Climate Change

Meanwhile, let's pretend that it really is possible to "measure the temperature of the earth" at all points with a high degree of accuracy. Hardly anybody knows even how the components in their phone work so it'll be an easy sell. Then we and our friends can profit from offering "solutions" to the "problems" we can easily convince them to fear. Genius!

 

Hahahahaha "science"
What do you know about science?

Acid rain, baby! Don't you know the earth is inhabitable now and we're just remnants of brains plugged into machines simulating real lives?
C'mon man.
People's emotional response does not constitute anything scientifically valid.
And neither do "reports" put together by people who are funded by those with agendas.
You know all this, so how do you benefit by boosting misinformation?

And why don't people find it embarrassing to promote things that other people say, which they themselves have no way to know whether true or false?

 

So you put your belief in lies spread by lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry? I taught a class on weather and climate and the data is overwhelming. Meteorologists and climate scientists don’t make more money for helping people face a very real problem.

Acid rain is a really good example. When the reality of the problem became apparent a world wide effort was made to reduce SO2 emissions and the reduction has paid off. Another good example is the Midwest. If you ran a ski area in Wisconsin you would be stuck trying to find an investor in your dying facility. Sorry, science is always a better bet than greed ignorance and conjecture without data. The dark ages weren’t a result of less sunlight!

 

The scientific data are overwhelming. The Earth is warming at an unusually fast rate, but it still isn't all that warm. The part of this planet in which I live had a temperate climate 10,000 years ago; it has a temperate climate today; and it will have a temperate climate 10,000 years from now. Climate change: zero. The weather is highly variable and trending warmer, but the climate is not changing one bit. It still rains in summer and snows in winter. It isn't becoming a desert, nor a tropical rain forest. The last glacial maximum was reached here 21,000 years ago, and forces well beyond human destructive capability are what reversed its course and created the current continuing course. There are absolutely no scientific data indicating otherwise. The same is true of most of the world.

Yes, but for some... The main problem isn't the extraction or burning of fossil fuels, but rather where intensive development for human habitation has occurred, and willful human ignorance about things like sea level fluctuation, weather cycles, and the courses of rivers. To expect that the course of a river system, such as the Mississippi, has always been where it is now, and it should remain forever where it was 500 years ago, is pure folly. There is no sensible justification for maintaining large population centers in places where they ought not to have been built in the first place. Until the last major change in the course of the lower portion of the Mississippi River basin, where the city of New Orleans is today, land was completely under water, year round. That course change happened only a short time, about 100 years, before Europeans first arrived. A large city does not belong there. Space for the river to change course again, does. The glaring human error is not in thinking that wearing polyester clothing, which almost all people do, will have no effect on the planet, but rather in intensive coastal development, and in doubling-down on it, even as Nature tells us time and again that it was a poor idea in the first place.

Arguably, the nation most susceptible to rising sea levels is the Bahamas, of which 80 percent of the land area is less than 30 feet above sea level. The population of that nation was less than 100,000 in 1950. Today, it is more than four times that, and building permits are still being issued. Concrete is being poured, and people are still moving there, even as scientific data overwhelmingly indicate that within a few decades, land will be inhabitable for a sustainable population the size of the population in the early 20th Century.

It isn't only coastal areas that highlight this shortsightedness. A city of 500,000 people where Mexico City is today wouldn't be a bad idea. It once worked very well. A still-growing metropolis of 22.5 million people highlights poor planning and terrible judgment. Oil companies are not responsible for locating 22.5 million people where clay soil, aquifer limitations, natural cycles of flood and drought, and most notably earthquakes because the Cocos oceanic plate and the North American continental plate being in constant friction indicate clearly that even a small fraction of the present level of human habitation is unsustainable. Oil companies helped make it possible, but they didn't create the human will to live there, and they don't sustain it today.

The least densely populated nation on the planet is Greenland, which is becoming... yes, that's right, more green. Is there climate change at the margins? Of course. Does that affect most of the Earth's land suitable for sustainable human habitation? Of course not. Just as soil cultivation for food crop production is becoming less viable in some locations, it is becoming more viable in others. The planet is becoming more green, as science says it should with increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Humans are definitely doing countless things to deplete local resources, as our species has always done. With over 7 billion of us now sharing this planet, what we are no longer doing is moving once peak sustainability has been reached, nor moving to places with prospects for sustaining larger populations. The population of the Miami, Florida, metropolitan area is ten times what it was in 1950, and still growing. Please people, stop moving to Miami, and stop blaming Big Oil for beach erosion. Scientific data have indicated for decades that the south Florida coast is not going to stay where some people think it ought to, and building codes are not going to prevent damage to man-made structures from hurricanes. Yet, still we build there, move there, and blame automobile exhaust gasses for our own unwillingness to see what is inevitable: issuing building permits for more intensive development in coastal areas, where about 70 percent of the world's population now lives, is a terrible idea.

