every respect, and have had lots of opportunities which are denied to most people. I don't blame anyone, except myself and my own nature, for the things that have gone wrong in my life.
Jadehawk,
Cars may not be an absolute necessity; but for the majority of people in the developed world today, especially those living in rural or remote areas, owning a car is the only way of accessing a lot of opportunities. Public transport is all very well - and is the sensible option if you live in a large city - but for those living in more remote locations with poorer transport links, it simply isn't practical to use public transport for everything. (Why am I telling you this? You're the one who lives in North Dakota...) I don't currently own a car myself (and haven't passed my driving test, though I have a provisional licence), but when I start work (next year or the year after) I will certainly need to drive.
If the cost of cars and fuel increases to the point that the poor can't afford to drive, many people will become trapped in a cycle of poverty, unable to access job opportunities because they don't have the ability to travel. This is, IMO, a bad thing.
To me it seemed more like Kel was advocating against bad faith arguments. In that sense, one wouldn't be so much calling for "faith" as trustworthiness, intellectual honesty, sincerity, consistency, etc.
The Bottom Line is that the developped country with by far the largest CO2 emmissions (in absolute terms and on a per capita basis) is the developped country that has promissed by far the least reductions by 2020.
If promisses are kept (and it's not even sure the American promiss will be ratified by congress next year), the difference between Western European and American emmissions, already staggering, will actually increase.
Talk about fairness.
Walton:
It probably won't make you feel better; but I'm not happy either. I doubt it has much to do with my political beliefs.
That said, if I can offer some (probably unwanted) advice:
"O, that way madness lies." -King Lear
Shit happens. Don't beat yourself up so much. Bad things happen to everyone which are entirely beyond our control. I think your outlook may even have some relationship with your libertarian tendencies: many people really need help from society. Many times it was no fault of their own, and many times nothing they can do as individuals is enough.
Walton,
Well, the idea proposed by several political parties in several countries is that the carbon tax be budget neutral, and that the proceeds be redistibuted to those who need it the most (in rural areas, etc...).
But that you'll probably call it socialism...
The so-called Fallacy of Capitalism is that an economy has to expand indefinitely and infinitely.* It appears that reality is showing where the limits of capitalism are.
*Yes, I'm familiar with the arguments against the Fallacy. Yes, I agree that my definition is simplistic. Yes, I know the Fallacy was promulgated by Marx. Yes, I know free-marketeers hate the Fallacy. Yes, we can discuss it but don't, whatever you do, tell me that Murray Rothbard wasn't a utopian.
#258,
50 to 1 ? You must be joking, CEOs aren't that poorly compensated. The ratio for an average CEO to an average worker (not even the highest paid CEOs), is actually 275 to 1
It's gone up ten times in 40 years.
In other words, a CEO makes in a bit less than a working day what a worker makes in a year.
I believe he cribbed that from Robert Heinlein, Who, IIRC, used a 12 year old in his aphorism.
Typepad is still borked; thanks PZ for turning off registration.
BS
I'm going to assume from what you wrote in #261 that you still haven't informed yourself about the advantages of redundancy systems over efficiency systems. And that you know nothing about the effects of social environment on mental health. you're not that special, your problems aren't unique.
1)these people are already stuck in a cycle of poverty
2)the price of cars and fuel is going to increase regardless of whether we take action on AGW
oh yeah, I missed the part where you're blaming your "nature" for your misery. Guess what, your nature is that of a social animal, and your society is one that produces the 2nd largest percentage of mentally ill people (after the U!S!A!, which of course is NUMBER ONE!![/sarcasm]).
Yep, give them the grammar they understand.
Actually Walton, re getting to work, a good thing to do might be to decentralise a lot of things. It makes them less efficient in some ways (making as much money as possible for very few people), but it has other benefits.
Jadehawk, all I'm pointing out is that there is a direct conflict between the need to protect the environment, and the desire for human beings to enjoy high living standards. In the end, global trade and industry is what lifts the poor out of poverty, produces wealth, and produces the cheap consumer goods and vast quantities of energy we need to sustain our current lifestyles.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't take harsh measures to protect the environment. It's increasingly clear that we have no other choice. But we need to recognise that the future will not be some sort of eco-utopia in which people are happy and comfortable. Rather, if and when governments implement tough environmental measures, the inevitable result will be a massive increase in poverty and deprivation, and a reduced quality of life for most of us. Material comfort may not be a sufficient condition for happiness, but it certainly is a pre-requisite for happiness.
@258
OK, I'm sorry, but judging the value of a car by weight is a pretty silly metric. By the same metric, computers in the '60s were a much better buy than they are now.
Fail!
Cars today get better gas milage, are less polluting, stop quicker, run better and longer and are much, much safer.
The main problem with cars is that the industry remains extremely labor intensive.
And I find it depressing that some people on this thread have gone down the easy road of bashing CEOs, bankers and the like. They may be convenient bogeymen, but it's incredibly short-sighted to blame them for all the world's problems.
In the UK, the wealthiest 1% of income-earners contribute 25% of income tax revenues. The wealthiest 10% contribute over half of income tax revenues. In short, the rich pay for the public services which we all use - not to mention that their consumer spending props up the luxury goods and services industries (which employ a lot of people), and the businesses they run create jobs and wealth. Just food for thought.
no there isn't. there's a conflict with what the traditional economic model demands vs. what continued human wellbeing demands. so we need a new economic model, with a definition of "living standard" that actually reflects human wellbeing, not just wealth.
the level of "material comfort" that is a necessary prerequisite for human well-being can be achieved at levels significantly lower than what the West currently has. The connection between monetary wealth of a nation and the wellbeing of its citizens decouples around $20000 per year per capita PPP; after that, getting richer doesn't make people healthier, happier etc; it only makes them richer. so why would we continue demanding increased riches, when they're not actually helping human wellbeing?
besides, what lifted Europe and the USA out of poverty was the economic robbery of the rest of the world. what precisely is the rest of the world supposed to rob to catch up?
Anyway, the point is that a huge change in the way we live is inevitable, AGW or not. however, the changes necessary to not make the change a catastrophic one from a humanitarian POW are precisely the same (or at least tightly connected with) the ones necessary to fight AGW.
CEO wages before the 80's were a small fraction of what they are now. and yet, the economies functioned just fine. clearly, throwing stupendous amounts of money at CEO's doesn't actually improve the wellbeing of people; or the wellbeing of the economy, for that matter. counter to your claims, when the richest 10% was less significantly richer than the poorest 10%, social welfare systems were less decrepit, people saved more money, and infrastructure was still being invested in. the wealth of the richest members of a society is inversely correlated with the health of society as a whole
Drive-by linkage here: http://www.isabigot.com/2009/11/richard-dawkins-is-a-bigot/
Trolling? Very likely. Would be interested in seeing the Pharynguloid take on this, erm, interesting piece. I have no personal connection to the site, but their aggregator randomly started following me on Twitter. Hmm.
Walton seems concerned upthread with rising costs of food, fuel, transport, etc driving these things out of reach of the poor. It's a fair concern. This, however, is what we have social programs for. Well, it's what we had them for (in the US) until they were gutted by Ronald ReaganBushClintonBush. I seem to recall Walt is a libertarian though so I'm guessing that restoring welfare is anathema.
I'm also not convinced that intelligent farm and industrial subsidies could not offset much of this problem, allowing cleaner industries to out-compete the dirty ones even while their real costs are higher. They could thus pass a lower cost onto the consumer, allowing the poor to continue eating, etc... But this is more socialism, therefore evil. Of course we're already doing stupid corporate socialism by subsidizing the coal, automotive, oil and corn rackets.
Finally, I agree with person who said that we must absolutely end corporate personhood and prohibit corporations (even the "green" ones) from participating in political life. Otherwise my subsidy proposal could enthrone some future "green" version of Dick Cheney and all his crooked friends. Civil society must reassert it's dominance over business if anyone is going to survive.
Walton,
Except that in the UK income tax revenue represents only a small fraction of the total cost of public services.
For instance, how much taxes does a poor guy pay when he puts a liter of gasoline in his car ? The same as rich guy.
How much taxes does a rich guy pay on capital profit which is made offshore ? Hint : much less than a teacher pays on his income.
etc...
Walton, why do you seem to make so much effort to try and defend the rich when all economic analysis show that they've increased their net wealth tremendously over the last forty years, whilst the poor and middle classes didn't ?
And that's particularly evident in the UK and the USA.
Do you think it's fair that an average CEO makes in a day what a worker makes in a year ? Forty years it used to be that they made in a day what a worker made in a month, and the highest income tax bracket was much higher than what it is nowadays.
Don't you realise that worker's real wages in the UK and the US didn't increase at all over the last forty years ? Meanwhile, the employers, the rich capital owners benefitted from immense productivity gains from the same workers, and used the proceeds (capital gains) to lend the money to those same workers and charge them insterest.
You are such a fool to be so blindfolded by the permanent propaganda on how the rich are such a benefit to society.
I'm sceptical of that. US$20,000 pa (about GB£12,500 pa), even for a single person living alone, doesn't buy all that much. While that income level would allow you to subsist and obtain food and shelter, it doesn't easily allow for the comforts which enhance a person's quality of life; dining out at restaurants, driving a good car, shopping, going to the cinema or theatre, drinking wine, and the like. These things make a substantial difference to most people's level of happiness. I'm not saying that it's impossible to be happy without these material luxuries, or that having them makes you happy. But it's hard for the average person today, in a society where these things are commonplace, to be happy without them. And if economic growth is slowed or halted by environmental protection measures, fewer people will have access to these luxuries.
Over the last few decades, Taiwan and South Korea have managed to become relatively wealthy via industrialisation and trade, without "robbing" anyone. Parts of India and China are now going in the same direction.
