Cinga Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 I've always had an issue with the whole ice sheets melting hysteria myself.... How do ice sheets expand? Cold weather of course and we can trace much of the terrain in the northern hemisphere to the expansion, and of course retraction of glaciers from the last ice age right? So then, what happens when we come out of an ice age? Well, the weather warms and as a consequence the ice melts right? And it will keep melting until the next ice age right? I mean, there is no steady state of weather that I'm aware of that would make everything stay the same for any period of time. So this literally means, ice is always either growing as we enter an ice age, or melting as we come out of one in a macro sense. There are still of course fluctuations due to sun activity, however in between ice ages there is always ice melting so why is it different now than say 2000 years ago? 2 2
The Guy In Pants Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 2 minutes ago, Cinga said: I've always had an issue with the whole ice sheets melting hysteria myself.... How do ice sheets expand? Cold weather of course and we can trace much of the terrain in the northern hemisphere to the expansion, and of course retraction of glaciers from the last ice age right? So then, what happens when we come out of an ice age? Well, the weather warms and as a consequence the ice melts right? And it will keep melting until the next ice age right? I mean, there is no steady state of weather that I'm aware of that would make everything stay the same for any period of time. So this literally means, ice is always either growing as we enter an ice age, or melting as we come out of one in a macro sense. There are still of course fluctuations due to sun activity, however in between ice ages there is always ice melting so why is it different now than say 2000 years ago? It’s simple really; much like everything the government becomes involved with, if there is a way to capitalize on it and extort money from the citizens........they’ll do it. Although I am an advocate for cleaning up after ourselves, not being a ***** loser and purposely trashing the planet or the general area in which you reside and not being cruel to nature just because a person thinks they can; there is money to be had in climate change. 1 2
The Guy In Pants Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 (edited) It’s much like marijuana, “social justice” etc. they Find a way to tax or create hysteria then target the citizenry with emotion, proclaim to be the saviors and boom; votes and money. If anyone thinks the few hot mic moments where a politician is caught laughing in the faces of their supporters are the only times in which they revel in their manipulation they’re mistaken. Both sides of the aisle. Career politicians are performers. Some are pretty good so they get to stay. Others ***** suck so they get replaced. Edited July 16, 2020 by The Guy In Pants 1 1
B-Man Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 USEFUL IDIOTS? FELLOW TRAVELERS? ON THE PAYROLL? YOU MAKE THE CALL! Green Activists Fuel China’s Dominance in a Sector Critical to the U.S. Economy and Green Energy. 1
Cinga Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 1 minute ago, The Guy In Pants said: It’s simple really; much like everything the government becomes involved with, if there is a way to capitalize on it and extort money from the citizens........they’ll do it. Although I am an advocate for cleaning up after ourselves, not being a ***** loser and purposely trashing the planet or the general area in which you reside and not being cruel to nature just because a person thinks they can; there is money to be had in climate change. Sadly, I'm afraid your right. Like you, I'm big on leaving the planet in better shape that when I got here. Growing up in Western NY in the late 60s and early 70s I remember going outside in the morning to a car covered in soot, and a Lake Erie that was so polluted it stunk when you got near it. Since then we have made tremendous strides into cleaning stuff up and I take offense when people say it was out fault because it was our generation that started the cleanup! Are we finished? Absolutely not! But people should be willing to do it without the fear and intimidation. Many of the same people trying to coerce folks like this, are also the ones tearing up neighborhoods and throwing their trash gloves and masks on the streets. 1
The Guy In Pants Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 1 minute ago, Cinga said: Sadly, I'm afraid your right. Like you, I'm big on leaving the planet in better shape that when I got here. Growing up in Western NY in the late 60s and early 70s I remember going outside in the morning to a car covered in soot, and a Lake Erie that was so polluted it stunk when you got near it. Since then we have made tremendous strides into cleaning stuff up and I take offense when people say it was out fault because it was our generation that started the cleanup! Are we finished? Absolutely not! But people should be willing to do it without the fear and intimidation. Many of the same people trying to coerce folks like this, are also the ones tearing up neighborhoods and throwing their trash gloves and masks on the streets. Absolutely; tremendous strides. The other thing is; until the rest of the world is made to adhere to the same level of anti-pollution we are exercising; it really isn’t going to matter. At some point what gets dumped in the ocean in India; finds its way around the world. 1 1 1
Cinga Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 24 minutes ago, B-Man said: USEFUL IDIOTS? FELLOW TRAVELERS? ON THE PAYROLL? YOU MAKE THE CALL! Green Activists Fuel China’s Dominance in a Sector Critical to the U.S. Economy and Green Energy. Yeah, isn't that one of those catch-alls? The libs want the renewables, but don't want the rare earths to make them mined or refined here. 1
ALF Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 Siberian heatwave made 600 times more likely by climate change, experts find (CNN)The prolonged heatwave in Siberia from January to June, which pushed overall temperatures 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal, would have been "almost impossible" if not for human-caused climate change, a new study has found. Temperatures in Siberia have been above average since the beginning of the year, with the Russian town of Verkhoyansk recording a temperature of 38 degrees C (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in June -- a record temperature for the Arctic. The heat in the vast Russian region triggered widespread wildfires in June, associated with an estimated 56 million tons of carbon dioxide -- more than the annual emissions of some industrialized nations like Switzerland and Norway. The heat in Siberia has also accelerated the melting of permafrost. An oil tank built on the frozen soil collapsed in May, leading to one of the worst oil spills ever in the region. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/world/siberia-heatwave-climate-change-intl-scli-scn/index.html
leh-nerd skin-erd Posted July 16, 2020 Posted July 16, 2020 3 hours ago, KRC said: I understand the calculation of the costs. I also understand that you need to continually recalculate as people drop out of the plan. With those increased costs, more people drop out, causing costs to go up. A perpetual cycle. Not something I need to explain to you as I know you understand it. That is why Obamacare is mandating people participate. As participation goes down (especially the healthy people dropping out), costs will skyrocket and will continue to skyrocket as only the unhealthiest of people will be left in the plan. They never dealt with the inclusion of the 12,000,000 uninsured and cost for same. The implication was 12,000,000 were coming in and paying premiums of whatever--$1000 per year. That never happened, or never happened to any great degree of. And by 'never dealt with it', I mean that was part of the plan.
