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rivetz posted:Am I wrong or missing something, or are you seriously accusing the researchers of making statements that contradict statements/conclusions subsequently made by the media? The clarifications were made after their PR tour promoting the study's findings (findings which they misrepresented in said PR tour). For instance, here is one of the coauthors in a Youtube interview with the NYT's Revkin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgnMuKuVXzU. Notice the shape he makes with his hand, despite the fact that their later clarification indicates that this is not their conclusion. Also calls it a hockey stick, which is again, not their findings with the later clarification. Revkin wrote this about their clarification: "There’s also room for more questions — one being how the authors square the caveats they express here with some of the more definitive statements they made about their findings in news accounts." Arkane fucked around with this message at 21:09 on May 11, 2013 |
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May 11, 2013 21:06
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Nevvy Z posted:Isn't completely misinterpreting scientific results and asking really vague questions that lead them to be able to 'truthfully' post ludicrous headlines like "scientests predict singularity in 20 years due to rise of electronic ovens" basically what the media does all the time? Yeah its actually quite interesting to see a troll post, then a moderator commenting on said poster's tendency to troll, followed up by the same troll acknowledging the moderator on him about to bring the troll, and finally the guy actually posts and people still don't get it.
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May 11, 2013 21:13
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Arkane posted:Actually, I'll limit it down even further:  if there isn't.
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May 11, 2013 21:18
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Feral Integral posted:Yeah its actually quite interesting to see a troll post, then a moderator commenting on said poster's tendency to troll, followed up by the same troll acknowledging the moderator on him about to bring the troll, and finally the guy actually posts and people still don't get it. I mean, kudos to him if so, but Arkane isn't trolling. He is sincere.
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May 11, 2013 21:22
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What's the difference, climate change denial is still supposed to be bannable.
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May 11, 2013 21:41
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Feral Integral posted:Yeah its actually quite interesting to see a troll post, then a moderator commenting on said poster's tendency to troll, followed up by the same troll acknowledging the moderator on him about to bring the troll, and finally the guy actually posts and people still don't get it. Nothing in any of my posts is a troll, and although I've been called a denier probably close to 2-3 million times (conservatively), I am a firm believer that humans are changing earth's climate. So it's basically just people lying/trolling for shits and giggles. I read about the climate topic a few hours a week, and have been for years; I've read hundreds of climate papers in my life, including much of the AR4 IPCC report. Not throwing that out there as some sort of dorky brag, but just to drive home that I would consider myself to be both very passionate and very knowledgeable on the topic. But let's veer off the topic of certified world's worst monster Arkane. If you want a jumping off point to respond to: I think alarmists, by and large, are disconnected from reality, and have 0 grasp on the science but love talking about their apocalypse fantasies. That the root cause of their belief that the Earth is going to hell in a hand basket is political and probably a hatred of capitalism. That is many of the posters in this thread. Anti-intellectual alarmism actually works against the industrialization of poverty-stricken countries that need it desperately, but I guess that is a different point. The reality of climate change is much different than the alarmists would have you believe. Going to hell in a hand basket is certainly a possibility, but an unlikely one, and one for which we have 0 evidence. As of April 2013, temperatures have been flat for well over a decade, with a longer-term trend around .15 C per decade. That is not an inaccurate or misleading statement: you can find it any graph or instrumental record (NASA, NOAA, CRU, UAH, RSS). The current speculation by alarmists is not that they are wrong about fast accelerating heat, but that the heat is all there, but lurking in the deep oceans. Certainly possible, but that would also speak to our lack of understanding how the climate system works if we failed to predict that. The fact remains that the climate models are not remotely accurate so far. This is not new news either, and the IPCC AR5 will acknowledge and talk about this per the draft copies that have been released. Paleoclimate (i.e. Marcott, Mann) is a whole different ball of wax; I think most of that field is absolute poo poo and agenda-driven. And I still don't think we have a good grasp on whether Earth right now is markedly hotter than it was in, say, 1000 AD. The thing that I despise the most is the sea level predictions, and discussions of doomsday sea level rise. For one, there is the fact that if humanity wasn't on this planet, the sea levels would still be rising (the Earth is currently in a series of ice ages and interglacials...the past interglacial had sea levels 20 feet higher than they are today; we can expect far higher sea levels before our current interglacial ends) thus some indeterminate amount of the rise is completely natural. We also have a satellite in orbit that monitors sea levels and reports it quarterly on the research website at University of Colorado. We have yet to see any signs of acceleration in the past 20+ years we have had that satellite in the air, and the sea levels are rising so incredibly slow (1.2 inches per decade) that the doomsday warnings about low lying areas is completely absurd. Without acceleration, it will take 50 years before sea levels rise 6 inches. One final thought: doomsday warnings are reliant upon acceleration, and acceleration is reliant not upon CO2 increase, but rather on high climate sensitivity to those CO2 increases (feedbacks that will amplify the warming). There is not yet any reason whatsoever to believe that climate sensitivities are as high as the models have assumed. I'm a broken record at this point, typing much of the same things over and over in this thread, so apologies if you've read this rant for the umpteenth time.
