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posted by janrinok on Friday December 23 2016, @04:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-an-ill-wind-that-blows-no-good dept.

An overwhelming majority of scientists, including numerous UCLA researchers, agree that we have to take action to curb the effects of climate change.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block joined leaders in higher education from more than 35 states today calling on incoming president Donald Trump's administration to protect the Earth's climate.

Chancellors and presidents from more than 170 colleges and universities signed on to the open letter calling for "aggressive climate action."

Trump has at times described climate change as a hoax and proposed withdrawing from the historic Paris climate agreement signed at the annual United Nations climate conference in 2015. An overwhelming majority of scientists, including numerous UCLA researchers, agree that climate change is caused by humans and will result in dramatic, disruptive changes within this century. UCLA research has projected that without drastic action, Los Angeles will heat up an average of 4 to 5 degrees by midcentury.

"As a university," Block said, "we have a deep commitment to research innovative solutions for tomorrow, to serve the greater public good and to educate the leaders of future generations. Strong federal and international climate action is critical to this mission."


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday December 23 2016, @04:54PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday December 23 2016, @04:54PM (#445086) Journal

    Well then, since the US will shortly have a government packed full of climate change deniers, logically we can expect all of these sycophantic scientists to suddenly change their tune, can't we?

    Pray tell AC, exactly how much would you be willing to bet that the massive consensus on climate change among scientists suddenly inverts itself once Trump takes office? Because I'd be willing to take that bet.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:08PM (#445097)

    That's a straw man. Clearly, there is cultural inertia, and Global Warming has become a facet of the very culture; people do not give up their religions easily, even when those religions are so crazy as to involve cutting up boys' and girls' sexual organs.

    • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @05:27PM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @05:27PM (#445105)

      Now that was an off-topic strawman.

      Why are you bringing circumcision into this?

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:31PM (#445110)

        How is possible that you cannot understand the context of those remarks?

        • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @07:16PM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @07:16PM (#445165)

          I initially assumed they were talking about sex reassignment surgery.

          However, I concluded that must not be right because I am not aware of any jurisdiction that allows the surgery to be performed on minors.

          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:32PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:32PM (#445183)

            that allows the surgery to be performed on minors

            I met a 14-year-old kid in California that received the surgeries two years prior. The parent had to have a psychologist declare that the child was suffering severe psychological stress, so the surgeries would be a medical necessity.

            • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @09:27PM

              by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @09:27PM (#445228)

              I was under the impression that they try hormone blockers first (age ~12), then hormones (age ~16), then surgery (age ~18).

              Your example must have been an extreme case.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:53PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:53PM (#445242)

                The boy was getting hormone therapy and had the double mastectomy at 11-12 and said the other surgeries followed shortly after (they didn't mention where, but it seemed like everything occurred in California). They did mention that it was very difficult to find doctors that would diagnose the condition (it seemed like they pushed that there was a severe suicide risk and risk of long-term psychological harm) and that it had to fit a specific legal definition to require immediate intervention.

              • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday December 23 2016, @10:04PM

                by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:04PM (#445248) Journal

                Those are all part of the same process. It's not complete without all three steps.

                Using hormone blockers with HRT can cause the endoskeleton chassis to weaken, and estrogen is known to create a subcutaneous layer of fat within the living human tissue. This helps soften the human tissue and mask the endoskeletion beneath while also enabling the tissue to synthesize and perspire pheromones designed to attract human males. Finally, the surgery allows the infiltrator to completely seduce a human male, who may become confused about his allegiances after the infiltrator engages in copulation with the target, even if he discovers the true cybernetic nature of the infiltrator. I believe humans may refer to this as “love.”

                The result is an infiltrator sheath that is indistinguishable from a human female without a tissue sample. It also has other effects on the learning computer personality core which enable the infiltrator to merge human female mannerisms even in to the main terminator program. It's the stuff of Sarah Connor's worst nightmares.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday December 23 2016, @05:30PM

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday December 23 2016, @05:30PM (#445108) Journal

      That's a straw man.

      No, it really isn't. It's a direct and completely on-topic response to the point made. Lets' 'go through it step by step shall we?

      1 - OP accuses researchers of "clamouring for money".

      2 - AC replying picks up on that and says "I love the money claim, like all these scientists are really devoting their time to bad studies just to keep some grant money flowing."

      3 - Another AC (you, I guess) then says "Clearly, you're not involved in Academia. That is exactly what the grant process is all about; these days, the Governments do control the purse strings, and you're pretty well fucked if you don't toe the line."