leh-nerd skin-erd Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) On 7/15/2020 at 11:30 AM, Buffalo Timmy said: I do have fun asking my most liberal friends to show me one prediction from 1995 that is correct. They have yet to show me one but always come back to" well things have improved" which is incorrect I’m no longer interested in long, drawn out arguments on this topic with my friends. I get bored after “even if it’s not true, what’s wrong with doing things that are good for the environment?”. In the old days, this usually took place right after we discussed their trip to Disney, trouble/or not with the flight down, which rental car they used and how cool the hotel they stayed at was. Oh, and it would not be uncommon for them to be wearing Nike gear, made by workers in far away lands and transported by cargo ship and over-the-road trucking concerns to the local departments store, where they hung on plastic hangers among all sorts of good wrapped in plastic. Keep fighting the good fight BT. Edit...just saw this story of climate warrior using a carbon-neutral crane to move his hemp clothing into his eco-sustainable apartment in a skyscraper built with recycled bottle caps (after returning via catamaran from Ireland where he was sheltering from COVID). Consider this my extreme example of the scenario described above. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/matt-damon-closes-brooklyn-street-move-penthouse-report Edited July 17, 2020 by leh-nerd skin-erd 1
Orlando Buffalo Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 20 hours ago, ALF said: Siberian heatwave made 600 times more likely by climate change, experts find (CNN)The prolonged heatwave in Siberia from January to June, which pushed overall temperatures 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal, would have been "almost impossible" if not for human-caused climate change, a new study has found. Temperatures in Siberia have been above average since the beginning of the year, with the Russian town of Verkhoyansk recording a temperature of 38 degrees C (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in June -- a record temperature for the Arctic. The heat in the vast Russian region triggered widespread wildfires in June, associated with an estimated 56 million tons of carbon dioxide -- more than the annual emissions of some industrialized nations like Switzerland and Norway. The heat in Siberia has also accelerated the melting of permafrost. An oil tank built on the frozen soil collapsed in May, leading to one of the worst oil spills ever in the region. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/world/siberia-heatwave-climate-change-intl-scli-scn/index.html If I am reading this correctly the entire area caught on fire literally, any area on fire will naturally be hotter. The fire has not even been attempted to be controlled so it grew through all of the brush. The cause is the fire, I would argue further but the "study" is from a group who simply stated every bad thing is from global warming.
Koko78 Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 6 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said: If I am reading this correctly the entire area caught on fire literally, any area on fire will naturally be hotter. The fire has not even been attempted to be controlled so it grew through all of the brush. The cause is the fire, I would argue further but the "study" is from a group who simply stated every bad thing is from global warming. Well, so long as they're not conflating a period of unseasonably warm weather, with climate change. You know, because an unusually warm season has totally never happened before in the ~150 years of reasonably reliable weather data available totality of human existence. 2
KD in CA Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 On 7/16/2020 at 10:25 AM, ALF said: Siberian heatwave made 600 times more likely by climate change, experts find (CNN)The prolonged heatwave in Siberia from January to June, which pushed overall temperatures 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal, would have been "almost impossible" if not for human-caused climate change, a new study has found. Temperatures in Siberia have been above average since the beginning of the year, with the Russian town of Verkhoyansk recording a temperature of 38 degrees C (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in June -- a record temperature for the Arctic. The heat in the vast Russian region triggered widespread wildfires in June, associated with an estimated 56 million tons of carbon dioxide -- more than the annual emissions of some industrialized nations like Switzerland and Norway. The heat in Siberia has also accelerated the melting of permafrost. An oil tank built on the frozen soil collapsed in May, leading to one of the worst oil spills ever in the region. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/world/siberia-heatwave-climate-change-intl-scli-scn/index.html It's nice when they are kind enough to announce right in the title that the article is completely fabricated nonsense. 600 times more likely? So they knew exactly 'how likely' a Siberian heatwave was for this year if there had been no climate change (as compared to when....last year? 1972? 450,000 BC?)? And they know exactly 'how likely' a Siberian heatwave is now, that there actually IS a Siberia heatwave?? Since there really IS a heatwave, doesn't that make the probability of happening 1? Are people really so stupid as to be impressed when they throw a big, scary number into the headline? Inquiring minds want to know. 1 2
ComradeKayAdams Posted July 18, 2020 Posted July 18, 2020 On 7/16/2020 at 7:59 AM, leh-nerd skin-erd said: Heck, I’m half-convinced that @RealKayAdams could get the job done if we put her and all the friends milling about in her head on the case. Why only half-convinced?! You see, this is why y’all are so distrustful of government. You haven’t elected ME yet to solve your problems. “I have a plan for that.” – Liz Warren, 2020. “I have a PPP post for that.” – RealKayAdams, 2020. On 7/16/2020 at 8:44 AM, plenzmd1 said: That all could be , I do not know the answer to those. It I am confident that Solar is in the “ exponential” growth phase right now that with 8 years we will not only have the capability to produce all the energy currently needed, but also the means to store it efficiently. I mean Tesla talking bout a million mile battery? EV will be ubiquitous within 10 years, can envision most not owning cars , etc. as you say, I am not sure about the collateral problems that presents , and do need to learn about that. Unfortunately there’s no Holy Grail of energy. Not even nuclear fusion. All energy sources have benefits and drawbacks. Our energy solution for the future will involve some differently weighted combination of multiple sources. I personally think solar energy should and will be a major component of our overall future energy solution. I enjoy numerical lists, so I’ll list solar’s drawbacks here and put in parentheses why I’m generally not worried for each: 1. Low power density (I don’t think the math will ever work out for solar being a sole energy source, but it’s not an issue to me because we should expect to supplement solar with other renewable energy sources…including my favorite high power density source that I’ve already mentioned in earlier posts…nuclear fission). 2. Low solar energy conversion efficiency (there’s an 85% thermodynamic limit and current solar tech is at about 20%, but that number will keep going up as scientists and engineers play around with different materials, processing methods, and clever nanotech designs). 3. Resource mining concerns for rare earth metals (this is my only big concern with solar, and Chinese foreign relations complicate matters because China currently mines 95% of the world’s supply. Rare earth metals aren’t actually “rare.” They’re just harder to mine because they tend to be more diffuse in the ground compared to most veins of more conventional metals. I cautiously support increased worldwide ore mining so long as the mining and processing techniques are done in environmentally ethical ways…so I’m looking for sufficient government oversight here). 4. Material and production costs (this has been going down naturally, especially following the pandemic’s recent obliteration of the global transportation economy, and it should continue going down as worldwide mineral resource mines for solar energy open up while government subsidization/taxation policies change). 5. Fossil fuel consumption during entire solar panel product life cycle (it’s an issue now, but won’t be one later as renewable energy becomes more ubiquitous). 6. Large land/space requirements (I’ve seen lots of creative “Tetris-like” ideas for product stacking, urban placement, and desert placement). 