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May 11, 2013 23:42
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Arkane posted:Nothing in any of my posts is a troll, and although I've been called a denier probably close to 2-3 million times (conservatively), I am a firm believer that humans are changing earth's climate. So it's basically just people lying/trolling for shits and giggles. I read about the climate topic a few hours a week, and have been for years; I've read hundreds of climate papers in my life, including much of the AR4 IPCC report. Not throwing that out there as some sort of dorky brag, but just to drive home that I would consider myself to be both very passionate and very knowledgeable on the topic.
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May 12, 2013 04:03
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Bizarro Watt posted:That doesn't make you knowledgeable on the subject. Reading (and digesting) the information in a scientific paper is no easy task and it can be extremely easy to miss details. The fact that you claim to have read hundreds of papers on climate science and the IPCC report really doesn't mean anything if you don't have the right background. So I'm not impressed. This also calls into question your supposed authority at being able to confidently say that the paleoclimate field is "poo poo and agenda-driven". No, but see, we just hate capitalism.
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May 12, 2013 04:18
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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Arkane posted:To be precise, I think you mean "the rate at which climate will hypothetically change." Wording is key with sentences like that, lest you give the false impression that either temperature increases or sea level rise is currently accelerating. Along those same lines, a recent study in Nature determined that glacial ice melt on Greenland is not expected to accelerate. "The rate at which climate will hypothetically change" is an incorrect statement on two fronts. To borrow from Carl Sagan's book, the Demon Haunted world - the statement is incorrect as a nominal value (Climate) cannot be used in an incremental fashion. "The rate at which the letter "O" will hypothetically change" would be just as accurate. A rate is a change in a real value (linked to a dataset) measured throughout a period in time. A more correct statement would have been "The rate at which temperature is increasing" is correct, since temperature can be measured, and has an absolute zero. * * * The 400 ppm article is really interesting, especially from an indoor air quality perspective. As you know, the human body reacts to the amount of carbon dioxide in the lungs to determine a host of other physiological factors, such as breathing rate, heartbeat, fatigue, etc... Around 1000 ppm is the approximate threshold that individuals begin to complain of poor air quality inside a thermally-insulated building (such as the new LEED-standard units). The solution right now is to increase the air exchange rate between fresh, outside air and stale, indoor air through heat-exchangers (like the Venmar units you might have in your home). An increase in CO2 will, for the most part, mean that these air exchange rates will have to increase exponentially in order to maintain a certain comfortable level. If you are aiming for 600 ppm in a crowded auditorium, and you only have, say, 550 ppm of fresh air intake to dilute the air, you're going to have units that may end up having to do obscene air-exchange volumes per hour in these airspaces. * * * Last but not least, Ive been seeing some posts about "The relationship between Carbon Dioxide levels and temperatures decreases as the concentration of Carbon Dioxide increases" but without explanation of exactly where the Derivative lies (where Lim x->0). Does it lie somewhere around 500ppm? At 1ppt? At 5p? At 6000p?
