Ahh that was a scary few moments. I've learned more from this thread in a month than from 5 years of high school. Had more constructive criticism to.
@Anduin was that the pay, pensions and workload strike I saw on the News? The government and Murdoch media here do that, we protest and no news network covers it, no papers report it and if they do they call it a violent protest by mobs of unemployed youths.
@Corvino Is it just me or are governments getting highly paranoid lately? Yes, there is a threat. However, even if you have agents reading through everything and programs sifting for keywords if they are smart enough to use a simple word for word cipher and mask their IP address. . . whats the point?
The real question is how much real information do they actually miss while they spend countless hours going through an endless stream of data? It's like creating a haystack so you can find a needle.
Exactly. . . Didn't they manage to catch one of their own generals having an affair though? :P
But no, if I set up a handful of phrases like "Hows the weather today?" meaning how is the bomb coming along. . . you can read it, a program can read it, no ones going to get anything other then Hows the weather today?
The government and Murdoch media here do that, we protest and no news network covers it, no papers report it and if they do they call it a violent protest by mobs of unemployed youths.
This seems to happen a lot in the States. After the bank bailouts we had two big groups of very diverse people (Occupy Wall Street and the early Tea Party) who protested the government's actions. Both sides had some very unsavory elements (some violent losers in Occupy, some racist farts in the Tea Party) and they became the focus of the story.
In the end, these people, not the movements themselves, became the story. It all distracted from the reason why all these people, from different sides of the political spectrum, were all angry about the same things.
This reminds me of the recent Edward Snowden leaks. Big government overreach revealed, should be a massive scandal. Yet all anyone talked about was Edward Snowden: where was he going? Was he a traitor? Was he really dating a stripper? While the debate over unjustified surveillance did occur on some level (with almost NO resolution) overall the actual story revealed BY the whistle-blower was overshadowed by the story OF the whistle-blower.
. I've learned more from this thread in a month then from 5 years of hig school. Had more constructive criticism to.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are making a joke and my internet sarcasm detectors need replacing, or high school is different in... Wherever you went to high school. Here it lasts 4 years.
P.S. one more thing you didn't learn in high school, now in this thread: How to spell high.
P.P.S And the proper use of than and then.
*hopes he's not confusing then and than and correct the right thing and looking like a total ass*
P.S. one more thing you didn't learn in high school, now in this thread: How to spell high. P
Hahahah! Several of the keys on this thing are not working like they should be. :P Then was actually a mistake, but hey, I'm a product of an underfunded under appreciated education system. :P Plus, I went to a school called "Lowood" so. . . :P
Alright then. I haven't read most of this thread so I will probably just change the topic here.
Let's see... First and foremost, I am a devout Catholic. As such I could safely be considered a religious conservative, I suppose. Second, though I am not one in a professional sense (yet), I consider myself a man of science. Many people seem to think that this combination is a contradiction but I really don't think so (though I suppose it depends on your religion a little bit). I am also Autistic, which can be something of a wild card but anyway...
(I am not sure this qualifies as politics but here goes anyway.) I don't really like the direction science is going with this whole Global Warming/Climate Change thing. From my perspective it seems like science is being usurped by the social phenomenon of conformity.
From what I have seen and heard there are many scientists on both sides of this issue i.e. many believe that GW/CC is a real threat to the planet and many believe that it is a non issue. What REALLY bothers me here is that I repeatedly observe one side of the issue, i.e. the GW/CC is real side, continuously berating the other side as willfully ignorant fools who are in denial and then proceed to dismiss any evidence and or research the other side does. This shakes me to my core because this kind of behavior is in total opposition to what science is supposed to be! Science not supposed to be about propaganda and politics! It should be about seeking knowledge of the truth about the physical and natural world. One of the wonderful things about science which I learned in school is that a theory is supposed to be the highest rank an idea can get in the world of science. This is wonderful in my opinion because it openly acknowledges that as fallible beings we are always making mistakes about what is and is not and today's "hard facts" could turn out to be tomorrow's "the earth is flat". It has happened COUNTLESS times in the history of humanity and it will continue to happen in the future. When I see things such as the berating of one side of a study and the dismissal of their evidence and research, I am immediately reminded of the foolishness of the past in which almost the entire known world believed so strongly that the Earth was at the center of the universe that it was a crime to suggest otherwise. It is just not right from a scientific perspective to place a stigma on another scientist and their work for doing everything the right way, with the scientific method and everything, but they happened to have come up with a different result than you. They may be wrong but you may just as easily be wrong.
Then I see the greatest scientific crime of them all! Manipulating your results and data for the sole purpose of supporting your hypothesis. Yes, I am referring to Climategate. Climategate, for me, pretty much sums up the problem here. So-called "scientists" would rather break all the rules of science to support their agenda then to follow the rules and be honest in their findings.
