A fascinating post Fred, and one that has - like some of your other posts of late - made me think twice about the current validity of the last IPCC report.
However, I must say that climate science is bloody complicated, and that the core hypothesis of AGW may still be true. However, it will be up to the IPCC to take recent findings and analyses into consideration for their 2014 report. Let’s see what they say. Scientific truth is a moving target.
I think it is silly to assume that many people would actually prefer that AGW actually be taking place just in order not to be proven wrong.
So… climate change is “complicated.” Interesting… for those of us who have been arguing much the same for decades, it is interesting to see how public opinion has now come around to our point of view. I guess Republicans know something after all and if we have learned one thing it is that communism rears its ugly economy distorting head to find new ways to redistribute from the productive to the nonproductive lazy worthless panderer whether those in support of Third Worldism, anti-imperialism, liberation theology, safety nets or reparations of one kind or another… same shit different sensitivity… this one just happens to be environmental. One would not even have to know anything about science to know where this movement was going… typical… leftist… shit-stirring, while demanding to be funded … protest but pay for my lifestyle shit… now of course with global warming on its last legs… occupy wall street rises to the fore… and after that? no doubt something new and clever but it will always be something for those who are too stupid but overeducated and those who don’t want to work but want to be paid will always find a way…
My guess? Increased subsidies to oil companies, another round of finacial disasters (made possible by deregulation of the finacial sector,) an ever widening gap bewtween the rich and poor (and all the conflict that implies,) a deepening of the recession in much of the developed world (made a thousand times worse by austerity measures,) increased sales at luxury brand outlets (while your average working stiff barely makes enough to survive,) bigger more expensive prisons in lieu of enlightened social policies, more binding trade agreements and with even more dictatorial governments, increased state funding of deluded religious programs in the public school system, HUGE fucking floods happening more and more frequently in more and more cities, a quickening of the pace of species extinction and habitat destruction, another dozen mountains tops (and their attendent river and valley systems) are destroyed in Virginia to supprt the coal industry, Albertans get richer, eat more steak and consider it patriotic, much of China forgets what the sun looks like, alternative energy systems remain competitive but somehow never quite take off, more gun rampages (you could kill more with car but nobody goes on rampages with their car, must be something in the nature of “guns,” whaddya think there dumbos, hmmm…) increased salaries for fat ass think tank liars, and Ted Nugent becomes president of the United States (a theocracy.)
[quote=“fred smith”][quote]That’s very gracious of you. You are really a class act.
BTW, do you have a tattoo of Ayn Rand on your buttocks? I am merely curious.[/quote]
Oh, I am very gracious. Let me ask you this (follows):
Has any of the billions/trillions spent to raise awareness or fight or mitigate or whatever stop global warming done ANY good? No? ER?
Is it likely that any good will come of all the marches, efforts, awareness campaigns? No? er?
So tattoos of Ayn Rand are not necessary, but a functioning brainstem is? or would you argue that it is not? or is that ungracious of me to point out?[/quote]
Trillions? Is that a joke?
The whole point about GW is that people think / thought it was a serious problem. Most people who are / were activists and participated in events did so in the sincere belief that they were raising awareness of a serious issue. Of course, if the problem is not so serious or we are really less sure about it now (let’s see what happens in 2014) then these marches and campaigns were not useful. That is, it has always been about whether there is a problem. If so, then marches and campaigns can help get media attention, make voters aware of issues, pressure leaders to enact regulation etc. So yes, they can make a difference when there is a real problem.
You may not agree that marches and campaigns do anything, but in any case, there are two issues here: is AGW happening? and Does raising awareness help fight it?
I suppose it was the lingering doubts about the reality and scale of AGW which delayed and diluted action by leaders on GHG. Perhaps they were right, perhaps we were caught up in the groupthink. Again, it’s too early to say. But in any case, it was not all an evil plot by Elsworth Twohy and the Second Handers to steal money from Howard Roark. It is or was a bunch of people concerned about the fate of the planet.
A functioning brainstem? For what? Autonomic functions? Thinking happens in other parts of the brain, Fred.
I believe that the current oil subsidies are under reconsideration and may be removed even though THESE are merely the SAME types of incentives that ALL companies receive for re-investment so wherein lies the BIG deal with those given to oil subsidies and not to er the Solyndras?
Has financial deregulation had any positive benefit? Think of that every time that you use your ATM in a foreign country without paying a fee because of international linkups… You fail to mention all the benefits (and there are many). I assume then that you are less worried about deregulation and would prefer to see MORE enforcement of existing regulation which would mean of course ending social policy prescriptions like pressure on banks to loan money to people who are marginally stable financially… with a very direct impact on their ability to buy a car or home. Right? is that what you are saying?
