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Kafka Esq. posted:Do have anal sex with Scandinavian princesses. You mean French
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Jul 12, 2015 14:53
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Don't worry guys, the Sun will save us from Global Warming! http://rt.com/news/273169-solar-cycle-ice-age/
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Jul 12, 2015 17:33
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Cubey posted:Don't worry guys, the Sun will save us from Global Warming! Oh RT news, never stop being the Fox News of Russia.
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Jul 12, 2015 19:13
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Don't worry, it's being reported far and wide now! Those darn scientists just can't make their minds up on the climate, how can anyone trust them!?
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Jul 12, 2015 20:39
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Is there a good book / reasonably-long-primer on climate science in general, and what we face in the future? I've been skipping around the thread and a bit of the book recommendation thread but haven't seen anything broad enough to cover the whole topic.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:51
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IT BEGINS posted:Is there a good book / reasonably-long-primer on climate science in general, and what we face in the future? I've been skipping around the thread and a bit of the book recommendation thread but haven't seen anything broad enough to cover the whole topic. I've read 'Six Degrees' and 'Under a Green Sky' but those may be out of date by now.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:26
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IT BEGINS posted:Is there a good book / reasonably-long-primer on climate science in general, and what we face in the future? I've been skipping around the thread and a bit of the book recommendation thread but haven't seen anything broad enough to cover the whole topic. This Website contains links to lots of good resources covering just about every subject in climate science, including what will come. On that site I found this resource, which is actually the history of climate science itself. A little dry, but it's good at putting modern debates into perspective. It really puts the lie to the old skeptics canard that climate science is new and untested, modern climate modeling is actually the product of generations of scientists working since the 19th century.
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Jul 13, 2015 07:41
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Cubey posted:Don't worry guys, the Sun will save us from Global Warming! Clicbait fb page I loving Love Science posted this crap today. Regrettably, I read the comments. People either fell into the camp of "make up your minds SCIENTISTS!" or "Phew! Now I don't have to change my lifestyle so much." One guy posted a rebuttal. So depressing.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:26
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jidohanbaiki posted:Clicbait fb page I loving Love Science posted this crap today. Regrettably, I read the comments. People either fell into the camp of "make up your minds SCIENTISTS!" or "Phew! Now I don't have to change my lifestyle so much." One guy posted a rebuttal. So depressing. IFLS went down the shitter as soon as they started posting Cannabis articles. Not through any fault of possible THC and Marijuana medical research, but because the crowd that usually follows that sort of stuff is filled with morons.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:29
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LowellDND posted:I've read 'Six Degrees' and 'Under a Green Sky' but those may be out of date by now. Squalid posted:This Website contains links to lots of good resources covering just about every subject in climate science, including what will come. On that site I found this resource, which is actually the history of climate science itself. A little dry, but it's good at putting modern debates into perspective. It really puts the lie to the old skeptics canard that climate science is new and untested, modern climate modeling is actually the product of generations of scientists working since the 19th century. Thanks guys, I'll check both of these out 
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Jul 14, 2015 20:22
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I don't know how people feel about Naomi Klein around here, but I'm working my way through This Changes Everything. It's (so far) less about the science and more about the relationship between the current market economy and prospects/outcomes of climate change.
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Jul 15, 2015 02:02
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Wrap it up Climate-failures:quote:Steyn wasn’t subtle, reiterating his accusation that Mann’s famous “hockey stick” tree ring temperature reconstruction was “fraudulent in every sense,” which resulted in hearty applause from the audience. Steyn also worked in references to the supposedly scandalous “Climategate” e-mails from 2007, describing University of East Anglia researchers corresponding with Michael Mann as “four schlubs who sound like Mann’s battered wives.”
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Jul 15, 2015 21:22
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Trabisnikof posted:Wrap it up Climate-failures: ......  Look at all the Ad Homs.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:24
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What is this about/where is this from?