Jadehawk:
Using the model Walton seems to prefer they are supposed to keep robbing the future generations and climate. This is "working" now for China and a few other nations but it can't continue. The Chinese, for instance are now stupidly recreating the car & freeway transport approach that makes LA, Houston and other suchbelt cities such shitholes. This is hugely stupid and actually reduces the quality of life. It benefits the corrupt authoritarian power structure in those nations though so it goes forward.
Inhabitable Mars
Adding mass to Mars has a few problems. For one thing, the increased mass will mess with orbital dynamics. resulting in orbital perturbations and the like. Then there is the matter of what adding all that extra mass means to Mars itself. Keep in mind that Mars masses a fraction of what the Earth does, so bringing it to even half Earth's gravity means heating things up a bitch. Hope you've got tens of millions of years to wait until the new crust forms and temperatures fall to the point liquid water is possible. And with planetary orbits all out of whack we may not have those tens of millions of years.
There is another way, it starts with first inventing time travel.
You build yourself a time machine (believe me, if you have the tech to do that cheaply, all the other stuff you'll need to do should be a cinch). You use your time machine to go back in time to when the Solar System was first forming. Then you can start to work.
You'll need to first move a few "eddies" out a bit from the Sun. The one's that'll later become Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. And widen the gap between Mars and Jupiter as well. This should allow Mars to accumulate more mass, what with Jupiter not hoovering up all the mass that otherwise would've gone to Mars.
Next you need to make sure Mars gets a Moon sized moon. You do know about the "Great Splash" theory of how we got the Moon? You'll need to replicate that for Mars.
Why?
Because according to available evidence an Earth sized world without a Moon-sized moon quickly cool down and develop a thick, rigid crust. Much like Venus. You need a close by (just outside the Roche Limit) Moon-sized moon to keep the proto-crust stirred up and give water time to lubricate things so continuous tectonic activity is possible.
(Yes, water saturates everything on Earth. Water even saturates the upper mantle.)
So along with moving five blastospheric proto-planets (as in very young embryonic planets) you'll need to guide the development of a Mars sized world that will provide the material for Mars' moon should things work out, and then make sure that things do work out.
Do it right and Mithras (Persian war god) impacts (or near misses) Mars just right and Mars' thick, rigid crust is destroyed, to be replaced by a thinner, weaker crust the new Ares (moon's gotta have a name you know) can keep stirred up through tidal stress so tectonic activity can continue and all the stuff that follows from that.
You could even do the same thing for Venus. Only in this case it would be Freya (Norse goddess of wild monkey sex) impacting (or almost impacting) Venus to produce Helen (who was also strongly lusted after).
There is one small problem with this scenario. Now you get to wait for almost 4.5 billion years for Homo sapiens to arise (and that may require a bit of finagling), meanwhile life evolves on Mars, and in ways that wouldn't necessarily be compatible with Terrestrial life. ("Such as?" I hear you ask. "Such as using arsenic in the place of phosphorus," I reply. (Think about it, Martian cows as rat poison.)) Even if Martian life uses phosphorus as we do, it may used different nucleotides (maybe ATP in place of Guanine) or even a different number of them. Six instead of our four for example. Think of the xenopharmacology that would arise there.
In the long run I doubt such a course of action would really do us much good. (All else aside there is the fact doing this wouldn't actually benefit us, unless you planned on taking the Earth's population back with you; and wouldn't figuring out who got what be lots of fun? Oh, and how do you keep people occupied and out of trouble while waiting for the new Venusian, Terrestrial, and Martian crusts to cool and oceans to form?) No, it looks like the only viable course is to establish environmentally self contained structures where Earth-like conditions can be maintained. And won't that be a bitch?
(That inconsequential digression from the topic brought to you by the number 36 and the word "gizon" (Basque for a male wolf).
True. The current US and EU farm subsidy regimes, in particular, are absolutely iniquitous. They spend vast sums of taxpayers' money subsidising wealthy agri-businesses, while producers in the developing world are unable to compete, leading to more poverty and starvation. They also distort the market, leading to land being wasted on producing surplus crops in huge quantities which can't be sold. If I could snap my fingers and make one change to global public policy, I would choose to put an end to the US Farm Bill and the EU Common Agricultural Policy.
Of course, where you and I would part company is on the issue of subsidies. I don't think "intelligent subsidies" are possible; government, because it doesn't have the supply-and-demand mechanisms inherent in a free market, cannot acquire enough information to make "intelligent" decisions about what should be produced in what quantities. And the reality is that, however noble your intentions, any subsidy scheme will in reality be hijacked by wealthy and politically-connected businesses in their own interests. I would argue that government subsidies for industry and agriculture, therefore, should be completely abolished immediately and not replaced.
Walton @ 272,
Methinks you are confusing high living standards with consuming tons of crap that no one really needs and only concentrates wealth in the hands of very small elite.
In my book only a civilization that understands the laws of thermodynamics and the fact that it depends on a healthy environment and therefore must first and foremost protect it can aspire to a high standard of living. Otherwise you are just putting the cart before the horse.
Btw, extracting those vast quantities of energy you mention, from fossil fuel, is not a very sustainable practice long term...
Face it guys, the Mad Arab just doesn't want to live in a better world. He's waiting for the Great Old Ones to return. When that happens none of your feeble plans will matter. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!
If no one had them, there wouldn't be a problem.
The problem with humans is that once they get some level of something, you have to wrestle it from their cold dead hands before they will go back to how they were. Even though they were quite content before they had it.
Going to the cinema is pathetically and unnecessarily expensive in England. Most of the films suck anyway. I drink too much, because wine is so cheap over here. Cmon, its sugar, grapejuice and water left for a bit. There are cheap restaurants. Eating out loses its thrill when you are doing it every other day anyway.
You know whats fun. walking through whats left of our forests, playing my piano and hanging out with my friends.
1)look up what PPP means
2)eating at restaurants, shopping etc. are not necessary or even particularly conductive to increased happiness. they are, as others have pointed out, a symptom of the addiction to consumerism, nothing else. people are TOLD that they will be happier when they can do these things, so they feel miserable when they can't. But they usually don't actually feel better when they can do those things, because there's always something that some can do and they can't.
studies have shown that people are happier and healthier when they manage to stop feeling the pressure to "keep up with the Joneses", either because the "Joneses" don't have more than them anyway, or because they live in a group/society/neighborhood where other things are valued more than wealth (and obvious displays thereof). Wealth makes people only happier when it helps them cover basic expenses. beyond that, it simply doesn't correlate.
also, I don't particularly care whether you're skeptical of the $20000. I didn't make it up, I took it from statistics that show the correlation between average income and social health. and it's only correlated below that level, not above.
Walton,
Economic growth in the west is going to be halted anyway by the societal cost our immense debt overhang and the rising cost of fast depleting basic resources. Environmental protection measures isn't going to make the situation worse, especially if they help reduce our dependency on those same resources.
Having said this, the current level of output of the rich nation is more than sufficient to provide those "luxuries" to a much larger proportion of the population if wealth was distributed more fairly with the adequate tax code.
Do you understand waht Warren Buffet means when he remarks that it is quite remarkable that the current Amerrican tax code is such that he pays less taxes as a percentage of his income as the lowest paid of his employees ?
Which, unless you are lucky enough to live next to a forest (which would be an expensive location), requires you to have a car and fuel to get there.
A real piano tends, in my experience, to be rather expensive. You can always get a cheap Yamaha keyboard, of course, but it doesn't feel or sound the same.
In the end, few things in our world come free. And one of the more unpleasant feelings in life is the nagging voice in the back of one's mind saying "you shouldn't be spending money on this, you can't afford it." Financial security and material comfort are, in the real world, essential to maintaining any kind of happiness. They are a necessary, though not always a sufficient, condition for a happy life. It therefore follows that halting or slowing economic growth will make life worse for most people.
Walton, here's a recent study reported from BBC News about the relative worth to society of bankers and janitors. Turns out bankers destroy 7 pounds of value out of the global economy for every 1 they earn. Janitors create 10 pounds of value for every 1 they earn. Trash collectors create 12 pounds of value for every 1 they earn.
Of course it can. We need sustainable energy, food, water, transport systems, etc... Those get a subsidy, the old dirty businesses lose theirs and eventually get an increasingly heavy "sin" tax applied to them. We're not talking about a 5 year plan where a commissar decides how many shoes to make. The market signal is still there but has been pushed in the right direction. You are ignoring the need to bootstrap cleaner approaches into existence and the dominant power of established businesses.
But wine drinking is ! Especially if it's French :-)
I know what it means - Purchasing Power Parity - but I read your post too quickly and missed it. Sorry.
mythusmage,
If we're moving planets around why not put Venus and an enhanced Mars into Earth's Lagrangian points? Possibly the leading and trailing Trojan points (L4 and L5) would be most convenient for travel between the planets.
you still don't get it, do you. for those who have managed to escape the brainwashing of consumerist culture, that voice (almost) doesn't exist. There's always one or two luxuries that are indeed part of personal wellness; but for the most part, all this stuff people spend money on doesn't actually make them happier, but they are told that it will, when it reality it just makes them feel guilty because they can't afford stuff. which makes them more miserable, so they do what society tells them will make them happier (i.e. spend money); which makes them more guilty and more miserable... etc. ad nauseam. it's a vicious cycle, not unlike that of drug addicts.
let me repeat the fact that richest countries are neither the happiest ones, nor the healthiest; they are however disproportionately those that have the most people in debt and the lowest savings rates.
Walton #284
Typical looneytarian "da gummint are bad" bullshit. Tell me, Walton, what do you think economists do for a living? Does the term "feedback" mean anything to you? How about "economic models"?
I've told you before you need to take a basic macroeconomics course or three before you start pontificating on shit you're obviously ignorant about. I'd be much more impressed by your points if you weren't parroting looneytarian propaganda.
Tis Himself:
Or we could put Mars in orbit around Venus at a Lagrangian. Mars would stabilize the axial tilt of Venus and it's own. Suck off some of Venus' excess CO2 and give it to Mars. Venus cools, Mars warms and both are covered in forest and field.