With this sort of stuff going on I do not see how we can have an honest discussion on what may or may not be a real issue. Indeed, if we are not going to be honest about the issue and are going to discourage the other side because it disagrees with our political agenda then we are no longer in the realm of fact based science and are now in the realm of political propaganda.
For the record that is 5 ninjas. I think too slowly.
"Climategate" is a non-issue. Seriously that was studied to death already and no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct was found.
Climate Change/Global Warming is an inherently political issue because it involves a lot of money being thrown around. I definitely have repeatedly seen people who don't think its real saying "well there is a blizzard/ice storm outside so global warming must be fake", or "scientists were saying in the 1970's that the world was going to experience an ice age so clearly this global warming thing is a hoax", so I'm not sure where you are going with the accusation that this berating is one sided.
@elminster Personal experience has led me to believe that it is mostly one sided... I am well aware that, like with any controversial issue, there is going to be berating coming from both sides, but from what I have seen in my life there is a bit more coming from one side than the other. Perhaps this is because the believer side controls the majority of the media and the education system in my country; which has left me over-exposed to their viewpoint. *shrug*
As for Climategate being a non-issue: how is it that manually changing ones results irrespective of the data is not an issue? If that didn't happen then it certainly would not be an issue, but last I heard that was what happened.
I definitely have repeatedly seen people who don't think its real saying "well there is a blizzard/ice storm outside so global warming must be fake", or "scientists were saying in the 1970's that the world was going to experience an ice age so clearly this global warming thing is a hoax", so I'm not sure where you are going with the accusation that this berating is one sided.
If people are saying that then they are jumping to conclusions and unaware of the whole picture. This clearly has nothing to do with the evidence that modern GW/CC believers present. Be that as it may, though, I find it far, far, FAR more troubling (and berating for that matter) when people generalize a whole mass of scientists as being, and I quote, "in denial" about the truth. More insulting to say someone is in the state of "failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism" (Googled definition for denial) if you ask me, especially if you are a scientist.
I guess the fact that climate change is happening is not what's at debate, it's 1) the extent to which we as a species are culpable for it, 2) whether we can realistically do anything about it, in the big picture as well as the small (i.e. how are we ever going to get China to get on board with initiatives), and 3) what shape those actions take.
What personally bothers me about it is this idea that we need to regress or retreat technologically and embrace more collectivist modes of thinking and living - i.e. emphasizing wind power, solar, and public transit, and my personal hate-orite, "doing more with less," when it's the opposite direction we should be charging - towards more nuclear and ultimately, fusion. We need to actually advance technologically if we hope for civilization to survive, and civilization must survive if humanity itself is to survive. Technological and eco-conservatism is as poisonous as the worst social conservatism.
The Chinese seem to be on board. They are at least open to the idea of reducing emissions. Mind you you can't blame them given they have a MAJOR pollution issue at home.
I think there is a issue, it's not major right now but it will become so in the future if we continue to go forward the way we are now. We are without a doubt the most destructive thing that has ever happened to the natural balance on this planet. We destroy forest to make way for our cities. Our cars, ships and aircraft pump dangerous emissions into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. We routinely hunt species to extinction and destroy their homes. Our wars are also highly destructive.
I don't see a reason not to make a move towards clean energy whether global warming is a thing or not. Fossil fuels are limited in supply, dangerous for our health and bad for the environment. Whether climate change is real or not should really be a non issue. Clean energy is a no brainer.
I don't think anyone's religious or scientific persuasion should have any impact on it. Why proceed in a way that is dangerous and unsustainable?
@terzaerian's first paragraph pretty much sums up the legitimate scientific debate on Anthropogenic (man-made) Climate Change. Data overwhelmingly shows that average global temperatures are rising, and that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the most like cause. While there is debate it is generally around (fairly minor) issues like the potential to limit further climate change, the likely implications and future projections. No major scientific body currently formally disagrees with the available data. I am not aware of any serious, peer-reviewed article that puts forward convincing evidence to the contrary - this is ultimately how any scientific argument is measured.
There has been an attempt by some unscrupulous organisations to create dissent for their own purposes. The American Petroleum Institute proposed in 1998 "recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry's views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases". After the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published its 2007 report, the American Enterprise Institute offered £10,000 to scientists who wrote articles critical of the report. This is not scientific debate, it's paying to obscure the facts.
Those with a vested interest to do so have created an illusion of a scientific rift when there is actually consensus. Debate exists, but it always does. The topic of the debate is about getting the small issues right, while very few climate scientists would disagree about the existence and seriousness of Anthropogenic Climate Change.
*Edit* There is no "whole mass" of scientists who do not think Anthropogenic Climate Change is real. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has withdrawn its objections. There are a few individuals and industry-funded thinktanks. No University, Scientific Society or Professional Organisation in the field of study (that I am aware of) has objected to the general principles and published data regarding Climate Change.
