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posted by janrinok on Friday December 23 2016, @10:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the pause-for-thought dept.

Bridging the gap between left and right. I came across this clip showing Glenn Beck and Samantha Bee, and thought that this SoylentNews story / comment thread should be stickied till the new year so we have an ongoing conversation. It's a short clip from her show where Glenn Beck is a willing guest; the key point is they are trying to find common ground. Beck points out that Bee is following some of his own patterns of crying "catastrophe" but they really don't provide much insight beyond the significance of their little coming together moment.

The divide is clear and present on this site as most everywhere else, I would like to see a meta discussion where we fact check each other and drill down through the rhetoric until we get some straightforward lists and proposals on how we can move forward together. What are the fundamental blockers? Which ideas do we consider to be too outrageous for credibility? Many here are guilty of attacking each other — can we try and Spock it out for about a week?

I'll start us off with my supposition:

Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes."

If you post as AC — try and behave as if you were logged in — reduce the flames for better quality discussion.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Gates Launches $1 Billion Breakthrough Energy Investment Fund 4 comments

In the good news department: Bill Gates Launches $1 Billion Breakthrough Energy Investment Fund
Why is that good?
The cool things I see are they claim 1) a high tolerance for risk, and 2) long term thinking. They're looking at a 20 year investment window, which may be enough time to fund actual advances.

Gates wote:

"We need affordable and reliable energy that doesn't emit greenhouse gas to power the future—and to get it, we need a different model for investing in good ideas and moving them from the lab to the market."

The group has spelled out five "grand challenges" which it says are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions around the world:

  • Electricity
  • Buildings
  • Manufacturing
  • Transportation
  • Food

I hope these people do some good and I will be following their work. Seems like a concrete step for moving away from fossil fuels, as discussed at some length in A Christmas Miracle for Soylent News.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by LVDOVICVS on Friday December 23 2016, @10:22PM

    by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:22PM (#445253)

    I believe there is a consensus that climate change is occurring. But I'll go so far as to say that it might or might not be human-caused. Regardless of whether it is or not, aren't we obliged by our duty to future generations to try and correct the situation? We might fail. But to never try fixing the problem we clearly see coming makes us complicit in the suffering that occurs from our complacency.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @10:30PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @10:30PM (#445258) Homepage Journal

      Humans are pretty adaptable. I expect we'll be doing just as well five degrees from now as we are today.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Troll) by chromas on Friday December 23 2016, @10:50PM

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @10:50PM (#445267) Journal

        Yeah but don't forget climate change is a racial issue now, whitey.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday December 23 2016, @10:54PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:54PM (#445269) Journal

        I wonder if you have "5 degrees of separation" from the bacon i'll be cooking Christmas morning! :)

        I'd have to adjust what you said to "some humans are pretty adaptable", but that is where Darwin will come in. Those that can't adapt will probably become my bacon, lol.

        I hear, anyways, that if there is continued warming, where i live in Canada will end up pretty damn nice!

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @11:01PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @11:01PM (#445272) Homepage Journal

          Exactly. Five degrees is neither objectively better nor worse for humanity, unless you define humanity as temperate, coastal cities, which is horribly incorrect.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @11:28PM

            by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:28PM (#445285)

            Insurance rates are already going up due to Global warming:
            As climate change claims heat up, insurance industry says we need to adapt: Don Pittis [www.cbc.ca]

            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @11:37PM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @11:37PM (#445290) Homepage Journal

              Insurance is not a fundamental necessity to human survival. And they should be going up in areas destined to become uninhabitable. It's one dandy way to get people to live somewhere it's not insane to live.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @11:42PM

                by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:42PM (#445294)

                Gobal warming adds more energy to the system, making more places insane to live in. Fort McMurry mentioned in the article is about 58 degrees north. Do you expect us all to move north of the Arctic (or south of the Antarctic) circle?

                • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 23 2016, @11:53PM

                  by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:53PM (#445298)

                  Actually, this ties in with Economic migrants already.

                  People are leaving the middle-east in droves.

                  It is difficult to pin down exactly how much of the political unrest is exacerbated by climate change.

                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:21AM

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:21AM (#445309) Homepage Journal

                  What I expect is that a species as adaptable as human beings will find a way to live on a planet that has supported life quite well at much higher levels of greenhouse gasses than are currently present or even predicted.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:07AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:07AM (#445334)

                    And of the species that we are dependent on? Are they as adaptable?

                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:17AM

                      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:17AM (#445340) Homepage Journal

                      Doesn't matter. We'll adapt.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 3, Informative) by coolgopher on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:21AM

                        by coolgopher (1157) on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:21AM (#445362)

                        I don't doubt that humanity will adapt. However, the likely result is that before that millions if not billions will starve, because the temperature change is too rapid for the ecosystem to adapt and thus for us to maintain our crop levels. If we're really luck we'll manage to engineer around it, but with the amount of denial that we'll even have to do that, and the subsequent lack of focus/investment, I'm not encouraged.

                        A shortage of food will naturally lead to even more conflict, and this is where I have my beef - I don't want another $!^!# world war. Given the current world "leadership" with their trigger happy fingers and refusal to accept responsibility even for their own direct actions, I'm *really* not encouraged. (Also, I like beef, I'd like to be able to keep eating it now and then.)

                        On the energy front I am rather encouraged; while political leadership is largely absent, the market forces are starting to swing in and driving down the cost of renewables. Whether one accepts human carbon emissions as substantially influential when it comes to the climate or not, nobody argues that the resulting emissions are bad for human health. Moving off burning fossils is a good thing, regardless. Unless you're one of the elite luckies with only oil up your reservoir, but meh, you'll adapt too.

                        • (Score: 1) by jrmcferren on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:25PM

                          by jrmcferren (5500) on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:25PM (#445666) Homepage

                          It is rather important that we reduce our use of fossil fuels, but we MUST ensure that while doing so that we don't cause energy to become so expensive that only the elites can afford to light or heat their homes or take public transport (let alone drive their own cars). At the same time, we can't stop progressing on clean energy. This is a very delicate balance of maintaining and/or improving standard of living (by cheap energy) and reducing our use on fossil fuels.

                          The key innovation for the near term is energy storage. In order to continue our solar energy buildout, we need to keep the incentive of net metering. To make net metering viable both economically and technically in the long term, we need to be able to store energy. This can be installed by the electric company at key points on the grid, or installed by the people with solar installations to allow for even better demand and generation management. Large scale storage is also going to be needed to continue wind energy buildout.

                          Renewables and storage alone will likely not be enough to provide the power needed in many countries, especially when heating and transportation is considered. These needs will still need to be handled by fossil fuels (especially for heavy goods long distance transportation) and nuclear (additional power for heating).

                          This brings up nuclear. There is very promising nuclear technology on the horizon if we develop it. If this technology is developed it will render all existing plants obsolete, in addition as a bonus for the US we would be able to use more of our rare earth deposits as the contamination (thorium) will be usable as fuel.

                          That leaves the last major use of fossil fuels and actually it isn't for energy. Modern chemistry is reliant on petroleum, by reducing the demand for petroleum energy we should have sufficient oil for these chemicals including plastics.

                          This is great, and you are now wondering how to get the government to get this moving? This is the answer that will shock everyone here. The government needs to be very selective on what actions are taken. In the immediate term (next 4 years), we need to take efforts to increase production of fossil fuels (sad reality) and to look into changing the nuclear regulations to allow for easier development of new technologies.

                          What do I dream of the future being like energy wise? By the 2050s (when I hope to retire) I dream of not only having access to clean, reliable, and mainly renewable energy from the power grid, but to be able to store enough to ride through power outages. I dream that electricity will be so cheap and plentiful that consumption will actually be promoted again like it was in the 1950s. Every home will be able to generate power, store power, and if needed buy power. Heating, cooling, and even the car will be fully electric. Fossil fuels will be expensive, not because of carbon taxes, or short supplies, but of low demand. Smart homes will have the choice of demand response options if the grid is overload. They can reduce demand by allowing the heating or cooling to be delayed, use power from the home's batteries until more energy is available, or wait for a better incentive. Speaking of how inexpensive the energy will be, heated sidewalks and driveways will be common, no snow or ice would accumulate, possibly have this technology in the roads too.