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May 12, 2013 04:58
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Bizarro Watt posted:That doesn't make you knowledgeable on the subject. Reading (and digesting) the information in a scientific paper is no easy task and it can be extremely easy to miss details. The fact that you claim to have read hundreds of papers on climate science and the IPCC report really doesn't mean anything if you don't have the right background. So I'm not impressed. This also calls into question your supposed authority at being able to confidently say that the paleoclimate field is "poo poo and agenda-driven". I was talking about whether I was trolling, not claiming to be an expert...I was more saying "I am serious about this" and not "wow I am a scholar." And I was speaking about my knowledge relative to average, not relative to experts. My description of the paleo field was probably off, you are right on that. A bit too kind. It's funny that in a field where they impress upon us that the fate of the world is in the balance, they do their damnedest to make sure nobody sees the data. And when they finally relent or are forced to relent, we find a litany of errors ranging from using a proxy upside down (Mann 08) to insufficient sample size (Briffa 00) and failed significance tests (Gergis 2012). All 3 of those papers will be in AR5 in some form or another; Gergis was retracted but will be in there nonetheless.
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May 12, 2013 06:15
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Arkane posted:I was talking about whether I was trolling, not claiming to be an expert...I was more saying "I am serious about this" and not "wow I am a scholar." And I was speaking about my knowledge relative to average, not relative to experts. I think the reason most people think you are a troll is that you've spent months sitting in this thread posting things and getting hundreds of point by point rebuttals, which you acknowledge none of. The talking points in your last big post have been debunked a thousand times in this, the methane plume thread, the desertification thread, the older climate threads and this thread directly, and a lot of times in direct response to you. So if at this point you are breaking out the temperatures since 2003 as evidence and throwing out the whole "the climate has changed before guys" or "X was hotter/bigger/deeper/worse in the ______ Era" talking points it sounds exactly like a troll because those are the most common denialist arguments that receive the most attention and the only two outcomes are either willful ignorance or purposeful trolling.
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May 12, 2013 07:34
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Arkane posted:I was talking about whether I was trolling, not claiming to be an expert...I was more saying "I am serious about this" and not "wow I am a scholar." And I was speaking about my knowledge relative to average, not relative to experts. Whether or not you were saying you're an expert doesn't matter, because you claimed to be very knowledgeable on the subject because of the hundreds of climate papers you've read. It doesn't matter if you meant relative to the average person; that's irrelevant. You said you were "very knowledge" and I'm saying that I don't buy it and neither should anyone else reading the thread who isn't able to follow climate science that much or has a hard time with all the data out there. You don't get to downplay what you originally said then make a comically broad and incorrect claim about the whole field of paleoclimatology as though you are an expert. You throw around citations as though they actually matter without even linking to the corresponding article so it can actually be discussed as if you just want to give a vacuous impression that you know what you're talking about to the non-scientific individuals reading this thread. Or mentioning the name McIntyre as if blog articles are a legitimate citation (compared to peer-reviewed literature). Not to mention that you throw around strawman statements such as referring to increasing CO2 as the "harbinger of doom". I mean, what is "doom" in this context? Obviously it's not going to be clearly defined because nobody is using that wording in the literature, which is great, because people will read that and envision fire and brimstone, letting you post whatever you want as a counterargument and make it seem reasonable. See, I read your posts and I just see bizarre debate tactics (a couple more: comparing what was reported in the NYT to what was published in the actual article and then referring to the scientist as talking to the media as a "PR tour") to form a false narrative about climate science in order to obfuscate the fact that you haven't really taken as much from those hundreds of papers you've read as you like to claim to.
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May 12, 2013 15:35
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It's no surprise that some people hold massively malinformed opinions like that when you have supposedly respectable outlets like the WSJ publishing stuff like this:quote:Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity. The cognitive dissonance is just astonishing. There's no arguing with these people.
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May 14, 2013 11:03
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Have there been any botanical studies on plants growing in atmospheres of different gas compositions that show anything significant? That article reads like somebody who forgot all their biology classes from decades ago just picked up a book and saw that plants use CO2 to make sugars and had an epiphany.