Nah, let's just keep driving our Hummers and kill ourselves.
Oops, I've done a bad thing. I've been enabling a looneytarian takeover of a thread. My looneytarian codependency needs to be further stifled. I apologize to all and sundry.
Right, self-sustained small pockets of earthlike artificial evironments it is then.
Heres a question for the chemists. If we lived in a crater, is there a gas or set of gases we could use as a roof which would keep a suitable air level in but still allow through sunlight within the crater. So it would be lighter than "air" we can inhabit, but heavier than the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere of mars. Rather than building big plastic structures which would cost a lot in transportation.
Well, it seems to me as if the whole "global warming debate" is the result of a looneytarian takeover.
except when you live in a country with ebil gubmint forest management, at which point you can have forests IN your cities, around your cities, and pretty much everywhere that isn't being used for agriculture. :-p
for that matter, walks through a wheat-field or along a river, or along a beach, or on the open prairie, or up a mountain, or whatever can be just as pleasant, relaxing, and happiness-inducing. And the only thing necessary for that is to make sure development doesn't eat everything in an attempt to make more money, which as I've just explained, doesn't make anyone happier; unlike easy access to nature.
Overrated. I am brewing batches of english strawberry and also cherry wine as we speak. Grape is so last century.
Or Californian. They also grow some good wines in Italy, Germany and even Chile. Supposedly there's also some drinkable wine from New Zealand or Indonesia or somewhere around there.
...it even seems a new poll indicates that looneytarians now outnumber republicans :
The results: Democratic 36%, Tea Partylooneytarians 23%, Republican 18%
Poor country.
Nothing is free, but my piano will last at least up to a hundred years (the last one did). That is value for money that you will rarely see.
I could afford it, I saved for it and made some sacrifices. I wouldn't have bought it if it had got me into debt. I leave that to the plebs who want a bigger tv so they can waste away their lives and bodies in style.
It's been 24 hours, PZ is officially missing in action now.
Jadehawk, I disagree. There are lots of things I would definitely miss if I were living on a tighter budget: attending black-tie dinners (which can easily cost £50 a head), going to the gym, and the like. Conversely, if I had more money, I can think of plenty I would do with it; it would be great to be able to go shopping and buy a £300 suit, or a £50 shirt, or a £100 pair of shoes, without having to worry about what I can afford. And I desperately want a car; at the moment I can't afford one of my own.
It's true that a lot of these specific desires are the result of the social environment in which I live. But a different social milieu would simply engender different desires.
I'm not disputing any of what you said in #307; I'm merely trying to explain to you that you didn't come to like these things/think that way on your own, and that those other social milieus are more conductive to actual human wellbeing than the perceived happiness experienced by consumerism and the "need" for ever more luxuries. And that it is possible (albeit temporarily painful) to switch from one to the other, without permanently sacrificing people's wellbeing; on the contrary, switching out of consumerist culture to a more sustainable, human focused tends to make people happier and healthier in the long term.
Which, unless you are lucky enough to live next to a forest (which would be an expensive location), requires you to have a car and fuel to get there.
Actually, I live right across a beautiful forest. Ad I'm trying to push myself to get off this phayngula thing and go for a nice walk in that forest with my dog.
Anybody know of a method to log off Pharyngua for a while ?
On top of that, it has snowed last night, so it's even more beautiful than usual... and it's really exceptional here on the French Riviera. That must be absolute PROOF Global Warming isn't happenng.
Black tie dinners are overrated. At one time I went to so many that I owned my own tuxedo. I don't miss black time dinners in the least. Among other things, the food was usually mediocre.
Maybe willpower will work...
I'm off to the forest. Ciao
oh yes, and also: consumerist society is so structured that there is always something "better", something that would make your life "perfect" just out of your reach... and when you get that, there will be something else again, because the last thing just didn't do the trick as promised. it's an addiction, not a healthy desire for happiness.
real happiness is something that must actually be achievable, an actual finite goal. granted, sometimes life fucks with us and makes it harder or even impossible to reach that goal, or takes it away once achieved... but a society in which the goal is designed to be always juuuuuust out of reach is pathetic and pathological
Calculus is cool, as is math in general. It's just very hard for me to understand. (I got a B- the second time I took the course, though.) I also recently bought a book on trigonometry and one on calculus to see if I can understand them better if I don't have the pressure of exams and grades and crap like that.
PPP? You mean that statistic the Republicans love to use to prove that even though we have less money per head, we're 'really' doing better, because it's basically per Capita GDP 'divided' by the cost to buy 'essentials of life', when those essentials of life are priced towards the poorest people, which makes our disproportionate income where the wealthy get MOST of it and the average 'Merikan makes well below the Per Capita GDP, but that doesn't matter in debates because PPP?
*Continues raging*
Sorry, the enabling effect this has on Ron Paul the History Failure continually enrages me, since he LOOOOVES applying it to the Gilded Age without realizing that the average peon still had absolutely shitty living conditions.
Er, and I'm aware it's not being used for that, just ergh.
Why would you want to go to black tie dinners? Is that some kind of social meet club thingy?
I went out in waistcoat, shirt and tie last night and got back 4 hours later exhausted, happy and having spent about £14.
You are so doing it wrong.
Stealth Kiwi is about the only thing I've found that works. :)
There's the thing right there: you're defining it as living on a "tighter budget". Of course it would make you miserable to constantly think of your life as one of an enforced restriction of your desires. Changing how you think of what makes you happy, though, there's the secret. I'll admit I'm fairly consumerist, but the few times a year I end up at the megalith known as "the mall" I simply wander about in confusion as to why so many people want to buy so much crap. And maybe I buy a pretzel, but only if I'm hungry. There's just so much life out there that doesn't really have anything to do with stuff.
As usual, Walton, you have no clue whatsoever about the lives of "most people." Seriously. Zero.
This comic illustrates a point I try to make often; that the debate is mostly a shortsighted partisan distraction. It's no secret that belief and denial goes right down party lines. It's a blatant tip off to anyone that tries to be objective.
So which actual existing societies do you see as role-models for your desired "sustainable, human focused culture"? The Kingdom of Bhutan, perhaps (where the official policy of the government is to advance "gross national happiness" instead of Gross National Product)?
There's the thing right there: you're defining it as living on a "tighter budget". Of course it would make you miserable to constantly think of your life as one of an enforced restriction of your desires. Changing how you think of what makes you happy,
Reminds me of something in Juliet Schor's recent book Born to Buy. In some research she does with suburban and inner-city children she finds that the greater the degree of integration into consumer society the worse results for tweens/teens in terms of depression, anxiety, self-esteem and psychosomatic symptoms like headaches and nausea. Greater integration into media/consumer society led to worse outcomes. The key isn't getting more, but wanting less.
Its a shame that humans aren't really built like that. Give somebody something then take it away because they don't need it and see what happens. Funny how the conversation currently reminds me of the obesity issue.
role models? that's... idiotically simplistic. this entire conversation is about the fact the currently prevailing economic paradigm is about to grind to a screeching halt, whether we do something or not. existing cultures cannot be role-models. they can only be evidence for which direction produces which results, i.e. how we can adjust so that the changes that are inevitable will become less painful.
I have already noted that economic growth and increase in average national income do help poor and undeveloped nations, so your bhutan comparison is a red herring. I have also noted that above about $20000 average income, there are no more benefits to such increases; at that point, it becomes wasteful and useless to continue chasing increased wealth. this is evidenced by a simple comparison between existing countries above the aforementioned level. when you do that, you see that the richest country (the USA) is actually the least healthy. OTOH, Japan, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, which are not nearly as wealthy, have healthier and happier citizens. They also have a much smaller Carbon footprint; redundancy systems in things like transportation, social support, economy, etc.; fewer working hours; higher personal savings; etc.
these are not role-models in the sense of "this is exactly how the rest of the world should look like". They are however evidence of which direction is the right one to steer our societies towards, because they're happier, healthier, and more sustainable, thus making the inevitable transition less likely to come at as high human cost (which would be what will happen if we don't to shit and let things run as they are)
the entire point here is, one more time, that the cost of not doing anything is immense regardless of AGW, and the benefits of doing something are also immense regardless of AGW; statistical comparisons among the wealthy nations confirm this.
also, excellent reading material on increasing wellbeing of people and their immediate societies (neighborhoods, towns, etc), even WITHIN the larger framework of a consumerist, unhealthy society: Affluenza
Funny how the conversation currently reminds me of the obesity issue.
I'd like to move both of them toward a social analysis. Part of the obesity epidemic lies in how we organize life. The use of high fructose corn syrup in everything, a more sedentary lifestyle, particularly in terms of physical labor, for man of us than has ever existed before, a culture which is always stressing "More, more, bigger, bigger" and selling 1-lb burgers as a bargain (instead of as irresponsible). Yeah, there are more of us who are fat--but that's not solely about each and every individual fat person. It's about a society that tends to create fatter people.
Same thing for consumption. There are different ways of being consumers, and we're in the middle of a society that elevates that role above all others (even look at certain discourses about the relationship between individuals and the state--no longer are we citizens, but consumers of government services). it's a society that, as Jadehawk noted, preaches the gospel of purchasing for self-improvement. It's a society in which the mall has become the public square. That's not inherent in human nature, but it is the result of human social activity. Consumer society is, in very many ways, bad for people.
Walton said:
Big kernel of truth there, and the agricultural subsidies mentioned previously are a good example. IIRC, in the US they began as a way to assist farmers during the Depression, most of whom were small independent operators in danger of being impoverished. They also had the aim of assuring our food supply. Both were laudable and necessary at the time. The programs were gradually hijacked by agribusiness, so now the likes of Archer Daniels Midland are suckling at the public teat. One could no doubt name many other examples of subsidies that were defensible at the time devolving into corporate welfare...but I'm no historian. Big Oil and King Coal, for sure.
I wonder though: if corporations did not have the rights of persons, might that have put some brakes on that process?