 

These are valid points. Over population of is most certainly an issue; poor land use decisions are problems. But CO2 and CH4 emissions are the elephant in the room and the industry control of the political process keeps meaningful progress at bay.

I worked with the lumber supply and demand forecasts in the 70’s and watched the average new home size double in 50 years. More resource demand…of course. But the fact remains the the oil and gas industry could do a lot of positive things, they don’t get a pass on this.

 

Weather modification has been going on since @least eisenhower 2nd term. & perhaps further back. So not only is humanity part of it. Humanity also habla to slow it. But since different factions do it against each other. That is why its outa control. Also is a 3rd player on the stage. Nature herself. In a sense shes showing us she exists. Is no way to prove any of this as it shifts amongst the players. Yes there occasionally be advantageous changes. We who may be aware of some of it need to unite in making others aware.

 

Hey, it does sound logical. I mean it would make sense on the surface that it would cost so much per square foot to heat/cool an indoor space. Except that it really doesn't work that way. It works in a nutshell by energy in / energy lost. For example, I built a home with 3.3 times the conditioned space of my parents home, which you'd think off the bat would be an energy gobbler in comparison. And yet I use less than ten percent of the energy they require to maintain similar indoor temperatures. Lies! Lies! That's impossible! some here would demand. And yet no joke, I'm living it. One-tenth the energy consumption... Now that's the difference between someone actually DOING something to cut energy usage and those TALKING about how other people need to change their living habits. Sure, I put more resources into my build, but not that much more. Ten to twenty percent is all. Clearly that's well worth it for the excellent return on investment.

But what do I know about science?
A helluva lot less than the vast knowledge base out there, that's for sure!

 

I wouldn't tell you what to do. You do you! What ARE you doing, by the way? Talking?

Some people are investigators, seeking truth, therefore looking at all aspects of issues and trying not to prematurely draw conclusions.
Many others are parrots, seeing things that elicit an emotional response within and latching onto it.

No, I'm not trying to tell us that since we aren't climate scientists we can't understand what they are telling us. We understand completely what "they" tell us. Why? Because they dumb it down to our level. They summarize. They interpolate and extrapolate. They draw conclusions and "inform" us to what "the data shows".

Do you want to see a broader picture? Are you interested in learning?
How to Lie with Statistics - Book by Darrell Huff
Still available, apparently.
I'm not holding my breath.

 

It doesn't mean they're wrong, and yet deduction should make it clear that it doesn't mean they're right either. The point is, there's no way to know without additional information. Information we don't have direct access to at that.

You can take your doctor's advice, you can believe the experts on all topics, you can believe we have real journalism and the news is honest and accurate. I'm not about to tell you what to do. It's your gamble.

And mine's mine. I have the prerogative to question what experts are saying and still have the freedom to do so. I can listen to my doctor and not follow his first instinct recommendations. I can ask questions and decide for myself. I can take alternate approaches to care for my health. My gamble, remember? Does that make me wrong? We won't know until the cards are revealed, now will we?

Do I need a "specific reason"? No, I do not. I can have a reason, I can have multiple reasons, or I can have no reason at all, maybe just a gut feeling.

I can witness experts manipulating the data and the facts, repeatedly. I can witness the news straight-faced telling me things I know are false. I can see them manipulating opinions by the way they present a news story. I can see them promoting certain stories and while minimizing or even ignoring others. I can see through some occurrences as obviously bogus only to have the news act as if they were perfectly legit. And I see failures to ask the pertinent questions to clarify situations.

So why do I see those things when others don't? There's no scientific reason for that now is there? I just don't see how anybody could miss it, it's so obvious. But then I wonder, do these others see it too but deny it? I just can't tell... If only I could read minds.

So is the news controlled by higher powers? I don't know. But it looks like it. It looks like a lot of gears spinning behind the scenes. Does that sound like a "conspiracy theory"? It sure does.