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Jul 16, 2015 12:01
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Massasoit posted:What is this about/where is this from? Ars Technica's writeup on Heartland Institute's (*) 10th “International Conference on Climate Change”. http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/07/i-rejoice-that-it-is-warm-ars-attends-a-climate-contrarian-conference/ * American conservative and libertarian (go figure) public policy think tank, according to Wiki.
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Jul 16, 2015 12:21
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Chrungka posted:Ars Technica's writeup on Heartland Institute's (*) 10th “International Conference on Climate Change”. Thanks. It's pretty funny. Although climate change IS a hoax.
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Jul 16, 2015 12:55
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Pretty sure if people actually focused on the issue at hand instead of just pretending it's not really a problem that can be solved, then we could make some progress at least. Genetically engineering plankton that fits into the ocean foodchain, that can survive higher temps and acidity, and is designed specifically for the purpose of taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen would be a nice start. But of course people are more likely to give funding to cure for cancers (as if we need more people on the planet, since our population is practically half the problem). Oh well, worse case scenario would be a massive reduction in food supply all across the globe and we'll end up like civilization after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (except worse because we have way more people and more stuff to lose).
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Jul 16, 2015 13:23
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Chrungka posted:Ars Technica's writeup on Heartland Institute's (*) 10th “International Conference on Climate Change”. From the guys who defended the smoking industry and lead in gasoline comes: Bullshit! Massasoit posted:Thanks. It's pretty funny. Sarcasm, I'm hoping. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 13:51
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Cetea posted:Pretty sure if people actually focused on the issue at hand instead of just pretending it's not really a problem that can be solved, then we could make some progress at least. Genetically engineering plankton that fits into the ocean foodchain, that can survive higher temps and acidity, and is designed specifically for the purpose of taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen would be a nice start. But of course people are more likely to give funding to cure for cancers (as if we need more people on the planet, since our population is practically half the problem). I think there will be some something like a caste system, and gated semi self sustaining communities. It will probably fall along the lines of the natural vs genetically modified. Barring the discovery of a cheap energy source, that could be widely distributed (not controlled by the eliete), I don't see this ending well.
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Jul 16, 2015 15:50
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Cetea posted:Pretty sure if people actually focused on the issue at hand instead of just pretending it's not really a problem that can be solved, then we could make some progress at least. Genetically engineering plankton that fits into the ocean foodchain, that can survive higher temps and acidity, and is designed specifically for the purpose of taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen would be a nice start. But of course people are more likely to give funding to cure for cancers (as if we need more people on the planet, since our population is practically half the problem). I'm not sure if we should try to replace the fundamental food supply of some of our largest biomes instead of reducing emissions. This is like talking about a retrovirus cure for type II pre-diabetes, instead talking about is stopping eating marshmallows for breakfast.
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Jul 16, 2015 17:57
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How do we reduce carbon emissions without reducing quality of life? More nuclear energy, solar energy, wind, etc.? The people on /r/collapse are convinced that nothing will work: not solar, not nuclear, nothing. At any rate, we're probably going to need GMOs in some capacity anyway.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:46
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Blue Star posted:At any rate, we're probably going to need GMOs in some capacity anyway. Well yes, that's a given.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:51
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Blue Star posted:How do we reduce carbon emissions without reducing quality of life? More nuclear energy, solar energy, wind, etc.? The people on /r/collapse are convinced that nothing will work: not solar, not nuclear, nothing. Actually, that attitude is completely incorrect. Even given all the resource shortages we're facing there's a whole lot we can do to adapt into a completely sustainable, high-tech high quality of life society. There's a whole lot we can do. We're not lacking for honest to goodness solutions, we're lacking awareness, education and political will. The issue is that we won't do the things we need to do. It's a question of physics and technology. We have the long term non-sustainable and sustainable energy solutions that together will more than cover the energy needs of the entire world if we elevated every person on earth to first world quality of life, or close to it. Nuclear, hydro, solar and wind can absolutely do this with significant investments in infrastructure and research. We can find substitutes for most of our non-renewable resources, or at least find workarounds. And we can do it all with minimum greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly have energy in surplus to spend on carbon sequestration technology and efforts. It requires (this is total ballpark stuff) a massive change in industrial and societal thinking, the abolition of the capitalist/consumerist ideology, reducing the population of the earth by half (through contraception and family planning, education etc.), forcing heavy industry - shipping - logistics - transport to become carbon neutral/low emissions, creating sustainable living with a strong mindset of collectivism and solidarity, the abolition of warfare and militaries. So yeah, it won't ever be done because the people in power stand to lose way too much over this. It requires literal world peace and the death of capitalism, and strong international solidarity. Don't hold your breath.