7. Effects on flora like desert plants (not much of a problem if placed intelligently and responsibly, and I’ve also seen creative ways they can be placed to minimize desert habitat impact). 8. Effects on fauna like birds (the mirrors-and-towers solar thermal collector designs are bad, but the much more common photovoltaics are not. There are clever ways to deter certain birds in the desert from crashing into large panel arrays, but overall I can think of MANY more man-made things that are dangerous to flight-based wildlife…one being man-made global warming and the ways it disturbs migration patterns, for example). 9. Waste disposal (a perfectly manageable problem if we have active recycling programs for panels after their approximate 25-year life cycle). I figure solar panels powering homes and buildings would be the easiest item to check off on Biden’s list. I’m not optimistic on electric cars, solar cars, or solar/electric hybrid vehicles within the next 10 or so years. This sentiment has more to do with American transportation market behavioral habits and less to do with the potential of the technology. On 7/16/2020 at 11:12 AM, Buffalo Timmy said: I am just responding to what you said to me. It is funny how I am pedantic when the prediction was 4-5 degree shift in temperature and you give me .5 degrees. The earth is always changing and that is well with normal changes in a single year much less 25. Secondly it is interesting you cut the time line off at the industrial revolution when if you go back a 1000 years it shows more instability of climate. As for the ocean rise, I have a hard time determine how a constantly moving body is less than 1 cm different than 25 years ago, you cant just measure it against the beach because the beach changes, the waves are constantly in motion, the measurement can not be precise enough to, with any honest confidence, state the entire ocean is different by fractions of a cm. The satellite they currently use was not even launched until 2016 and it still has a variance of 4 cm so why would I trust any info within that variance? Lastly since so much data is available exclusively to scientists who agree with findings I will always be skeptical. I’ll address your concerns in the order presented: 1. Which professional climatologists are you thinking of who made 4-5 degree Celsius predictions in 1995?? Predicting 4-5 degree increases within 25 years would require an absolute worst-case perfect storm (no pun intended) of multiple simultaneous positive climate feedback loop sources to trigger. All the reputable climatologists I’m familiar with (James Hansen types) have been very reasonably accurate with their models and with their early 21st century predictions, dating back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. 2. A 0.55 degree Celsius change is definitely NOT a typical Earth occurrence within a 25-year period and especially not within a single year. You would need something like unusually strong volcanic activity to initiate such a change. You might be thinking of LOCAL mean surface temperatures? I’m referring to GLOBAL mean surface temperatures. 3. Going back in time 750+ years beyond the start of the Industrial Age only reinforces my argument. What global mean surface temperature data are you looking at where you don’t see the obvious aberrant temperature climb beginning around 1900? The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were notably more tame in comparison, and those two had their biggest rapid temperature deviations due to specific volcanic eruptions. If you wanted to go back even further in time like 20,000 years or so, the warming and cooling data follows what you’d expect from cyclical changes in the Earth’s axial tilt. 4. Sea rise is measured with a combination of satellite laser altimeters and tide stations. Very large numbers of measurements are taken and averaged out, but I don’t know the technical details behind how the exact equipment calibrations and calculations are done. You’re better off e-mailing someone from NASA to get a good answer. Maybe also look into LIGO in Louisiana or check out the 2012 Gran Sasso FTL neutrino anomaly controversy to see how laser-based precision measurements are done. By the way, 3.5 inches of sea rise isn’t trivial. Humans who live and work intimately along coastlines will notice that. 5. Any climate data can be available to the public as soon as it has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. More often than not, though, you’ll have to do a bit of extra work beyond internet searches to find it. You may have to subscribe to scientific journals or directly e-mail scientists. I don’t know how freely computational model code will be given out, however. 6. Your last sentence concerns me. Would full data disclosure be enough? Because it doesn’t really sound like climate scientists could do anything to gain your trust. Can you identify for yourself a set of new data or facts that would cause you to reverse your stance on MMGW (in case you were wondering, yes I do have my own list of evidence I need to see in order to reverse my opinion on MMGW)? Do you also harbor similar skepticism for fossil fuel CEO’s or for scientists, think thanks, and politicians directly funded by the fossil fuel industry? What is your degree of skepticism for other scientists, engineers, doctors, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, etc…anyone else with specialized expertise? On 7/16/2020 at 12:18 PM, Cinga said: I mean, there is no steady state of weather that I'm aware of that would make everything stay the same for any period of time. So this literally means, ice is always either growing as we enter an ice age, or melting as we come out of one in a macro sense. There are still of course fluctuations due to sun activity, however in between ice ages there is always ice melting so why is it different now than say 2000 years ago? Correct, there is no such thing as steady-state weather and the same goes for ice sheet sizes during any interglacial period between ice ages and greenhouse Earths. If you were to look at a plot of ice sheet size versus time, you’ll see a bunch of higher frequency peak-to-peak squiggly lines showing the seasonal variation, with these lines following a lower frequency peak-to-peak trend as you zoom out to look at the larger timeline picture. This lower frequency trend is the climate variation that we care about. It’s always varying naturally, too. So why then all the modern-day fuss, you ask? Two reasons: 1. A process of elimination for explaining the magnitude and speed of the recent climate-based ice sheet shrinkage. Ice ages mostly follow the Milankovitch cycles that dictate the Earth’s orbit around the sun (eccentricity, axis tilt, axis precession). These changes happen gradually, with a few acceleratory exceptions like large meteorite strikes, supervolcanic activity, or quirky positive climate feedback loops at the beginnings and ends of ice age cycles. These quirky feedback loops include large ice/snow solar reflection alterations and unique features of plate tectonic positioning that affect ocean currents and therefore atmospheric winds (i.e. weather). All of this can be ruled out (for the most part!!) for the recent climate data we see. So can solar activity variation and Earth-Moon or Earth-Jupiter orbital dynamics variations. So can any major sudden shifts in greenhouse gas concentrations specifically due to large plant population changes, animal population changes, or microorganism behavior that were not human-induced. That just leaves us with human behavior as realistically the last and by far the best explanation. And because increased human behavior during the Agricultural Revolution and especially during the Industrial Revolution match up well with the increases to greenhouse gas concentrations, it makes logical sense that the ice sheet size reductions do too. 2. As humans of the Industrial Age, our cities and our agriculture have grown accustomed to a relatively specific climate stage. So ANY major and sudden changes to large climate factors like ice sheet sizes, whether they happen naturally or anthropogenically, will be highly problematic and are something to avoid if we have the ability to do so. On 7/16/2020 at 12:24 PM, The Guy In Pants said: there is money to be had in climate change. But isn’t there also money to be had in DENYING man-made climate change? If you’re alarmed with the influence that Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Geothermal might have on government, why not also the influence that Big Oil and Big Natural Gas and Big Coal are having? On 7/16/2020 at 12:35 PM, Cinga said: Growing up in Western NY in the late 60s and early 70s I remember going outside in the morning to a car covered in soot, and a Lake Erie that was so polluted it stunk when you got near it. Since then we have made tremendous strides into cleaning stuff up and I take offense when