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May 14, 2013 16:35
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superjew posted:Have there been any botanical studies on plants growing in atmospheres of different gas compositions that show anything significant? That article reads like somebody who forgot all their biology classes from decades ago just picked up a book and saw that plants use CO2 to make sugars and had an epiphany. There have been studies. In a laboratory, plants will respond positively to additional CO2. (up to a point) Problem is, we don't grow food in laboratories. Other studies show that pest insects and weeds respond more positively to the additional CO2 than the food crops, and that's not even touching on the stresses created by the temperature change and the weather changes that is expected to bring. Of course, the "knowledgeable" skeptic will just point at those laboratory studies and just outright ignore you when you try to explain that growing food is more complicated than that.
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May 14, 2013 16:51
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Bizarro Watt posted:Not to mention that you throw around strawman statements such as referring to increasing CO2 as the "harbinger of doom". I mean, what is "doom" in this context? bviously it's not going to be clearly defined because nobody is using that wording in the literature, which is great, because people will read that and envision fire and brimstone, letting you post whatever you want as a counterargument and make it seem reasonable. I don't think it's unfair to say that the film Inconvenient Truth predicted doomsday scenarios in the not so distant future due to GHGs, and sort of set the narrative of the past decade. Granted, I wasn't talking about the general public when I made that statement. But I similarly don't think it's unfair to say that people in the climatology field like Hansen and Mann (just to name two) have blurred the line between science and advocacy, stressing that the fate of our planet is in the balance in the very near future. So "strawman" seems like a bad way to describe this. Doom may be a broad term, but the tone of this thread is definitively doomsdayian. Bizarro Watt posted:See, I read your posts and I just see bizarre debate tactics (a couple more: comparing what was reported in the NYT to what was published in the actual article and then referring to the scientist as talking to the media as a "PR tour") to form a false narrative about climate science in order to obfuscate the fact that you haven't really taken as much from those hundreds of papers you've read as you like to claim to. Obviously PR tour is hyperbole, but...they did issue a press release; they were interviewed by multiple organizations; and I did post a lengthy Youtube interview where one of the authors both gave an interview to the NYT and also misrepresented the results in that interview. So would you say that was an outreach effort on their behalf to promote their paper? I'd say that is accurate. And I'd say it is also accurate that they misrepresented the results, and only clarified their determinations a week after all of the articles had been published. Bizarro Watt posted:You throw around citations as though they actually matter without even linking to the corresponding article so it can actually be discussed as if you just want to give a vacuous impression that you know what you're talking about to the non-scientific individuals reading this thread. Or mentioning the name McIntyre as if blog articles are a legitimate citation (compared to peer-reviewed literature). As far as the papers I mentioned, those two are the bedrocks of the paleo field. Briffa's Yamal dataset and Mann's bristlecone pine (and Tiljander). Briefly, Briffa's dataset contains sample sizes in the single digits in the modern era (among more nuanced issues) and Mann's study contains an upside down proxy (Tiljander) that he has acknowledged but says "does not matter" (nuanced again). Another study that used that upside down proxy issued a corrigenda and removed it from his paper; Mann had no such compunction. The third paper that I mentioned - Gergis 2012 - was recently retracted due to errors in the paper, but will be snuck into the IPCC paleo section via the PAGES2K paper; again the authors have no such compunction to remove retracted proxies. My disdain for the paleo field in climate science is fairly widespread, and I don't think ill-founded. Generally, I don't think anyone who reads McIntyre for what he is could possibly see the villain that he is made out to be. The entire genesis of the blog was his effort to look at Mann's data a decade ago, and Mann told him he didn't have it. He is taken on far more of a role than blogger...he was involved with the IPCC AR4 review process and his findings/work have resulted in papers being withdrawn, corrected, and data being published. I don't want to presume to speak for someone, but the strong impression that I get is that he believes in global warming (and is a 'liberal'), but has strong misgivings about the paleo underpinnings of stating that the current temperatures are unprecedented over the past two millenia. The field routinely deny access to data, fights FOIA requests for data, and seem to have a predetermined outcome in their studies that require 'creative' statistics for the desired results. Without touching on the issues raised in the CRU emails released many years ago, just based on the tone alone, I'm not sure how you can think that the paleo field is a group of warm, helpful scientists. The emails reveal the opposite, at the very least. And that email chain is practically the entire field (CRU + Mann). Space Crabs posted:So if at this point you are breaking