There are two questions relating to climate change which, to date, no one has ever successfully answered.
1) why are the changes always presented as a negative? How do we know that the planet isn't moving back to where it is *supposed* to be, climatologically speaking, and that our unintended side-effects are helping rather than harming? Why are the predictions so full of doom and gloom?
2) Why do the predictions presume that humans are stupid? "All the polar ice caps will melt (causing the sea levels to rise), all the arable farm land will disappear (leading to widespread famine), and tropical storms/hurricanes/typhoons will increase in severity, all of which will lead to the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people". (clearly, this is paraphrasing--no one actually said this) What? People who live in low-lying areas along coasts are just going to sit there and drown? "oh, if only we owned a boat we could get away. *sigh*" What, no new areas of arable land will emerge? Why not? I am certain Russia won't mind if Siberia, the vast majority of which is not currently being used for anything, suddenly becomes the world's largest green belt. In short, some people make it seem as if future humans will be unable to cope when adaptability and creativity have long been our strongest advantages.
As far as fusion power is concerned, last year SkunkWorks claimed that it would have a working prototype in four years, that their medium-term goal is to have it be commercially available by 2022, and the long-term goal is to be able to meet the entire world's energy needs by 2045. I don't normally fall for "pie in the sky" predictions but I have to admit that I wouldn't mind this one becoming reality.
@Mathsorcerer makes an excellent point no one has brought up before. . . Humans are nothing if not adaptable, it's why we are still alive. . . There is an awful lot of stupid in the human gene pool though. There's always that fun moment where the smart people need to convince the slower people why they need to leave their homes. "This is our *HOME*." As if the patch of dirt they live in is worth their lives. . .
The Skunk Works promise is. . . ambitious? Still they get obscene amounts of money to make black projects a reality so if anyone has any ideas it would probably be them . . .
Ah, I finally get to use some of those Archaeology modules I took, @Mathsorcerer! There is actually a really good record of global temperatures contained in the polar ice. "Ice cores" taken by drilling into ice caps let scientists look at a cross section of annual snowfall over many years. These cores helpfully contain lots of other bits of data like trapped pollen, particles of volcanic ash, dissolved carbon dioxide and other stuff that permit pretty good interpretation of climate conditions over hundreds of thousands of years. It's kind of like tree rings but at a global level.
Typically the planet cycles between warm and cold, and these cycles have taken about 100,000 years for the past 20 or so cycles. Based on the predictable nature of the cycle, things should currently be getting cooler. But they aren't. We're in an abnormal period where we're getting pretty steady year-on-year increases in land and ocean temperature, and have been for more than a hundred years.
Increases in ocean temperatures have a fairly big impact on weather conditions, including rainfall, tropical storms, cyclones, all that sort of thing. The El Nino phenomenon is directly linked to sea temperatures, and has massive global effects on rainfall and food security. Rising sea levels aren't the main concern (though water does expand as it warms, there is an ongoing rise) with global warming, it's more the variability of weather leading to droughts and crop failure that will affect most people.
From what I have seen and heard there are many scientists on both sides of this issue i.e. many believe that GW/CC is a real threat to the planet and many believe that it is a non issue.
I think the media might be somewhat to blame for giving the impression that the scientific community is hugely divided over this. Contentious issues are more interesting and newsworthy, so that's how news organizations like to present it.
As for Climategate being a non-issue: how is it that manually changing ones results irrespective of the data is not an issue? If that didn't happen then it certainly would not be an issue, but last I heard that was what happened.
Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[15] However, the reports called on the scientists to avoid any such allegations in the future by taking steps to regain public confidence in their work, for example by opening up access to their supporting data, processing methods and software, and by promptly honouring freedom of information requests.[16] The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations. Taken from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
I realize that Wikipedia isn't exactly a bullet-proof source, but seeing as how no one else is posting sources I think it will do for now.
Edit: looks like these points have more or less been addressed already. Should have read the rest of the thread before posting.
Ugh. We had to go there, didn't we. Whatever. I apologize that this is a bit brash, but it makes it's point, and it's a valid point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg An I don't even think I need to say anything. This debate has been done to death, and there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said before. This is where I would put an offensive comment intended to make a strong point through clumsy humor, but I just did that for 4 minutes so I'll just leave you this note.
That aside, there is *one* thing I would like to say. And that's about china. @terzaerian makes a lot of good points, but one thing is off.
Ah, I finally get to use some of those Archaeology modules I took, @Mathsorcerer!
Oh, come now--you should be using your archaeology (or archaeogeology, in this instance) in every discussion every chance you get.
Disruptive weather patterns still aren't necessarily a negative and "food security" won't be as much of a negative *if* people will begin using vertical farming in many more places. Combined with hydroponics you can easily grow 5 hectares worth of crops in 1 hectare of area. It really is the future of agriculture...or at least it should be.