Must have been one hell of a doobie dude… rock on!
Such as allowing people to steal because of their “need?” Interesting that we never see supermarkets getting looted but only high-end clothing stores and expensive electronics which kinda sorta puts your argument into a bit of a, er, conundrum?
???
Where is this happening?
You and your floods. What is it with you and flooding?
What kind of species extinction are we talking about here? The loss of one nearly the exact same species of frog in one valley but not in the thousands of others. Who gets to decide what a meaningfully separate species is?
Coal use is peaking… do you have any evidence of mountaintops in Virginia being destroyed?
Jesus. What is that all about?
Most cities in China are improving when it comes to air quality… certainly the smog is getting better, not necessarily particulates… which cities are you referring to as getting bad? Remember Taipei used to be terrible but then economic development meant more wealth to spend on environmental measures and voila… Taipei is pretty clean these days and look at Kaohsiung… so again more economic development seems to be the solution… no one ever mentioned the extensive coal burning of early communist development… despite the advent of the auto owning revolution, surely China’s cities are much better off particularly in winter without all that coal being burned on every street corner?
because they still are NOT more competitive.
If I had one right now, it would not be too difficult to shoot your protoliberal ramblings through.
Yeah… I can see that happening… Damn dude. Where did you get that spark?
You’d better hope not because with the amounts of carbon you must have pumped out prior to writing this ramble, you would be paying da bomb.
My thing about floods is that there sure are a freakish number of them happening recently. I posted a link to a study indicating precisely the same thing awhile back but my guess is you ignored it.
The point of the ramble was that much of what is going wrong (and a lot is going wrong) in the world right now was caused by right wing policies (you surely can’t be trying to sneak away now on your role in the financial meltdown - and by referance to ATM conviniences - good lord man.)
You need to slow down on the pot man… It is messing with your mind…
Right wing on the financial crisis? Oh really? Pray tell, how exactly did Europe reach its present state of affairs? too much of the right or too much of the left?
As to the financial meltdown in the US, where did it start? subprime mortgages and who was pushing for those? the right wing? or the well-meaning left?
So, er, what is your point bob?
As to flooding… jesus the world is going to end man…
Southern Europe got where it is by allowing the extremely rich to avoid paying taxes and by paying a lot of government employees too much for too little and borrowing the money to do that from the countries it had farmed it’s manufacturing out to. They are trying to solve it by imposing austerity measures which involved laying off large numbers of government employees. What they should have done was let them keep their jobs but with a big pay cut and made serious efforts to collect more taxes. BOTH sides contribute. Imagine that.
The US got into the situation it is in by allowing banks to grant bonuses to it’s loan managers based on the number of loans MADE!!! rather than on the number succesfully managed, so they went and made loans to a bunch of dumb ass fuckers who couldn’t pay them back. The banks didn’t have enough reserves in the bank to make those readily available, highly advertised (you would imagine criminal) bad loans so they borrowed the money with which to make them. When the banks couldn’t pay back the money they borrowed to make the bad loans things went fucko big time. Perhaps you recall. Cananda didn’t derugulate the banking system the way you did and that is why our system didn’t practically go tits up and need to go begging the government to bail them out (a bit ironic that last bit.)
I didn’t say the world was going to end (What does that even mean?) I said that there has recently been a lot more flooding than normal and that we are going to be seeing a continuation of that trend. This started while we have been arguing here. You should do some resaerch.
The situation in England is cool. Tax payers being being forced to “pay” to have their children taught not just one lie, but different ones, each according to the psychosis of their parents. Good old George Bush and Tony Blair. Is it any wonder George never tried this…
It is not flooding any where near where I am. Perhaps, the news is merely “covering” flood stories more these days. I keep waiting for all these terrible hurricances, typhoons and cyclones but we are pretty much at or below average in terms of number and intensity. So, I imagine that one day, your news reports on flooding may decrease as well and then it will be DROUGHT DROUGHT DROUGHT and how the WORLD IS GOING TO END GOING TO END GOING TO END and then it will be AVALANCHE AVALANCHE AVALANCHE and EARTHQUAKE EARTHQUAKE EARTHQUAKE.
Sounds to me like you need Jesus in your life boy…
What I think is that if it showed the opposite you’d be on it in a heartbeat using it to show that no, the ocean isn’t warming up, more water isn’t evaporating as a result and that no, there is no increased risk of flooding as a result of climate change.