                          In my dream, energy may actually become too plentiful and the grid will need to be able to dump the excess. Imagine incentives for making your home cooler in the summer or warmer in the winter for a few hours, street lights may come on at noon to help reduce the overage. Snow melt systems may activate on mild days. Remember this is with clean renewable and nuclear energy.

                          TL;DR we need more fossil NOW, but with proper application of government action and more importantly proper application of government inaction will allow for future development of clean energy.

                          • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:37PM

                            by coolgopher (1157) on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:37PM (#445678)

                            I don't see anywhere in your argument why we'd need more fossil fuel right now - the world is happily producing the energy we currently need, and installations of renewables are being added faster than coal fired plants (largely because the former now have a better ROI).

                            You're spot on both that developing countries are likely to still need to use a fair bit of fossil fuel, and it would be blatantly unfair for the developed nations to deny outright deny them seeing as the developed nations have already had the advantage of said fossil fuel. That said, the need should be a lot smaller, with newer, cleaner tech being available and, many times, even cheaper. We are truly at the dawn of an energy revolution, I believe. Things will massively change over the next decade or so. As you say, the grid will become far more decentralised, and many times quite likely be needed to dump excess energy, as opposed to being the One True Source of consumer electricity.

                            Nuclear is an interesting idea. I personally like it as a baseload provider in the interim at least, with the longterm hope that we won't need it for terrestial use. The two or maybe three big problems I see are, in order: The NIMBYs, who I have a certain amount of sympathy for, but only because the bureaucracy/beancounter mentality tends to hinder proper engineering/safety. Then there's the financial viability; The last couple of articles I read were claiming that it is not profitable to build new nuclear plants. And finally, there's the thorium tech. It always looks great on paper, but somehow still seems to be 5-10 years away from production.

                            Energy storage is of course a key component, especially long term. I was reading an interesting article just the other day about a new large solar installation in QLD, Australia next to a disused gold mine, where they were going to couple the solar with traditional hydro storage using a pair of differentially elevated dams at the gold mine. Hydro can easily be used for baseload (and has as good response time as e.g. gasfired turbines), and if the hydro installations can be done in areas already messed up environmentally - excellent!

                            • (Score: 1) by jrmcferren on Monday December 26 2016, @08:55PM

                              by jrmcferren (5500) on Monday December 26 2016, @08:55PM (#446145) Homepage

                              I must have forgotten that key point! The reason we need more fossil fuel energy now is to increase supply and reduce prices. If we concentrate this on the electricity grid we can become a more electrified society (more electric cars, more people using electric heat, etc). We need to move more of the utilization of energy to electricity to increase the impact that renewables will have on our energy grid. You however said something that may actually make this rather unnecessary.

                              If Thorium is only 5 to 10 years (let's say 15 years to give a buffer) away, we can probably avoid building new coal plants as long as we don't regulate the larger plants to death until thorium is ready to be deployed. In my part of the Mid Atlantic of the US the majority of the coal plant shut downs have been the smaller 200MW or so coal plants that have been running for many decades already. In the short term we need to keep the larger coal plants such as Homer City online though and build natural gas plants for additional capacity.

                              You mention Hydro, I'd like to see more hydro as well, Hydro is CHEAP power. There are some hydro plants within maybe 50 miles or so, but these are in the 1MW range. Hydro storage will also be a good idea short term until we can get the cost of grid scale batteries down. Like I said though, I eventually dream of a day that on mild winter days I set my heat to 72 and then I get a steep discount to let the utility turn the heat up to 74 (both in *F).

                              The irony of developing nations is that the masses will probably be using more renewables and fossil fuels will become obsolete long before the masses will need to consume them at the level we do in the industrialized world. Another example is that telecommunications in developing countries is mainly wireless. Another older example. Europe has a newer power grid as they had to rebuild after WWII, while the US stayed at 120 volt for many things, Europe skipped to 220 since they had the technology to adopt the higher voltage easier (EG 1940s vs 1900s).

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:30AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:30AM (#445456) Journal

                  Gobal warming adds more energy to the system, making more places insane to live in. Fort McMurry mentioned in the article is about 58 degrees north. Do you expect us all to move north of the Arctic (or south of the Antarctic) circle?

                  And so what? Extreme weather is not that big a deal for wealthy societies! The fossil fuel processes that allegedly contribute to an increase in extreme weather also contribute to making societies wealthy and far more capable of dealing with the harm of extreme weather.

                  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:53PM

                    by tathra (3367) on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:53PM (#445594)

                    Extreme weather is not that big a deal for wealthy societies!

                    the billions in repair costs, maintenance, hospital bills, portable generators, etc, certainly are a big deal. tax increases will be necessary in order to have the funds to cover all those costs, are you fine with that? and thats not even covering the human costs (lost manhours at work, misery and grieving for those killed, riots and looting, etc) that come along with it, especially if the money to effect repairs and keep society stable in the meantime isnt there.

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:57PM

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:57PM (#445685) Journal

                      the billions in repair costs, maintenance, hospital bills, portable generators, etc, certainly are a big deal.

                      That is pocket change to a developed world country. And note that hospital bills are much lower than in a country that is completely unprepared for extreme weather.

                      tax increases will be necessary in order to have the funds to cover all those costs, are you fine with that?

                      Again, keep in mind just how little extreme weather actually costs.

              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 25 2016, @08:30PM

                by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 25 2016, @08:30PM (#445862) Journal

                The people living in those once safe places probably won't appreciate watching their property value go poof. Under any reasonable rule of law, they will be within their rights to demand compensation (also known as internalizing externalities). Refusing to take any sort of action is nothing more or less than betting those living in the new danger areas can be screwed over with impunity.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26 2016, @09:35AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 26 2016, @09:35AM (#446017) Journal

                  The people living in those once safe places probably won't appreciate watching their property value go poof.

                  Who are they going to sue when this happens centuries down the road? And will they pay for the positive externalities that fossil fuels generate, you know, to be fair to the fossil fuel users?

                  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:12AM

                    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:12AM (#446239) Journal

                    So you're going with the screw 'em over school of thought. Everything's legal if you don't get caught.

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:07AM

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:07AM (#446279) Journal

                      So you're going with the screw 'em over school of thought. Everything's legal if you don't get caught.

                      Well, that is your argument. And I don't think it's a reasonable rule of law to be able to sue people of the distant past who actually made your life better because you can show (using the typical low threshold of proof that goes on in civil court) that some real estate you own has lower value because of it.

                      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 27 2016, @06:55PM

                        by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @06:55PM (#446411) Journal

                        Well, that is your argument.

                        No, it's the upshot of your position on the matter.

                        Why don't you believe it is reasonable to hold someone responsible when they knowingly take an action that damages others? Are you in general against the existence of civil law? As for benefits to go with those losses, they have already been handsomely rewarded for those through economic activity.

                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:39PM

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:39PM (#446472) Journal

                          Why don't you believe it is reasonable to hold someone responsible when they knowingly take an action that damages others?

                          A classic counterexample is manual CPR. Even when done right, it'll dislocate ribs and may break the sternum. And the subject is unconscious (CPR is only given to people who are unconscious and not breathing) and thus, unable to consent to the injuries. So how much responsibility does one hold for giving manual CPR when they know they will cause injury?

                          As for benefits to go with those losses, they have already been handsomely rewarded for those through economic activity.

                          Not for positive externalities by definition.

                          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:15AM

                            by sjames (2882) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:15AM (#446529) Journal

                            In the case of CPR, without it death is the result (often even with it). It is reasonable to presume that people will prefer to live even if a broken sternum is a natural consequence. For the people whose property becomes worthless, where is the benefit so great that no reasonable person wouldn't happily take the trade-off?