Drought will never be a problem with sufficient irrigation. I crunched the numbers elsewhere (are you really going to make me link my actual post from over there?) and showed that even if we use only 2% of the available water on the planet there is more than enough water for drinking and growing crops to hydrate and feed a population of 10 billion people. Don't forget--you cannot "waste" water since matter cannot be destroyed but you do run the risk of making it more difficult and costly to repurify the water you have used. Water for irrigation doesn't necessarily have to be pure enough for us to drink but it does need to be free of chemicals and potentially harmful microbes; the former sometimes requires special filters or distillation and the latter can be fixed by putting water into clear plastic bottles, closing the cap tightly, then setting the bottles on some metal out in the hot summer sun for a couple of days--the heat and light from the sun on the metal will purify the water. There is some guy in Africa using a double-filtration system of clay pots that results in water that surpasses even our EPA's "clean water" standards.
I agree that there are lots of ways to get around water shortage, but often they're relatively technology or energy dependent. There are some very interesting projects involving solar-powered desalination in coastal deserts, notably a couple of projects in Australia. Poorer areas can get hit hard by droughts though. The likely El Nino this year is going to alleviate a drought in California, but exacerbate the one affecting Southeast Asia.
Food security has become a major issue. A number of OPEC nations have started with mass purchases of land in productive regions of Africa due to fluctuations in food prices. This article from a US based organisation makes interesting reading.
@terzaerian I would ask what the problem with wind/solar power generation is? I agree that expanding nuclear generation is a good way to go, but I don't think it's an either-or situation. I don't see why we wouldn't explore all kinds of alternative energy sources.
From what I've seen organizations like Greenpeace do not agree, with nuclear or even fusion, and do see it as either-or. I'd be happy to be corrected on this.
Meh, I am still unconvinced in regards to GW/CC. I would like to post a YouTube link to George Carlin but given his colorful use of language that would probably be a against the rules. Anyway, just Google George Carlin and "The planet is fine." You should find it.
I would like to change the topic to something more in line with the theme of this discussion. My perspective on the feeling of politics in my country, the USA, is that there is a great philosophical divide between the right and the left about what America is and what it should be. I see many people on the left, both those in government and those who would be considered your 'average Joe', who seem to believe that America should be ashamed of what it is and what it has been historically. They seem to think that America needs to be changed and remade and needs to apologize to the entire world for various crimes against humanity or whatnot. Many of those on the right side of the political spectrum, however, do not seem to believe this is the case and are afraid of the direction the country is being dragged in by the government. I personally do not understand why we should be ashamed of our country. I see no great evil that America has committed that would prompt a need to remake our country or to apologize to the rest of the world for. What I have seen are a great many historical inaccuracies and untruths about our nation being accepted as hard and undeniable fact on a widespread scale.
Interlude: It is quite easy to fool the neurotypical mind. All you have to do is tell it something and roughly 75% of the time it will accept whatever it is told as cold hard fact; often without even thinking about it first. This percentage increases to roughly 95% or more of the time if the source of what it is told is deemed as credible. Appearing credible is very easy to do and often times simply a suit or lab coat is enough.
Then there are my opinions on race: I am of the firm belief that race matters to the composition of a persons mind, personality, and psyche in general even less than food coloring matters to the composition of food. In other words it doesn't matter at all in any way. This makes my life EXTREMELY frustrating because my country seems to put a HUMONGOUS emphasis on race in general. Constant bickering about race this racism that who is what race who is racist against who... I don't give a crap! Do you know what makes a person a certain race? I will tell you! It is the amount of a simple pigment called melanin in their skin. That's it! Do you know what makes a person, in essence, who they are at the very core of their being? I will tell you! Their brain! Do you know how much melanin is in the brain? I will tell you! NONE!!!!! We have the first president in the history of our country that has enough melanin in their skin to be considered belonging to a certain race. Take a wild guess as to how much that matters to me.
NOT A SINGLE IOTA OF CARE IS IN MY ENTIRE BEING FOR THIS!!!!!!!!
Let me tell you something about myself! I am autistic. This means that MY VERY BRAIN, The thing that makes me who I am at my very core, is different from the majority of people in the world! Do you know how much consideration this fact gets? I will tell you! NEXT TO NONE!!!! I get almost nothing, not even a little consideration, for actually being different from everyone else at my very core, while, at the same time, everyone else goes on and on about a NON-ISSUE like it is the most important thing in the world!!!! Yes, racism is real! Yes, it is a bad thing and needs to be done away with! Answer me this, however: Just as 'racism' is the word for bigotry against a certain race; what is the word for bigotry against people of a different mental state, hmmm? Do you even know what this type of bigotry is called? Did you have to look it up? Is there even a word in the English language, or any other language, for it? I certainly don't know what the word is or if there is a word for it but I will tell you this much: IT IS REAL! I LIVE WITH IT ALMOST EVERY DAY! Think about THAT next time you get into a conversation about race!