people say it was out fault because it was our generation that started the cleanup! The Boomer-driven environmental movement of the late 60’s-70’s was excellent. As a Millenial, I give you all a well-deserved “thank you!” for your activism. But regular water and air pollution form a class of environmental issues completely distinct from greenhouse gas pollution. On 7/16/2020 at 12:38 PM, The Guy In Pants said: Absolutely; tremendous strides. The other thing is; until the rest of the world is made to adhere to the same level of anti-pollution we are exercising; it really isn’t going to matter. At some point what gets dumped in the ocean in India; finds its way around the world. Agreed. That’s why healthy international relations are critical to the management of environmental issues. I’m including our enemies along with our allies. The US contributes about 15% of global carbon emissions. China contributes almost double that. This is a major reason why I’m a proponent of internationally coupled cap-and-trade systems for the “big” emitters, like power plants and certain material manufacturing industries. On 7/17/2020 at 9:36 AM, Buffalo Timmy said: If I am reading this correctly the entire area caught on fire literally, any area on fire will naturally be hotter. The fire has not even been attempted to be controlled so it grew through all of the brush. The cause is the fire, I would argue further but the "study" is from a group who simply stated every bad thing is from global warming. I interpreted the article to mean the prolonged heat wave preceded the fires. You can still easily measure atmospheric temperatures separate from the extra heat coming directly from the wildfires. Any argument flirting with “weather equals climate” reasoning can get tricky. I don’t know exactly how they calculated the given probabilities that this was due to global warming, but the numbers don’t seem outlandish given the unusual duration and magnitude of the heat wave. Regardless of the cause, the result is definitely not good for further global warming. The Siberian permafrost is an especially critical piece to climate stability. 19 hours ago, KD in CA said: It's nice when they are kind enough to announce right in the title that the article is completely fabricated nonsense. 600 times more likely? So they knew exactly 'how likely' a Siberian heatwave was for this year if there had been no climate change (as compared to when....last year? 1972? 450,000 BC?)? And they know exactly 'how likely' a Siberian heatwave is now, that there actually IS a Siberia heatwave?? Since there really IS a heatwave, doesn't that make the probability of happening 1? Are people really so stupid as to be impressed when they throw a big, scary number into the headline? Inquiring minds want to know. I’ll go ahead and take a general guess as to how they did it. They’re probably using historical records of daily high temperatures at a bunch of different Siberian weather stations. They’re probably setting the early 20th century data as the baseline data and the early 21st century data as the MMGW-affected data. Then they probably took a bunch of different reputable climate computational models (probably several dozens), ran simulations, and compared the simulations to the actual observed Siberian weather station data. They then probably discarded any poor-performing models, kept the well-performing models, and performed a bunch of fancy statistical analyses on the total results to come up with that mysterious probability ratio of 600. I THINK this is generally how they do heat wave studies, but remember that I am a layperson and not a climatologist, so take this explanation with a grain of salt. 1
Orlando Buffalo Posted July 18, 2020 Posted July 18, 2020 27 minutes ago, RealKayAdams said: Why only half-convinced?! You see, this is why y’all are so distrustful of government. You haven’t elected ME yet to solve your problems. “I have a plan for that.” – Liz Warren, 2020. “I have a PPP post for that.” – RealKayAdams, 2020. Unfortunately there’s no Holy Grail of energy. Not even nuclear fusion. All energy sources have benefits and drawbacks. Our energy solution for the future will involve some differently weighted combination of multiple sources. I personally think solar energy should and will be a major component of our overall future energy solution. I enjoy numerical lists, so I’ll list solar’s drawbacks here and put in parentheses why I’m generally not worried for each: 1. Low power density (I don’t think the math will ever work out for solar being a sole energy source, but it’s not an issue to me because we should expect to supplement solar with other renewable energy sources…including my favorite high power density source that I’ve already mentioned in earlier posts…nuclear fission). 2. Low solar energy conversion efficiency (there’s an 85% thermodynamic limit and current solar tech is at about 20%, but that number will keep going up as scientists and engineers play around with different materials, processing methods, and clever nanotech designs). 3. Resource mining concerns for rare earth metals (this is my only big concern with solar, and Chinese foreign relations complicate matters because China currently mines 95% of the world’s supply. Rare earth metals aren’t actually “rare.” They’re just harder to mine because they tend to be more diffuse in the ground compared to most veins of more conventional metals. I cautiously support increased worldwide ore mining so long as the mining and processing techniques are done in environmentally ethical ways…so I’m looking for sufficient government oversight here). 4. Material and production costs (this has been going down naturally, especially following the pandemic’s recent obliteration of the global transportation economy, and it should continue going down as worldwide mineral resource mines for solar energy open up while government subsidization/taxation policies change). 5. Fossil fuel consumption during entire solar panel product life cycle (it’s an issue now, but won’t be one later as renewable energy becomes more ubiquitous). 6. Large land/space requirements (I’ve seen lots of creative “Tetris-like” ideas for product stacking, urban placement, and desert placement). 7. Effects on flora like desert plants (not much of a problem if placed intelligently and responsibly, and I’ve also seen creative ways they can be placed to minimize desert habitat impact). 8. Effects on fauna like birds (the mirrors-and-towers solar thermal collector designs are bad, but the much more common photovoltaics are not. There are clever ways to deter certain birds in the desert from crashing into large panel arrays, but overall I can think of MANY more man-made things that are dangerous to flight-based wildlife…one being man-made global warming and the ways it disturbs migration patterns, for example). 9. Waste disposal (a perfectly manageable problem if we have active recycling programs for panels after their approximate 25-year life cycle). I figure solar panels powering homes and buildings would be the easiest item to check off on Biden’s list. I’m not optimistic on electric cars, solar cars, or solar/electric hybrid vehicles within the next 10 or so years. This sentiment has more to do with American transportation market behavioral habits and less to do with the potential of the technology. I’ll address your concerns in the order presented: 1. Which professional climatologists are you thinking of who made 4-5 degree Celsius predictions in 1995?? Predicting 4-5 degree increases within 25 years would require an absolute worst-case perfect storm (no pun intended) of multiple simultaneous positive climate feedback loop sources to trigger. All the reputable climatologists I’m familiar with (James Hansen types) have been very reasonably accurate with their models and with their early 21st century predictions, dating back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. 2. A 0.55 degree Celsius change is definitely NOT a typical Earth occurrence within a 25-year period and especially not within a single year. You would need something like unusually strong volcanic activity to initiate such a change. You might be thinking of LOCAL mean surface temperatures? I’m referring to GLOBAL mean surface temperatures. 