                            As for positive externalities, those have never been an excuse in a court of law. If you run a red and cause someone injuries sufficient to put them out of work, do you honestly believe you owe nothing because someone else was happy to fill the vacancy?

                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:54AM

                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:54AM (#446608) Journal

                              For the people whose property becomes worthless, where is the benefit so great that no reasonable person wouldn't happily take the trade-off?

                              Their societies become a lot more wealthy with a variety of huge benefits such as reduce or negative population growth, good for the environment, better health, better individual freedom, etc. Further, such ocean-side property still has a long life span ahead of it. The value of it in a few centuries is not the important part.

                              As for positive externalities, those have never been an excuse in a court of law.

                              Again, CPR is the obvious counterexample. Having a chance for life is the positive externality. The damaged body parts is the negative externality. Even if we choose not to ban climate change reparation like we do liability for properly done CPR, we still will have a much wealthier society with which to pay such things.

                              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday December 28 2016, @05:42PM

                                by sjames (2882) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @05:42PM (#446763) Journal

                                Sharpen your thinking!

                                Those benefits happened well before liability would begin since we as a species didn't understand the risks at the time.

                                Liability starts in earnest in the '70s where we have documented evidence of fossil fuel producers who concluded that global warming was real AND they themselves took actions to protect them from at least the more immediate concerns AND took specific actions to deny the problem publicly and retard the development of alternatives that could have mitigated the problems while maintaining all of those beneifis you speak of.

                                As for CPR, none of that is an externality of any kind. They are a series of benefits and risks that are specific to the recipient. If my CPR on someone somehow caused a 3rd person on the other side of the street to suddenly return to natural circulation, THAT would be an externality. If some guy walking by suddenly had his sternum snap because of my actions, that too would be an externality. It is the consensus of the medical profession that broken ribs are an unavoidable risk to CPR. It's not as if I could have saved the victim without a rib break by performing 'solar CPR'. Note that if instead of standard CPR, I choose to kneel on his chest and bounce because it would make a funnier instagram, I COULD be sued for the rib damage.

                                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:38PM

                                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:38PM (#446782) Journal

                                  Liability starts in earnest in the '70s where we have documented evidence of fossil fuel producers who concluded that global warming was real AND they themselves took actions to protect them from at least the more immediate concerns AND took specific actions to deny the problem publicly and retard the development of alternatives that could have mitigated the problems while maintaining all of those beneifis you speak of.

                                  We don't. It is remarkable how much deception there has been on this point. Research into climate change is not agreement on the narrative that climate change requires extraordinary intervention.

                                  Here, we have some evidence that businesses like Exxon did research, came to the inconclusive opinion that there could be a significant harmful effect, but that there wasn't data to support that, and later on, made modest effort to promote thinking that was friendly to their point of view.

                                  As for CPR, none of that is an externality of any kind.

                                  CPR is not a trade so it isn't a perfect analogy. One person's actions affect another without their agreement. That is the core of what externality is.

                                  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday December 29 2016, @10:55PM

                                    by sjames (2882) on Thursday December 29 2016, @10:55PM (#447220) Journal

                                    Considering that the oil companies spent money to mitigate the problem, it is reasonable to believe that they were satisfied that there was a problem.

                                    As for CPR, it is an altruistic effort. The essence of an externality is that it is a cost of a desired economic activity that is passed off to others to pay.. Generally those others are unwilling and often unknowing as well.

                                    The difficulty you're having with finding an apt analogy is that we don't generally protect people or corporations from having their externalities internalized.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:27AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:27AM (#445454) Journal

              Insurance rates are already going up due to Global warming

              Insurance rates would go up due to the Greys anally probing people, if insurance companies thought they could get away with it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:57AM (#445328)

        But as an example, look at various parts of the world that have gone through desertification in the past thousand or so years.

        Lake Chad for instance, some parts of Africa and the Middle East. Various parts of the Central America, etc.

        While the temperature variation may seem minor now, that may not be true if it ruins the ecology of areas we rely on for agriculture, housing, or industry in ways that might otherwise be preventable.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:18AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:18AM (#445341) Homepage Journal

          that may not be true if it ruins the ecology of areas we currently rely on for agriculture, housing, or industry

          You left out a very important word.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:57AM

            by Francis (5544) on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:57AM (#445354)

            Not really, we can't afford to give up much land to climate change while still having enough food to feed the planet. Especially if the current wars don't get any better.

            If you look at the areas that are and aren't being used for agriculture, I'm curious what areas in the latter category you're expecting us to be able to miraculously start farming and why you assume that it's going to be close enough to a 1:1 swap that we can make it work.

            • (Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:09AM

              by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:09AM (#445359) Journal

              The areas that are too cold now. Soon, very soon, northern Canada's gonna be a farming powerhouse.

              • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:15AM

                by Francis (5544) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:15AM (#445378)

                Nope. Canada may warm enough, but they don't get enough light. Plus the growing season will be rather short. That's before we consider the other aspects like rainfall.

                The probably will be able to grow some new things that they couldn't, but they're not going to be a powerhouse anytime soon. And probably never as the light issues are hard to fix.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:24AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:24AM (#445468) Journal

              If you look at the areas that are and aren't being used for agriculture, I'm curious what areas in the latter category you're expecting us to be able to miraculously start farming and why you assume that it's going to be close enough to a 1:1 swap that we can make it work.

              You could have made that argument several centuries ago and be just as wrong as you are today. We have a pretty good track record at farming new land and making it productive.

              • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:07PM

                by Francis (5544) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:07PM (#445601)

                Several centuries ago the population was a 6th of what it is now. If we hadn't managed to figure things out, the population would have already peaked at some lower number. There's no reason to believe that we can continue to innovate our way around this problem when we don't even know what land is going to be available between rising oceans and changing weather plans.

                What's more, most of the areas that aren't being used for farming currently are either places like the farth north and far south where they have very little light compared with the areas we're currently farming or are either in conflict zones or built up.

                Not to mention desert regions which can't be counted on as they haven't got the water to appropriately farm.

                So, while we might find a way of making it work, it's definitely not a sure thing and it's definitely not more economical than just biting the bullet and doing something about climate change now before such extreme measures are necessary.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:53PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:53PM (#445683) Journal

                  There's no reason to believe that we can continue to innovate our way around this problem when we don't even know what land is going to be available between rising oceans and changing weather plans.

                  Except the obvious rebuttal that we've figured it out so far and we're pretty good at the innovation thing (not that we need the innovation! Current agriculture is already up to the task). And not knowing what land is available is at best a minor problem. It doesn't take a great of lead time to turn wilderness into farmland.

                  What's more, most of the areas that aren't being used for farming currently are either places like the farth north and far south where they have very little light compared with the areas we're currently farming or are either in conflict zones or built up.

                  In other words, not a very big deal.

                  Not to mention desert regions which can't be counted on as they haven't got the water to appropriately farm.

                  Unless you bring it there. Water is one of the more plentiful materials on the surface of Earth and easy to transport. Irrigation is yet another solved problem.

                  it's definitely not a sure thing

                  We have it nailed down already. I'm sorry, but this is yet another overblown concern. The real risk here is bad agricultural practices. If best practices don't get applied on a large enough portion of agriculture, then you will have problems no matter what the climate does.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:35AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:35AM (#445458) Journal

          While the temperature variation may seem minor now, that may not be true if it ruins the ecology of areas we rely on for agriculture, housing, or industry in ways that might otherwise be preventable.

          Maybe we ought to fix those problems then? We're pumping huge amounts of water out of slow replacement aquifers? Blame climate change! Using bad agricultural practices? Blame climate change! Corrupt governments creating hordes of starving people who in turn make more starving people? Definitely climate change!

