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https://m.phys.org/news/2017-11-scientists-countries-negative-global-environmental.html
Human well-being will be severely jeopardized by negative trends in some types of environmental harm, such as a changing climate, deforestation, loss of access to fresh water, species extinctions and human population growth, scientists warn in today's issue of BioScience, an international journal.
The viewpoint article—"World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice"—was signed by more than 15,000 scientists in 184 countries.
The warning came with steps that can be taken to reverse negative trends, but the authors suggested that it may take a groundswell of public pressure to convince political leaders to take the right corrective actions. Such activities could include establishing more terrestrial and marine reserves, strengthening enforcement of anti-poaching laws and restraints on wildlife trade, expanding family planning and educational programs for women, promoting a dietary shift toward plant-based foods and massively adopting renewable energy and other "green" technologies.
Global trends have worsened since 1992, the authors wrote, when more than 1,700 scientists—including a majority of the living Nobel laureates at the time—signed a "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" published by the Union of Concerned Scientists. In the last 25 years, trends in nine environmental issues suggest that humanity is continuing to risk its future. However, the article also reports that progress has been made in addressing some trends during this time.
The article was written by an international team led by William Ripple, distinguished professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. The authors used data maintained by government agencies, nonprofit organizations and individual researchers to warn of "substantial and irreversible harm" to the Earth.
"Some people might be tempted to dismiss this evidence and think we are just being alarmist," said Ripple. "Scientists are in the business of analyzing data and looking at the long-term consequences. Those who signed this second warning aren't just raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we are heading down an unsustainable path. We are hoping that our paper will ignite a wide-spread public debate about the global environment and climate."
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 22 2017, @01:00AM (5 children)
The obvious rebuttal is that we can run the clock and merely wait for a while. Then the nonexistent future becomes a well defined past that we can observe yet not a well defined past that a climate model can anticipate a priori without having the desired explicative power.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 22 2017, @06:22AM (4 children)
I love it when you talk dirty, khallow, but could you explain exactly what you were trying to say in this sentence? You know well that predictive power and explicative power are quite separate and potentially at odds. And I do not think you know what "a priori" actually means. Still got that dictionary you keep bragging about?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 22 2017, @03:59PM (3 children)
Ok, predictive power then.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:20AM (2 children)
And of course you know, further, my dear scientific khallow, that while correlation does grant probability and predictive power (though, really, no one knows why other than the statistical correlation) it does not give any explicatory, or expanatory force. So what are you saying, khallow? Fool me once, and that is chance, but fool me twice, and that is science in action. I think it is best to turn around, and ask, who is being the fool here? The Data, or the Climate Denier?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:49AM (1 child)
Except when it does. No point to this, aristarchus.
I don't agree that you are thinking. "The Data" and "the Climate Denier" are ill-defined (and by the usual meaning, "data" can't have a property associated with sentience, foolishness, further indicating the ill-defined and ill-thought nature of these questions). At this point, neither are worth asking metaphorical questions over. One should show first that climate change is such a problem that it needs to be dealt with now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @03:19PM
watch it dude - he talks sweet to all his little boys as he prepares to penetrate them