3. Going back in time 750+ years beyond the start of the Industrial Age only reinforces my argument. What global mean surface temperature data are you looking at where you don’t see the obvious aberrant temperature climb beginning around 1900? The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were notably more tame in comparison, and those two had their biggest rapid temperature deviations due to specific volcanic eruptions. If you wanted to go back even further in time like 20,000 years or so, the warming and cooling data follows what you’d expect from cyclical changes in the Earth’s axial tilt. 4. Sea rise is measured with a combination of satellite laser altimeters and tide stations. Very large numbers of measurements are taken and averaged out, but I don’t know the technical details behind how the exact equipment calibrations and calculations are done. You’re better off e-mailing someone from NASA to get a good answer. Maybe also look into LIGO in Louisiana or check out the 2012 Gran Sasso FTL neutrino anomaly controversy to see how laser-based precision measurements are done. By the way, 3.5 inches of sea rise isn’t trivial. Humans who live and work intimately along coastlines will notice that. 5. Any climate data can be available to the public as soon as it has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. More often than not, though, you’ll have to do a bit of extra work beyond internet searches to find it. You may have to subscribe to scientific journals or directly e-mail scientists. I don’t know how freely computational model code will be given out, however. 6. Your last sentence concerns me. Would full data disclosure be enough? Because it doesn’t really sound like climate scientists could do anything to gain your trust. Can you identify for yourself a set of new data or facts that would cause you to reverse your stance on MMGW (in case you were wondering, yes I do have my own list of evidence I need to see in order to reverse my opinion on MMGW)? Do you also harbor similar skepticism for fossil fuel CEO’s or for scientists, think thanks, and politicians directly funded by the fossil fuel industry? What is your degree of skepticism for other scientists, engineers, doctors, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, etc…anyone else with specialized expertise? Correct, there is no such thing as steady-state weather and the same goes for ice sheet sizes during any interglacial period between ice ages and greenhouse Earths. If you were to look at a plot of ice sheet size versus time, you’ll see a bunch of higher frequency peak-to-peak squiggly lines showing the seasonal variation, with these lines following a lower frequency peak-to-peak trend as you zoom out to look at the larger timeline picture. This lower frequency trend is the climate variation that we care about. It’s always varying naturally, too. So why then all the modern-day fuss, you ask? Two reasons: 1. A process of elimination for explaining the magnitude and speed of the recent climate-based ice sheet shrinkage. Ice ages mostly follow the Milankovitch cycles that dictate the Earth’s orbit around the sun (eccentricity, axis tilt, axis precession). These changes happen gradually, with a few acceleratory exceptions like large meteorite strikes, supervolcanic activity, or quirky positive climate feedback loops at the beginnings and ends of ice age cycles. These quirky feedback loops include large ice/snow solar reflection alterations and unique features of plate tectonic positioning that affect ocean currents and therefore atmospheric winds (i.e. weather). All of this can be ruled out (for the most part!!) for the recent climate data we see. So can solar activity variation and Earth-Moon or Earth-Jupiter orbital dynamics variations. So can any major sudden shifts in greenhouse gas concentrations specifically due to large plant population changes, animal population changes, or microorganism behavior that were not human-induced. That just leaves us with human behavior as realistically the last and by far the best explanation. And because increased human behavior during the Agricultural Revolution and especially during the Industrial Revolution match up well with the increases to greenhouse gas concentrations, it makes logical sense that the ice sheet size reductions do too. 2. As humans of the Industrial Age, our cities and our agriculture have grown accustomed to a relatively specific climate stage. So ANY major and sudden changes to large climate factors like ice sheet sizes, whether they happen naturally or anthropogenically, will be highly problematic and are something to avoid if we have the ability to do so. But isn’t there also money to be had in DENYING man-made climate change? If you’re alarmed with the influence that Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Geothermal might have on government, why not also the influence that Big Oil and Big Natural Gas and Big Coal are having? The Boomer-driven environmental movement of the late 60’s-70’s was excellent. As a Millenial, I give you all a well-deserved “thank you!” for your activism. But regular water and air pollution form a class of environmental issues completely distinct from greenhouse gas pollution. Agreed. That’s why healthy international relations are critical to the management of environmental issues. I’m including our enemies along with our allies. The US contributes about 15% of global carbon emissions. China contributes almost double that. This is a major reason why I’m a proponent of internationally coupled cap-and-trade systems for the “big” emitters, like power plants and certain material manufacturing industries. I interpreted the article to mean the prolonged heat wave preceded the fires. You can still easily measure atmospheric temperatures separate from the extra heat coming directly from the wildfires. Any argument flirting with “weather equals climate” reasoning can get tricky. I don’t know exactly how they calculated the given probabilities that this was due to global warming, but the numbers don’t seem outlandish given the unusual duration and magnitude of the heat wave. Regardless of the cause, the result is definitely not good for further global warming. The Siberian permafrost is an especially critical piece to climate stability. I’ll go ahead and take a general guess as to how they did it. They’re probably using historical records of daily high temperatures at a bunch of different Siberian weather stations. They’re probably setting the early 20th century data as the baseline data and the early 21st century data as the MMGW-affected data. Then they probably took a bunch of different reputable climate computational models (probably several dozens), ran simulations, and compared the simulations to the actual observed Siberian weather station data. They then probably discarded any poor-performing models, kept the well-performing models, and performed a bunch of fancy statistical analyses on the total results to come up with that mysterious probability ratio of 600. I THINK this is generally how they do heat wave studies, but remember that I am a layperson and not a climatologist, so take this explanation with a grain of salt. I will once again respond only to your response to me: I am skeptical by nature so there is little that can be presented that will make me trust someone who has lied to me many times previously. But to each point 1) the hockey stick graph was being pushed when Al Gore did his movie and I have heard many times how we have 12 years to live. If you are not part of that portion why are you fighting so vehemently. 2) a 1/2 degree change in one year happened with El Nino, but more importantly the earth is always changing, when it starts changing 8-10 degrees a decade as it did during the last major ice age I will listen to it not being natural. 3) http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/ 4) as I told you the satellite have a 4 mm variance, and they are the main source of measuring. You can try and explain otherwise but you will be wrong. 5) let me rephrase- the raw data from prior to about 2010 is gone and missing. The numbers remaining are enhanced numbers which means they scrubbed the bad data, without allowing anyone who disagrees to see bad data. I will end by stating I understand the earth is likely warming but I am not overly concerned, we would be smarter to learn to deal with warmer or colder earth than try and act like the current climate is the "right" one. I will state that most of the people pushing govt control are more interested in increasing power than helping the earth. 1
Cinga Posted July 18, 2020 Posted July 18, 2020 2 hours ago, RealKayAdams said: On 7/16/2020 at 12:35 PM, Cinga said: Growing up in Western NY in the late 60s and early 70s I remember going outside in the morning to a car covered in soot, and a Lake Erie that was so polluted it stunk when you got near it. Since then we have made tremendous strides into cleaning stuff up and I take offense when people say it was out fault because it was our generation that started the cleanup! The Boomer-driven environmental movement of the late 60’s-70’s was excellent. As a Millenial, I give you all a well-deserved “thank you!” for your activism. But regular water and air pollution form a class of environmental issues completely distinct from greenhouse gas pollution. Whether intended or not, that sure came across as a backhanded slap at "boomers" That's certainly the way I take it from any pompous ass millennial.