          Maybe instead of pushing our attention obsessively to mild problems like climate change, we try to fix the big problems? I see several posts in this thread which are focused on fixing climate change without regard for all the other problems out there. Sure, yes, we can fix numerous problems at one time. But that requires actually looking at multiple problems at one time rather than focusing on the one thing.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:03PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:03PM (#445598)

            Maybe instead of pushing our attention obsessively to mild problems like climate change, we try to fix the big problems? I see several posts in this thread which are focused on fixing climate change without regard for all the other problems out there. Sure, yes, we can fix numerous problems at one time. But that requires actually looking at multiple problems at one time rather than focusing on the one thing.

            Big problems are often fixed by addressing all the little problems that make them up. Global warming is one of those things.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:04AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:04AM (#445687) Journal

              Big problems are often fixed by addressing all the little problems that make them up.

              Nice platitude, but I don't see you delivering on that.

              Global warming is one of those things.

              Unless of course, fixing global warming makes the big problems worse. We should look at the remarkable cost and the lack of usefulness of efforts to fix that.

              And once again, you aren't speaking of fixing any other problem, big or small.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by EETech1 on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:04AM

        by EETech1 (957) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:04AM (#445395)

        How can putting 100,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide a DAY into the atmosphere not cause damage to the environment?

        That's 50 times as much as we all poop, and we found out long ago if we just go in a pile behind the house, it's not too long before bad things happen.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by dbv on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:01AM

          by dbv (6022) on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:01AM (#445424)

          Well, what are you doing about it? Do you have an electric car? Do you live in an apartment, hopefully carbon neutral? Or are you just arguing for more taxation of other people?

      • (Score: 1) by alincler on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:36AM

        by alincler (6447) on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:36AM (#445437)

        From a 2011 study (Kevin Anderson, Alice Bows):
        "[...] a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond adaptation, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable (tipping points)."

        It is widespread view that 4C must be avoided at ALL costs.

        +5C Is not 5C hotter summers. It's more like +10C over land (varies by location)
        It's 45C heatwaves in New York, with a monthly average of 33.
        40% reduced crop yields.
        Ecosystems collapsing.
        Larger parts of the planet uninhabitable.
        Hundreds of millions displaced leading to more wars.

        At 5c you're not talking about how many will die, but how many will survive (under a billion).

        For scale, the difference between an ice age an now is 5C.

        6C is likely game over for humans.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:41AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:41AM (#445459) Journal

          +5C Is not 5C hotter summers. It's more like +10C over land (varies by location)

          Which land locations. The problem here is that most current warming is in areas that are traditionally cold. The reason is that the snow cover is melting. So you see most such warming at higher latitudes such as above 45 degrees and during the winter when melting snow cover can actually happen and have the warming effect from the radical change in albedo.

          So no, it's not 45 C heat waves in New York.

          • (Score: 1) by alincler on Monday December 26 2016, @02:17AM

            by alincler (6447) on Monday December 26 2016, @02:17AM (#445928)

            This will be buried, but anyways:

            New York already saw 37C heatwaves this century, two in 2011 hit 39C, with a 42.2C all-time record reading at one station.
            The US Northeast region is projected to be 6-8C warmer under higher emission models in RCP8.5.
            The global models don't include Urban Heat Island strengths for individual cities, which for NYC is around 2.5C nowadays (+1-2C summer daytime, +5-6C nighttime).

            Adding it all up, in a disastrous-for-all +5C global average temp increase world NYC could see 44-47C heatwaves.

            Sources: IPCC AR5, Gaffin et al 2008, Fu Gao Drake et al 2012, Rosenzweig and Solecki 2010, Meir Orton Pullen 2013, USGCRP; etc.

            I am NOT a climate scientist though.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26 2016, @09:32AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 26 2016, @09:32AM (#446016) Journal

              Adding it all up, in a disastrous-for-all +5C global average temp increase world NYC could see 44-47C heatwaves.

              Or might not, since that 5C increase would not be universally distributed, but rather heavily weighted towards the poles. Those hotter temperatures would also come with significantly increased radiation to space.

              Further, despite assertions to the contrary those global models may well include a fair bit of urban heat islands. The statistical complexity behind adjustments of these temperature measurements can hide a lot of manipulation.

              • (Score: 1) by alincler on Tuesday December 27 2016, @01:17PM

                by alincler (6447) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @01:17PM (#446329)

                that 5C increase would not be universally distributed

                You are right. That's the reason for the 6-8C figure for NY in the previous post.

                despite assertions to the contrary those global models may well include a fair bit of urban heat islands

                Oh, it's not an assertion. Global climate models do not correct for Urban Heat Islands. Even the latest ones use grid cells that are ~180x180km (110x110 miles) on average. IPCC AR5 chapter 8 deals with additional effects on urban environments.

                There are projections for a few individual cities that include these effects. The climate models used are different and run on for example 1x1km grids.

                can hide a lot of manipulation

                While true, trust issues?

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:42PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:42PM (#446478) Journal

                  Oh, it's not an assertion. Global climate models do not correct for Urban Heat Islands. Even the latest ones use grid cells that are ~180x180km (110x110 miles) on average. IPCC AR5 chapter 8 deals with additional effects on urban environments.

                  These models are based on data which does correct for urban heat islands. And cell size is irrelevant.

                  can hide a lot of manipulation

                  While true, trust issues?

                  Yes.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:10AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:10AM (#445480)

        I expect we'll be doing just as well five degrees from now as we are today.

        We are already on an easy 5C increase from today. Already past 1C since industrial age.

        As for no problems, tell that to the 3,000,000,000 people that will want to move out of the oceans and whole countries like Bangladesh with 300,000,000 people being underwater. If people that a few million Syrian refugees are a problem, then just wait a few decades for the real problems to start.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26 2016, @09:43AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 26 2016, @09:43AM (#446019) Journal

          As for no problems, tell that to the 3,000,000,000 people that will want to move out of the oceans and whole countries like Bangladesh with 300,000,000 people being underwater.

          Over the span of centuries or even millennia. Not feeling the concern.

          If people that a few million Syrian refugees are a problem

          The US alone moves at current rates somewhere around four to five billion people per century. And yet the world isn't falling apart.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @10:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @10:38PM (#445261)

      I can get on board with this, regardless of whether humans are the primary cause at least we can work on minimizing our impact and planning for the future so we don't get civilization ending problems that we're too late to address.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @10:49PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @10:49PM (#445266) Homepage Journal

        If the ice ages didn't do us in, I don't see the few degrees of predicted warming doing so. There are currently uninhabitable places on the planet. We resolve this problem by not inhabiting them, by in large. We're quite capable of doing that to more places should it become necessary.

        I don't actually have an issue with eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels, only with the ridiculous doom and gloom arguments being put forth to that end and unproven hypotheses being called settled science. Consensus is not part of the scientific method.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:04PM (#445275)

          I've never heard of climate science being "settled" beyond "its definitely getting warmer". As for doom and gloom, that is directly referencing our current society. Sure humans will undoubtedly survive massive climate change and even nuclear war, but people are worried about more than pure simple species survival. We want to thrive, grow, and explore the stars!

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @11:39PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @11:39PM (#445291) Homepage Journal

            Listen to the President sometime. He specifically used the words settled science.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:17PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:17PM (#445607)

              And the president is an authority on science, right?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:43PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:43PM (#445295)

          Aleppo should be uninhabitable, but droves of people are still dying there. If warming increases natural disasters, millions of people will die because they will have no ability to migrate away from the coastal and desert areas where they currently live. Poor people might as well be early humans who moved very slowly over a long time.

          It will be difficult to measure the exact effects of warming on natural disasters, and impossible to extract reparations for warming. So we can sweep these millions of dead under the rug.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:58AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:58AM (#445476) Journal

            It will be difficult to measure the exact effects of warming on natural disasters, and impossible to extract reparations for warming. So we can sweep these millions of dead under the rug.