out the temperatures since 2003 as evidence and throwing out the whole "the climate has changed before guys" or "X was hotter/bigger/deeper/worse in the ______ Era" talking points it sounds exactly like a troll because those are the most common denialist arguments that receive the most attention and the only two outcomes are either willful ignorance or purposeful trolling. What you have in quotes is seriously misrepresenting what I was posting, but leaving that alone...I don't see how you can handwave away that the temperature rise has been on pause for over a decade. It is readily apparent that the climate models have a strong warm bias thus far:  That is the IPCC's graph, not mine. From the yet to be published AR5. The climate models begin in the year 2000, with data unknown; everything pre-2000 is a hindcast with known data. The divergence from the climate models is immediate and unmistakable. And that graph stops with the year 2011...the year 2012 diverges yet more and 2013 (thus far) has diverged yet more again. I'm not sure how you can think that the topic of climate sensitivity and climate models don't matter. Or that I am trolling by bringing it up. In some ways, it is the only thing that matters; it's easily the most important aspect of the debate. It is the basis of the politics, i.e. any preparations that need to be made or alterations in our way of life. This NYT article was published yesterday about climate sensitivities (namely, them being revised downward): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/science/what-will-a-doubling-of-carbon-dioxide-mean-for-climate.html?_r=1& This Economist article is another must-read from 6 weeks ago: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
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May 14, 2013 17:36
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Arkane posted:I don't see how you can handwave away that the temperature rise has been on pause for over a decade. Arkane posted:This Economist article is another must-read from 6 weeks ago: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
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May 14, 2013 17:47
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Here you go honey: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm I love the adorable graph in the economist article you linked. I wonder why they chose to use surface temperatures and not include the temperature of the ocean? 
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May 14, 2013 17:50
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TACD posted:I just want to point out that this statement doesn't deserve a serious response. Don't entertain it with one. Pretty ironic, an article by Mann + a blogger. Neither of them have any expertise in the field. Anyway, that certainly isn't a rebuttal in any meaningful sense. They explain that they do not trust the new study. Alright. They also postulate explanations for why current temperatures don't track with models. Certainly plausible, but again not a rebuttal. I mean...just look at the ranges in the climate sensitivities in the graphic that is posted at your link (or even just reference the ranges in AR4). This isn't an area where we have a firm grasp on the true sensitivity of doubling CO2; The Economist acknowledges that and discussed it. As does the NYT.
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May 14, 2013 17:57
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a lovely poster posted:Here you go honey: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm It's certainly plausible that the ocean is capturing more heat than anticipated, but it raises a pertinent question: if the oceans are capturing more heat, does that mean surface warming won't be as pronounced? There are separate issues in a warming ocean where carbonic acid is increasing, but again I don't see how this is a rebuttal of the debate on climate sensitivities. As far as why they included the surface temperature and not the ocean, it is because humans live on the surface of the Earth and do not live underwater in the oceans.
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May 14, 2013 18:01
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Arkane posted:It's certainly plausible that the ocean is capturing more heat than anticipated, but it raises a pertinent question: if the oceans are capturing more heat, does that mean surface warming won't be as pronounced? Just when you think it couldn't get more dense. It IS a rebuttal of the debate on climate sensitivity if you're going to make the argument that the climate simply isn't as sensitive (which is the argument those articles is making). Beyond that, your lack of understanding about the effects of rising ocean temperatures, which could be just as devastating as rising surface temperatures, is not really data in your favor. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the wealth of people in this thread calling you an idiot might have a good reason for it? Maybe you get probated from every climate thread because you lack a fundamental understanding of the issues. It's just the cherry on top that you'd try to play the "but humans don't live in the ocean" as some kind of reason for why we shouldn't be concerned that ocean temperatures are rising faster than we've ever seen before. Despite there being a cacophony of scientists who work in oceanic environments screaming for decades that we're destroying it and writing books upon books about the myriad of effects it would have on our society, you're just willing to turn your head the other way and play some kind of "well, if it's not in my backyard" without even realizing how dependent your existence is on the ocean. I honestly have no idea why you haven't been probated yet.
