Global Warming. Is the hype coming to an end?

[Fish]

I'm tellin ya these guys in south america spend all day just looking for and trying to catch food.  There is no room for bs in a hunter gatherer society. All effort is for feeding yourself and your family.  But they are free.

They are only free if that's what they choose to do. If they choose to lay around and get a tan but starve, that's freedom.

[oldtimer]

 

I'm tellin ya these guys in south america spend all day just looking for and trying to catch food.  There is no room for bs in a hunter gatherer society. All effort is for feeding yourself and your family.  But they are free.

They are only free if that's what they choose to do. If they choose to lay around and get a tan but starve, that's freedom.

 

Try it and see which you choose.

[oldtimer]

It is what they choose to do.  They could easily walk or canoe to the village or even farther the town and get some sort of job and live like the rest of us, in a relative way naturally. 

[Fish]

I'm tellin ya these guys in south america spend all day just looking for and trying to catch food.  There is no room for bs in a hunter gatherer society. All effort is for feeding yourself and your family.  But they are free.

They are only free if that's what they choose to do. If they choose to lay around and get a tan but starve, that's freedom.

Try it and see which you choose.

Well...I think I'm gonna pass on that one. I prefer freedom in the country where generations of my family worked and lived and died.

But I give.......semi freedom is OK I guess......

[Jim]

I've skipped several pages due to the attacking each other. What I will say is this.

 

Science- The earth has gone through many many ice ages-fact. Ice ages work in several ways as we all know. The earth cools down and ice grows,then recedes. How does that happen? From a science standpoint, the ice caps melt and the water goes into the ocean which then slows the world currents, which then cools the water off,which then keeps the ice longer in winter,which then gets the ice age going by having the sun reflect it's sunlight off the ice and snow which keeps winter longer.Then when the wobble changes, we warm up over several 1,000's of years Just a quick breakdown.

 

Another fact, the earth is slowing down with it's spin while the moon is moving away from the earth in it's orbit.They say in about 100,000 years the moon will no longer affect our tides. So that will also affect the gravity from the moon pulling on the earth, which will also effect the earth's wobble over time, which will also affect the seasons. So there will be global warming and cooling just from that.

 

Now from a human standpoint. Fact-we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while burning fossil fuels that don't need to be burned due to greedy pockets out there wanting every last drop of oil and coal monies before we do anything about it really for alternative fuels. Fact-Europe is already focused on sun and wind,Germany will be close to having 70% of their energy from the sun and wind in less than 20 years if I'm not mistaken. The US is lagging behind what other countries are doing due to the greedy politicians getting their pockets lined by big corporations.

 

Could we be heading into another ice age as scientists say? Possible, as they say the warming induces the ice age to come on. They also say we are in the "eye" of an ice age.Could we as humans be speeding up the global warming due to our using all these fuels without "filtering"? No one absolutely knows, but if you look at these so called "pimples" like NYC, LA, and other major cities throughout the world, you can't deny they have warmer and dirtier air quality than being in the country air or towns. And as someone stated earlier with the comment on a washing machine, it does spin and those weather patterns do affect the globe.Otherwise we wouldn't have high and low pressure systems. And a washer may not be warm as another stated to the touch,but touch the motor. Our jet stream and waterways are like our motor.

 

I personally think we are in the middle of an ice age as some scientists say, and I think we as humans may be helping it come a little quicker. I don't think we are the main cause as it's just that time, I just think we are acting as enablers for it to happen quicker,even if it's by a few hundred years from adding the extra carbon dioxide from burning these fossil fuels.

 

Just my opinion. I think whatever is happening will happen whether we want it to or not, at least it will happen until we as a greedy species can keep lining our pockets with money.Once we are forced to change,or when it becomes a crisis either way and we have our backs against the walls then we will change,but as we have shown time and time again, it will be to late. We are the only species that prides ourselves with destroying each other.If we are the cause in speeding up global warming we are to arrogant to admit it. If not, we are to arrogant to admit we may be wrong about the lack of scientific proof. Neither side can say what a good timetable to accurately measure the effects of fossil fuels are.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Jim

[Mallette]

True communism has never been tried.