Sorry about the rant there, but this issue is very near and dear to my heart.
I don't like the childish diagram but it's the best I could find in the time I have.
Couple things that make this a misleading graph. To highlight this, here is latest assessment from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (one of the world's leading climate change research institutes: http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/news_docs/pbl-2013-trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report-1148.pdf 1. The issue with China isn't the amount of current emissions, but the fact that they don't really have a plan to curtail it despite being a nation with a lot of room and huge potential for development. Keep in mind it is a *growing* economy... of 1.3 billion people. They have the biggest projected increase in emissions from changes in land use alone (pains of being a big economy but a developing country). Their projected economic development is actually the most worrying part when it comes to CO2 emissions "Although China’s CO2 emissions per capita are comparable to those in the EU and almost half of US emissions per capita, its CO2 emissions per USD in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are almost double those of the EU and United States and similar to those of the Russian Federation."
2. "per capita" is actually not necessarily the most useful measurement in this case. Changes in land use are huge in CO2 levels. China and Brazil lead the world in this area by a huge margin. It is unfortunately part of being a very large (both in population and land mass) yet developing nation, and changing this course will be very difficult since it could seriously hamper their economic growth.
3. If you look at the trends the US has decreased its emissions by 4% in the past year and the European Union did so by 1.6%. Conversely, Japan increased 6%, India 7% and China by 3%... which is their lowest ever, since they usually had a WHOPPING 10% increase every year in past decade!!!
4. The US, as you could see in the report, is rapidly moving toward natural gases as an alternative to coal. The emissions of CO2 per unit of energy/heat produced (displayed here as pounds of CO2/million btu) of natural gasses (mostly methane), while still being a bit more than conventional gasses, is 1/2!!! that of coal. http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11 Thankfully, moving away from coal will certainly reduce carbon emissions in the US. As you can see here (http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/) China produces four times the coal the US does. India is actually the most coal dependent, though, despite not producing as much as the other two. Now, this move toward natural gas and fracking could be a good development in reducing the carbon emission of the United States, even if it is not by itself a solution (as the UN's IPCC stated http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10763844/Fracking-can-be-part-of-the-solution-to-global-warming-say-UN-climate-change-experts.html)... now if only those "anti-fracking" clowns can "frack off".
5. Australia has actually passed the US in carbon emission per capita (just a little immature shot at CaloNord nana nana naaa na)
Overall... it will be difficult to convince China to change its course when it comes to carbon emissions simply because doing so would be potentially devastating to its economy. Forcing a change of pace down their throat could create a lot of human suffering in the "right now", and it is a very unsavory trade-off. That is the sad, unfortunate truth.
@CaloNord may live in Australia, but he's a Kiwi Boo! They've got crazy amounts of renewables. 72% of electricity in New Zealand is from renewable sources, primarily hydro or geothermal power, has been for ages. They've got a target of 90% of their electricity from renewables by 2025.
Okay, it's a relatively small country full of mountain lakes and volcanoes which does make the proposition more achievable, but it's nonetheless a beacon of green power.
Comments
@Anduin was that the pay, pensions and workload strike I saw on the News?
The government and Murdoch media here do that, we protest and no news network covers it, no papers report it and if they do they call it a violent protest by mobs of unemployed youths.
@Corvino Is it just me or are governments getting highly paranoid lately? Yes, there is a threat. However, even if you have agents reading through everything and programs sifting for keywords if they are smart enough to use a simple word for word cipher and mask their IP address. . . whats the point?
But no, if I set up a handful of phrases like "Hows the weather today?" meaning how is the bomb coming along. . . you can read it, a program can read it, no ones going to get anything other then Hows the weather today?
In the end, these people, not the movements themselves, became the story. It all distracted from the reason why all these people, from different sides of the political spectrum, were all angry about the same things.
This reminds me of the recent Edward Snowden leaks. Big government overreach revealed, should be a massive scandal. Yet all anyone talked about was Edward Snowden: where was he going? Was he a traitor? Was he really dating a stripper? While the debate over unjustified surveillance did occur on some level (with almost NO resolution) overall the actual story revealed BY the whistle-blower was overshadowed by the story OF the whistle-blower.
P.S. one more thing you didn't learn in high school, now in this thread:
How to spell high.
P.P.S
And the proper use of than and then.
*hopes he's not confusing then and than and correct the right thing and looking like a total ass*
:P
I never met a single person who voted for them, yet they seem to ALWAYS be in power!
They obviously need better oversight. . . perhaps a new minister?
Let's see... First and foremost, I am a devout Catholic. As such I could safely be considered a religious conservative, I suppose. Second, though I am not one in a professional sense (yet), I consider myself a man of science. Many people seem to think that this combination is a contradiction but I really don't think so (though I suppose it depends on your religion a little bit). I am also Autistic, which can be something of a wild card but anyway...