Ending corporate personhood is becoming something of a hobbyhorse for me, alas. I realize it's no panacea - nothing is - but it could surely mitigate the tendency toward the concentration of power in the hands of the few.
Can you justify this statement with data? Firstly, the countries you cite are actually fairly wealthy. Norway is actually wealthier than the US in terms of GDP per capita, because of its extensive oil reserves in the North Sea and its small population (allowing it to have artificially generous government spending subsidised by oil). Sweden, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands and Finland are all (depending on the data source you use) in the top 20 or 30 countries in the world by GDP per capita at PPP. So while these countries are relatively healthy and happy, that health and happiness is not unconnected to wealth.
Measures which take into account non-economic aspects of wellbeing, such as the Human Development Index, do place the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands very high - but they also place the US very high, along with jurisdictions like Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand that are well-known for their free-market policies.
I would also point out - as another measure of (un)happiness - that Japan, Denmark and Norway all have substantially higher suicide rates per capita than the United States. In the case of Japan, the suicide rate per capita is 24.4, more than twice the average for the United States.
Scott Pigeon:
Sure Scott, it's just like the way belief/denial in evolution goes down party lines too. I mean it's not like one side has facts and science and the other side just has bullshit and lies. It's just like choosing a laundry detergent or a football team. You, however, are "objective" and stand above such things.
There is indeed no evidence for warming caused by molecules that might exist in cobalt vapor.
If you don't know anything, why do you comment?
Where is Japan in the list? Does mental illness just go unreported there, do such people simply quietly kill themselves*, or what's up?
* After protests that they were just too callous, the Tokyo subway system had to remove signs saying "please don't jump during rush hour" a few years ago.
What makes you think so?
I have already asked you: what, if anything, makes you think the actions listed in comment 30 will have such consequences?
Won't some of them even create jobs?
LOL!
Maybe he expects to become rich himself one day? He is after all studying law.
(Black-tie dinners? 300-£ suits? Man. Take anything, claim it's expensive, tell Walton it's a luxury, and he'll just love it. It's luxury itself that makes him happy. <headshake>)
That would be cool.
Erm... the A in ATP is ordinary adenine. We use that one already. But you're right that plenty of other possibilities exist.
Is it? Because it's the ordinary word for "man"...
No chance, because the atmosphere of Mars just isn't dense enough.
MAJeff: What you said. We not only posted nearly simultaneously but seem to think very much alike.
A telling anecdote FWIW: A former co-worker with whom I've kept in touch has a pretty libertarian/conservative orientation. Hard worker, highly skilled, smart gal (politics aside). Had a pretty successful consulting business. All lost. She has come close to bankruptcy and nearly lost her home due to medical expenses (a mere broken bone) and the credit crash. One day at work she lamented how she was getting fat "because it's so hard to eat healthy when you're poor".
I also failed to wrap up my previous post to say: Maybe if we didn't have corporate "people", we might not be embroiled in the manufactured "controversy" over the science of AGW right now. Perhaps we would be spending more arguing about means to deal with it (or not) as citizens.
I gotta step away from the keyboard and do something useful...
walton, are you ignoring what I'm saying on purpose? first you're offering bhutan, which lies below the $20000 threshold, and then you're complaining that I'm comparing countries above that threshold only. have you even understood what my argument is?
anyway, you want data? knock yourself out
lastly, not only are suicide rates are not the only measure of social health, I have no idea where you get the idea that Norway and Denmark have significantly higher suicide rates than the US. it's 11.6, and 13.7, vs. 11.1, which is a relatively minor variation. The excessive Japanese rate is a well-known and unfortunate social artifact, the import of which (in case you haven't noticed) I'm not advocating
-No chance, because the atmosphere of Mars just isn't dense enough.-
Sorry but you will have to explain that a bit more. I would have assumed that if I put oxygen in a crater on a planet with a carbon dioxide atmosphere then the oxygen would stay where it is since it is heavier.
David, don't get the wrong impression of me. I'm a very careful steward of my money; I don't actually buy £300 suits. That's a dream, not a reality. Indeed, in reality, I worry all the time about over-spending, and I keep my day-to-day living expenses quite low. (I even begrudge paying £0.05 for a plastic carrier bag at Marks & Spencer, which has recently started charging customers for bags.) So don't get the impression that I have some sort of extravagant money-wasting lifestyle. :-)
Carbon dioxide has a molecular weight of 44. The oxygen molecule (O2) is only 32. Oxygen will go flying off before carbon dioxide.
There's a perfect example of urging desires in a different direction to the benefit of both the economy and the environment. Follow this advice and you will save money over time, help the environment, and be happier that you aren't being gouged at every market trip.
Jadehawk, citing the "Equality Trust" to me is about as helpful as me citing Heritage or Cato Institute papers to you. Partisan political think-tanks, which cherry-pick data to make an ideological point, are not reliable or trustworthy sources of analysis.
And thus thats why i'm not a chemist, i mess up on the figures. So that means a crater dome would have to be solid then?
Read the comments to that one!
In Denmark and Norway depression from darkness probably plays a role. In Japan, the incredible pressure throughout education does, as might the culture – suicide has a long tradition of being seen as something courageous and therefore honorable, and even today life insurance pays after suicide in Japan, while in the West... in Christianity, suicide is aggravated blasphemy against the Lord Over Life And Death™ – you go straight to hell and, traditionally at least, can't even get a Christian burial because you died in the state of mortal sin or something. It goes so far that the 9/11 terrorists were labeled "cowards" because they killed themselves in the process.
In the USA.
What a surprise for a, you know, sociologist.
Yes, capable of holding in the necessary pressure too.
Unless, of course, the science fiction staple the force field is invented.
Right, you merely aspire to one.
back into the killfile with you!
That's the biggest American Paradox these days.
(...Interpret "big" as a pun if you like. Wasn't intended as such, though.)
Gases do mix if you leave them alone, and when the pressure on top of a gas is too small, little prevents the molecules on top from moving upwards.
(Besides, you only need to know that carbon doesn't have negative weight to find out that CO2 is heavier than O2.)
Yes.
I don't doubt that at all. I'm just baffled that you would like to buy that kind of thing. I see a suit as something useless that I am pressured to wear at formal occasions (about 3 times a year), and a 300-£ suit as something that, while marginally prettier than a 50-£ one, is to me something you can't do anything with other than showing off (to those people, mind you, who look so closely in the first place that they can distinguish a 300-£ one from a 50-£ one).
BTW, I don't need plastic carrier bags for anything except wrapping trash in them. Buy one big solid bag once, and use it again and again...
Some leakage is acceptable as we could use some energy to replace the oxygen from the carbon dixoide. Some kind of circulating system might actually work better.
So a solid, transparent material capable of keeping in gas. Doesn't sound too difficult. Won't a plastic do the job?
Scott Pigeon says, "This comic illustrates a point I try to make often; that the debate is mostly a shortsighted partisan distraction."
Well, I agree that the debate is political. After all, there's no real debate among scientists any more that we're warming the planet.
Nah, I never believed thats true for a second. Not when in the last thread eating out on crap at McDonalds was apparently cheaper than eating in with a healthy meal.
Check out Scott Pigeon's website. It's hilarious. Turns out he's a looneytarian candidate for office somewhere.
Different topic: it's easy to build the towers that support the dome over the crater on Mars. The low gravity means multi-kilometer high structures are easier to support than on earth.
So a dome stretching across a crater is technically doable? We aren't talking a soppy little dome in a crater to keep out the wind here. You would need about 1 kilometre square of land to keep about 200 people.
Well, SB ate my post but yes, you could get 1km^2 under a dome without much building material there. There is a problem of micrometeroid impacts though. Martian atmosphere lets a lot of shit through that burns up on earth. It will need constant repair.
A heavy seethrough gas to protect the dome?
We should all realize, of course, that all this is going to be moot when the Large Hadron Collider makes a black hole that swallows the Earth. :)
A heavy seethrough gas to protect the dome?
Not sure about that. If something does get through the heavy gas pours into the dome. I'm guessing it's not O2 so that could be bad.
We should all realize, of course, that all this is going to be moot when the Large Hadron Collider makes a black hole that swallows the Earth. :)
Don't forget 2012 when Jesus, Cthulu and Quetzacoatl come back and rape us all with light sabers (or whatever is supposed to happen then).
Don't forget 2012 when Jesus, Cthulu and Quetzacoatl come back and rape us all with light sabers (or whatever is supposed to happen then).
goats will spontaneously burst into flames.
Mhhhmmmm.... goats.....
mmmm...Freshly cooked goats.
Yes, but a dome without a protective layer suffers exactly the same thing. The dome will have to be airtight, holes will have to be patched quickly. An air filter system that pulls out the heavy gas and puts it back up there as part of its function perhaps?
If the gas inside the dome is kept under slightly positive pressure, then atmospheric incursion would not be a problem for small holes. Some sort of self-repairing membrane would be nice.
Small roaming machines using solar power, a plastic gun and basic AI could do it. You would need some other system in place and the occasional overhaul of course.
That still leaves us the question of whether such a gas exists that won't blot out the sun, or react violently with the atmospheres.
"Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kitd..."
OK, not only is the atmosphere thin and the temperature cold enough to make brass monkeys extinct, there's almost no oxygen, very little water and the neutron flux peaks right at the surface--in short, nasty!
Now, consider, that to terraform the planet, you would need to bring pretty much everything from Earth. At present, we can only manage the trip to Mars once every two years, when the planets near their closet approach. The trip takes several months, during which time you ar exposed to the full galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux and any solar particle events that might occur. GCR fluxes are so energetic, that to sheild out half of them, you'd need a shell of aluminum 14 cm thick all around you--good luck getting that off the ground.
There is only one habitable planet we know of. ONE. And it is likely to stay that way until long after we render it uninhabitable. We aren't all going to go to Mars. And we certainly aren't going to venus. And the stars are right out. We live or die on Earth.