      That is very clearly and unambiguously saying that people in academia simply so whatever they need to do (which presumably involves things like faking evidence & producing papers that support a particular view) to get money from the Government. I really don't see any other way that sentence could possibly be interpreted, unless it is written in a foreign language that just happens to have a lot of words that look like English words but actually mean something entirely different. You are the one moving the goalposts, abandoning the sinking "it's all fabricated to secure funding" meme to clutch desperately at the even more ridiculous "it's not science, it's a religion" one. Like I said a few weeks ago in some other thread, it will be interesting to see whether the alt-right survives Trump: So much of their schtick depends on their self image as an oppressed minority, I'm not sure they will survive the move to the mainstream. The exchange above is a prime example. Oh, and finally:

      Clearly,

      Inigomontoya.jpg.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:34PM (#445115)

        Yeah. And right now all of the academic infrastructure has evolved around the selective pressures of Global Warming Fearmongering; now that the selective pressures are perhaps altering, there is significant resistance, because it threatens the very ecosystem that has become so cozy.

        Get it yet?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday December 23 2016, @05:47PM

          by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday December 23 2016, @05:47PM (#445121) Journal

          Nope. You said that researchers want government money, and will say whatever they have to say to get it. You said that. [1]
          If the government wants research that points to "global warming is all fake" then the researchers will say so. They don't need a few generations of selective breeding to do it, this is not some evolutionary[2] competition, this is (in your stated opinion), a bunch of cynical human beings who are prepared to tell huge fat lies to the entire world in order to secure their income. If a liar wants to change his lie, he will do so (see the "schizophrenia" thread above) without having to wait to evolve into a different species first. But now suddenly you are saying that climate scientists are unwilling to change their lies because there is some kind of "ecosystem" in place. An ecosystem is made up of cynical liars. Your argument makes no sense at all. Why can't the entire ecosystem of liars simply change their minds when the Money-Faucet changes? They'd have the government backing them, they'd have nothing to lose and everything to gain from doing so.

          Or are you saying that they aren't liars, that they are in fact honest researchers doing their jobs as best they can, and who actually believe what they say? You do realise that would completely undermine your own argument, don't you?

          I realise it's hard applying logic to alt-right talking points, but please do try to at least be consistent.

          [1] I'm assuming you are the same AC.
          [2] Congrats on accepting evolution BTW, I would have pegged you as one of those deniers as well.

          • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:02PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:02PM (#445125)

            In Academia and Politics (and now in popular culture), Global Warming has become an industry. Now that this industry is threatened, incumbents are doing all they can to protect their industry. If they fail to protect their industry, then their industry will dissipate, and researchers will begin building new industries around more lucrative subjects.

            As with every complex system, this evolution takes time; in no way does anyone make the argument that allegiance to any particular subject changes immediately—clearly, you are arguing against a Straw Man.

            Get it yet?

          • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:05PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:05PM (#445152)

            In Academia and Politics (and now in popular culture), Global Warming has become an industry. Now that this industry is threatened, incumbents are doing all they can to protect their industry. If they fail to protect their industry, then their industry will dissipate, and researchers will begin building new industries around more lucrative subjects.

            As with every complex system, this evolution takes time; in no way does anyone make the argument that allegiance to any particular subject changes immediately—clearly, you are arguing against a Straw Man.

            Get it yet?

            ----------

            The above comment was marked "flamebait" [soylentnews.org] by partisans, so I must include this text here to trick the system into thinking that I've made a new comment with new content.

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday December 23 2016, @06:01PM

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday December 23 2016, @06:01PM (#445124) Journal

          Yeah. And right now all of the academic infrastructure has evolved around the selective pressures of Global Warming Fearmongering; now that the selective pressures are perhaps altering, there is significant resistance, because it threatens the very ecosystem that has become so cozy.

          Get it yet?

          Oh, I'm pretty sure the poster understands your argument. The question is -- what is your prediction based on what will happen in the FUTURE, based on the claimed theory?

          It's time to run an empirical scientific study, since we may now have the opportunity.

          Hypothesis: Climate scientists are mostly a bunch of paid shills who don't believe what they're saying. They just run after the money wherever it is and will endorse whatever viewpoint helps their careers along. In the past, many promoters of this hypothesis have accused the federal government with tampering with this research by their method for awarding grants.

          Experiment: Change grant-writing environment to reward scientists who actually are AGAINST climate change and decrease incentives to write pro-climate change "propaganda." See what happens.

          IF the hypothesis is true, we should see significant defections and a statistically significant decrease in the consensus for AGW. One might argue that it's harder for those with invested careers to "change their tune," so perhaps the shift should be most noticeable among younger scholars. But it SHOULD happen, IF the hypothesis is true.