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May 14, 2013 18:05
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TACD posted:The cognitive dissonance is just astonishing. There's no arguing with these people. Honestly that's why I find the whole debate boring and uninteresting. What we're going to do about it is far more interesting, as well as how we will have to adapt to the changing climate. The environmental movement, such as it is, is already pretty split over potential solutions. As geo-engineering gains more credibility as a stop-gap solution to rising temperatures, there's a lot of people who are downright opposed to a technocratic solution. While a lot of those beliefs are couched in not wanting humanity to interfere with Gaia or whatever, there is a case to be made for not further interfering with the climate on a grand scale. Technocratic solutions aren't always effective and don't often take local considerations into account. And even though you could associate a lot of this resistance to hippies, there are a lot of scientists who are very nervous about any geo-engineering solution becoming a permanent solution to C02 emissions, rather than triage to keep temperatures under control until we cut emissions. On the other hand given the scale of the problem, it's hard to imagine that changing local farming practices and making municipalities "green" will do the trick either. Global cooperation is essential to reducing emissions, and it requires a global response. And most of the geo-engineering solutions swirling around in the media are large scale projects with serious drawbacks (or as some have shown in this thread, just wont work). Either way, it's a debate that's going to become increasingly important in the next few decades as we search for solutions. You can really see that debate in this video on Democracy Now between Gwynne Dyer and Vandana Shiva.
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May 14, 2013 20:44
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Total agreement on the boringness of the debate on existence and degree of the inevitable warming. But as someone who has been generally nervous about and unsatisfied with the bulk of geoengineering proposals to date, even acceding to their inevitable need how to we go about enacting them when there will be almost constant pressure to thwart the operation and its success out of pure skepticism for the need? Particularly when some of the solutions like aerosol sulphurs will have to be persistent, implementing them in a world where purely on political shifts and whims, skeptics could start rolling them back, all the while with emissions continuing to build up, that could be even more catastrophic. I kind of feel like on some level there's going to need to be an end of life discussion, a la cancer patients. On what level are some of these measures prolonging an inevitable and threatening an even more catastrophic trajectory? Do we risk making things worse in absence of any guarantee on actions with regards to CO2 emissions? Is a half measure that doesn't address the problem and could possibly allow it to become much worse really worth making? Just for the sake of never saying die? Short of authoritarian regimes, how do we convince or even strong arm concerted global action? It's a total prisoners dilemma, but how do we guarantee against defectors or at least render them irrelevant? Is that possible given the size of some of these economies? Are there any workable solutions, not just temporary and unstable band aids, in the event of the US, China or India not playing ball?
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May 14, 2013 21:00
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I think the counter argument to your (very valid and very real) argument about half-assing geoengineering so that we don't do anything about emissions is that the optimal conditions for lowering emissions is arguably our current level of development. I believe that anything and everything we do to maintain our current industrial, scientific, and technical ability gives us a better chance overall to eventually cut emissions. The only other point would be the total collapse of industrial civilization. Which isn't exactly going to be pretty. The other point is that given how uneven climate change affects the world - affecting the developed world that sits closer to the equator and along shorelines - geoengineering may very well happen as a national or regional response regardless of what we think of geoengineering. There is a pressing need to get the global community together and hammer out a geoengineering treaty otherwise we may start seeing all sorts of national and even private responses to the looming climate catastrophe. After all, if your country is starting to sink under water, you aren't going to give a poo poo if aerosol sulphurs affect neighbouring inland countries negatively, you're going to do what you can to reverse the tide. And that could very well lead to wars. As to how we get concrete action to happen, it probably requires something concrete to happen. Although we've seen concrete evidence, it has to be tangible to people for them to understand what's going on and how it will threaten their daily lives. Probably a hit to agricultural production. And it may just take an authoritarian regime to get things done. I don't know if democracy as we know it will survive this crisis. Dreylad fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 21:25
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Dreylad posted:I believe that anything and everything we do to maintain our current industrial, scientific, and technical ability gives us a better chance overall to eventually cut emissions. The catch-22 here is that our current industrial, scientific, and technical ability is precisely what has caused the emissions in the first place. That's honestly why I find the whole "science/technology will save us!" argument to be so spurious. It's undoubtedly the best solution we could hope for, but it fails to consider how we found ourselves in this predicament in the first place. Your Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 00:35 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 00:26
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Your Sledgehammer posted:The catch-22 here is that our current industrial, scientific, and technical ability is precisely what has caused the emissions in the first place. There's nothing inherent to industry, science, or technology that requires CO2 emissions, and saying they caused the crisis is quite a stretch. Given that the technology exists now to end carbon emissions, it seems foolish to forsake all the gains that industry, science and technology have given the human race. The root cause of the problem is capitalism. The motive for profit and growth above all else (including health, well being, and sustainability), and a system that is run for the benefit of a few rather than the benefit of all is the problem.