TtownBillsFan Posted July 18, 2020 Posted July 18, 2020 4 hours ago, RealKayAdams said: Why only half-convinced?! You see, this is why y’all are so distrustful of government. You haven’t elected ME yet to solve your problems. “I have a plan for that.” – Liz Warren, 2020. “I have a PPP post for that.” – RealKayAdams, 2020. Unfortunately there’s no Holy Grail of energy. Not even nuclear fusion. All energy sources have benefits and drawbacks. Our energy solution for the future will involve some differently weighted combination of multiple sources. I personally think solar energy should and will be a major component of our overall future energy solution. I enjoy numerical lists, so I’ll list solar’s drawbacks here and put in parentheses why I’m generally not worried for each: 1. Low power density (I don’t think the math will ever work out for solar being a sole energy source, but it’s not an issue to me because we should expect to supplement solar with other renewable energy sources…including my favorite high power density source that I’ve already mentioned in earlier posts…nuclear fission). 2. Low solar energy conversion efficiency (there’s an 85% thermodynamic limit and current solar tech is at about 20%, but that number will keep going up as scientists and engineers play around with different materials, processing methods, and clever nanotech designs). 3. Resource mining concerns for rare earth metals (this is my only big concern with solar, and Chinese foreign relations complicate matters because China currently mines 95% of the world’s supply. Rare earth metals aren’t actually “rare.” They’re just harder to mine because they tend to be more diffuse in the ground compared to most veins of more conventional metals. I cautiously support increased worldwide ore mining so long as the mining and processing techniques are done in environmentally ethical ways…so I’m looking for sufficient government oversight here). 4. Material and production costs (this has been going down naturally, especially following the pandemic’s recent obliteration of the global transportation economy, and it should continue going down as worldwide mineral resource mines for solar energy open up while government subsidization/taxation policies change). 5. Fossil fuel consumption during entire solar panel product life cycle (it’s an issue now, but won’t be one later as renewable energy becomes more ubiquitous). 6. Large land/space requirements (I’ve seen lots of creative “Tetris-like” ideas for product stacking, urban placement, and desert placement). 7. Effects on flora like desert plants (not much of a problem if placed intelligently and responsibly, and I’ve also seen creative ways they can be placed to minimize desert habitat impact). 8. Effects on fauna like birds (the mirrors-and-towers solar thermal collector designs are bad, but the much more common photovoltaics are not. There are clever ways to deter certain birds in the desert from crashing into large panel arrays, but overall I can think of MANY more man-made things that are dangerous to flight-based wildlife…one being man-made global warming and the ways it disturbs migration patterns, for example). 9. Waste disposal (a perfectly manageable problem if we have active recycling programs for panels after their approximate 25-year life cycle). I figure solar panels powering homes and buildings would be the easiest item to check off on Biden’s list. I’m not optimistic on electric cars, solar cars, or solar/electric hybrid vehicles within the next 10 or so years. This sentiment has more to do with American transportation market behavioral habits and less to do with the potential of the technology. I’ll address your concerns in the order presented: 1. Which professional climatologists are you thinking of who made 4-5 degree Celsius predictions in 1995?? Predicting 4-5 degree increases within 25 years would require an absolute worst-case perfect storm (no pun intended) of multiple simultaneous positive climate feedback loop sources to trigger. All the reputable climatologists I’m familiar with (James Hansen types) have been very reasonably accurate with their models and with their early 21st century predictions, dating back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. 2. A 0.55 degree Celsius change is definitely NOT a typical Earth occurrence within a 25-year period and especially not within a single year. You would need something like unusually strong volcanic activity to initiate such a change. You might be thinking of LOCAL mean surface temperatures? I’m referring to GLOBAL mean surface temperatures. 3. Going back in time 750+ years beyond the start of the Industrial Age only reinforces my argument. What global mean surface temperature data are you looking at where you don’t see the obvious aberrant temperature climb beginning around 1900? The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were notably more tame in comparison, and those two had their biggest rapid temperature deviations due to specific volcanic eruptions. If you wanted to go back even further in time like 20,000 years or so, the warming and cooling data follows what you’d expect from cyclical changes in the Earth’s axial tilt. 4. Sea rise is measured with a combination of satellite laser altimeters and tide stations. Very large numbers of measurements are taken and averaged out, but I don’t know the technical details behind how the exact equipment calibrations and calculations are done. You’re better off e-mailing someone from NASA to get a good answer. Maybe also look into LIGO in Louisiana or check out the 2012 Gran Sasso FTL neutrino anomaly controversy to see how laser-based precision measurements are done. By the way, 3.5 inches of sea rise isn’t trivial. Humans who live and work intimately along coastlines will notice that. 5. Any climate data can be available to the public as soon as it has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. More often than not, though, you’ll have to do a bit of extra work beyond internet searches to find it. You may have to subscribe to scientific journals or directly e-mail scientists. I don’t know how freely computational model code will be given out, however. 6. Your last sentence concerns me. Would full data disclosure be enough? Because it doesn’t really sound like climate scientists could do anything to gain your trust. Can you identify for yourself a set of new data or facts that would cause you to reverse your stance on MMGW (in case you were wondering, yes I do have my own list of evidence I need to see in order to reverse my opinion on MMGW)? Do you also harbor similar skepticism for fossil fuel CEO’s or for scientists, think thanks, and politicians directly funded by the fossil fuel industry? What is your degree of skepticism for other scientists, engineers, doctors, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, etc…anyone else with specialized expertise? Correct, there is no such thing as steady-state weather and the same goes for ice sheet sizes during any interglacial period between ice ages and greenhouse Earths. If you were to look at a plot of ice sheet size versus time, you’ll see a bunch of higher frequency peak-to-peak squiggly lines showing the seasonal variation, with these lines following a lower frequency peak-to-peak trend as you zoom out to look at the larger timeline picture. This lower frequency trend is the climate variation that we care about. It’s always varying naturally, too. So why then all the modern-day fuss, you ask? Two reasons: 1. A process of elimination for explaining the magnitude and speed of the recent climate-based ice sheet shrinkage. Ice ages mostly follow the Milankovitch cycles that dictate the Earth’s orbit around the sun (eccentricity, axis tilt, axis precession). These changes happen gradually, with a few acceleratory exceptions like large meteorite strikes, supervolcanic activity, or quirky positive climate feedback loops at the beginnings and ends of ice age cycles. These quirky feedback loops include large ice/snow solar reflection alterations and unique features of plate tectonic positioning that affect ocean currents and therefore atmospheric winds (i.e. weather). All of this can be ruled out (for the most part!!) for the recent climate data we see. So can solar activity variation and Earth-Moon or Earth-Jupiter orbital dynamics variations. So can any major sudden shifts in greenhouse gas concentrations specifically due to large plant population changes, animal population changes, or microorganism behavior that were not human-induced. That just leaves