We aren't terraforming the planet anymore. It takes too long and those lazy scientists won't make any more physics for us to use. Please try to keep up.
If the protection needed is as you say then we will need a stopover in earth orbit to build something there. Or something on the moon so that we can transport humans there.
Richard Eis,
It takes 10 Grand to launch a can of soda into orbit--orbit, mind you, not to the moon or to Mars. What is more, that total is unlikely to diminish any time soon. When we build a satellite, we worry about grams of mass!
And as to the radiation, you also need to understand that the galactic cosmic rays are high Z, high energy ions (HZE), which do more damage to DNA than gamma, or beta radiation typically encountered on Earth. Look, Richard, I do this for a living. NASA runs a radiation facility at Brookhaven just for tissue damage studies. It ain't pretty.
We are stuck on Earth unless somebody comes up with a warp drive, and I'm not holding my breath.
David,
Yes, Rasmussen isn't trustworthy. However, this comment is just what I'm thinking :
negentropyeater,
That Palin/Beck plan sounds just crazy enough to work, but what do we do if they win?
...then we all move to Plan B.
That's as far away as possible from the US of A. Mongolia, Fidgi, or preferably another planet.
I think a problem with that is that the Lagrange points are only stable if the object within it is not too large relative to the primary orbiting mass. For example, one of the theories about the origin of Theia (the moon impactor) was that it coalesced in the Earth-Sun L4 or L5 Lagrange point, and then, once it got too big, was no longer stable there, drifted out, and then kaboom.
Of course, if you've got the tech to move Mars, gravitational inconveniences like this are probably trivial.
OTOH if you got the tech to move Venus, its pretty likely that you're not going to be needing planets for anything much more than a big convenient source of building material.
re: #282
You bring up a very interesting and I think very valid point, which is that a "habitable" earth-like planet, if it is already inhabited, may well pose even more of a technical challenge for colonization than a presumably sterile and unearth-like world like Mars, or even the Moon. The alien biosphere is going to have had its own unique evolutionary trajectory and who knows what kinds of biochemistry its going to have cooked up. All the trace elements essential to biological energy production are going to be different in amount and detail, and even minute differences in these is the difference between "essential" and "lethal". And this is just base chemistry - we haven't even started with any potential interactions at the biologic level.
Frankly, I think constructing an entire habitat in space, from scratch, where you have total control of your environment from the ground up from the beginning, is going to turn out vast easier than trying to adapt to another planet with a pre-existing biosphere, even if that planet as 1G gravity, and 20%O2/80%N2 1 atmosphere pressure.
Tis Himself, #294
There is a huge problem with this idea. Now ideally the lagrangian points are stable, but there is one enormous destabilizing influence hanging around, Jupiter. Jupiter's gravitational influence perturbs the orbits of the Triad, and catastrophy ensues.
Besides, if you have the tech for cheaply moving planets around, you've got the tech for traveling to their current locations cheaply.
To the tune of the Small World song.
It's a small world after all
We're not satisfied at all
We'll go build one not so small
As this small, small world.
The cold of Mars wouldn't makke brass monkeys extinct. It would make a brass monkey a freeze pop rather than a liquid drink.
Depending on the brass monkey's proof, it might not.
amphiox:
Check out Ian M. Banks culture novels. He talks about "orbitals" like this. Basically it's a 3.8 million km ring, about 30,000km wide that spins so that you get 1g at the surface and a 24 hour day/night cycle.
Actually Meathead, Banks' orbitals are more like a bracelet than a ring, a connected set of plates.And I don't think the Culture needs to spin anything to fake gravity, they just tap into the Grid and pull hobbits out of their invisible hats. Niven's ringworld is the bracelet and as was pointed out fairly quickly it has stability problems. Do keep up in the back there...
Both ideas are massively more grandiose than what amphiox was (probably) referring to which I think were O'Neill type habitats.
Stross came up with an even more outrageous idea a while back, whereby a truly vast mass of matter was converted into a staggeringly enormous flat plane 'world' and humanity dumped onto it. See http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/04/missile_gap.html And we shouldn't forget Niven's Smoke Ring idea either. I quite like that one.
Ah, ys...glbl wrmng s gng t dstry s ll. Nvr mnd tht th plnt hs bn clng fr dzn yrs nw, tht Antrctc s c s ncrsng...gtt kp tht rsrch grnt grvy trn -rlln', lst w bcm nmplyd. Hrr FÜhrr Hnsn wld b mst dsplsd t sch dvlpmnt, nd wld ndbtdly prcd t gv hndrds f md ntrvws, dmnstrtng gn hw h s bng mzzld.
Th wntr strms crrntly ffctng th st cst r wtht dbt csd by glbl wrmng, bcs wrmng css clng, dn'tch knw?
By th wy, wht's th ptml tmprtr f th plnt nywy?
Yawn, another self titled liar and bullshitter without any peer reviewed citations. Which are the only thing that counts in a scientific debate...
#373 is from a banned poster. Killfile.
ExxonMobil or BP?
No, looneytarian "don't take my SUV away!"
No, it hasn't, you fucking liar.
Stll prjctng, PH? Hw sd fr y! Bt ntrly xpctd frm fndmntlst lk yrslf.
what a fucking idiot
weather =/= climate
Here are the data. Feel free to go in there and cherry-pick any 12-year period to draw whatever conclusion you've already decided on.
People can be this stupid? Amazing stuff.
Yawn, all attitude, no evidence. Just like before. And weather and climate are often confused by the scientific illiterate. Weather is what happens in one year. Climate is what happens over thirty or more years. Anything less than thirty years is weather. The alleged evidence is weather. What a loser.
Y knw y'v wn th rgmnt whn ll th thr sd hs t ffr s prfnty nd jvnl nslts. Oh, wll, rlgnst s s rlgnst ds, I spps.
No. You win the argument when you prove your case. Put up or shut up.
Let's start with your claim that the planet has been cooling for the past dozen years. Prove it.
*warmandfuzzies*
Except it won't. It will however make you regret that you sat back and laughed at all the warnings.
Cold comfort indeed...but frankly if there is one upside to this, it will be the ability to rub the noses of the eejits in it.
Of course then they will be a persecuted minority...
Well, that is all you have offered. Zero citations to the peer reviewed scientific literature. I wonder why? Maybe the true scientific literature doesn't say what you presuppose is the answer? Gee, you wouldn't be the first person here to make that basic scientific mistake. So, either cite the scientific literature, or shut the fuck up. Welcome to real science, where the evidence, and not attitude rules. And no evidence means you have nothing but attitude.
150 years ago the Thames River* in Connecticut was normally frozen across by January 1st. By February 1st wagons were drawn by horses across the Thames to haul the ice being harvested for ice houses.
The last time the river froze from shore to shore was during the 1940s. Right now the ice on the Thames extends about three feet/one meter from the shore.
*The one that flows by New London. Incidentally, the name rhymes with "names."
The last time this troll came from under his bridge he offered little but insults and lies. Now he's whining because he got insulted first.
From the Dungeon List:
Global Warming is a Scam - Insipidity - He could have just posted his pseudonym once. He had nothing to add beyond that, ever.
TheGreatGlobalWarmingHoax marks the first time I thought we got Godwin'd and Poe'd in the same first post. But everybody says he's for real? It looks like the powers that be have been working very hard of late.
"So, either cite the scientific literature, or shut the fuck up. Welcome to real science, where the evidence, and not attitude rules. And no evidence means you have nothing but attitude." Noid@389
Coming from someone who never, ever posts a citation before hurling turds and whose tenuous grasp of the fundamentals of science is evident in just about every post where you do offer an opinion,this may constitute the most exemplary case of projection I have ever seen. Did you think no one would notice?
-Richard Eis,
It takes 10 Grand to launch a can of soda into orbit--orbit, mind you, not to the moon or to Mars.-
We are talking hypotheticals here, not getting bogged down with such uninteresting things as "money".
My knowledge of cosmic radiation is um...not good. Would you be able to make something that shields us by reacting strongly with the cosmic particles?
Go on. If money was no object but you only had todays technology. Could you get us to mars?
I'll take examples of not having a fucking clue for 1000 Alex
I think PZ may be unwittingly making a point for the right when he says "isn't this really what it's all about?" (the man does display a lot of wit -- mabe he's used it up). Many see the issue as a power grab by government for more control over people's lives.
Compared to your tenuous grasp? Don't project your ignorance unto others. We know better, especially those of us who have been living science for a long time. What are your credentials? I don't recall you saying, but you sure have an attitude. Is it truly justified? I suspect not.
The question is not whether Nerd-o-Red is projecting but whether he is right. In this case, it rightosity could be seen from space. Its not like the troll wasn't obvious.
However I didn't "notice" his projection, perhaps it is only noticeable to "special" people.
Richard Eis "Go on. If money was no object but you only had todays technology. Could you get us to mars?"
Well, NASA has been looking at this very question as part of their Lunar Lunacy and Martian Madness. Since the overwhelming majority of space within an atom is taken up by the electron clouds, it isn't too surprising that the way an energetic particle slows down is by interacting with the electrons--so so-called "Stopping Power" is roughly proportional to the atomic number, Z of the medium through which the energetic particle is passing. Second order effects actually make the increase in effectiveness with Z a little less than linear--so they don't help. But basically what this means is that shielding power is proportinal to mass. Even worse, because ions deposit their highest energy density at the end of their track (low energy), if you miscalculate shielding, all you do is maximize the energy deposited in astronauts (or electronics).
One approach NASA has been looking at is to use a very strong dipole magnetic field to deflect particles around the spacecraft. They still hit at the poles, but you can at least limit where you need maximum shielding. Thing is you need a REALLY strong magnetic field. Other things they are looking at are various pharmaceutical solutions that hopefully allow more rapid repair of damaged tissue (unfortunately probably not effective for high-energy heavy ions, which obliterate large chunks of DNA) and age and gender restrictions for astronauts going to Mars (old guys will likely die before the cancer develops too far and men are less prone to radiation induced cancers than women).