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Jul 16, 2015 23:29
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Blue Star posted:How do we reduce carbon emissions without reducing quality of life? More nuclear energy, solar energy, wind, etc.? The people on /r/collapse are convinced that nothing will work: not solar, not nuclear, nothing. I believe the answer is that we don't. Quality of life for the majority of humans is going to decline with or without achieving carbon-neutrality, although the reasons are really really not as simple as "kilowats per dollar". So uh, be rich?
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Jul 16, 2015 23:59
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Nice piece of fish posted:It requires (this is total ballpark stuff) a massive change in industrial and societal thinking, the abolition of the capitalist/consumerist ideology, reducing the population of the earth by half (through contraception and family planning, education etc.), forcing heavy industry - shipping - logistics - transport to become carbon neutral/low emissions, creating sustainable living with a strong mindset of collectivism and solidarity, the abolition of warfare and militaries. Ah, I see a small problem with your plan. The average age is about 32 and the average life expectancy at birth is about 68, so it will take 36 years for the world's population to halve if everyone stops having children today and for the next 36 years. If medical advances and the benefits of more resources per person due to falling population increase longevity (which should be expected), it will probably be nearer 50 years before the population has halved, assuming 100% "contraception and family planning, education etc". Family planning in poor countries is good since their problems are to a significant extent of the too many mouths to feed variety, and family planning in rich countries is good because every rich baby born results in disproportionately high damage to the environment and consumes an enormous quantity of resources, but family planning itself will not be a significant contributor to the resolution to climate change. So, no, it won't ever be done just because "the people in power stand to lose way too much over this", but also because you have not thought your ideas through. Most of your ideas are reasonable, but not realistic and not even actually sustainable, since resources will still run out at a similar rate (some faster, if high-tech is part of your final solution), and climate change will still become catastrophic during the transition to a truly low-carbon structure, let alone the massively carbon-negative world that we require.
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Jul 17, 2015 01:04
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Placid Marmot posted:Family planning in poor countries is good since their problems are to a significant extent of the too many mouths to feed variety, and family planning in rich countries is good because every rich baby born results in disproportionately high damage to the environment and consumes an enormous quantity of resources, but family planning itself will not be a significant contributor to the resolution to climate change. One of the problems with dealing with a global problem is there are lots of people that can see small parts of everything. Climate Change is such a huge thing that it will take a major social and cultural restructuring to mitigate it. I'm not even talking about stopping it or whatever. This is a really good example of part of this. Why do people in poorer countries tend to have larger families? Part of the reason is because its much much easier to have a large family than a small family. Your older children take care of your younger children while the parents work, and as the older children get older they also start working in order to make money to help support the family. Its just easier this way when you're poor. You don't have to go to poorer countries to see this, you can see it right here in the US. How do you take that pressure off the family where simply in order to survive you should keep popping out children? I said a few pages back that I agree population is a huge contributing factor to climate change. But you can't just ASK people to stop loving and not everyone has access to birth control. Forced sterilization? I think changing the public's mind on oil consumption in general is probably easier than any sort of eugenics program.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:09
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Personally in my uninformed opinion, we need more nuclear power. Solar energy is neat but it's not there yet. Why aren't more governments investing in nuclear energy? I know people are scared but aren't they more scared of climate change. At least with nuclear, we can still have technology and not have to go back to living an agrarian lifestyle. But this is just my uninformed opinion.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:16
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Blue Star posted:Personally in my uninformed opinion, we need more nuclear power. Solar energy is neat but it's not there yet. Why aren't more governments investing in nuclear energy? I know people are scared but aren't they more scared of climate change. At least with nuclear, we can still have technology and not have to go back to living an agrarian lifestyle. But this is just my uninformed opinion. Because safe nuclear power has tended to end up being very expensive when compared to status quo options. Even Areva (French nuclear behemoth) is losing money like mad. That combined with the increased effort required for nuclear leads many grid operators and capacity planners to build the coal or gas plants they know they can operate profitably. But we don't need new technology to keep modern lifestyles and respond to climate change. We just need political will to make the changes in our economic and investment systems required. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 02:19
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Trabisnikof posted:the changes in our economic and investment systems required. Which are?