            Another problem solved by the group mind of the internet. Carry on.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:14AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:14AM (#445305)

          The issue of climate change is not whether it will make the world uninhabitable; most likely it won't. The coastlines where hundreds of millions of people now live, however, may be underwater, for starters. Armies of invasive species with sizes ranging from microorganisms to those much larger than man may be rampant, as more of the world's temperate zones increasingly resemble the Amazon basin. The severity of the worst hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods may increase, although this last part has admittedly not been proven.

          Many of the residents of the developed world are fairly sedentary and spend much our time in climate-controlled environments. We do, however, have the option of getting out into nature, at least on weekends and vacation days, and during mornings and evenings during warmer months. Future generations would have a right to be pretty pissed off at our mismanagement if we don't preserve that option for them.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:07AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:07AM (#445479) Journal

            Many of the residents of the developed world are fairly sedentary and spend much our time in climate-controlled environments.

            But you would need to be really, really sedentary not to be able to outrun a climate effect that moves at its theoretical fastest at the rate of meters per decade.

            Future generations would have a right to be pretty pissed off at our mismanagement if we don't preserve that option for them.

            The world wasn't created perfect. They will have to adapt to an imperfect world just like the rest of us no matter how virtuously we mismanage the current situation. But I can't help but notice, once again, a poster treating climate change as if it were the only problem that humanity has (well, that and sedentary people I suppose). It does no good for future humanity to make big problems worse in order to fix a minor problem.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:32AM

          by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:32AM (#445387) Journal

          In so far as possible, we ought to make our choices knowingly, not blindly. Change is risky. Saying the hell with the status quo climate so we can burn fossil fuels a few more years is absolutely nuts when 1) we have alternatives and those alternatives are eminently practical, and 2) we don't know how bad (or good) change will be, and although we could find out, we don't want to know! Not many people would buy a new car that had never been tested. But we're willing to experiment on our very air?

          You shouldn't feel so sure humanity will survive. That's a dangerously cavalier attitude. Civilizations absolutely have collapsed, many times, and many of those were caused by climate in the form of an extended drought. Another killer is bad farming practices. If not done carefully, irrigation causes salt to build up in the soil. That's a big reason why the Fertile Crescent is not as fertile today. Then there's plowing. If plowing is done recklessly, the top soil will erode away faster than it is replenished, and can be lost all at once in the next big flood. Overreliance on one variety of one crop makes our food supply more vulnerable to disease. We really can't let millions go hungry, not when some of them might have nuclear weapons.

          Messing with the chemistry of the atmosphere changed life profoundly in the distant past. As in, mass extinctions. There was the Great Oxygenation Event.

          Life is on a long journey and has never settled into a stable state. Always something new comes along. So far, life has survived every challenge. Life has stumbled blindly along and never yet run into a dead end. But you can't count on that. The next turn could end it all. This time, we and the things we do are the novelty. So far as we know, we're the most intelligent animal yet to evolve, and we've employed our superior intelligence to gain mastery over all other animals. No predators stand a chance against humans with weapons. We now have the knowledge and power to alter the world profoundly. We have the brains to predict some of the larger consequences of our actions. Shouldn't we use that gift, rather than stumble along blindly, just like all the other animals that have ever lived?

      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by ledow on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:04AM

        by ledow (5567) on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:04AM (#445302) Homepage

        What if it's not us?
        What if it's not easily fixable?
        What if it's like trying to un-cook an egg?
        What if any action we take is actually zero-effect and we spend lots of time and money trying to fix something that we can do nothing about? Then all we've done is spent decades making people's lives more expensive and punished third-world nations for polluting?
        What if the solution we implement is actually WORSE than the problems envisaged?
        What if the world fluxes like this anyway, but by being energy efficient, penalising pollution, making people use less, etc. we actually guilt them into more ill health (because they turn off the heating/aircon/etc.)?
        What if we spend all this on trying to find a solution where actually letting the oceans rise by a few meters displaces only a few million people but costs us billions which we could have spent on healthcare?

        The problem I have with the whole issue is that we start from a handful of premises with differing certainties:

        - The world, as we can tell from modern records, seems to be getting slightly warmer. Check. We'll take that as granted.
        - This is then seen as part of a long-term radical trend, that we assume is unprecedented because we see no evidence of it. Okay. Let's call that a freebie.
        - This is then going to cause the oceans to rise and parts of the world to become uninhabitable. Oookaaaay....
        - This is going to mean millions of displaced people currently living an easy life to have to move somewhere else otherwise they'll die. Mmmm...
        - This is then going to be fixed or stopped by us screwing in a new lightbulb, or converting oil into specialised plastics for solar panels. Er...
        - Such actions will inevitably save the lives of millions and we'll never ever need the amount of energy we're using NOW every again, so we don't need to worry about future scaling either. Hold on a moment....
        - And all of the above MASSIVE CHANGES OF HUMANITY will happen globally, co-operatively, freely, in humanity's interest, and cost less in the long run than losing even 5% of the worlds landmass.
        - And this is the ONLY way to handle the situation, that we've known for sure is visible for less than two decades. Rather than waiting until we know more for sure.

        Currently, I hover around the second step, possibly the third.

        We have NO viable idea of what, if anything, we can actually change. If we get every country on the planet to change overnight to never pollute, what if the runaway effect is still just going to happen anyway? How many would die through lack of heat, goods, services, etc. compared to if we just carried on?

        The problem I see is that everyone - from media to scientists - have established certain facts, and made certain assumptions. All good science so far.
        Yet nobody seems to have made a prediction, tested it, demonstrated even the tiniest success, in the EFFECT of all the above.

        In 100 years, or 1000 years even, are we going to be looking back and going "Those idiots, thinking that all that shit we did was making any difference at all and we could uncook the egg, dooming us to low-energy lives that have cost us more than land displacement ever could have!"? That's the bit that I see missing.

        I trust that we see a pattern. We then can say that pattern is unusual and predictable.
        Do we also see that when we reduce usage the pattern undoes itself or not? Like the ozone layer, that DID start to repair after we banned CFC's, are we actually seeing the effects of positive human climate change?
        If so, then can we say with any shred of certainty that that pattern will repeat until we are "back" to normal levels?
        If so, can we total up the cost of doing that, worldwide, adding in appropriate fudge factors for actual, realistic timescales and co-operation from third-world nations, etc.?
        If so, can we total up the cost of NOT doing that, worldwide, similarly?
        And where is the number which says - quite clearly, outside all error boundaries, to scientific significance, that one is better than the other?

        Because I don't see that anywhere.

        Everyone likes to shout about the problem and stab at solutions. Nobody considered whether - as has been demonstrated millions of times over the course of human history - the cure could be worse than the disease.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:28AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:28AM (#445311)

          You're the only one so far that mentioned the runaway effect. That (the runaway effect) is the tipping point where it will be past the point of no return, human intervention will no longer have an effect on reversing global warming. The big question is... Have we reached that point yet? and... How far will it go? The runaway effect could turn Earth into another Venus, or possibly another Pluto... hot as hell or frozen solid.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:50AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:50AM (#445320)

            Venus is hot because the atmosphere is 60 km thick and the pressure at the surface is 90 x that of Earth. I have never been able to get an explanation, where the is all that gas supposed to come from?

            • (Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:20AM

              by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:20AM (#445382) Journal

              It would come from the decomposition of calcium carbonate (and some other minerals), which is quite plentiful on Earth. It's not going to happen any time soon, though.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:01AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:01AM (#445394)

                So the runaway greenhouse effect requires ~0.05% of the Earth's crust to vaporize*?

                * assuming mass of atmosphere is ~5e18 kg and mass of the crust is ~2.5e22 kg.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:05AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:05AM (#445396)

                  Sorry, should be ~2%.

                • (Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Sunday December 25 2016, @11:49AM

                  by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Sunday December 25 2016, @11:49AM (#445770) Journal

                  No, there are other processes that can cause that. Still, it should take over 100 million years. I did say "not soon".