In the end we're back to either questioning everything or accepting everything. Maybe it comes down to personality. Or upbringing. Right brain or left brain? Maybe "science" should step in and conduct some experiments to get to the bottom of it. And maybe the funding entities wouldn't find that in their best interest. Who knows?

And then there's the Gellman effect. He noticed that any story involving his area of scientific expertise got things wrong, but he accepted every other aspect of the news must be right. Interesting phenomenon.

You accuse me of not trusting "intellectuals". I invite you to read "The Vision of the Anointed". Of course you won't because you'll read some summary review instead and trust they're telling you the truth - am I right???
Will you not "listen to those who have learned and acquired knowledge"?
That's what I thought.

You claim I disagree with anyone who doesn't agree with my world view. Doesn't that describe EVERYONE?? For real, dude. WHO ISN'T going to disagree with someone else who opines differently? Am I a bad guy because I'm no different in this regard? Sometimes a little more thought can go a long way... Jus sayin.
I am skeptical, but still open to new ideas.

 

Of course humans--even scientists--can be wrong. We're all fallible. And of course as 'Merikans we're all entitled to our own opinions, no matter how misguided they may be. But making decisions on the basis of rigorously tested evidence and specialized study is a better educated bet than listening to the wisdom of your gut. Lord knows what you've been eating lately, but if that cartoon you use is any indication, I wouldn't want to take a chance on it ! Disgusting! There's a trend lately on the political right to dismiss expert opinion and instead substitute opinions based on personal feelings: Postmodernism run amok on the right. Radical populism rests on the misguided notion that everybody's opinion is of equal worth, whether or not they've ever made it past the eighth grade. This can have really dangerous consequences when it comes to public health and vaccines. Whatever the fallibility of science, I think it's a better guide to public policy than your gut.

 

Okay, cool, you mean the one that proves "masks don't work"?
Or the one that proves "masks work"?

How do you reconcile that? Go with your gut?

 

Nuclear weapons, chemical factories, climate change, its all the same and, all the experts agree, what we require is an entirely new economy. Unfortunately, the Tea Party is running the Pentagon, which regulates Microsoft and Google, to censor half of reality. Even the UN agrees, there's nobody in charge around here, and VR and AI are the future, because there never was any intelligent life around here. Academia could not teach a child how to use even a stupid dictionary if their lives depended on it, and are helping the Tea Party to censor half of reality.

The only way to fight climate change, is to document their ongoing insanity in the public domain. I do it mathematically, using linguistic analysis and modern physics. That can be automated, to throw their crap right back in their faces! You cannot attack what you cannot comprehend, the stupid truth! Staring you in the face!

 

LOL. You invite us to read The Vision of the Anointed which is supposed to prove you trust "intellectuals". I've read enough of Thomas Sowell's books and articles to know that he's a pseudo-intellectual: a right wing libertarian propagandist devoid of intellectual integrity--on a par with Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, but with more degrees that mean he should know better. Despite the adulation by fans of the corporate business elite, this book takes the cake--a summation of the worst he has to offer. His simplistic "us vs. them" view of the world--"Benighted" vs. "Anointed--is the kind of overgeneralized stereotyping that contributes to the divisiveness we're experiencing in this country. This is an economist pontificating about politics, philosophy, and law, based on a limited sample. He must be one of "the Anointed, because he does all of the things he's accusing the targets of his criticism of doing. He gets the most basic fact of Kreimer v. Bureau of Police wrong--i.e., who won the case. He butchers Rawls theory of social justice--claiming that it favors equality above all when it clearly states that any inequalities must benefit everybody or the least advantaged. And he thinks that trickle down "supply side" Reaganomics, with tax cuts to corporations and the rich, is the way to prosperity.

Most pertinent to this thread, he falsely claims (p. 77) that the Club of Rome MIT Study predicted in The Limits to Growth (1972) that resource depletion and environmental catastrophe would happen by the end of the 20th century. That's not true. They said that would start to happen by the middle of the twenty-first century, unless drastic changes were made. The Limits of Growth had its limits, especially the assumption of simple linear growth patterns in variables like population. Nobody reasonably thinks the MIT team can be held to a precise timetable. Resource depletion seems less of a problem now than then, but pollution and global warming are real concerns. The clock is still ticking, and climate scientists are confirming with real data that the trend toward climate change is a reality.