us with human behavior as realistically the last and by far the best explanation. And because increased human behavior during the Agricultural Revolution and especially during the Industrial Revolution match up well with the increases to greenhouse gas concentrations, it makes logical sense that the ice sheet size reductions do too. 2. As humans of the Industrial Age, our cities and our agriculture have grown accustomed to a relatively specific climate stage. So ANY major and sudden changes to large climate factors like ice sheet sizes, whether they happen naturally or anthropogenically, will be highly problematic and are something to avoid if we have the ability to do so. But isn’t there also money to be had in DENYING man-made climate change? If you’re alarmed with the influence that Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Geothermal might have on government, why not also the influence that Big Oil and Big Natural Gas and Big Coal are having? The Boomer-driven environmental movement of the late 60’s-70’s was excellent. As a Millenial, I give you all a well-deserved “thank you!” for your activism. But regular water and air pollution form a class of environmental issues completely distinct from greenhouse gas pollution. Agreed. That’s why healthy international relations are critical to the management of environmental issues. I’m including our enemies along with our allies. The US contributes about 15% of global carbon emissions. China contributes almost double that. This is a major reason why I’m a proponent of internationally coupled cap-and-trade systems for the “big” emitters, like power plants and certain material manufacturing industries. I interpreted the article to mean the prolonged heat wave preceded the fires. You can still easily measure atmospheric temperatures separate from the extra heat coming directly from the wildfires. Any argument flirting with “weather equals climate” reasoning can get tricky. I don’t know exactly how they calculated the given probabilities that this was due to global warming, but the numbers don’t seem outlandish given the unusual duration and magnitude of the heat wave. Regardless of the cause, the result is definitely not good for further global warming. The Siberian permafrost is an especially critical piece to climate stability. I’ll go ahead and take a general guess as to how they did it. They’re probably using historical records of daily high temperatures at a bunch of different Siberian weather stations. They’re probably setting the early 20th century data as the baseline data and the early 21st century data as the MMGW-affected data. Then they probably took a bunch of different reputable climate computational models (probably several dozens), ran simulations, and compared the simulations to the actual observed Siberian weather station data. They then probably discarded any poor-performing models, kept the well-performing models, and performed a bunch of fancy statistical analyses on the total results to come up with that mysterious probability ratio of 600. I THINK this is generally how they do heat wave studies, but remember that I am a layperson and not a climatologist, so take this explanation with a grain of salt. You're one of the few lefties that I haven't yet put on ignore, but it's because you discuss things; not just drive-by. However, brevity is the soul of wit; please consider that. I'm not sure where it is up in your page-long response, but your numbered response to someone else, where you addressed the issues of 'green' energy (namely, solar). The one thing you didn't discuss, and I think you numbered them 1 through 9, was the big one: availability/storage capacity. That's the ONE thing that must be solved for Solar to take over. And I think we'll, eventually, figure that out (the storage part; we can't fix the availability). Once we have the storage figured out, THEN solar becomes a viable means of always/real-time energy. Until then, it's just a fart in the wind.
leh-nerd skin-erd Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, RealKayAdams said: Why only half-convinced?! You see, this is why y’all are so distrustful of government. You haven’t elected ME yet to solve your problems. “I have a plan for that.” – Liz Warren, 2020. “I have a PPP post for that.” – RealKayAdams, 2020. Unfortunately there’s no Holy Grail of energy. Not even nuclear fusion. All energy sources have benefits and drawbacks. Our energy solution for the future will involve some differently weighted combination of multiple sources. I personally think solar energy should and will be a major component of our overall future energy solution. I enjoy numerical lists, so I’ll list solar’s drawbacks here and put in parentheses why I’m generally not worried for each: I’ll tell you why. I think there are three reasons I’m only half-convinced. 1. You bought the Bernie hype. The man was consistent for as far back as we can reasonably see. He was consistently espousing socio-commie ideals. He has consistency railed against the most obvious boogeymen of all...any commercial enterprise you can place BIG in front of, at one point “millionayas” until he became a “millionaya” himself, then he just raged against the billionayas, the ones nobody is ever going to successfully take on. He’s also been a ward of the state for decades, and from everything I’ve been able to see, always planned to remain exactly where he is until his time ends. He was the biggest poser in 2016, and worse still in 2020. Of the 50% remainder on my half-convinced analysis, you lost 25% here. 2. You suggested that you “enjoy numerical lists”. That’s just quirky enough to be interesting, this passion for la Liste Numérique, but when combined with the Bernie Sanders thing it cost you 20% here. 3. I’m just going to say it. Conditioners and brushes. I don’t understand how some people need 15 different conditioners and 5 or 6 differential brushes for different looks—especially in light of the looming crisis with man made climate change. I think if we accept frizzy hair as the future we’ll be much better off as a society. I realize it sounds petty, but it cost you a fiver here as far as I’m concerned. Edited July 19, 2020 by leh-nerd skin-erd
TH3 Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 On 7/16/2020 at 12:24 PM, The Guy In Pants said: It’s simple really; much like everything the government becomes involved with, if there is a way to capitalize on it and extort money from the citizens........they’ll do it. Although I am an advocate for cleaning up after ourselves, not being a ***** loser and purposely trashing the planet or the general area in which you reside and not being cruel to nature just because a person thinks they can; there is money to be had in climate change. So in other words....you know you are a stand up guy....but count you out when it comes to doing something about global warming.....but you are a good guy.... 1 2
ComradeKayAdams Posted July 20, 2020 Posted July 20, 2020 On 7/18/2020 at 6:30 PM, TtownBillsFan said: You're one of the few lefties that I haven't yet put on ignore, but it's because you discuss things; not just drive-by. However, brevity is the soul of wit; please consider that. I'm not sure where it is up in your page-long response, but your numbered response to someone else, where you addressed the issues of 'green' energy (namely, solar). The one thing you didn't discuss, and I think you numbered them 1 through 9, was the big one: availability/storage capacity. That's the ONE thing that must be solved for Solar to take over. And I think we'll, eventually, figure that out (the storage part; we can't fix the availability). Once we have the storage figured out, THEN solar becomes a viable means of always/real-time energy. Until then, it's just a fart in the wind. Ah good catch, thanks! It did kinda feel like I was forgetting something important. Let me update the solar drawbacks list a bit more for @plenzmd1: 1-9. (…) 10. Energy availability restrictions (obviously less effective on cloudy days and at night, but not an issue with suitable battery storage). 11. Energy storage limitations (lots of promising research is being done with lithium-ion batteries to improve capacity/power rating/lifespan/round-trip efficiency and especially to drop their costs down, but I also like the future potential of saltwater batteries and supercapacitors). 