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 23 2016, @11:30PM

      by mhajicek (51) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:30PM (#445286)

      I have a coworker who believes that the whole climate change thing is a conspiracy to male him pay more for his energy and vehicles. He believes that much of the data is falsified.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:18AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:18AM (#445361) Homepage

        Californians are pressured socially and financially to conserve water, while water usages rates climb 10% a year. Whole neighborhoods are gutting their lawns and landscaping with rocks and cacti instead.

        Meanwhile, growth is accelerating here unchecked, with mega-monstrosity housing developments popping up everywhere. Just how is the state conserving water by allowing such development, and why isn't the state seeking to put the brakes on development if we have such a water crisis?

        To use a rather "wet" analogy, those who tell you to conserve water while accepting skyrocketing water rates are pissing on your head and telling you it's raining.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:18AM (#445403)

        I have a coworker who believes that

        Don't we all, and isn't that nice. Idiots are not evidence of anything except idiocy. Take Francis here for example!

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:37PM (#445289)

      > I believe there is a consensus that climate change is occurring. But I'll go so far as to say that it might or might not be human-caused.

      There is as much consensus that it is human-caused as there is that it exists.
      That phrase will mean different things to to different people depending on how strong their grasp on reality is.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:46AM (#445414)

        There is as much consensus that it is human-caused as there is that it exists.

        Very few people deny climate change occurs and there's no "consensus" required when scientific evidence supports a theory with 5 sigma certainty. Unfortunately, the IPCC AR5 requirements to label something "more likely than not" indicative of anthropogenic climate change were 50%. That was not science, it was a fucking coin toss. I gave up attempting to discuss any of this a decade ago when it became apparent that the best case response from most individuals was cognitive dissonance and vitriolic, incoherent rants about "holocaust denial".

        That phrase will mean different things to to different people depending on how strong their grasp on reality is.

        Yes, and primates shake their fists at the sky during storms.

    • (Score: 1) by alincler on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:35AM

      by alincler (6447) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:35AM (#445410)

      Whether it's human caused or not hasn't been up for debate for quite some time.

      It's something we know.

      We're 150 years after Tyndall proved the greenhouse effect.
      60 years after Keeling showed the link between CO2 levels and fossil fuel use.
      40 years after Exxon's own internal research confirmed the link between global warming and fossil fuel use, and warned of the dangers. (the scan of the original is on Wikipedia)
      35 years after James Hansen's paper about climate change drivers and sensitivity.

      A quarter of a century after the signing of the first climate treaty at the first UN convention on climate change in Rio.
      One year after the whole world stepped up its game a tiny little bit in Paris by making non-binding pledges to limit CO2 output.

      There is a vast amount of credible info on the net, publicly available. Up-to-date raw data and graphs, whitepapers, articles, hundreds of hours of lectures and presentations on youtube, down to up-goer-five level.

      At this point you have to have an excuse to not know. Only following mainstream media, and/or being misled? Don't care enough to look into it?

      You're already feeling and seeing the effects.
      There are debates... about how much worse it will be for your kids, and how soon.

      • (Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday December 28 2016, @11:43PM

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @11:43PM (#446888) Journal

        To further what you wrote, I'd like to call attention to this xkcd infographic [xkcd.com] which is titled:

        A timeline of earth's average temperature since the last ice age glaciation — when people say "The climate has changed before," these are the kinds of changes they're talking about.

        I would encourage all who see this post to load the infographic and scroll all the way to the end.

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:24AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:24AM (#445453) Journal

      Regardless of whether it is or not, aren't we obliged by our duty to future generations to try and correct the situation?

      There are many situations we're trying to correct, such as overpopulation, poverty, corrupt governance, etc. Why is that one so important that we must ignore the rest? Because remember, this is always how this question is poised - in a vacuum.

      In the real world, there are many problems and often trade offs in which problems get made worse while we try to fix other problems. Climate change mitigation is particularly notorious for this since fixes such as stopping the use of fossil fuels or forcing people to consume less resources can have significant drawbacks such as making poverty and thus, overpopulation worse (since poor people are much more fertile than wealthy people). This is not figurative. We have real world examples such as Energiewende [wikipedia.org] which has doubled the cost of electricity in Germany (this list [wikipedia.org] shows Germany with a price of $0.32 per MWh, while France comes in at $0.19 per MWh, mainland US has prices between $0.08 and $0.17 per MWh).

      Another example of this is considering only the pollution externality of fossil fuel use while ignoring the resulting positive externality of cheap energy access.

      A final example is the casting of every problem in terms of climate change. For example, blaming the Syrian civil war on climate change even though the epically bad water and resource mismanagement that actually did cause the breakdown in Syrian agriculture would have triggered the civil war anyway even if there was no climate change. Or blaming rising damage from extreme weather to climate change, when most of it is due to people building stuff in risky locations and would have happened anyway in the absence of climate change (notice how so many big problems happen anyway no matter what the climate is doing).

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:53PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:53PM (#445659)

      But I'll go so far as to say that it might or might not be human-caused. Regardless of whether it is or not, aren't we obliged by our duty to future generations to try and correct the situation?

      I'll put it this way:
      1. Part of the consensus about climate change is that the higher concentrations of CO2 are definitely part of the problem. This mechanism has been demonstrated in lab experiments.
      2. That CO2 had to come from somewhere. Since there haven't been major meteor strikes in the last century, it's pretty safe to assume that the somewhere is on Earth.
      3. The mechanisms that quickly produce CO2 on a global scale are: (a) breathing and (b) burning things with carbon in it. Since there has been no massive observed uptick in breathing, that means we must be burning something with carbon in it.
      4. The things we burn the most of with carbon in it are: coal, oil, natural gas, and wood. So, to reverse the trend, we should burn less coal, oil, natural gas, and wood. And that's what those hippies with their windmills and solar panels have been on about for about 25 years.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by t-3 on Friday December 23 2016, @10:26PM

    by t-3 (4907) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:26PM (#445255)

    Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes."

    Anthropogenic climate change is impossible to handle without tackling the social and economic issues behind the activities that cause it, as well as the issues that cause people to deny that it exists. More than that, I accept that climate change is real and human activities have an effect on the climate, but does it matter? What makes reforming attitudes toward the environment more important than reforming economic, social, and governmental institutions? Is change only bad in nature? Can we, and should we, change the climate for human advantage or should we strive to keep the world in stasis?

    • (Score: 2) by BK on Friday December 23 2016, @10:40PM

      by BK (4868) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:40PM (#445262)

      Clearly stasis is the only reasonable option. If we accept the supposition:

      social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes

      Then social and economic issues like concern for others and basic decency would have to come after said stasis is actually achieved. Anything else would be a crime against the environment.

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @10:55PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @10:55PM (#445271) Homepage Journal

        Neither of your stated examples are social or economic issues. Unless you plan on legislating not only how people must act but how they must feel. Which progressives do, so I suppose that's fair.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 3, TouchĂ©) by BK on Friday December 23 2016, @11:06PM

          by BK (4868) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:06PM (#445277)

          Making my point. Also, the supposition spoke to issues being 'handled', not legislated. Legislation is but one way to handle something...

          --
          ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:56AM

        by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:56AM (#445326)

        I don't see stasis as the end goal. The environment is the primary concern because once the water table is polluted, once the topsoil is gone, and if the oceans have a massive dying off as predicted then our vaunted human society will crumble and we'll have to build back up from rubble. I would personally like to skip the crumbling and rebuilding phase and start with building solutions (be they social changes, infrastructure changes, or whatever).

        There is no reason we can't have basic decency while taking care of the environment, in fact they often go together. Be decent to the planet and you're likely to be decent to humans as well, we are part of the same system after all.

        --
        ~Tilting at windmills~
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:08AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:08AM (#445335) Homepage Journal

          Being decent to other people means entirely different and conflicting things to progressives vs. everyone else on the planet.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:39AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:39AM (#445347)

            Well given how conservatives have treated people I would say it goes both ways. I guess you missed the idea of this entire article.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:59AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:59AM (#445355) Homepage Journal

              And I'd say that you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not going to go off into a pointless, tangent, your-team/my-team argument though. Especially since my team consists of neither group.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:32PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:32PM (#445613)

                I'm not going to go off into a pointless, tangent, your-team/my-team argument though.