 

When the word is used today it's immediately a pejorative.  Small wonder given the glory days of Mao, Stalin, and others.  However, I am speaking not of a political movement but one evolving from technology.  Use of that word may well have been a mistake as it's a red herring in context of 20th century history. 

 

The main issue is that it's abundantly clear that we are on a course technologically that will result in no need for capitalism as human labor is needed less and less to produce food, goods, and services.  Rather than local issues I tend to look at trends in the century or larger scale and that loses a lot of people who tend to look more at specifics and exceptions rather than the big picture.  So, I'll cater to that view with a single brick in the big picture.

 

Amazon's work in the field of advanced deliver options including drones and trucks with computer-chosen extras on board that have a high likelihood of being sold as impulse items, or forgotten items (think HDMI cable the computer knows you didn't order with that new TIV and Amazon has no record of you having ordered in the past).  Now, consider that autonomous ground vehicle are already accomplished fact.  It's pretty easy to see that somewhere in the Amazon think tank they are working on ways to completely eliminate the human factor in the fulfillment side.  There may be some standard delivery box, your 21rst century mailbox replacement, that is designed to securely receive Amazon deliveries from vehicles designed to interface with them.  Houses may eventually be designed with a component where these deliveries are accessible from inside the house.  I don't know...but something like I am describing WILL happen because there is profit to be made from streamlining the process and eliminating the human factor. 

 

Here is the "fly in the ointment:"  It's a self-destructive path for the capitalist model.  Every job eliminated decreases costs, and decreasing costs is necessary to improving competitive edge over the competition.  So, one would think ultimate profit would come from eliminating human labor altogether.  But it won't work that way.  It's been decades now since scientists and futurist envisioned general purpose machines designed to be sent to Mars or wherever that would begin by mining basic materials and making usable materials to create more machines...who would create more specialized machines and eventually create habitats and food sources for humans.  No profit in that, just desirable results. 

 

The mechanism is in place for these changes to take place on earth first.  Back to Amazon.  You may have heard that the massive fulfillment centers have been completely re-designed in ways that are useless to traditional warehouse personnel.  A TV set may sit on a shelf next to a stack of Halloween costumes.  The warehouses are being reconfigured for machines, not people.  They are stocked in order of greatest efficiency which is completely 180 degrees from the needs of humans performing the same task. 

 

The reason I use the term "communism" has nothing to do with the evils of the past.   Even the most ardent hater of that system sees value in the basic premise of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."   Problem is that this ideal simply can't be made to work in a profit driven world where human greed and desire is the driving force.  But when the "workers of the world" are all machines and they hold the means of production there is no profit motive. 

 

Probably the biggest issue that is often raised in discussions about this scenario has to do with machine intelligence finding humans irrelevant.  It's been explored ever since "Colossus, the Forbin Project" and before.  I don't have a clue how that will work out but there are great and respected minds, including Gates, Hawking, and others, who are seriously concerned.

 

Doesn't matter.  We are ALREADY Borg and resistance is futile.  We WILL be assimilated.  Whether it's a good thing, or a bad thing, isn't relevant. 

 

Dave

[Marvel]

Dave, you ought to take the time to read all of the Cordwainer Smith (Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger) stories. He was a brilliant man and touched on a lot of these very issues in his works.

 

Bruce

Edited February 11, 2015 by Marvel

[Mallette]

Hard to believe I read what I thought was every golden age writer in my teens and never ran across him.  Have to plug in one of the anthologies for sometime in the NTD future.  As with so many of the golden age visionaries, he appears to have gotten the "what" correct in many ways but grossly underestimated the speed of technological advance.  Or, it may be these guys figured nobody was ready to read stories of how things would REALLY be and toned it down both in terms of how long it would take and what the tech would look like.  The planetary scale of the computer in "Foundation" and the planet core fueled massive machines of the Krell in "Forbidden Planet" come to mind among others.

