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from the Meanwhile-Carnarvon-Airport-(Australia)-Reached-113.7°F-(45.4°C) dept.
Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S., Dispelling Doubts About Climate Change
A poll released Tuesday showed that more people are starting to believe climate change is credible, partly due to the frigid weather which has gripped the United States.
The poll released by Associated Press showed that 48 percent of respondents found the science of human-induced climate change more convincing when the poll was taken in November 2018 than they did five years ago, compared to 14 percent who thought it less convincing.
Eighty-three percent of those polled who believe in climate change want the federal government to take actions to mitigate it, and 80 percent want their state governments to act, the survey found.
More people than expected supported a carbon tax to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the survey.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768179.htm
Prolonged, Life-Threatening Cold to Grip Midwestern US This Week as Polar Vortex Plunges South
The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for frostbite to occur in minutes and hypothermia during the final days of January.
The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F [-43°C] in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day's record of 36 below zero F [-38°C] from 1966.
As harsh as Sunday morning was, the worst is yet to come as the polar vortex gets displaced from the Arctic Circle and dives into the Midwest in the wake of the disruptive snowstorm starting this week.
https://news.yahoo.com/prolonged-life-threatening-cold-grip-165320957.html
Climate Change Cooks up Ideal Conditions for Snow
Look at all that snow in the Alps; has global warming taken a break? Alas, no, it turns out that the recent record-breaking dumps of snow across much of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are more likely a consequence of global warming. Why? Balmy temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are cooking up the ideal conditions to create snow.
[...]
Global warming enhances the current snowfall … Anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic are loading winds from the north with moisture,” tweeted Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam last week.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by LVDOVICVS on Monday January 28 2019, @07:21AM (14 children)
I believe greenhouse gasses produced by humans are altering the climate. Since this change doesn't benefit humankind, doesn't it make sense to attempt to remedy the situation? Isn't it better to try than to do nothing?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday January 28 2019, @10:09AM (3 children)
Even aside from the climate change debate it would be wise for humanity to focus on the far future. Instead of behaving like greedy locusts and consume every resource we can get our hands on until its no longer available, it makes much more sense to prepare for any future mishaps that could threaten our existence. Our ancestors have survived because they happened to adapt or be adapted. It's time we stopped leaving survival to chance and do some real planning. As far as climate change is concerned, we should focus not only on reducing greenhouse gasses, but more on dealing with the consequences of the inevitable changes to come. In my own country all future wealth for the next couple of generations is already being claimed just for reducing CO2, which will have a negligible on the climate.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @12:52PM
But what about the next quarter results in the yearly ROI? Slash and fucking burn so we can get 2% more!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:29PM
Getting the majority of our resources from space. With all the raw materials available up there, if we were to deorbit some of them into designated areas with minimal heat shielding and some manuvering rockets, we could ensure they landed where we wanted. Save a ton of time, money, and ecological damage compared to terrestrial mining, and end up freeing up millions of workers from the hazarding terrestrial mining operations, leaving our focus only on the mines that by necessity can't be replaced with space mining, like uranium and certain other rare minerals, metals, and gasses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:20PM
This is something many more people could agree with. I am not sure why they have chosen to push this CO2 idea instead of more rational ones that could lead to the same behaviors. It makes one think perhaps they don't actually want people to plan ahead and reduce wasteful consumption of resources.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @10:14AM
See below. Plan your move into Canada, Northern Europe, Russia, etc. Make sure you have lots of guns and supplies.
The developing world will not agree to curb emissions. Even if every country did, we will still get the warming. It's time to expect the worst.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday January 28 2019, @12:16PM (5 children)
Investment into biodomes, archeologies, etc. Self contained
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @12:18PM
*arcologies
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:44PM (3 children)
Nerd fantasies. In a capitalist system, you need a business plan, investors, next quarter, IPO, and profit profit profit. Gotta suck the wealth out of the working class so that "environmentalist" pseudo-left posers like Algore can jet around from McMansion to McMansion and those ever important conferences to meet up with the other pseudo-left posers and have their caviar and expensive wine. Oh, and don't forget to hire some strippers! We can't come up with ineffective feel-good climate policy without those strippers!
In capitalism, all that matters is the bottom line, and caring for our planet and fellow human beings does not make for a good bottom line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:01PM (2 children)
Yet another person who doesnt know what capitalism is. What you describe is what happens when you put government in charge of research and politicians in charge of marketing, ie crony-corporatism/socialism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:46PM (1 child)
Oh look, another person who hasn't the first clue about capitalism. I think you do not know how close capitalism came to total collapse and how the social-democrats kept capitalism alive on life support for decades after that. Look at the numbers. 1968 is the year the neoliberals won over the social-democrats.
The only thing you know about capitalism you learned from Atlas Shrugged. Why not chance a journey out of your mom's basement now and then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:32PM
I've never read atlas shrugged. I just know the definition of capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:55PM
I don't think many people believe it has zero effect. It is more a matter of predicting what exactly this effect would be. It could be negligible relative to other influences, cause warming, or cause cooling.
I don't think anyone knows this with any sort of confidence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:37AM
The problem is that it does greatly benefit humankind. The climate change doesn't maybe (it is remarkable how tenuuos the justification for the hate on climate change), but the processes generating the greenhouse gases do. Moving on to other repliers.
inertnet wrote:
And? While it's a bit unusual to see any advocacy for adaptation, I think it's too late to focus on reducing greenhouse gases. We have too many people to put the fossil fuel genie back in the bottle.
An AC speaks of space mining.
None of which would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Nor is it that significant environmentally. Terrestrial mining can be quite destructive locally, but it's not a big factor in air quality, public sanitation, or the many polluting industries that receive those raw materials. A second AC wrote:
What's so valuable about consuming less resources? We could do that. Or we could put the effort of planning ahead into more valuable endeavors. A common example of how reducing wasteful consumption backfires is recycling. It's common to see people brag about the quality of recycling programs, noting that it only takes a few minutes to sort one's recycling. This ignores of course that the waste of human beings' time is more wasteful than the waste of virtually every resource that is being recycled! Your time is very scarce. Your paper, plastics, and cardboard are not so scarce.
I too often like to think of the far future, sometimes even the conceit to plan for it, but I don't think one plans for the future by wasteful actions that don't actually improve the future. Too often in environmentalism and climate change alarmism there is this great ignorance of what is valuable with the result of making the world a worse place in the name of the opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:00AM
I agree with actively reducing polutants is necessary, but what i don't agree with is this panic mode where everything seemingly bad needs to be banned yesterday. There are still real problems with e.g. electric vehicles. Scaling world wide, battery tech, battery and electricity polutions, price, etc. are real problems atm. Not to mention actual plotuion problems in industries in general, which are more of a problem than private transportation.