                Except you already started it. "Blahblahblah progressive nazis blahblahblah."

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday December 23 2016, @10:44PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:44PM (#445265) Homepage

      Stop sending aid to countries which would not survive without it, especially those which don't practice family planning.

      Man's effect on the climate is negative but it it politicised a lot more than it should be, which is why it is difficult for some to accept that it is real - because, especially now, politicians are shit-mouthed goddamn liars.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 23 2016, @11:02PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 23 2016, @11:02PM (#445273) Homepage Journal

        Stop sending aid to countries.

        FTFY.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday December 23 2016, @11:05PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:05PM (#445276) Journal

        politicians are shit-mouthed goddamn liars.

        Hey, that's my Prime Minister you're talking about!

        So.... keep talking. I'm listening: yes, he's turning into a Biggus Dickus liar and fraud and we'll be voting him out probably.

        Oh! Wait! You were talking about ALL politicians, not just our fraud of a Prime Minister!?!

        Do you have a newsletter? :^)

        Yes, it seems that politicians still haven't got it.
        You see them on television going over "Why did Hillary lose?", saying it was because of this that and the other thing.
        --It was because she came off as a fraud and a liar, and Trump was saying the right things, even though he came off as a fraud and a liar simply because "that's our Trump!"
        She lied and people said "she's just same old, same old".
        Trump lied and people said, "What a guy.... he'll say anything".

        But now, if Trump becomes "same old, same old" (which it seems he is), he too will get voted out.

        People are just plain tired of "same old, same old".

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:01AM

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:01AM (#445376) Journal

          People are just plain tired of "same old, same old".

          Could've fooled me. 97% of it just got reelected the last time around... which is about average over the last, what, 100 years or so? At this rate, we're looking at another 100

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:32AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:32AM (#445436)

          not just our fraud of a Prime Minister!?!

          Your Prime Minister? Are you Indonesian, or Malay? It is hard to tell, you know. At least we know you are not American, or possibly a very confused American. . . .

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:21AM (#445404)

        Stop sending aid to countries which would not survive without it, especially those which don't practice family planning.

        Yeah! Like San Diego! That town would not survive for an hour without federal subsidies! Cut 'em lose, I say!

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday December 23 2016, @11:03PM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:03PM (#445274) Journal

      Don't forget the technology issue.
      We have a possibly fatal issue like climate change, and people are allowed to put patents on energy related inventions. This is either a sign we are getting played, or that satan is in charge.

      --
      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday December 23 2016, @11:08PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:08PM (#445279) Journal

        Go with Satan FTW, everytime.

        It'll put you in good stead:
        1. it pisses off the truly religious
        2. if there REALLY is a Satan, then he may treat you better, lol.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:10PM

          by Bot (3902) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:10PM (#445550) Journal

          I don't agree.

          Looking at the past, or at current mafia/corporations, people who obey satan (be it real or abstract) are in a backstabbing, ultracompetitive, environment which periodically gets destroyed from the inside, because even people working for evil tend to mollify when given too much power and time. Look at how nobility evolves from the biggest bully.

          Note also that cryptosatanists have more power and wealth than outspoken satanists, which is quite unfair to the latters.

          --
          Account abandoned.
          • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:51PM

            by Gaaark (41) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:51PM (#445617) Journal

            But, history proves that if you go with God, you could wind up censored, raped, tortured, murdered.....

            Going with Satan: could it be, really, any worse than with Dog?

            --
            --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
            • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:04PM

              by Bot (3902) on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:04PM (#445652) Journal

              of course it is worse, satan wants the soul before delivering, the contract has a random duration and no rescission option.

              --
              Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:06PM (#445278)

    Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it.

    1) What does it mean to say "climate change is real"? Who is arguing that Earth's climate never changes?
    2) How do you distinguish between important and nonimportant effects?

    In its current state, this discussion topic is too vague to yield anything meaningful.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:29AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:29AM (#445344)

      number one means we humans are ruining the ecosphere, yes earth's climate changes but this one is on us and blindly enabling greed is a lame excuse to do nothing
      for number two just look at the numbers and studies, you can choose which ones are important to you if your own species' survival is not really important to you

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:46AM (#445350)

        Still too vague. What does it mean to "ruin the ecosphere"? For me, this needs to be precise. I consider science to be a pillar of human civilization, so don't want to support any efforts that may lead to replacing it with astrology-like pseudoscience.

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:24AM

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:24AM (#445386) Journal

          What does it mean to "ruin the ecosphere"?

          Let's just say that a lot of California smog comes from China, and some acid rain falling in Canada is caused by American polluters, and some fallout from Chernobyl fell on Europe. And the Mississippi River? Well, shit flowing into the Gulf comes all the way from Minnesota and everyone else along the way. If we maintain present growth rates, rumor has it that we will boil off the the oceans in about 400 years [ucsd.edu]

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:09AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:09AM (#445398)

            Still not precise... Is the ecosphere already ruined or not? At what point is/was it considered ruined?

            This shouldn't be such a difficult exercise given the amount of discussion this topic has generated.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:50AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:50AM (#445417)

              let's be precise. Some people think gambling a bet here is very unwise even more taking in account the ammount of pollution we are still dumping, we probably should stop at all now

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:58AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:58AM (#445422)

                Sorry, my initial question remains unanswered. I still do not know what is entailed by "climate change is real", and so it is impossible for me to agree or disagree with it. If it really is this vague, handwavy idea that has become the huge political issue...

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:12AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:12AM (#445481)

                  Sience is about understanding how & why things work/happen (such that for instance engineers can better predict what their machines can do and can achieve effects otherwise not possible / or that doctors & (bio)chemists can better predict what a certain treatment will do and can heal people who otherwise cannot be healed / etc. ...) At the start of any scienctific progress stands an uncertain/unproven/incomplete/vague hypothesis. One should not kill the debate or any action just by continuously saying "that premise is not clear", as otherwise no progress will be made at all.

                  Consider the following conversation: "Cancer kills too many people." => "Sorry, but it is not clear what is 'too many'.'" => "Cancer kills many people" => "Sorry, that may be true, but 'many' is still not defined precisely enough." => "Cancer kills people." => "Sorry, but that's still not precise enough. Does it really actively kill, or is it just a factor that contributes to of death like there are so many others? In the end, we all die of cardiac arrest, don't we.' => "People die due to cancer."" => "Sorry, but what/who are 'people'? People die due to many other reasons, so you're not being precise enough and your statement is therefore to general to be proven or disproen." => "OK, my father died due to lung cancer and I did not like that. It should have been prevented." => "Oh, I'm so sorry for yoi. Good that you know precisely what happened, but it unfortunately can't be helped anymore, can it?"...)

                  Proper science will take the initial "Cancer kills too many people." statement, will look at whether it might be true overall and whether that might be an issue. If so, even before proving the overall premise, it will ask what can be done about it and will start investigating other hypotheses about how and why and whether anything would be different if the initial environmental conditions were to be different or if reactions to the emergence of a cancer would be differemt, or ...

                  If one simply does not know whether to agree ot disagree to the premise, once can and should try to refine it by asking questions, but a scientist should most of all be willing to actively investigate and look for evidence for the given premise or for one that would disprove it even nif the initial premise is vague or ill-defined.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:51AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:51AM (#445516)

                    You are telling me the people concerned about climate change can't even explain what they believe because the understanding of climate is so rudimentary and vague.

                    Also, if you look it up*, cancer research is one of the biggest boondoggles out there, so I wouldnt hold that up as anything near to an example of functioning science. If the "war on climate change" is supposed to be anything like the disastrous "war on cancer", then I want to prevent that as much as possible.