(I am not sure this qualifies as politics but here goes anyway.) I don't really like the direction science is going with this whole Global Warming/Climate Change thing. From my perspective it seems like science is being usurped by the social phenomenon of conformity.
From what I have seen and heard there are many scientists on both sides of this issue i.e. many believe that GW/CC is a real threat to the planet and many believe that it is a non issue. What REALLY bothers me here is that I repeatedly observe one side of the issue, i.e. the GW/CC is real side, continuously berating the other side as willfully ignorant fools who are in denial and then proceed to dismiss any evidence and or research the other side does. This shakes me to my core because this kind of behavior is in total opposition to what science is supposed to be! Science not supposed to be about propaganda and politics! It should be about seeking knowledge of the truth about the physical and natural world. One of the wonderful things about science which I learned in school is that a theory is supposed to be the highest rank an idea can get in the world of science. This is wonderful in my opinion because it openly acknowledges that as fallible beings we are always making mistakes about what is and is not and today's "hard facts" could turn out to be tomorrow's "the earth is flat". It has happened COUNTLESS times in the history of humanity and it will continue to happen in the future. When I see things such as the berating of one side of a study and the dismissal of their evidence and research, I am immediately reminded of the foolishness of the past in which almost the entire known world believed so strongly that the Earth was at the center of the universe that it was a crime to suggest otherwise. It is just not right from a scientific perspective to place a stigma on another scientist and their work for doing everything the right way, with the scientific method and everything, but they happened to have come up with a different result than you. They may be wrong but you may just as easily be wrong.
Then I see the greatest scientific crime of them all! Manipulating your results and data for the sole purpose of supporting your hypothesis. Yes, I am referring to Climategate. Climategate, for me, pretty much sums up the problem here. So-called "scientists" would rather break all the rules of science to support their agenda then to follow the rules and be honest in their findings.
With this sort of stuff going on I do not see how we can have an honest discussion on what may or may not be a real issue. Indeed, if we are not going to be honest about the issue and are going to discourage the other side because it disagrees with our political agenda then we are no longer in the realm of fact based science and are now in the realm of political propaganda.
For the record that is 5 ninjas. I think too slowly.
Climate Change/Global Warming is an inherently political issue because it involves a lot of money being thrown around. I definitely have repeatedly seen people who don't think its real saying "well there is a blizzard/ice storm outside so global warming must be fake", or "scientists were saying in the 1970's that the world was going to experience an ice age so clearly this global warming thing is a hoax", so I'm not sure where you are going with the accusation that this berating is one sided.
As for Climategate being a non-issue: how is it that manually changing ones results irrespective of the data is not an issue? If that didn't happen then it certainly would not be an issue, but last I heard that was what happened. If people are saying that then they are jumping to conclusions and unaware of the whole picture. This clearly has nothing to do with the evidence that modern GW/CC believers present. Be that as it may, though, I find it far, far, FAR more troubling (and berating for that matter) when people generalize a whole mass of scientists as being, and I quote, "in denial" about the truth. More insulting to say someone is in the state of "failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism" (Googled definition for denial) if you ask me, especially if you are a scientist.
What personally bothers me about it is this idea that we need to regress or retreat technologically and embrace more collectivist modes of thinking and living - i.e. emphasizing wind power, solar, and public transit, and my personal hate-orite, "doing more with less," when it's the opposite direction we should be charging - towards more nuclear and ultimately, fusion. We need to actually advance technologically if we hope for civilization to survive, and civilization must survive if humanity itself is to survive. Technological and eco-conservatism is as poisonous as the worst social conservatism.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/211817-kerry-us-china-will-set-tone-on-climate-change
I think there is a issue, it's not major right now but it will become so in the future if we continue to go forward the way we are now. We are without a doubt the most destructive thing that has ever happened to the natural balance on this planet. We destroy forest to make way for our cities. Our cars, ships and aircraft pump dangerous emissions into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. We routinely hunt species to extinction and destroy their homes. Our wars are also highly destructive.
I don't see a reason not to make a move towards clean energy whether global warming is a thing or not. Fossil fuels are limited in supply, dangerous for our health and bad for the environment. Whether climate change is real or not should really be a non issue. Clean energy is a no brainer.
I don't think anyone's religious or scientific persuasion should have any impact on it. Why proceed in a way that is dangerous and unsustainable?
There has been an attempt by some unscrupulous organisations to create dissent for their own purposes. The American Petroleum Institute proposed in 1998 "recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry's views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases". After the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published its 2007 report, the American Enterprise Institute offered £10,000 to scientists who wrote articles critical of the report. This is not scientific debate, it's paying to obscure the facts.