 

Point is, both those things as well as a lot more aren't "distant" future but imminent.  These guys could only fantasize and visualize...we can actually SEE these things coming to pass.  In my case, the planetary scale computer we live with and simply call the world wide web blows my mind on a daily basis, while most react with "meh."  It's already more powerful in many ways than those visionaries past concepts.  At the time, they were amazing to consider:  Public kiosks where you could obtain information on demand.  Not a ONE of the envisioned doing this with a pocket telephone! 

 

Technological change over the 20th century is breathtaking.  For me, traveling the arrow of time beginning in my grandmother's old house with wood stoves for heat and cooking and kerosene lamps to go to bed by to LED lighting, NEST thermostat, data storage in my house greater than the physical books and such in the Library of Congress and instantaneous access to the accumulated knowledge of humankind remains miraculous. 

 

And the pace is at least logarithmic.  One small, amazing data point.  I am a type 1 diabetic.  Not complaining...things could be worse.  Continuous blood glucose monitoring technology and an insulin pump that communicates with it are marvelous, though personal attention is still required pretty much 24/7 to maintain some semblance of control.  But on the way home yesterday I heard that MIT has a prototype modified SMART insulin in the works.  Injected every 5 days, it would do nothing except when the modification sensed rising blood sugar and would trigger glucose control.  And do so at curves almost precisely as in a non-diabetic.   Meh?  No, yet another technological step towards the elimination of disease and towards physical immortality.  Heinlein predicted in the 1950s that all born in 1950 or after would live for centuries.  He may have been a bit optimistic on the cut off year...but he was almost certainly generally correct.  My son may well live indefinitely given the incredible acceleration of science.

 

Dave

[Mallette]

It doesn't surprise me at all, Mark.  That's the fear I have for my son.  When I say "imminent" I don't really think the systemic collapse will come in my lifetime...but very shortly thereafter.  The establishment you reference is massive, ingrained, and all human activity is governed by it.  It will not gradually fade or morph but will collapse suddenly.  Yes, that's a prediction.  If you haven't read E.M Forster's "The Machine Stops" I highly recommend it. 

 

I am not sure than many of the ruling class will even understand what is happening when "the machine stops."  And when it does, there will be great disruption until a new order establishes itself.

 

Dave

[Jeff Matthews]

I am not sure than many of the ruling class will even understand what is happening when "the machine stops."  And when it does, there will be great disruption until a new order establishes itself.  

 

The Dark Ages, Part Deux 

[Mallette]

Interesting you should mention that, Jeff.  Back in college I wrote a short paper based on the end of classic civilization and the rise of technological civilization that followed.  Classical civilization was the age that produced pretty much all the philosophies and arts.  It peaked in the Roman Empire.  Problem is that you can't run a country the size of the United States on art and philosophy.  They developed great "workarounds," including large food factories, fire engines, and such but these were more like Bedrock gadgets than technology that you can use to govern millions of diverse peoples scattered over thousands of miles.  It collapsed of its own weight.

 

From it emerged our technological and industrial civilization where the arts are not central, more of a pass time.  Basically, unbalanced in the opposite direction.  What I suggested was that technology and science based civilization would also come to a point where it wasn't up to the job and would collapse in a new "dark ages" from which would emerge a truly civilized balance. 

 

Dave

[Travis In Austin]

Well I guess the hype should be over.  Now the "scientific" story is about whether consensus in the scientific community should even be the story.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-determine-the-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming/

 

A partial quote:

 

 

The point of contention is a peer-reviewed study published last year by Green, a chemistry professor at Michigan Technological University; John Cook, a research fellow at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia; and 10 other scientists who blog under the collective name of Skeptical Science. The scientists examined 4,014 abstracts on climate change and found 97.2 percent of the papers assumed humans play a role in global warming (ClimateWire, May 16, 2013).