Do you believe that global warming is causing more flooding? and is that the whole point of your concern?
Sorry, but I am really enjoying this but not for the reasons that you might assume. You are very very VERY entertaining. Have you also marched in an Occupy Wall Street type movement? IF so, can you send photos?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I believe that global warming is causing more flooding, but I would say that it sure looks like that is what is happening, and that it is worth paying attention to.
OK, that’s it for today. It is georgeous outside here right now.
[quote=“fred smith”][quote]Fred, as I mentioned in the previous discussion, if you’re going to argue this, at least do some research as to the basics of science, the purpose of IPCC, scientific method. I’ll add to that that you should also take the time to learn what weather is and what climate is.
It is now 2012. Sea level predictions are mostly for 2100, some for 2050. Why do you keep harping on about sea level rises now? And keep talking about people who seem to think we need to be seeing massive rises today to prove something? You say “you can live with it” but you don’t know what a 0.5m rise will actually mean for the world, do you? You say action is not urgent, completely overlooking the fact that it’s action now that will mitigate future consequences.[/quote]
so, your final word is that there are no sealevel increases NOW and therefore rather than refute Morner/Gray, you now agree with their assessments?
And in the likely scenario the rises are 0.3 to 0.5 are they not? so why focus on the 0.5? more alarmism even at the low end of the alarmism? and have we not faced similar increases and adapted?
Finally, what action do you propose taking to solve this possible problem? how much will it cost and please cite studies to show us where past similar efforts have led to any appreciable benefit. Thanks.[/quote]
It’s pretty simple, if the ice in Antartica and Greenland starts melting then you will get a major rise in sea levels, even if the whole of the Artic ice melted there would be no rise in sea levels. But arctic ice melting is a bad sign in itself.
There are other consequences of CO2 increase that could also be severe such as acidification of the oceans.
Can you show us that this is happening? and like many on the global warming alarmist side, will you use 1975-1982 as a benchmark for making any assertions that we are seeing a major meltoff? I merely ask because this was a relatively cold period that for some unknown (haha) reason ends up being the point of comparison. So we take a 30% relatively colder period and then say things are 30% warmer now with 30% more ice melt now and that proves what exactly? That we are back at Point 0 for averages?
[quote=“bob”]Southern Europe got where it is by allowing the extremely rich to avoid paying taxes and by paying a lot of government employees too much for too little and borrowing the money to do that from the countries it had farmed it’s manufacturing out to. They are trying to solve it by imposing austerity measures which involved laying off large numbers of government employees. What they should have done was let them keep their jobs but with a big pay cut and made serious efforts to collect more taxes. BOTH sides contribute. Imagine that.
The US got into the situation it is in by allowing banks to grant bonuses to it’s loan managers based on the number of loans MADE!!! rather than on the number succesfully managed, so they went and made loans to a bunch of dumb ass fuckers who couldn’t pay them back. The banks didn’t have enough reserves in the bank to make those readily available, highly advertised (you would imagine criminal) bad loans so they borrowed the money with which to make them. When the banks couldn’t pay back the money they borrowed to make the bad loans things went fucko big time. Perhaps you recall. Cananda didn’t derugulate the banking system the way you did and that is why our system didn’t practically go tits up and need to go begging the government to bail them out (a bit ironic that last bit.)
I didn’t say the world was going to end (What does that even mean?) I said that there has recently been a lot more flooding than normal and that we are going to be seeing a continuation of that trend. This started while we have been arguing here. You should do some resaerch.
The situation in England is cool. Tax payers being being forced to “pay” to have their children taught not just one lie, but different ones, each according to the psychosis of their parents. Good old George Bush and Tony Blair. Is it any wonder George never tried this…
You should watch that. Git yerself sum education.[/quote]
Nice summary of England there! Anyway…I believe that intensity of rainfall and increase in super storms is the posited problem due to higher temperatures and therefore more energy in the weather systems. This may result in once a century type storms and flooding to become once a decade. So frequency of flooding may remain the same or even decrease, but they may overwhelm current flood prevention systems or cause areas that never flooded before to be damaged.
This is a big problem for low-lying coastal cities or densely populated river deltas.
As a side note , I saw a cool discovery program about tokyos underground flood water retetion system, took 14 years to build, they have used it 62 times already and have not suffered any major flooding in the last few years. The cost was something astronomical but it’s an example of paying ahead for good infrastructure that saves over the long run.