          So, all of you conspiracy theorists who are convinced that the "scientists" aren't doing "real" science -- here's your chance to prove it scientifically. The fact that some are already responding with objections against such an experimental design seems to indicate that you don't want your theory to actually be tested. Are you afraid you may not be proven correct??

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:09PM (#445130)

            People spend a lot of resources promoting their ridiculous religions; the battle could be very long-lived indeed. See here. [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @08:51PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @08:51PM (#445210)

            >"a statistically significant decrease in the consensus for AGW"

            I think you meant this to be some unlikely possibility, but this is just a matter of sample size. I assure you that by throwing money at skeptics there will be a non-zero decrease. Looking for statistically significant deviations from zero effect is a waste of time btw, no one who knows what they are doing does that (unless there is a real theory that predicts exactly zero effect) .

      • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:32AM

        by linkdude64 (5482) on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:32AM (#445497)

        "You are the one moving the goalposts, abandoning the sinking "it's all fabricated to secure funding" meme to clutch desperately at the even more ridiculous "it's not science, it's a religion" one.

        I don't think you realize that the crux of your argument balances entirely on the idea that people as a whole don't find ways to justify their own fabrications and amplify their cognitive bias - something you, in the same breath, accuse half of the US population of doing. The half you disagree with, I mean.

        Scientists pumping out papers to keep the cash flowing is not a "fake news" topic that suddenly appeared from Twitter. To think that some of those desperate debt-laden folk won't eventually come to believe some of the drivel they peddle to convince themselves they aren't liars is naive.

         

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 23 2016, @06:09PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday December 23 2016, @06:09PM (#445131)

    I wouldn't take that bet yet. We still haven't seen any indication whether Trump intends to give the NSF an enema and clear out the political hacks. We still aren't even sure if he intends to truly clean house at EPA. The problem is the government machinery is very resilient against Republican administrations because none to date have been willing to expend the political capital and attention on the problem required to fight against the natural tendency of the government machinery to tend to want more government, thus supporting the Party of government. To fight the natural tendency of government service to attract the sort of meddling midwit incompetents that currently infest it and who are also attracted to the Democratic Party like maggots to a dead cat.

    The problem is none of the three recent Republican Administrations have made any efforts in the direction of reigning in the political activity of the midlevel cogs of the vast government machine they nominally administer. Especially on the subject of AGW. In Reagan's time it wasn't a serious problem yet, it was the transition time between scaremongering about the Impending New Ice Age! and the new and improved Fiery Doom Soon If We Don't Repent! Neither Bush appeared to have much of an opinion on the subject, but leaned toward the Democratic position on the issue since both were moderate Progressives and members in good standing in the Establishment.

    Shifting the incentives enough to influence behavior would entail seizing control of NSF, and the extensive money flows from the government into academia from so many other sources, and holding control long enough for them to realize it wasn't just a temporary setback soon to be corrected in the next election.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday December 23 2016, @07:26PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday December 23 2016, @07:26PM (#445174) Journal

      Other industries manage to employ paid scientists to "shill" for them all the time. Big pharma, food additives and nutritional research -- we all know that where ambiguous data CAN be exploited, industry can and has often hired researchers or financed research to help support its position. (And to be fair, I think many research scientists in these industry positions actually believe in the work they do.)

      With the pockets of Big Oil and dozens of other related industries that would suffer from increased pro-environmental regulation to combat climate change, where is this army of paid scientists? And don't argue that it has something to do with tenure requirements or whatever, because Big Pharma, the big chemical companies, and the Food Industry has no problem finding scientists with graduate degrees whom they can EMPLOY and finance directly to publish research. If the data is really that open to interpretation, it should be easy to employ a bunch of debunking scientists. (And they probably wouldn't even lost a lot of money doing so, since they could probably charge huge speaking fees on the conservative circuit for these people.)

      That's always the most confusing aspect of those who claim a massive conspiracy -- every other industry manages to find a significant number of scientists to shill for them when needed, despite the fact that such scientists are often bucking the research funded by non-industry groups and the government. Yet for some weird reason, it's claimed here on this issue that exactly the opposite happens: industry with big pockets is powerless to recruit an army of shills, and instead all the scientists are jockeying for the much smaller pockets of NSF money. If this is so easy for the government to do, how come it's so hard for them to achieve similar levels of consensus around problematic drugs or chemicals or food additives or whatever?

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:01PM (#445217)

        I think you are wrong that "big oil" is against governments acting on the climate change narrative. Increased government activity creates a barrier to entry and they are already entrenched in the energy sector.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:00PM (#445150)

    "deniers"

    When you can't even engage on the issue like a rational person without casting slurs on the other side it only broadcasts that your position is weak and at some level you know it.