Anyway, it's what we call "an area of active research". Sorry for the long answer, but you did ask a radiation nerd about radiation.
Many are paranoid fools.
You know, I'm always glad when idjits like Hoax show up, since they show how devoid of science and evidence the denialists are. It's what we refer to as an "own goal".
But Hoax, feel free to prove me wrong. Any time you'd like to discuss some facts such as:
1)the current decade is the warmest on record--last decade is 2nd warmest and the one before is third--17 of the 20 warmest years have occurred within the past 2 decades
2)Simultaneous cooling of the stratosphere and warming of the troposphere indicates an energy source below the stratosphere--and greenhouse gasses are the only candidate.
3)CO2 is higher than it has been in 800000 years and explains ~80% of the change we see in climate
That will do for now. There's lots, lots more evidence where those came from. Can you hear me Hoax, or does your tinfoil hat pull down over your ears and make you deaf as well as stupid.
I will pick your brains for a bit longer then if you don't mind.
What about attracting the ions away from the ship? If that makes sense. Could you collect and process the radiation into an energy source or are we talking minute amounts here?
Or since you need materials, robots etc... create a convoy of ships with the humans protected in the middle because they are the most squishy.
Wht's th ptml tmprtr f th plnt?
Gd mv, Rv, snc y hv prvdd mny sch xmpls. By th wy, hv y ttmptd t sk hlp fr yr sss?
And that is why you were banned. Stupid question from a stupid troll. Still no scientific evidence. Ergo, nothing of interest being said.
Not this tool again. If you're not going to answer your own question, fuck off!
What's the optimal temperature of the planet?
What causes hurricanes?
Prjctng gn, r w Kl? Why dn't y sk t hlp fr yr sss?
Good move, Rev, since you have provided many such examples. By the way, have you attempted to seek help for your projection issues?
LOL
Projecting projector is projecting.
you are only dimly aware of yourself.
I'll take that as a 'no' on proving your claim, then.
Nope, just memories flooded back of the tedious broken record you are. You have no point to make, just drone the same question over and over again. Nevermind that the relative temperature is set to rise - you keep asking the same irrelevant question as if it's profoundly insightful and you've outsmarted the smart guys who actually study the climate for a living.
Are you actually going to engage the science, or keep asking the same unanswerable loaded question as if it invalidates everything climate scientists have ever studied?
Why don't you seek out help for your issues?
it's quite obvious who the one with the issues is.
...and it ain't Kel.
Many see the issue as a power grab by government for more control over people's lives.
which government would that be? the one previous to the current administration that worked hard to suppress any data supporting AGW, scuttled any support for any international cooperation on the issue, and made record profits off of their oil investments, all the while tapping your phone lines with your tacit approval likely?
that one?
or the current one?
the previous?
not even in this country?
...not even on this planet?
I get confused which "government" is trying to control your life.
"TheGreatGlobalWarmingHoax" last posted here as "GlobalWarmingIsAScam". All you will get from him is the same loud assertion as his pseudonym, so there is no point in engaging him.
because warming causes cooling, don'tcha know?
actually, I'm sure you're butt ignorant about the processes involved, but locally, it can.
we could catastrophically have the North Atlantic circum-polar circulation stop, and that might indeed lead to MUCH colder temperatures locally.
among other very, very bad things.
this isn't the best article on the subject I have seen, but it's the first one that popped up on quick search, and at least is referenced.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/oceans.htm
well, not that someone like yourself would bother to actually read the references.
Dr Sl Z Lyrs:
Pls g bggr yrslf.
Sncrly,
Glbl Wrmng Is A Scm
Richard Eis, GCR fluxes average about 6 particles per cm^2 per second--pretty feeble. Even the solar wind is a very tenuous plasma. There have been some schemes to use a large positive charge on the ship to repel the ions, but
1)the charge would have to be huge due to the energy of GCR, and
2)you would then attract LOTS of electrons in the space plasma that would neutralize your positive charge.
The magnetic idea is about the most promising, but the problem here is that generating such a large magnetic field is very difficult and takes a massive amount of material. This is a big problem in terms of launch costs. However, there is at least one satellite proposed which hopes to capitalize on this technology--but it's a much smaller satellite than anything that could carry even one human. For each human you need to be able to carry about 500 kg of gear even for a short mission. This is one reason why NASA's manned missions eat up about 2/3 of the agency's budget.
Haha, someone got disemvowelled. Hey, there was no information change.
Does that mean the creationists are right?...or was it simply random drivel to begin with, so no change was seen?
-This is one reason why NASA's manned missions eat up about 2/3 of the agency's budget. -
We seriously need to get AI up there at least to the intelligence of a smart dog.
IMHO NASA shouldn't be even considering man missions yet. It just isn't that useful, even though its good PR.
So, what about colonizing the moon then? I mean Mars would be nice...but...Don't we still have issues with solar wind and the like there?
I'm sorry it's hard to hear you with that pacifier in your mouth.
if anything, it makes more sense that way
Yknow, i think you just undermined the whole of Behe's "theory". Not that this would cause any great impact to anyone.
tim rowledge:
I think you're right actually. The funny thing is that when I first heard about orbitals I sat down and worked out the size on my own making the assumptions I layed out above. g=v^2/r, v=omega*r --> g=omega^2/r --> r=3.8*10^6 km if omega = 2pi/24hrs. Then I went to Bank's webpage and damned if didn't have the same number. He must have worked it out the same way and then added the plates and force fields later.
Correction r = 1.855*10^6 km
In case no one else has pointed out there is another vowel challenged asshole who calls itself avsn in this thread
It's an anti-choicer over there. Big surprise.
What's the optimal temperature of the planet?
Munkies, no wait Hobbits.
What causes hurricanes?
goats?
Please specify. Are you referring to the garden-variety kind of yeast, or the sentient kind?
Gee Rev, it's hard to hear you with so much of Herr Hansen's semen in your mouth. Why don't you swallow already? You know the Fuhrer will be most disappointed if you don't.
"In case no one else has pointed out there is another vowel challenged asshole who calls itself avsn in this thread"
Ah, a vowel movement!
Richard Eis,
You can tunnel into the Lunar rock and be protected from radiation. The main issues with Lunar colonization are:
1)you have to bring everything up from Earth
and
2)Why? It's a pretty dead rock. At least if we could figure out how to mine asteroids, many of them are enriched in Platinum group minerals.
Wht s th ptml tmprtr f th plnt? Hw d y xpln th Mdvl Wrmng Prd? Or th rcnt wrmng n Mrs? Why shld w tmtclly blv th cnclsns f ths whs lvlhds r dpndnt pn xctly whch cnclsns thy rch? Why hs th plnt bn clng fr th pst 12 yrs? Why s Antrctc s c ncrsng? Why r plr br ppltns ncrsng?
Gee Rev, it's hard to hear you with so much of Herr Hansen's semen in your mouth. Why don't you swallow already? You know the Fuhrer will be most disappointed if you don't.
Hoax is back, but his vowel colostomy bag is gone. PZ predicted that avsn, Hoax, etc... would morph. Damned if it didn't.
Yawn, still nothing of cogency. To change our minds, the peer reviewed scientific literature is required. And guess what sleazy a-hole doesn't have. Anything scientific. What a loser.
What is the optimal temperature of the planet?
This has been covered, it's Hobbits.
How do you explain the Medieval Warming Period?
Masturbation
Or the recent warming on Mars?
We have robots on Mars - and they masturbate.
Why should we automatically believe the conclusions of those whose livelihoods are dependent upon exactly which conclusions they reach?
As covered before - goats.
Why has the planet been cooling for the past 12 years? Why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? Why are polar bear populations increasing?
Polar bears eat ice cream. Ice cream is nourishing. This means more Polar Bears (and goats). Polar bears, being white, reflect heat, thus more ice and more ice cream. Thus even more Polar bears. It's quite simple.
Rd s prjctng. Wht srprs. Nt.
Which whiny, banned pissant is this one again? I can't keep track of all these people, but I will say it's kind of their employers at the whack-parlour to give them time out from their busy jizz-mopping schedules to post content-free drivel on blogs.
Still no evidence. Without evidence you are nothing but a loudmouth asshole. What part of that don't you understand?
Hy Rd, whn hv y vr pstd vdnc bt ? Oh, tht's rght, y hvn't.
ROTFL!
So polar bear and goat populations are correlated?
Hey Red, when have you ever posted evidence about ANYTHING? Oh, that's right, you haven't.
Well I don't know about him but I have. I told you Hobbits!! Or to be more exact, Hobbits + your mom = Orc orgy. I'll dig up the precise refs later, I know that O. Jism, et al.. 2014 is a good starting place though.
So polar bear and goat populations are correlated?
Yes, polar bears eat almost any ice cream but hate Rocky Road. The goats eat that and multiply. This leads, through a complex biochemical mechanism I will not detail here, to increased Hobbits. Hence, Mars bitches!!!
Wow, CB, you sure got a whole lotta projectin' goin' on there. Might be time to seek help for that disorder.
Sleazy Asshole still has no evidence. AGW is standard science. You display nothing but attitude. Only citing the peer reviewed literature will change our minds. You keep making the claims. Ergo, the burden of proof is upon you. And you fail every time.
@411: My my, someone likes hot beef sex in the projection room with Polar Bears, Hobbits and his own mom.
goatsex to U FSZL.
AGW s psd-scnc, lk Mnn's lng-g-dbnkd hcky stck, nd Albr's "dcmntry".
Hey Red, what's the optimal temperature of the planet? Or are you STILL avoiding the question?
It's sad that he can't answer this simple question. I agree with you actually, it's an important question. I, unlike Nerd, have developed a technique to determine it.
1) Take a thermometer (preferably containing Mercury)
2) shove it up your ass as far as you can but leaving just a bit sticking out.