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Jul 17, 2015 02:24
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Blue Star posted:Personally in my uninformed opinion, we need more nuclear power. Solar energy is neat but it's not there yet. Why aren't more governments investing in nuclear energy? I know people are scared but aren't they more scared of climate change. At least with nuclear, we can still have technology and not have to go back to living an agrarian lifestyle. But this is just my uninformed opinion. Even the Chinese government cut back on their plans after Fukushima. The public at large views them as very risky and NIMBY stuff makes safe disposal such a pain that hazardous material just sits around at the point of generation. Just anecdotally, I got shouted down as a paid industry rube when I called into a local radio show where one of the guests was an activist insisting we should shut down all reactors immediately and switch to wind/solar. Subsequent callers couldn't fathom that someone could actually view NP as a viable, let alone preferable, alternative and agreed I must be a shill. MixMasterMalaria fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 02:32
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The fact that climate change could be stopped isn't really in question, the problem is that it won't be. There is no possible way for the political will for the overwhelming amount of change necessary to make a difference to show up in time for it to matter. This isn't just an American issue either, if everyone in America died tomorrow and it's emissions were cut to zero, that still wouldn't be enough to stop climate change or even really make a big difference. As far as I can tell, the only real debate to be had is how bad exactly it's going to be. And the news is never good on that front, I'm hoping for something along the lines of "everyone in the poor parts of the world dies or goes hungry but the people in the rich parts of the world just get kind of a shitter deal than before but still way better than all the other countries". That's probably the most optimistic outlook you can have that borders on realistic.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:48
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EB Nulshit posted:Which are? Depends on which of many viable alternatives you support. Are you a nuke supporter? Then the changes are building new reactors and plowing full steam ahead into electric transport for grids. Are you a renewables supporter? Then the changes are investing in the grid infrastructure to handle renewables and investing in battery research. Are you an efficiency communist? Then the changes are getting rid of consumerism and rebuilding incentives around efficiency. Do you like biofuels or do you prefer electric cars? Is meat a human right to you or can we cut out a chunk of energy use by switching to crickets? There is a way to adapt to/mitigate climate change that fits all of these value stances. Climate change is not a problem with *one* valid solution. Its a problem with *many* valid solutions. When we debate between different solutions, we're arguing which will be cheaper and which will have better side effects. The problem is that we can't convince people to allocate resources to solve this problem.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:53
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MixMasterMalaria posted:Even the Chinese government cut back on their plans after Fukushima. The public at large views them as very risky and NIMBY stuff makes safe disposal such a pain that hazardous material just sits around at the point of generation. Just anecdotally, I got shouted down as a paid industry rube when I called into a local radio show where one of the guests was an activist insisting we should shut down all reactors immediately and switch to wind. Apparently killing birds is a big no-no when it comes to fighting malaria (i.e. Carson's Silent Spring and the banning of DDT) but it's just fine when it comes to generating good ol' natural energy. The bird thing is a very bad argument - cats, windows and cars individually kill orders of magnitude more. Letting your cat roam has no societal benefits unless you hate wildlife, unlike wind turbines. Onshore wind is competitive and not a bad source of energy - there's just not that much of it and it's intermittent which further limits it. vvv sorry was factchecking and didn't update the thread before posting Bates fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 02:53