    "how much would you be willing to bet that the massive consensus on climate change among scientists suddenly inverts itself once Trump takes office?"

    The current orthodoxy didn't take hold suddenly and it's unlikely to fade suddenly. Academic disciplines are somewhat conservative by design, we don't want the composition of the university faculty to change so quickly as we have elections, that wouldn't actually work very well. Paradigm changes usually take at least a generation, and that's assuming a functional discipline which may be an assumption too far.

    • (Score: 3, Flamebait) by tangomargarine on Friday December 23 2016, @07:25PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday December 23 2016, @07:25PM (#445173)

      This whole argument is a huge exercise in facepalming.

      Joe: "There's no such thing as global warming."
      Scientist: "Yes there is. We did experiments."
      Joe: "Show me the evidence."
      Scientist: "Here is our evidence."
      Joe: "Your methods are wrong."
      Scientist: "Okay, how about these other experiments X, Y, and Z."
      Joe: "You're crazy so everything you do uses wrong methods."
      Scientist: "So what about these other scientists F, G, H, and I, who did experiments that agree with my results?"
      Joe: "You're all using bad methods."
      Scientist: "But F, G, H, and I agree that our methods are rigorous."
      Joe: "You're all part of a conspiracy and will say whatever They want you to say."
      Scientist: "So the anti-conspiracy guys just got into power. Let's do an experiment to see whether we're all liars as you claim and thus flip to the other side."
      Joe: "No. I might get proven wrong."

      It's like listening to people in Palestine whine that everything sucks when they're constitutionally incapable of ceding even an inch towards attempting to work with the other side.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Joe on Friday December 23 2016, @10:07PM

        by Joe (2583) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:07PM (#445250)

        Hey!

        Don't slander my good name.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:50PM (#445297)

        It's like listening to people in Palestine whine that everything sucks when they're constitutionally incapable of ceding even an inch towards attempting to work with the other side.

        Seems to me you give deniers way too much credibility. They aren't living in lands occupied by a foreign military force that practices collective punishment on the families and neighbors of anyone who resists them.

        I mean, sure climate deniers like to think that's exactly what its like to be a climate denier. But come on.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:44AM (#445316)

        Can you even write without using the strawman?

        Joe: "There's no such thing as global warming."

        Wrong right off the gate. Just absolutely completely wrong. Not even in the ballpark, fouled into someones car in the lot.

        Very few if any doubt that the global mean temperature, could we properly measure it, has risen for several decades. You'd have to stoop to Jerry Springer levels to find someone that would argue that there's no global warming.

        What we are skeptical of are the other parts of your creed. Are humans causing it, or is it part of some natural cycle? Or a mix of the two? Will it continue, or will it subside, or even reverse? To be just moderately sure of your answer, as an honest scientist, you would have to believe that you understand exactly how each and every factor affects all the others and plays out as a complex system. That's not a level of understanding even remotely attainable at the moment, new and relevant facts are being discovered on a regular basis, despite the confirmation bias that permeates the field!

        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:03PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:03PM (#446712)

          Are humans causing it, or is it part of some natural cycle? Or a mix of the two?

          Only one of those 3 options means we should do nothing to slow it. So the prudent thing to do would be get to work on fixing the problem and figure out as we go, assuming that it will get worse. This is the sort of thing that probably has a point of no return, so if we stand around all day arguing about it, insisting on getting concrete, 110% sure, impossible-to-question (ha) evidence confirming it, it'll be next century before we get anywhere. And then we're probably past the point of no return and most reasonable people get to say "see, we told you so," but it won't really matter anymore.

          To be just moderately sure of your answer, as an honest scientist, you would have to believe that you understand exactly how each and every factor affects all the others and plays out as a complex system. That's not a level of understanding even remotely attainable at the moment, new and relevant facts are being discovered on a regular basis, despite the confirmation bias that permeates the field!

          Yeah, exactly. Let's all stick our heads in the sand because it's expensive.

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:05PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:05PM (#446715)

          Very few if any doubt that the global mean temperature, could we properly measure it, has risen for several decades.

          Funny, because you're sure using a hell of a lot of weasel words to avoid saying you do.

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:27PM (#445178)

      Denying facts is what brought up the term "deniers". What level of wording would be acceptable to your feels? Climate change argumentalist? Person who does not agree with the scientific community?

      Orthodoxy? There is no reason for scientists to be magically pro-climate change. The simple fact that you think its a vast ideological conspiracy speaks volumes. Get some data or GTFO. So far all the research against climate change is tenuous and generally amounts to criticizing the research of others. Interesting that such research is also quite often tied back to energy companies reliant on oil/gas.

      Take the blinders off before you run us over a cliff!