3) snap it off and suck the shiny liquid metal out of the part you're holding onto
4) Jam a sock filled with arsenic and bleach far enough up your ass to bury the remains of the themometer.
5) Jump off a building at least 2 stories tall
6) Pull the shattered remains of the thermometer out of your ass (this will hurt ALOT). read the value on it. Subtract Munkeys, multiply by goats and divide by Hobbits.
7) Scratch the resulting value in your own blood and shit before you die.
Fixed it for you sleazy asshole. And still no evidence, just idiotic and unscientific claims. It's almost like you know you are a stoopid liar. Exactly what is expected from idjit losers. And why scientists rule. They have evidence.
Wow. And I thought this guy started on the wrong foot. Stop feeding the troll, guys. This one has anger management issues.
Ah, ys...glbl wrmng s gng t dstry s ll. Nvr mnd tht th plnt hs bn clng fr dzn yrs nw, tht Antrctc s c s ncrsng...gtt kp tht rsrch grnt grvy trn -rlln', lst w bcm nmplyd. Hrr FÜhrr Hnsn wld b mst dsplsd t sch dvlpmnt, nd wld ndbtdly prcd t gv hndrds f md ntrvws, dmnstrtng gn hw h s bng mzzld.
Th wntr strms crrntly ffctng th st cst r wtht dbt csd by glbl wrmng, bcs wrmng css clng, dn'tch knw?
By th wy, wht's th ptml tmprtr f th plnt nywy?
It appears our banned dumbass troll can't even count. There's a shock.
Ww, Rd, tht mst b nw wrld rcrd fr . I sggst y stp prtndng t b scntst nd sk t hlp fr yr rlgs dlsns.
Wow, still no evidence from sleazy asshole. Must know he is a liar and bullshitter, with nothing top add to any discussion. Otherwise, you would be citing the peer reviewed scientific literature instead of giving meaningless and illogical attitude, which proves my points every time.
Hmm - can't count, doesn't understand the meanings of common English words, possesses no social skills (or he wouldn't be posting on a blog where he's banned)nor insight (or he would realise all his posts will be deleted) - is there anything he is capable of?
Back to the whack-parlour, GWIAS. There's jizz that needs a-moppin'.
I must apologize to all here. I was testing some of my AI code. This one is called AGWD14. Anthropogenic global warming denier 14. My 14th attempt to create a believable denybot. Sadly my genetic algorithms produced an unexpected result. It simply repeats previous assertions with extra "blah" added. My attempts to shut it down by triggering its "yo mama" subroutine have, alas, failed. I will try to contain it better next time but you may be forced to ban it this time.
I said:
"many see the issue as a power grab by government for more control over people's lives."
Ichthyic responded:
"which government would that be? the one previous to the current administration that worked hard to suppress any data supporting AGW, scuttled any support for any international cooperation on the issue, and made record profits off of their oil investments, all the while tapping your phone lines with your tacit approval likely?
that one?
or the current one?
the previous?
not even in this country?
...not even on this planet?
I get confused which "government" is trying to control your life."
The current one.
What is the optimal temperature for apple pie?
I demand to know!
Canman:The current one.
The Federation of Planets?
The Klingon Empire?
The Ferenghi? Couldn't be them, they're good free market crapitalists.
It's funny that you posted this. I was elected to serve on my city's city council and we just recently voted to join the Alaska Coastal Communities Global Climate Change Compact. There were a number of people testifying, both for and against. One of the people providing testimony in support handed all of the Councilmembers a copy of this comic.
Meathead:
"The Federation of Planets?
The Klingon Empire?
The Ferenghi? Couldn't be them, they're good free market crapitalists."
I usually (not always) like to see things done by markets and capitalists. In earlier posts in this thread I expressed a hopeful enthusiasm for geoengineering. That will definitely require a lot of government financing and control.
Any asteroids we can hollow out and cadge a lift in between here and mars? Or set up a permanent robot base on for using as a stepping stone to the rest of the galaxy.
Canman the cornucopian,
Denials of ecological limits resemble anosognosia (inability of stroke patients to recognize their paralysis). Some denial literature resembles their confabulations (elaborately unreal stories concocted as rationalizations). Denial by opponents of human ecology seems to be a way of coping with an insufferable contradiction between past convictions and present circumstances, a defense against intolerable anomalous information.
The rest here : The Problem of Denial
Over the last day, this thread seems to have degenerated from a perfectly sensible highbrow conversation about consumer capitalism and lifestyle choices, into an unending war of attrition in which the weapons are graphic scatological insults and incendiary farm animals. What's depressing is that the latter seems to be attracting more attention than the former.
I forgot to mention onanistic robots, hobbits, polar bears and the entire planet of Mars.
'Tis the Season after all. Please respect our traditions.
Happy Monkey!
Money isn't everything!
But without money everything is nothing!
– On the wall in Scrooge McDuck's office.
David, worrying about money before working out what to spend the money on is thoroughly pointless. Especially given that this entire thing is a bit of fun. You can't take global warming deniers seriously.
Fun Walton...do you remember that? Not that setting fire to animals should be considered fun of course...Anyway, its only a bit of mars. A cratery bit (since the scientists won't let me have my way)
Wht's th vrg flght vlcty f n nldn swllw?
Riiiight. And the previous one was squelching climate research because they were such champions of freedom.
Very cute bottom line. Well, here's another one:
"What if it turns out that the measures proposed are bullshit, the programs unenforceable, and the only real effect of this hogwash will be the full scale immiseration of the wretched of the earth?"
And, no, that isn't an exagerration. While I accept the AGW science that I read in journals (though not from the lips of men like Gore), I still have a purest hatred for the riff-raff peddling their government solutions for it. And the reason I hate them so much is summarised in a poster I saw at this year's Festival "Renewable energy is the way for the Third World"
In other words:
"Crap technology that we can't even get to work massively subsidized in the First World is what you're going to have to try to use, and don't even think of touching all that coal, oil, gas and uranium, beneath your own soils. Yeah, we got ours but you can't get yours."
Which is exactly the message preached by the likes of Gore and Prince Charles.
Phillip Stott is excellent on this. This sort of behaviour beggars belief.
Richard,
Asteroids are either pretty well confined to the asteroid belts or they've been scattered out of the asteroid belts and have highly erratic and unstable trajectories. And the lack of gravity could be an issue--you could trip while running and achieve escape velocity. IMHO, Arthur Clarke was about 5 years too early for 2001 (if we make it at all), and Star Trek can only happen if we have multiple Universes, some of which have very different physics from our own.
negentropyeater:
"Canman the cornucopian,"
I just looked up cornucopion on wikipedia. You've got me pegged!
I'm always amazed that when predictions of doom fail to materialize,
the malthusians are not in the least bit humbled. People have a stubborn way of solving and working their way around problems. It's what we do.
That said, I'm really bothered by the "black or white" term, "denialist". It looks like there is a scientific consenses that carbon dioxide is warming up the Earth and that it is a problem. Former skeptics like Ronald Bailey and Michael Shermer are jumping on board. If science writers weren't so hysterical in their attacks, I wouldn't be suprised to see George Will change his mind (he's called for withdraw of troops from Afganistan and Iraq). "Denialest" is probably a good label for someone who says warming is not happening.
I don't think there is any consice consensus on how bad the problem is.
I don't think we're turning into Venus. I hear various figures for tempature and sea level rise over the century. I hear warnings of crop failures and cities flooding. It seems to me that over time, people will migrate or build dikes and levies. Farmers will change their crops or move to different places. Mabe bioengineering will make farming obsolete. Mabe we'll have mechanical bodies(the sport model from Yamaha!)
I don't think I'm a denialist!
Cimourdain,
Yes, I concur. While I used to be sceptical of AGW, there is now an increasingly clear scientific consensus that it is a reality. As much as I'd prefer it not to be true, there is no scope to deny the evidence.
However, I would add that we should be wary of the many AGW "activists" who are not climatologists, but rather are political hacks who see it as a convenient pretext for pushing their preferred agenda, or (in the case of Prince Charles) misguided do-gooders with little to no understanding of economic reality. These people are a dime a dozen (particularly at universities, I can attest from personal experience), and are quick to urge "tougher action", condemn Teh Ebil Corporations for destroying the environment, and advocate "green solutions" to economic problems, without really knowing anything about the subject.
This has no relevance to the question of whether AGW is a real threat, nor does it detract from the need to take measures to combat it. But it does mean that it is necessary to ignore the hyperbolic political debate and the blithering of "campaigners" and "activist groups", and, instead, formulate policy based on objective scientific and economic advice. Unfortunately, I doubt this can actually be achieved through democratic political processes.
Canman says, "I don't think I'm a denialist!"
Ah, so you're in denial about being in denial, eh?;-) Just KIDDING! Seriously, though, we have a pretty good determination of what increasing CO2 means in terms of increased temperature--roughly 3 degrees per doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Pretty much all evidence says this is the most likely value, and all of them preclude a value under 2 degrees per doubling. What that does is render the entire US Great Plains incapable of growing Winter Wheat--and no it can't move north, because the Canadian Shield doesn't have much topsoil. It melts the Himmalayan glaciers, removing most of the water from the Ganges and the Yangtze, threatening nearly 40% of the globe's population. It brings permanent drought to the US west and to Western Oz. It raises sea levels to flood coastal cities and contaminate aquifers with salt water. And it acidifies the oceans (H2O +CO2-H2CO3) destroying coral reefs, further depleting fisheries and possibly eventually tipping the balance from oxygen-producing bacteria to H2S producing bacteria and leading to mass extinctions like we had during the PETM.
