From The Guardian :
The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it "very unlikely" that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa's top climate scientist.
[...] But Nasa said that records of temperature that go back far further, taken via analysis of ice cores and sediments, suggest that the warming of recent decades is out of step with any period over the past millennium.
[...] [Director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies Gavin] Schmidt repeated his previous prediction that there is a 99% chance that 2016 will be the warmest year on record, with around 20% of the heat attributed to a strong El Niño climatic event. Last year is currently the warmest year on record, itself beating a landmark set in 2014.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @07:58PM
Queue morons that will claim human-caused climate change is not real in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
After all, these people who tell us climate change is NOT real are experts, right? They know more than scientists who actually study this thing for real, no? Oh wait, no, they don't because they always preface their idiotic spewings with "well... I'm not a scientist but ..." or "we need more research but I won't fund it because the people who pay/bribe me care more about the content of their wallet than anything else"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @08:42PM
Well you sure showed everyone how smart you are. Remember to always start with insults! That will sure prove all you arguments!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @01:52AM
That communication strategy secured this year's GOP nomination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @11:41AM
That is true, that is true. All i can do i wonder.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @08:55AM
Well you sure showed everyone how smart you are.
Remember to always start with insults!
That will sure prove all you arguments!
Were you born yesterday?
After decades of arguing about this nobody is changing their minds no matter how eloquent and logical because you can not reason a man out of a belief they never reasoned themselves into.
So why not insult the useful idiots who are supporting the rapid destruction of our only habitat because conspiracy tops science? At least OP got something out of that instead of uselessly banging their head against a wall like you want them to.
(Score: 3, Touché) by dyingtolive on Friday September 02 2016, @09:01PM
I believe that it is highly possible that human activity is significantly heating this space rock, so I think I am 'on your side'. I mean, I don't KNOW FOR SURE, cause "I'm not a scientist", so I only read what they write and think to myself, "huh, this looks convincing. It sounds bad too. I wonder what we can do about it?". It's interesting though, because I find that no matter how much I think I understand something, even something I've directly observed, it generally turns out far much more complicated than I first thought as my comprehension of it improves.
In fact, the only times I've ever seen this NOT be the case is in faith based extremists. Generally those types do things like, oh I don't know, rather than attempt to explain their side with facts and reason and a logical argument, they just mount an immediate attack, throwing out insults like "idiot" and making vague accusations of conspiracy. It's preemptive, even against some fictitious argument that doesn't even exist in the context of the situation. You see that kind of stuff on tumblr a lot too, interestingly enough. Honestly I think it's a sign of mental illness, but I'm no psychologist either. I'll check it out in the DSM though.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @10:55PM
> In fact, the only times I've ever seen this NOT be the case is in faith based extremists
In fact, all of us rely on faith because none of us can be experts in even just 1% of the things we encounter in life.
The question that matters is: "Who do you put your faith in?"
I choose to put my faith in the people who are scientific experts in the field. Not religionists. And definitely not those with a multi-billion dollar interest in convincing me otherwise. I accept that the people I do put my faith in are imperfect humans and for the most part they acknowledge their imperfection every time they speak on the subject. I accept that there are uncertainties about the exact geography of their knowledge. But I have yet to see any hard evidence even remotely sufficient to convince me that I should doubt that faith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Friday September 02 2016, @10:57PM
If you can find sources from a century ago [gutenberg.org], when they were just discovering spectroscopy (especially Infrared spectroscopy), then that's a lot easier to read because there's not a 100 year ballast about rovibrational modes and symmetric Raman [wikipedia.org] stretches to wrestle through.
I have actually only done an IR spectrum once in my life (for chemistry practicum) but I remember from looking up the example spectra that almost anything with a C = O bond (except for CO2 itself, because O=C=O is symmetric, so you can only see it with Raman spectroscopy, don't remember why) had an enormously strong, enormously broad signal signifying that aldehyde or ketone fragment's vibrations. So any molecule with a C=O bond is hard to miss in infrared light, because it absorbs so strongly at one particular quite broad wavelength band.
And I've actually read bits of a book by Svante Arrhenius from 1906 where he explains about the greenhouse effect.
That's 1906, not 2006.
So this gives me enough "ammunition" to act all smug and all-knowing, that at least those few AGW skeptics that are unsure of whether the greenhouse effect exists (why do they think people invented actual greenhouses??) are either talking out of their arse, or that they're already convinced by false arguments, and don't like to be convinced by better arguments.
I've also read the AR5 (maybe AR4) executive summary report, and there the arguments for CO2 as a so-called "forcing" (important word!) of our planet's temperature are explained very clearly and concisely.
It is a blanket.
Consider an asylum seeker drowining in the Mediterranean. The Italian or Greek coast guard [wikipedia.org] fishes him up. To save his life, they wrap him in a flimsy thin metal foil blanket.
Why do they do that? Does that really work? You know that they wouldn't do it, if that procedure didn't work against hypothermia.