That statement quickly got boiled down in the popular media to a much simpler message: that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is caused by humans. President Obama tweeted the 97 percent consensus. Comedian John Oliver did a segment on it that went viral on the Internet.

Predictably, climate change skeptics challenged the study. The Skeptical Science group fended off their attacks. Then fame beckoned. The paper has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, making it among the most popular scientific studies of 2013.

Lately, the Skeptical Science researchers have been battling a rear guard attack from within the climate science community itself. Some social scientists, political scientists, climate change communicators—and Tol—question whether informing people of a scientific consensus serves any purpose.

To them, climate change is no longer a debate over science. The latest surveys show that 89 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans already believe global warming is happening and is at least partly caused by human actions.

Rather, the climate debate is now ethical and political; it comes down to what Americans are willing to do today to address a problem that will largely affect their grandchildren. In this realm of moral choice, the 97 percent consensus can be polarizing, said Dan Kahan, a professor of psychology at Yale University.

The article from Scientific American brought out something I had not realized before, that people were saying it was the number of scientists, not the number of studies.  It is nice to see a guy from Yale get the pleasure of stating one of the few absolutes (not "the obvious", after all he is from Yale) about the debate, "it is "polarizing."

[Jeff Matthews]

Well I guess the hype should be over.  Now the "scientific" story is about whether consensus in the scientific community should even be the story.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-determine-the-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming/

 

A partial quote:

 

 

The point of contention is a peer-reviewed study published last year by Green, a chemistry professor at Michigan Technological University; John Cook, a research fellow at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia; and 10 other scientists who blog under the collective name of Skeptical Science. The scientists examined 4,014 abstracts on climate change and found 97.2 percent of the papers assumed humans play a role in global warming (ClimateWire, May 16, 2013).

That statement quickly got boiled down in the popular media to a much simpler message: that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is caused by humans. President Obama tweeted the 97 percent consensus. Comedian John Oliver did a segment on it that went viral on the Internet.

Predictably, climate change skeptics challenged the study. The Skeptical Science group fended off their attacks. Then fame beckoned. The paper has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, making it among the most popular scientific studies of 2013.

Lately, the Skeptical Science researchers have been battling a rear guard attack from within the climate science community itself. Some social scientists, political scientists, climate change communicators—and Tol—question whether informing people of a scientific consensus serves any purpose.

To them, climate change is no longer a debate over science. The latest surveys show that 89 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans already believe global warming is happening and is at least partly caused by human actions.

Rather, the climate debate is now ethical and political; it comes down to what Americans are willing to do today to address a problem that will largely affect their grandchildren. In this realm of moral choice, the 97 percent consensus can be polarizing, said Dan Kahan, a professor of psychology at Yale University.

The article from Scientific American brought out something I had not realized before, that people were saying it was the number of scientists, not the number of studies.  It is nice to see a guy from Yale get the pleasure of stating one of the few absolutes (not "the obvious", after all he is from Yale) about the debate, "it is "polarizing."

 

FWIW, I am not even buying into the claim it is warming.  Maybe; maybe not.  I do not believe they can measure temperatures with the precision it takes on a world-wide scale.  Calibration, environmental factors, human factors, etc. are elements that lead to "garbage in, garbage out."  Among other considerations.  

 

Yes, it's hot as heck here in Houston in the summers.  But it's been just about as hot as heck here ever since I can remember.  If it's bumped a degree, then, perhaps it has.  No reason for alarm.

[Marvel]

Hard to believe I read what I thought was every golden age writer in my teens and never ran across him. Have to plug in one of the anthologies for sometime in the NTD future.

Just checking out his info/bio on wikipedia will give a good background on him.

 

Bruce

[Mallette]

Did that, Bruce.  It's why I am so amazed I missed him somehow.  I'll bet I read one or more of his short stories as I had that anthology of the best science fiction that was referenced...but I guess I just never latched on to him given that most of his output was in short stories. 