Canman, my issue with your position is that our avoidance of global catastrophe just happens. It doesn't. Malthus was wrong because as he wrote his words, the New World was opening up, providing a population outlet for Europe's teeming masses. And the Green Revolution saved us by effectively coming up with ways of turning petroleum into food. Well, now there is no New World, and the petroleum is gone, and human population is speeding toward 9-10 billion, and the unintended consequences of all the things we did to avoid catastrophe so far are making Earth less productive. We've avoided catastrophe so far because some awfully smart cookies have worked their asses off to come up with solutions that could buy time. Well, we're now running out of time and energy and resources and ideas. Will our species dodge another bullet? Maybe. Maybe not. But sooner or later, if we don't get smart, the exponential curve is gonna win. It's a mathematical certainty.
But hey, when you've got Ayn Rand's worldview vectored into your cerebral cortex, like Walton or Canman here, insufferable defensors of invidualism who are absolutely convinced that we ARE going to be smart, and just on time by the way. So we don't need to worry, we don't need no bloody environmental activists to pressurize us, because it'll all happen, all by itself by the magic of the invisible hand.
Walton,
And WHAT do you suggest those measures be ?
Going "Galt" maybe ?
I am not, in any way, shape or form, a follower of Rand. Nor did I assert that the free market would take care of it without any government intervention; indeed, I've said precisely the opposite on a number of occasions.
Again, whereas we are definitely facing very serious global water problems, the amount of freshwater that's going to be lost/contaminated/whatever because of climate change is actually a very small percentage of the total. Ocean-proximal surface aquifers that are having issues with salt water contamination are having these issues at least as much because of the rates at which they are being drawn* as they are because of sea-level rise.
*i.e., substantially faster than their rates of recharge.
Walton:
As a brit you just can't understand our holiday troll traditions I fear. So Merry Goatmas! and may your holiday be full of robot munkeys jacking off!
Still, it was way cool that humans orbited Saturn(0) 2006. Oh wait, no we didn't. I think you mean 50.
(0)I know, I know - it was Jupiter in the movie. And yeah, good movie, but Kubrik left every important aspect totally unexplained, so most people need to read the book to understand WTF was going on anyway.
Cimourdain, I missed your post. It blended in so well with our resident troll, I didn't spot it until I saw that you had in fact used vowels. Good show!
OK, you buy the science. You deplore the riff-raff and their "government solutions. Got that. What do YOU propose? We've heard lots of denial and sniping from the right, but when it comes time to talk solutions, they are nowhere to be found. In fact, the only solutions I've heard from the right (e.g. nuclear power) seem intended to discomfit the greens mor than they're intended to solve the problem. Now don't get me wrong--I'm not against nuclear power, but given the track record of the latest French constructions, it's not clear whether nuclear power is a viable solution, particularly in very poor developing countries.
It's all well and good to decry the left, but I've heard a lot more constructive discussion coming from that direction than I have from you and your buddies on the right.
Llewelly, Yup, I meant 50, and even that might be optimistic. I'm wondering whether we'll have anything resembling civilization by then, but as I would be 91 in 2051 and as I am an angry, type A personality, I doubt I'll be around to see it.
Some problems with nuclear power are:
1. Reactors are expensive to build, maintain and operate. The main users of nuclear reactors are navies, who don't worry particularly about expense.
2. Waste disposal is expensive both economically and politically. This disposal has to be for longer than civilization has existed so far.
3. Nuclear terrorism is a concern. Flying a 767 into a containment vessel would be a major, long-lasting disaster.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
"Post 471"
A lot of what you say about CO2 is very disturbing. Two things about the level of CO2 in the air really strike me.
1: It has already almost doubled since pre industrial times. It looks like we are not going to significantly lower it any time soon. Any reductions in carbon output result in miniscule reductions in the increase of the CO2 level.
The main bad effect of this increased Co2 looks to me like an increase in temperatures. We should be researching the hell out of how to lower them.
2: The percentage of CO2 in the air is really small (doesn't mean it's not important). We should use geoengineering to target areas where increased acidity is a problem.
All this stuff happens over decades at least. Plenty of time to see how it's going, make adjustments and debate solutions.
I'd like to see the political debate be between cutting carbon and geoengineering. The left can argue about what we should stop using to sustain the Earth and the right can argue about what to blow up for a quick fix reflective dust cloud tempature drop.
You say the world is running out of resorces and ideas. There I strongly disagree with you. Petroleum (finite as it is) is not going away anytime soon. (If petroleum does get used up, AGW solves itself -- gallows humor:)). George Will sums it up nicely in a column titled "Awash in Fossil Feuls". I'd like to see Chris Mooney find some howlers in it.
Dr Sl Z. Lyrs:
Pls g BUGGER yrslf.
Sncrly,
Fck th Wrmsts
Wht's th ptml tmprtr f th plnt?
And you base this assertion on what literature?
39.266667 degrees. C.
Stupid question from a stupid man. What else is new? And still no evidence being presented, just the evidenceless stoopid opinion of an inane idjit.
Don't feed the troll.
Is it lunch break time at the whack-parlour already?
Shrtr Rd:
I cn't nswr yr qstns bcs I'm jst prtndng t b scntst. I wll rsrt t jvnl nslts nstd.
I don't get it. That's not even an opinion. It's not even a loaded question. The obvious answer (as long as you're talking about optimal for human civilization) is somewhere pretty fucking close to what the average global temperature has been, on average, for the last 5 or 6 millennia. Is that not obvious? Am I supposed to reach another conclusion?
[fap fap fap]
Uh-oh, GWIAS, sounds like break's over. Better get back to mopping up that jizz.
Nope, your question is inane and irrelevant. If you don't wish to be ridiculed for your stoopidity, quit being stoopid. Stop posting here, as you are both banned, and have nothing cogent to say.
How much jizz can a jizz-mopper mop if a jizz-mopper can mop jizz?
(/See also: what is the sound of one banned fapping?)
Wow. Fap, fapping, fapped, have fappen. I knew I came on here for a reason.
I said: "Petroleum (finite as it is) is not going away anytime soon."
Josh responded: "And you base this assertion on what literature?"
I said this assertion is summed up nicely in a column by George Will titled "Awash in Fossel Fuels", but the liturature I base it on is a book coauthored by Peter Huber titled "the Bottemless Well".
What amazes me is its ability to create new accounts with one hand and a jizz covered keyboard.
Canman,
George Will is known for misusing information and straight out lying to support his a priori assumptions.
As for The Bottomless Well, that piece of optimistic propaganda has little support in reality. The overwhelming dependence of our society on fossil fuels is dangerous. Assuming that we'll find a way to replace them before things get really bad is foolish. Gasoline won't keep gradually rising in price. One day we're going to go to the pump and it will be $15.00/gal. Very few people will be able to afford that.
You may want to look for new, reliable sources of information. I suggest the peer reviewed literature.
Pygmy Loris: "You may want to look for new, reliable sources of information. I suggest the peer reviewed literature."
I am not a scientist. I suspect most peer reviewed literature is over my head, so I have to rely on authors, whom I respect, that do read or consult people who read and write for peer reviewed jornals.
As good of an idea as peer review is, it's not 100 percent perfect. Nobel prize winning physicist Luis Alvarez criticizes the peer review proccess in his autobiography. I suspect common, shared political views among reviewers have subtle effects on what is accepted or rejected.
true. it's merely the single most reliable form of quality control we have.
also, if you can't read the peer-reviewed literature, maybe you shouldn't have contrarian views. That way the Dunning-Kruger effect lies.
Walton,
Thank you for getting it. What the eco-racket has done to the Third World is a shame beyond expunging.
a_ray,
First of all, quit with the "right/left" thinking. Solidarity with the wretched of the earth used to be a centrepiece of the left, but these days it seems the wretched of the earth can go hang in the eyes of the First World leftist intelligentsia.
To move onto the meat of this, you ask me for my solutions, I'd like to start by asking solutions for what, precisely? There are many ways one can phrase this problem. I'll start with one: What is my solution to the negative impact on human lives by the environment, especially in the Third World?
Well, the first and most important answer to that is trade liberalization. This is the number one thing that can be done to help more people for the least amount of money, all over the world. When a tsunami ravages Indonesia or Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands can die. Throughout Africa, millions die from the smoke of cooking fires, or fall to drought, or die of disease or a million other scourges of the natural world. And what does the First World do? It gives out huge amounts of cash to subsidize kleptocrazies, while maintaining massive trade barriers that gut any hope at the development of the ordinary people. This is a sub-Brechtian racket.
Scrub those damn trade barriers, phase out the klepto-subsidies, allow these places to economically develop, and believe you me, far fewer human beings will be dying at the hands of the enviroment, regardless of what's going on globally.
I like how Phillip Stott put it: "We have a global crisis, and that is four billion people in poverty". We have the solution. We know it works. Yet through sheer bloody stupidity, we don't use it.
Now, as regards the problem of carbon emissions, this carbon wasn't just conjoured into existence out of nothing - it was released from ancient biomass. The question, therefore, should be how do we get the stuff back under the soil? Well, that's a technological problem. The Virgin Earth challenge is a good step, and glance through any good journal and you come across similar ideas.
In fact, that's the only real solution. I mean that literally - if we don't have technological solutions to this problem, we don't have solutions, period. All these transnational Kyoto/Copenhagen/Whatever are so much horseshit.
Why do I say that? Well, consider the following: on the genocide watch website, they list about one hundred and fifty instances since 1949. Now think about that for a few seconds. Okay, granted some of these are arguable multiple instances of the same genocide, but you get the idea. Now if the international community can't honour and police it's most sacred obligation - that of "Never again" - what chance does it have of enforcing the boondoggles hammered out by these transnational rodeo-clowns?
Add to that the minor matter that we have no right whatsoever to jam this nonsense down the throats of the poorest of the poor. China and India, bless 'em, are perfectly right to tell Copenhagen to go piss up a rope.
No. It's technological, industrial solutions, or none. Which is good, because, unlike government crap, these are solutions that actually work. They work like crazy, as the history of the last two hundred years demonstrates.
And, a_ray, please get politics out from this. Two of the most convincing critics I've read are from the left, Bjorn Lomberg and Phillip Stott.
I have to say that I really dislike the right/left terminology. They don't seem to denote anything concrete.