If only the AGW deniers could just be convinced to sleep under 3 thin 'fugee emergency blankets, + 1 wool one on top, to keep out the Evil Liberal Mind Control Rays ...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday September 02 2016, @11:15PM
We'd have a lot less of a problem with global warming if the coast guard didn't rescue those refugees and let them drown. And, similarly, if foreign countries stopped sending food and medical aid to Africa.
The same people bitching about global warming are the same people who are exacerbating it by encouraging reckless breeders to breed recklessly even moreso.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:19AM
oooo, except for the inconvenient factoid that it is US spoilt 4% of the population who are using about 40-50% of the resources, soooooo, the 'logical' conclusion is to save more low-energy refugees, and for more high-energy amerikans to die off...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:59AM
Shut up, Jew.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:19AM
Uuuuuuhhhhhhh!
You made me cum so hard, Ethan.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:54AM
um, atheist here, not even former jew...
sorry to disappoint...
although, i must admit, i do hates me some zionists...
...so, does that make me a self-hating, gentile, honorary jew ? ? ?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @11:27AM
I believe that it is highly possible that human activity is significantly heating this space rock
Exactly. But what if it is no 'space rock'?
There is no 'global' warming, because the Earth is a REALM, not a 'globe'- the Truth is stranger than fiction!
Do your OWN research!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @08:10PM
The Chinese are trying to hurt American businesses so they made up this climate change crap. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385 [twitter.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday September 02 2016, @08:46PM
The Chinese are accelerating the change courtesy of their coal plants, just so that everyone feels compelled to buy the solar panels that they're the leading manufacturer of.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snow on Friday September 02 2016, @08:58PM
It's easy to blame the Chinese, but they are actually doing more to help than most other countries. They actually fund and build nuclear power plants. They are investing in energy research.
Mark my words, in 20 years, we will be buying our power plants from the Chinese, where 20 years ago, they bought their power plants from us.
Meanwhile the West has been pouring money into how we can get poor quality oil out of the ground (oil sands + hydro fracking).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @10:58PM
You're ahead of yourself! We're (the USA) slowly building solar (PV) systems and even if the solar panels are assembled here, guess where the silicon wafers (and the rest of the hardware) are made?
My hope is that at least 50% of electricity comes from solar in the near future. We could do it if we would put our efforts and priority on it. Let's look at the total $ spent on entertainment, fashion, etc. Could we please put just 10% into solar? I'm sure someone here has numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by number6x on Friday September 02 2016, @08:57PM
No, you're getting your conspiracies in a bunch.
The chemtrail chemicals, the ones the government lizard men are using passenger jets to spray all around the atmosphere, are causing global warming. It is a side effect that the mind control chemicals heat up the environment, but it will make the Earth more comfortable for the cold-blodded lizard people. Its a win-win for the reptilian overlords and they don't care about us mere humans.
The 'Chinese are doing it' story line is the psy-ops cover story so all the regular people will never discover the truth about the chemtrails.
You've got to keep your conspiracies straight AC!
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday September 02 2016, @09:10PM
I know you are poking fun, but I believe that chem-trails might actually be what ends up saving (or at least delaying) this planet. It has been speculated that contrails (not the mind controlling ones, but the normal ones) are causing a non-insignificant amount of cooling that could be counteracting some of the warming that we have been seeing from CO2.
I don't see our CO2 usage stopping in the very near future, so we will need to come up with some other way. Humans are tinkerers, and before long we will see major weather modification happening. Maybe we will have huge sun-shades installed between earth and the sun. Maybe ships that spray sea water in the air to encourage cloud growth. I don't know, but I think it's far more likely that humans will take the climate into their own hands than actually do something about it before it's too late.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Friday September 02 2016, @10:10PM
Unfortunately for the theory (and the AGW proponents who latched onto it) Texas A&M took another look at the data and validated the temperature variations, but also found that the ranges observed by UWisc. were within the bounds of potential normal DTR variations for September. That finding was also supported by a team at Leeds University & the Met Office in the UK that showed you'd need an increase of approx. 200 times the number of flights over the US to actually have a measurable effect on the DTR.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday September 02 2016, @08:15PM
fuck. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
(Score: 4, Funny) by JNCF on Friday September 02 2016, @09:04PM
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Dammit Gravis, stop flipping over the solar panels in your fits of rage. This is why we can't have nice energy sources.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @08:40PM
I wanted to note the article says we have climate data going back 800,000 years but only the last 1000 has a high degree of certainty; the temperatures are easily the highest on that record. It's a shame we don't have 100,000 years of good data but I guess you take what you can get.