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May 15, 2013 04:38
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Your Sledgehammer posted:The catch-22 here is that our current industrial, scientific, and technical ability is precisely what has caused the emissions in the first place. I'm weary of the argument too, because geoengineering wont save us. It'll help by keeping the temperature from activating positive feedbacks, but fundamentally we have to restructure our society and curb or outright eliminate consumer culture in order to cut emissions. Which will be a pretty significant economic kick in the pants.
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May 15, 2013 08:32
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How's this for geoengineering:quote:Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report that increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet — and to a lesser degree, ice loss in other parts of the globe — helped to shift the North Pole several centimetres east each year since 2005. It's a nice change to read something related to all this that is actually just pretty drat cool. Even if it is in a 'holy poo poo look what we did' kind of a way.
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May 15, 2013 14:15
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TACD posted:How's this for geoengineering: Wait. How can the North Pole move? Isn't it defined by the earths axis? (Or magnetic fields when referring to magnetic north?)
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May 15, 2013 15:07
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Deuce posted:Wait. How can the North Pole move? Isn't it defined by the earths axis? (Or magnetic fields when referring to magnetic north?) Geographic pole actually shifts alot in response to moving tectonic plates, its called polar wander. The wander happens because when mass redistributes within the earth, it causes the planet to wobble and shift its axis. The idea here is that polar ice represented a lot of mass in frozen water segregated at the poles. As it melts and redistributes back into the ocean it causes a redistribution of mass and shifts the earths center of mass ever so slightly. Yiggy fucked around with this message at 15:27 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 15:24
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Arkane posted:It's certainly plausible that the ocean is capturing more heat than anticipated, but it raises a pertinent question: if the oceans are capturing more heat, does that mean surface warming won't be as pronounced? That's a really interesting question actually, doesn't the ocean have a pretty huge impact on temperature because on average it tends to hold a more steady temperature over longer periods of time? Like, aren't areas near the ocean usually cooler during the summer and warmer during the winter as the wind comes off the water surface? If the ocean was warmer on average wouldn't that cause air temperatures to be warmer on average over time because it would cause the air above it to be warmer?
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May 15, 2013 15:30
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Dreylad posted:I'm weary of the argument too, because geoengineering wont save us. It'll help by keeping the temperature from activating positive feedbacks, but fundamentally we have to restructure our society and curb or outright eliminate consumer culture in order to cut emissions. Which will be a pretty significant economic kick in the pants. Even then, geoengineering (as it's currently proposed, anyways) has certain issues, mostly in terms of predictability of effects and the accuracy of the techniques applied. Sulfate aerosols, for example, might reduce overall temperature, but it may also adversely affect the monsoon in Asia, which would be devastating to agriculture that depends on it. I think the ultimate message to take away from it is that there's no clear "silver bullet" that can work. Rather - as with any kind of policy problem - there needs to be multiple systems working together in order to create an effective solution.
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May 15, 2013 15:53
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Yiggy posted:Geographic pole actually shifts alot in response to moving tectonic plates, its called polar wander. The wander happens because when mass redistributes within the earth, it causes the planet to wobble and shift its axis. The idea here is that polar ice represented a lot of mass in frozen water segregated at the poles. As it melts and redistributes back into the ocean it causes a redistribution of mass and shifts the earths center of mass ever so slightly. The fact that people can figure this poo poo out is mind boggling.