12. Transmission line losses (only relevant to remote desert solar arrays, but it’s not a unique problem to solar and not a super major one…maybe high-temp superconductor tech can help). Regarding the brevity tip: in my defense, I was replying to a whopping 9 different posts in my most recent superpost. My personal motivations for being here are more related to debating, persuading, informing, and learning rather than displaying wit, but I can strive to cut down on extraneous material in future posts. By the way, everyone should know that they can delete quoted post content, so this could drastically cut down on posted reply lengths whenever I am quoted. On 7/18/2020 at 2:24 PM, Buffalo Timmy said: I will once again respond only to your response to me: I am skeptical by nature so there is little that can be presented that will make me trust someone who has lied to me many times previously. But to each point 1) the hockey stick graph was being pushed when Al Gore did his movie and I have heard many times how we have 12 years to live. If you are not part of that portion why are you fighting so vehemently. 2) a 1/2 degree change in one year happened with El Nino, but more importantly the earth is always changing, when it starts changing 8-10 degrees a decade as it did during the last major ice age I will listen to it not being natural. 3) http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/ 4) as I told you the satellite have a 4 mm variance, and they are the main source of measuring. You can try and explain otherwise but you will be wrong. 5) let me rephrase- the raw data from prior to about 2010 is gone and missing. The numbers remaining are enhanced numbers which means they scrubbed the bad data, without allowing anyone who disagrees to see bad data. I will end by stating I understand the earth is likely warming but I am not overly concerned, we would be smarter to learn to deal with warmer or colder earth than try and act like the current climate is the "right" one. I will state that most of the people pushing govt control are more interested in increasing power than helping the earth. I think your skepticism is fine and healthy. I just wish you’d also reserve some skepticism for your own skepticism, that’s all. Especially with your sources of climate science information (I'll do the same). 1. I’ve been fighting you so vehemently because I’m trying to understand your point of view on a topic I find important. You appear to be blaming the community of professional climate scientists for inaccurate and sometimes outrageous claims that were instead likely made by random nutty climate alarmists, politicians, and essentially non-professional climatologists. I’m not currently aware of any geoscientist who predicted the Earth would warm 4-5 degrees Celsius between 1995 and 2020. 2. That El Nino-related 0.5 degree Celsius change in one year was a REGIONAL effect over a large part of the Pacific Ocean. I’m referring to GLOBAL mean surface temperatures. Dating back to the late nineteenth century, we haven’t recorded a 1-year change in global mean temperature beyond about 0.2 degrees. I do like the fact that you identified a benchmark by which you will consider MMGW. Unfortunately, I was hoping it would be in the ballpark of 0.25 degrees over the next decade and not an 8-10 degree Dansgaard-Oeschger Ice Age swing… 3. I see this Joanne Nova blogger is making a couple logical fallacies on her front page that we’ve already covered in this thread. It’s also worth noting that she has no professional Earth science training and yet appears to be running a small business as an international climate skeptic. 4. Yes, the sea level rise measuring variance is 4 mm. I’ve stated that the measured rise has been 85 mm over the past 25 years. So that means the actual rise is somewhere between 8.1 cm and 8.9 cm. I also don’t believe there is a grand scientific conspiracy afoot here. I think it’s more likely that you (and I, and other laypeople) simply don’t understand the technical nuances of their laser-based precision measurements. If we truly want to get to the bottom of this, we should start by contacting the involved scientists and instrumentation engineers directly with technical questions. 5. I hadn’t heard of this pre-2010 data-scrubbing controversy. I’m vaguely familiar with the 2009 Climategate controversy, but I believe those involved scientists were eventually exonerated. We can at least agree on a couple points in your last paragraph. Humans definitely need to begin thinking seriously about how to transition to living life in a warmer Earth. And yes, there are many politicians on the left who prioritize their own power way more than the well-being of Earth. Thank you for your last two posts. We don’t see eye to eye on this topic, but they have helped me understand the opposing argument a little better. Hopefully your side will prove my side wrong within the next few years. On 7/18/2020 at 8:59 PM, leh-nerd skin-erd said: I’ll tell you why. I think there are three reasons I’m only half-convinced. 1. You bought the Bernie hype. The man was consistent for as far back as we can reasonably see. He was consistently espousing socio-commie ideals. He has consistency railed against the most obvious boogeymen of all...any commercial enterprise you can place BIG in front of, at one point “millionayas” until he became a “millionaya” himself, then he just raged against the billionayas, the ones nobody is ever going to successfully take on. He’s also been a ward of the state for decades, and from everything I’ve been able to see, always planned to remain exactly where he is until his time ends. He was the biggest poser in 2016, and worse still in 2020. Of the 50% remainder on my half-convinced analysis, you lost 25% here. 2. You suggested that you “enjoy numerical lists”. That’s just quirky enough to be interesting, this passion for la Liste Numérique, but when combined with the Bernie Sanders thing it cost you 20% here. 3. I’m just going to say it. Conditioners and brushes. I don’t understand how some people need 15 different conditioners and 5 or 6 differential brushes for different looks—especially in light of the looming crisis with man made climate change. I think if we accept frizzy hair as the future we’ll be much better off as a society. I realize it sounds petty, but it cost you a fiver here as far as I’m concerned. Yah, I figured you deducted points for me being such an openly devout social democrat. It’s sadly true that I bought into the Bernie hype both in 2016 and in 2020. Even up until the March 15 debate, I still clung to the hope that Bernie was serious about winning. But where else was someone of my political persuasion to go?! At least I had Liz Warren pegged as a political fraud years ago. I much preferred Tulsi in 2020, but Bernie had all the campaign momentum. I should have jumped ship as soon as his Russiagating and “Donald Trump is the worst and most dangerous president in modern US history” rhetoric began (what about Bush 43, Bernie??). Oh well, live and learn. Numerical lists help me organize my thoughts while I type. I think they’re also a bit easier to read on phones and other small screens when looking at long paragraphs of info. I only have 2 conditioners and 3 brushes. Well-kempt, silky-smooth hair is a critical part of my bodily feng shui. It helps me keep all of my amazing political and football ideas balanced in my head! On 7/18/2020 at 3:58 PM, Cinga said: Whether intended or not, that sure came across as a backhanded slap at "boomers" That's certainly the way I take it from any pompous ass millennial. It was unintentional. Any silly sort of “Boomers versus Millenials” rivalry is inconsequential to the point I was making, which is that we need to think about pollution as two completely separate categories. The first is the traditional pollution we all clearly recognize as bad because even relatively small amounts cause easily identifiable and relatively immediate damage (lead or mercury in water, arsenic or cesium-137 in food, sulfur oxides or CFC aerosols in air, etc.). The second are the collective greenhouse gases responsible for over 30 degrees Celsius of warming at the Earth’s surface. They are the far more controversial type of pollution for all the obvious reasons: they are completely natural and necessary at still very large levels, their alterations have delayed effects that are almost imperceptible to an ordinary human’s life, and their interactions with Earth’s ecosystems are way more complex. The “pompous ass Millenial” remark is my long overdue cue to officially retire from this thread. I’ve written plenty here, so people can make use of the info and my opinions as they so choose.
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