 

Dave

[Mallette]

I think it's more likely that the masses won't know what happened after any collapse

 

It's safe to say the 1% were fully aware of the great depression.  OTHO, my mother and her family in the hills of Arkansas were clueless.  All they knew of the depression was that things suddenly got a lot cheaper. 

 

Dave

[Travis In Austin]

Of course, solar has advanced massively in the past decade and could also play a big role, as well as wind.  A hybrid plan converting all residential and institutional power users to solar and big industry to nuclear is not hard to imagine.    Fusion, the holy grail, has been 30 years in the future now for 60 years largely due to only a pittance being spent on research.  Money speeds things up.  Let's say we accelerate that funding by a factor of a 100 times...still probably less of a percentage of even just the US budget alone than Apollo...doesn't it seem like we might have working fusion designs in maybe 5 or 10 years?  The US went from basically zero to an atomic bomb in less than 4 years and nobody even knew it was happening.  THINK, fer cryin' out loud!   If you accept the science of human effect in global warming then the science of the above is irrefutable.  What is hard to accept is that functionally we are hearing air raid sirens an no credible defenses are being readied.    Here is my own take:  Until the powers that be come together and clearly enunciate a plan to prevent planetary catastrophe I will not accept it as fact that one is eminent.  They may be evil, they may be good, they may be somewhere in between but I do not think they are suicidal and this nation, and others, have a history of pulling together when faced with an emergency.  If the call goes out, I am ready to respond.    Dave

 

 

I agree 100% with that.

 

I used to surf right in front of a reactor growing up ("The Boobs").  It has been shut down now, not over safety issues per se,  but it was refitted with new steam generators that turned out to be defective.  Edison was going to try and get it back on line but I am sure the cost of overcoming the opposition and all the red tape it was cheeper to shut it down.  It is interesting that a part of that state that wants clean air, that has had some of the worst air, would rather have much increased CO2 and whatever else. 

 

Apparently 20% of our power in the U.S. is generated by nuclear plants.  There is only one left in California now (that sits on a fault), we have two in Texas.  I am hoping that TerraPower/Bill Gates can make some headway in Washington on it and get that number up.  Politics makes strange bedfellows, not only is he having to get environmentalists to under stand it is in their interest, he has to fight coal, oil and natural gas.  If is quite a story to see those guys lined up on the same side.  Texas has paved the way for the Dallas billionaire who has a nuclear storage in West Texas for low and mid-level waste to accept, at least on an interim basis, spent rods and other high level waste from all over the country.  They may be getting the 4,000 tons that are sitting at The Boobs.  How they are going to get it there is going to be a major fight, but the big problem was the waste.  It was going to be at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that got shut down.  The facility in West Texas has been expanding and requesting approval for higher levels from the state.

 

I keep seeing articles that they can burn coal absolutely clean, and are getting better and better at it, but I can never find out what it costs to do that.  It has to be astronomical, but they never seem to comment on that.

 

Ohio state is going to enlarge their experimental clean burning power plant to something that is commercially viable, http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20140623/FREE/140629930/babcock-wilcox-ohio-state-university-to-design-clean-coal-power

 

On fusion, I have been hearing that it is 30 years away all my life also.  But I thought we put several billion into a facility at Lawrence Livermore, and that they have (created, achieved, ??) fusion.  Granted, it was something like a fraction of a second and I guess the key in that area is how long you can keep it going.  They seem to be all hyped up about getting it to one minute.  But as I recall, this was a breakthrough because it was REAL fusion, meaning that output exceeded input which has not been the case with the type of fusion achieved at other locations.

 

I attached a photo of the San Onofre reactor for those who have not seen it and wonder how it got its name.

 

Travis

[Travis In Austin]

DOUBLE

Edited February 11, 2015 by dwilawyer

[Travis In Austin]

DOUBLE AGAIN

Edited February 11, 2015 by dwilawyer

[Mallette]

Test