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May 15, 2013 16:34
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Deuce posted:The fact that people can figure this poo poo out is mind boggling. It's essentially another reminder that GPS is awesome.
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May 15, 2013 16:46
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Vermain posted:Even then, geoengineering (as it's currently proposed, anyways) has certain issues, mostly in terms of predictability of effects and the accuracy of the techniques applied. Sulfate aerosols, for example, might reduce overall temperature, but it may also adversely affect the monsoon in Asia, which would be devastating to agriculture that depends on it. I think the ultimate message to take away from it is that there's no clear "silver bullet" that can work. Rather - as with any kind of policy problem - there needs to be multiple systems working together in order to create an effective solution. Absolutely agree. Several projects running that suit regional or local conditions while still helping to hold the temperature down might be what we need - while at the same time we need to make sure we're cutting emissions otherwise we're just buying ourselves a few extra years of cooler conditions before things get out of hand.
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May 16, 2013 01:45
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Reason posted:That's a really interesting question actually, doesn't the ocean have a pretty huge impact on temperature because on average it tends to hold a more steady temperature over longer periods of time? Like, aren't areas near the ocean usually cooler during the summer and warmer during the winter as the wind comes off the water surface? If the ocean was warmer on average wouldn't that cause air temperatures to be warmer on average over time because it would cause the air above it to be warmer? Heat absorbed by the ocean is absorbed forever and can never ever come back to affect us adversely. Nope. It's gone. Didn't you know energy can be destroyed?
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May 16, 2013 06:00
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Arkane posted:It's certainly plausible that the ocean is capturing more heat than anticipated, but it raises a pertinent question: if the oceans are capturing more heat, does that mean surface warming won't be as pronounced? This wildly oversimplifies the issue. It's true that energy stored in the ocean won't immediately be available to warm the Earth directly, but there are a lot of other things happening in the global climate that are worth paying attention to. The climate is a paradigmatic complex system, and there are a tremendous number of interconnected patterns influencing how it behaves. The ocean plays some role in what is likely a majority of these patterns, which means that any disruption in ocean dynamics has the potential to "infect" the rest of the global climate with significant changes. As a mundane example, consider the extent to which ocean currents (especially vertical currents like the thermohaline) shape atmospheric circulation (like the trade winds), and the extent to which those patterns of air circulation shape local climates. Changing ocean temperatures (or salinity) by even a small amount can significantly alter currents, which can significantly alter air circulation. Small alterations in air circulation can change precipitation levels (among other things) around the globe, which can be disastrous to both indigenous populations and agriculture. All of this just goes to show that the problems here go far beyond just temperature changes. Earth's climate is mind-bogglingly complex: among other things, that means that it makes very little sense to consider any element of it in isolation. Changes anywhere are likely to give rise to changes everywhere, and some of those connections may be very non-obvious.
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May 19, 2013 22:14
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I was pleased to hear Bill Maher reference the 400ppm plateau as "most important story of the century so far" this weekend. Here's hoping he continues to bring it up, though I assume he's in large part preaching to the choir.
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May 19, 2013 22:31
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This American Life's latest episode is all about Climate Change. I haven't made it all the way through yet, but I figured some of you all may want to give it a go. I've found it to be pretty good so far. Hot In My Backyard
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May 20, 2013 05:24
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| # ? May 31, 2024 15:34 |
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I thought it was good, too. People complain when reporters are timid but I don't WHEN it gives the people in the story space to make a compelling case themselves, even if you have to read between the lines a little. The Republican party (and, especially, their hardcore voters) obviously have had their heads WAY up their asses on the issue for long enough now that the various force arcs are starting to come into hindsight focus. Even energy companies moved from fund-the-controversy mode to rear end-cover mode years ago. http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-coming-gop-civil-war-over-climate-change-20130509 pangstrom fucked around with this message at 16:09 on May 21, 2013 |
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May 21, 2013 15:43
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