The earth for reference is probably roughly 4,500,000,000 years old. It was quite different for most of that though, I just thought it was interesting to mention.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 02 2016, @08:46PM
The Sun was apparently as much as 30% dimmer earlier in Earth's history, and will become a red giant in the long run, destroying the Earth and making places like Titan [wikipedia.org] potentially habitable.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:50AM
Hence why we should keep off Titan, else we destroy a world's life development in many millions of years (billions?). Mine a place for resources and the galactic future of that world might shift. Course, that's all scifi right?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by takyon on Saturday September 03 2016, @01:34AM
Well, our understanding of life in the universe is going to increase dramatically in the next hundred years or so, before many significant off-world bases/colonies are established. We have a number of next-gen telescopes [nextbigfuture.com] going up in the next 2 decades that may be able to spot life on exoplanets or at least find liquid water. We also have missions such as JUICE [wikipedia.org] and future lander concepts that can check for microbes in icy subsurface oceans.
We also have this finding [soylentnews.org].
What's the point? We will be in a better position to fill in the Drake equation and predict where and when life can be found. With the Titan example, maybe it will have an atmosphere that is human breathable in a couple billion years, but the low gravity (0.14g) and other conditions aren't going to make it hard for something on the level of primates to develop from microbes from scratch. The fossil article I linked points to microbes easily forming, but complex life taking extra billions of years. And if we find microbes in icy subsurface oceans in our own solar system, we'll truly find that microbial life is the low-hanging fruit of the universe (there's also a panspermia argument, and asteroid impacts on Earth could have delivered microbes elsewhere in the solar system, but whatever).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @10:59PM
> The earth for reference is probably roughly 4,500,000,000 years old. It was quite different for most of that though, I just thought it was interesting to mention.
What really matters is how much of that time the Earth been habitable for humans. Because even if humans are not causing these changes, if they continue at this rate we are going to face our own extinction within about a century.
Who the fuck cares if the earth continues on without us?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JNCF on Friday September 02 2016, @11:15PM
Who the fuck cares if the earth continues on without us?
Lots of people, myself included! It's squishy and irrational, but so is caring about literally anything. If the options are between dead rock or a living planet, I'll take what I can get.
Bacteria? Better than nothing.
Insects? Better than bacteria.
Octopuses? Well shit, their descendants might be able to colonize Mars some day. Now we're talking!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:29AM
This. Complete nihilists that haven't committed suicide are deceiving themselves.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:02AM
well takyon me old fruit, i fear thee is under a misapprehension.
as a nihilist allow me to elucidate, nihilism only says their is no objective meaning, there is no $DEITY in the sky, no arbiter, nothing, but we are free to create our own meaning, indeed the only meaning is that which we create.
as such a nihilst would have no problem with "caring about literally anything".
your in truth,
ac
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:11AM
I'm free to create my own meaning for the term "complete nihilist" :^)
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(Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday September 03 2016, @03:19AM
I'm free to create my own meaning for the term "complete nihilist" :^)
And yet, creating your own meaning for a term without explaining it isn't very helpful for communication (not that you should care about communication, just that I do, sometimes). I don't entirely agree with AC's take on nihilism (I think AC is conflating nihilism with atheism and relativism), but it seems like you're using "nihilism" in a way that oddly encompasses caring. I think a human can care about something without attaching meaning to that thing -- caring is just a mental process, it is the state of being interested in something. Interest is not meaning.
I also don't think a meaningless universe logically leads to the conclusion of suicide any more than it logically leads to any other action; it just doesn't lead anywhere. Not leading anywhere is not the same as leading to a quick acceptance of death.
What do you mean when you say "complete nihilist?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:23AM
If the options are between dead rock or a living planet,
What a load of fucking bullshit.
Seriously. Your response to "we should to try preserve the Earth as it is so the human race can survive" is "eh, as long as it doesn't turn into a dead rock, I'm good."
WTF is wrong with you that you do not give a damn about billions of lives?
A little perspective indeed.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday September 03 2016, @03:37AM
Read the sentence I quoted again. I'm not saying that I don't care about human life, I'm saying that I do care about other life. We're quite a bit closer to Mars colonization than the octopuses are, and I'd rather we not go extinct yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @08:47AM
I wrote the sentence.
At best your response was an unrelated tangent caused by you brainfarting on a syntax parsing error that context should have corrected.
Its liked you pulled an "all lives matter" cop-out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 04 2016, @03:57PM
What really matters is how much of that time the Earth been habitable for humans. Because even if humans are not causing these changes, if they continue at this rate we are going to face our own extinction within about a century.
If we go extinct, it won't be from climate change. Funny how various slight changes in climate (which is all that is being predicted by actual scientists) are being spun as the end of the world. Chicken little much?
(Score: 2) by Natales on Saturday September 03 2016, @04:43AM
It's time to accept it. The threat is real, and no, we are not going to solve it. There is simply not enough political will at a global level to implement the radical changes that are needed at the speed they are needed. By the time shit gets in-your-face bad for a large segment of the population and people decide to act, it will be too late. The planet will be radically different.
No doubt we'll survive, but not without massive loss of species and a good chunk of the human population, which in the end, may not be the worst thing. Overpopulation is part of the problem, and may be the survivors will learn the lesson, at least for a couple of generations.
It's hard to understand how, as intelligent as we are, have come to this point.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday September 03 2016, @10:17AM