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Anosmoman posted:The bird thing is a very bad argument - cats, windows and cars individually kill orders of magnitude more. Letting your cat roam has no societal benefits unless you hate wildlife, unlike wind turbines. Onshore wind is competitive and not a bad source of energy - there's just not that much of it and it's intermittent which further limits it. Yeah, I didn't put that argument forward at the time (I just pointed out the infeasibility of sufficient power generation to make wind more than a supplement) and I agree with you re: those other threats to wild birds. I edited my post prior to your quote going up since I realized that I didn't adequately distinguish my disdainful snark from my actual opinion.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:05
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MixMasterMalaria posted:(I just pointed out the infeasibility of sufficient power generation to make wind more than a supplement) That's just not true fyi. Several grids run upward of 5% wind already and the engineering has already been done to show that you can run grids as is, up to 20% wind penetration (capable by 2030 in the US) and with higher levels of grid investments wind can go up to 60%. In large geographic grids like the US, China, India or EU there are more than enough wind sites to reach those penetration levels. Smaller grids would be a different story, but smaller grids don't produce most of the emissions. I'd suggest you look at the research done by the US Department of Energy's National Renewables Lab on wind: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/ http://energy.gov/eere/wind/wind-vision They have a cool future grid model viewer here: http://en.openei.org/apps/wv_viewer/ Does wind require over-building nameplate capacity? Totally. But being more expensive doesn't mean its impossible.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:13
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If we were to cut emissions to zero across the entire globe literally tomorrow, CO2 levels would continue to rise and climate change would steadily get worse. Methane is being vented from the permafrost in such a volume that it is literally causing explosions (remember those craters in Siberia?). We've activated positive feedback loops that are irreversible; no amount of action on our part short of geoengineering (which itself would be massively problematic on the scale needed to do any good, because we have a very dim understanding of the potential consequences) will even blunt what is coming. When we talk about cutting emissions, all we are talking about is not intentionally making it worse than it is already going to be or speeding along this irreversible process. That's it. We can't "solve" climate change, it is a physical process that we now have no control over. There might have been a time a couple of decades ago where zeroing emissions would have been enough, but that time is long past. Talking about climate change as something that human ingenuity can resolve is hopelessly naive.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:36
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It's not something we need to resolve so much as survive. And It seems like everyone in the USA will survive even if nothing is done about it, so probably nothing will be done about it.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:46
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EB Nulshit posted:It's not something we need to resolve so much as survive. And It seems like everyone in the USA will survive even if nothing is done about it, so probably nothing will be done about it. If we can quit throwing away our water growing almonds in the desert, maybe.
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Jul 17, 2015 03:47
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My point wasn't that we can solve climate change, but that we can survive it better with more nuclear power, GMOs, etc. We'd still be able to have many modern conveniences, internet, medicine, scientific research, etc., even if we can't cavalierly consume as much as we used to. Like we're so used to having new gadgets every few years, that'd have to change and our devices would have to be designed to be longer lasting. Then again everyone seems to be scared of nuclear energy and GMOs so I guess in all practicality we better start getting used to eating squirrels and rats.
Blue Star fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 04:06
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Blue Star posted:My point wasn't that we can solve climate change, but that we can survive it better with more nuclear power, GMOs, etc. Then again everyone seems to be scared of nuclear energy and GMOs so I guess in all practicality we better start getting used to eating squirrels and rats. My point is just that you can say the same thing about a ton of different technologies and regime combos. It doesn't matter which option is actually more expensive or which option mitigates slightly more harm if we forget to pick either.
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Jul 17, 2015 04:15
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