Those with a vested interest to do so have created an illusion of a scientific rift when there is actually consensus. Debate exists, but it always does. The topic of the debate is about getting the small issues right, while very few climate scientists would disagree about the existence and seriousness of Anthropogenic Climate Change.
*Edit* There is no "whole mass" of scientists who do not think Anthropogenic Climate Change is real. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has withdrawn its objections. There are a few individuals and industry-funded thinktanks. No University, Scientific Society or Professional Organisation in the field of study (that I am aware of) has objected to the general principles and published data regarding Climate Change.
1) why are the changes always presented as a negative? How do we know that the planet isn't moving back to where it is *supposed* to be, climatologically speaking, and that our unintended side-effects are helping rather than harming? Why are the predictions so full of doom and gloom?
2) Why do the predictions presume that humans are stupid? "All the polar ice caps will melt (causing the sea levels to rise), all the arable farm land will disappear (leading to widespread famine), and tropical storms/hurricanes/typhoons will increase in severity, all of which will lead to the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people". (clearly, this is paraphrasing--no one actually said this) What? People who live in low-lying areas along coasts are just going to sit there and drown? "oh, if only we owned a boat we could get away. *sigh*" What, no new areas of arable land will emerge? Why not? I am certain Russia won't mind if Siberia, the vast majority of which is not currently being used for anything, suddenly becomes the world's largest green belt. In short, some people make it seem as if future humans will be unable to cope when adaptability and creativity have long been our strongest advantages.
As far as fusion power is concerned, last year SkunkWorks claimed that it would have a working prototype in four years, that their medium-term goal is to have it be commercially available by 2022, and the long-term goal is to be able to meet the entire world's energy needs by 2045. I don't normally fall for "pie in the sky" predictions but I have to admit that I wouldn't mind this one becoming reality.
Humans are nothing if not adaptable, it's why we are still alive. . . There is an awful lot of stupid in the human gene pool though. There's always that fun moment where the smart people need to convince the slower people why they need to leave their homes. "This is our *HOME*." As if the patch of dirt they live in is worth their lives. . .
The Skunk Works promise is. . . ambitious? Still they get obscene amounts of money to make black projects a reality so if anyone has any ideas it would probably be them . . .
Your thoughts on this?
Typically the planet cycles between warm and cold, and these cycles have taken about 100,000 years for the past 20 or so cycles. Based on the predictable nature of the cycle, things should currently be getting cooler. But they aren't. We're in an abnormal period where we're getting pretty steady year-on-year increases in land and ocean temperature, and have been for more than a hundred years.
Increases in ocean temperatures have a fairly big impact on weather conditions, including rainfall, tropical storms, cyclones, all that sort of thing. The El Nino phenomenon is directly linked to sea temperatures, and has massive global effects on rainfall and food security. Rising sea levels aren't the main concern (though water does expand as it warms, there is an ongoing rise) with global warming, it's more the variability of weather leading to droughts and crop failure that will affect most people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_global_warming#Surveys_of_scientists_and_scientific_literature
I think the media might be somewhat to blame for giving the impression that the scientific community is hugely divided over this. Contentious issues are more interesting and newsworthy, so that's how news organizations like to present it. Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[15] However, the reports called on the scientists to avoid any such allegations in the future by taking steps to regain public confidence in their work, for example by opening up access to their supporting data, processing methods and software, and by promptly honouring freedom of information requests.[16] The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations.
Taken from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
I realize that Wikipedia isn't exactly a bullet-proof source, but seeing as how no one else is posting sources I think it will do for now.
Edit: looks like these points have more or less been addressed already. Should have read the rest of the thread before posting.
I apologize that this is a bit brash, but it makes it's point, and it's a valid point.
An I don't even think I need to say anything. This debate has been done to death, and there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said before. This is where I would put an offensive comment intended to make a strong point through clumsy humor, but I just did that for 4 minutes so I'll just leave you this note.
That aside, there is *one* thing I would like to say. And that's about china. @terzaerian makes a lot of good points, but one thing is off.
Disruptive weather patterns still aren't necessarily a negative and "food security" won't be as much of a negative *if* people will begin using vertical farming in many more places. Combined with hydroponics you can easily grow 5 hectares worth of crops in 1 hectare of area. It really is the future of agriculture...or at least it should be.
Drought will never be a problem with sufficient irrigation. I crunched the numbers elsewhere (are you really going to make me link my actual post from over there?) and showed that even if we use only 2% of the available water on the planet there is more than enough water for drinking and growing crops to hydrate and feed a population of 10 billion people. Don't forget--you cannot "waste" water since matter cannot be destroyed but you do run the risk of making it more difficult and costly to repurify the water you have used. Water for irrigation doesn't necessarily have to be pure enough for us to drink but it does need to be free of chemicals and potentially harmful microbes; the former sometimes requires special filters or distillation and the latter can be fixed by putting water into clear plastic bottles, closing the cap tightly, then setting the bottles on some metal out in the hot summer sun for a couple of days--the heat and light from the sun on the metal will purify the water. There is some guy in Africa using a double-filtration system of clay pots that results in water that surpasses even our EPA's "clean water" standards.
Food security has become a major issue. A number of OPEC nations have started with mass purchases of land in productive regions of Africa due to fluctuations in food prices. This article from a US based organisation makes interesting reading.
I would like to change the topic to something more in line with the theme of this discussion. My perspective on the feeling of politics in my country, the USA, is that there is a great philosophical divide between the right and the left about what America is and what it should be. I see many people on the left, both those in government and those who would be considered your 'average Joe', who seem to believe that America should be ashamed of what it is and what it has been historically. They seem to think that America needs to be changed and remade and needs to apologize to the entire world for various crimes against humanity or whatnot. Many of those on the right side of the political spectrum, however, do not seem to believe this is the case and are afraid of the direction the country is being dragged in by the government. I personally do not understand why we should be ashamed of our country. I see no great evil that America has committed that would prompt a need to remake our country or to apologize to the rest of the world for. What I have seen are a great many historical inaccuracies and untruths about our nation being accepted as hard and undeniable fact on a widespread scale.
Interlude:
It is quite easy to fool the neurotypical mind. All you have to do is tell it something and roughly 75% of the time it will accept whatever it is told as cold hard fact; often without even thinking about it first. This percentage increases to roughly 95% or more of the time if the source of what it is told is deemed as credible. Appearing credible is very easy to do and often times simply a suit or lab coat is enough.
Then there are my opinions on race:
I am of the firm belief that race matters to the composition of a persons mind, personality, and psyche in general even less than food coloring matters to the composition of food. In other words it doesn't matter at all in any way. This makes my life EXTREMELY frustrating because my country seems to put a HUMONGOUS emphasis on race in general. Constant bickering about race this racism that who is what race who is racist against who... I don't give a crap! Do you know what makes a person a certain race? I will tell you! It is the amount of a simple pigment called melanin in their skin. That's it! Do you know what makes a person, in essence, who they are at the very core of their being? I will tell you! Their brain! Do you know how much melanin is in the brain? I will tell you! NONE!!!!! We have the first president in the history of our country that has enough melanin in their skin to be considered belonging to a certain race. Take a wild guess as to how much that matters to me.
Sorry about the rant there, but this issue is very near and dear to my heart.
1. The issue with China isn't the amount of current emissions, but the fact that they don't really have a plan to curtail it despite being a nation with a lot of room and huge potential for development. Keep in mind it is a *growing* economy... of 1.3 billion people. They have the biggest projected increase in emissions from changes in land use alone (pains of being a big economy but a developing country). Their projected economic development is actually the most worrying part when it comes to CO2 emissions
"Although China’s CO2 emissions per capita are comparable to those in the EU and almost half of US emissions per capita, its CO2 emissions per USD in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are almost double those of the EU and United States and similar to those of the Russian Federation."
2. "per capita" is actually not necessarily the most useful measurement in this case. Changes in land use are huge in CO2 levels. China and Brazil lead the world in this area by a huge margin. It is unfortunately part of being a very large (both in population and land mass) yet developing nation, and changing this course will be very difficult since it could seriously hamper their economic growth.
3. If you look at the trends the US has decreased its emissions by 4% in the past year and the European Union did so by 1.6%. Conversely, Japan increased 6%, India 7% and China by 3%... which is their lowest ever, since they usually had a WHOPPING 10% increase every year in past decade!!!
4. The US, as you could see in the report, is rapidly moving toward natural gases as an alternative to coal. The emissions of CO2 per unit of energy/heat produced (displayed here as pounds of CO2/million btu) of natural gasses (mostly methane), while still being a bit more than conventional gasses, is 1/2!!! that of coal. http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11
Thankfully, moving away from coal will certainly reduce carbon emissions in the US. As you can see here (http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/) China produces four times the coal the US does. India is actually the most coal dependent, though, despite not producing as much as the other two.
Now, this move toward natural gas and fracking could be a good development in reducing the carbon emission of the United States, even if it is not by itself a solution (as the UN's IPCC stated http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10763844/Fracking-can-be-part-of-the-solution-to-global-warming-say-UN-climate-change-experts.html)... now if only those "anti-fracking" clowns can "frack off".
5. Australia has actually passed the US in carbon emission per capita (just a little immature shot at CaloNord
Overall... it will be difficult to convince China to change its course when it comes to carbon emissions simply because doing so would be potentially devastating to its economy. Forcing a change of pace down their throat could create a lot of human suffering in the "right now", and it is a very unsavory trade-off. That is the sad, unfortunate truth.
Okay, it's a relatively small country full of mountain lakes and volcanoes which does make the proposition more achievable, but it's nonetheless a beacon of green power.