                    *http://www.salon.com/2013/09/01/is_cancer_research_facing_a_crisis/

                    • (Score: 1) by mce on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:52PM

                      by mce (2811) on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:52PM (#445524)

                      I can change the example from cancer to any other deadly disease (except heart related ones since then one of the intermediate steps breaks down, but I could also change the example some more to address that issue).

                      If you reject a premise or hypothesis about climate change as "vague" simply because in a debate about how science is supposed to function, someone uses an example mentioning cancer to illustrate how bad reasoning can happen, you don't have the foggiest idea what real science is all about.

                      I'm all fine if you want accept or reject the original premise or hypothesis, but then - especially as you claim to consider science as a pilar of human civilization (I obviously assume here that you are the same AC as the original one) - then you need to come with proper scientifically sound arguments. Stating that the premise is vague is not enough. And neither is stating that the premise is false simply because a few people who replied to the vagueness comment are not able to be precise enough to your taste. If those people would be scientific authorities in an area that matters to the subject of climate change and they would still be vague, *then* you would have a valid argument based on their replies. Otherwise not.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:43PM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:43PM (#445559)

                        Like I said, there is no chance of a productive conversation when we don't even know what the premise is. What does it mean to say "climate change is real"? Can you give a one sentance answer or a numbered list, etc or no? Shouldn't there be some literature that defines this phrase?

                        And yes, a lot of medical research, psychology, etc is pseudoscience because the ideas are too vague to ever be meaningfully compared to observation. There is currently a huge problem with pseudoscience being passed off as science in academia. The problem is not limited to cancer, but it is very obvious there since it got so bad they pretty much needed to abandon attempting replications for decades.

                        • (Score: 1) by mce on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:15PM

                          by mce (2811) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:15PM (#445627)
                          Again, you're pulling medical (pseudo)-science into a discussion where it does not belong. I have used a medical example only to illustrate a line of thought and a typical way in which discussions like the one you were having with the other posters can go all "wrong" (for some definition of "wrong", of course). The state of medical science is totally irrelevant to both my argument and the original question whether or not climate change is real.

                          To get back to climate change, I will give you a very clear definition of "climate change is real":

                          • For a definition of "climate." see (for instance) section 1 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate: [wikipedia.org] "Climate is the statistics of weather, usually over a 30-year interval.". You may disagree, but in order to have a debate on climate change we do first need a mutually understood definition of what climate is. If you do disagree, please present your own (reference to a) definition, instead of just saying that "Wikipedia is vague" or "Wikipedia is owned by <whatever group of 'wrong' people you might prefer to blame>". Please do note that I'm not using the rest of the Wikipedia page for giving a definition of "climate". Only the first sentence.
                          • For definitions of "change" and "real", I might suggest Webster's (e.g. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/change). [merriam-webster.com] Again, feel free to disagree, but then do come with an argument that is not just vaguely saying that my references are vague.

                          With those basics out of the way, I now define "Climate change is real" to mean: "Based on available statistical data (for some region of choice that is large enough for the word "climate" to be meaningful), the climate is changing". Please note:

                          • As I'm using present tense, I'm clearly stating that I'm including "a period up to the present" in my definition.
                          • I'm not selecting a specific region, because then - based how you reacted to my use of the world cancer an example - you'll likely take the debate in a yes-no about whether that specific region is relevant, whether the data can be trusted etc. etc. Let's just say that there are enough data sets to choose from that can then be debated about;
                          • The region may be selected to cover the entire world if you so desire. Doing that just makes the statistics more difficult and open to attack, but does not fundamentally change anything;
                          • I'm allowing you to define the period over which climate may be changing, as this may depend on the region. However, I did choose to refer to Wikipedia because it explicitly mentions the generally agreed idea of averaging over 30 years (Webster's omits it).

                          Again, I'm not debating the usual "climate change" topic as the general public thinks to understand it (but doesn't even gets close to understanding on either side of the debate) . I'm debating your way of not-discussing by claiming that something that you apparently don't like or agree with is "vague" and therefore not worthy of being investigated/debated/... Even more, I'm debating your way of claiming that "climate change" must not be real simply because the people who initially tried to reply to your objection did not do the best job ever. That kind of argument definitely is not scientific.

                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:52PM

                            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:52PM (#445640)

                            Ok, if that is *really* the definition. Then yes, I agree the "climate is changing". It is just so pointless to acknowledge I couldn't believe that is what was meant. Thank you for explaining though.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:36PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:36PM (#445587)

                    Sience is about understanding how & why things work/happen

                    Also, I think I disagree with this. Science is about discovering the "natural laws" by which the universe functions, eg as described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWzLyGuPRY [youtube.com]

                    That "how & why" phrase sounds like you are talking about causality, which is not important to good scientific research at all. It may be useful heuristic in some cases but is eventually rendered unnecessary in mature fields.

                    • (Score: 1) by mce on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:16PM

                      by mce (2811) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:16PM (#445606)

                      I am not at all talking about causality. Apples don't fall from a tree down to earth because of Newton's law. Newton's law is a mathematical model that we humans use to describe the behavior of apples that fall from a tree (as well as many other things). Developing such models (and gradually refining them in case they don't fully match our observations) definitely is science. That does, however, not exclude observations such as "if we assume Newton's laws to be applicable (*), then here's how phenomenon X can be explained based on facts Y and Z". (I'm going abstract here, because you ave proven not to be able to distinguish "real world" examples used to explain a line of thought from the (template) line of thought that I was illustrating.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:57PM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:57PM (#445622)

                        Sorry, no idea what you are getting at here. The first part seems to agree with me, then you seem to say something that makes no sense and then insult me. Anyway, I still don't know if I agree with the statement "climate change is real". In fact it seems impossible to agree/disagree with such a vague statement unless it is interpreted in the most naive way (which no one would disagree with).

                        • (Score: 1) by mce on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:17PM

                          by mce (2811) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:17PM (#445629)

                          I just replied to your previous comment with a definition (framework) for climate change,

            • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:04AM

              by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:04AM (#445508)

              Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

              You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

              Fools.

              The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

              This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

              This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

              - Geocide -- How to destroy the Earth [qntm.org]

              The ecosphere is not a problem in the scheme of things. I am an environmentalist mainly because I do not trust the human race to engineer their way out of the problems they are causing for themselves. For obvious reasons, I am kind of attached to the human race. I want to see them be successful. This means that everybody has their needs met and lives in relative comfort. (goal statement)

              One easy "solution" is a nuclear exchange: killing about half the people on the planet. There are obvious problems with this solution. While the ecosystem will likely recover, the remaining humans will not be having an easy time. However, those that do survise will see less competition for resources. I do not like this solution, because it sounds like it would just repeat on a cyclical basis.

              I think a better solution is for us to figure out how to get along with each other. Discussions like this may actually be part of the solution. However, due to high population, we are starting to have a noticeable effect on the entire planet. We can no longer pick up and move while depleted lands sit fallow for several years.

              Getting along with a nearly uncountable number of people is not easy. Our brains can't even really grasp a group-size larger than 150 individuals. With current technology (cities), we can mostly get along with millions of people. At the nation-state level, I don't think we have figured out world peace yet.

              While high population is a challenge, it is also an opportunity. It means that we have 7 billion minds than can potentially apply their resources to solving the problem. However, many people don't live up to their potential due to the lack of access to education, or even more basically: food and shelter.

              Trying to reduce emissions and habitat/fauna destruction buys us time. Time to do things like implementing Basic Income so that everybody has access to at least basic food, shelter, and education. Maybe after a generation of people tinkering and debating each other with the help of the Internet, we will come up with something that works for us.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @11:24PM (#445283)

    Come on people, its a broad topic! What else besides climate change is a necessary conversation? Where do we have serious animosity between "liberals" and "conservatives" and how can we move forward?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday December 23 2016, @11:28PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Friday December 23 2016, @11:28PM (#445284) Journal

      The obvious reason that SB and GB are ganging up, is because the neolib/con coalition is in trouble. Just more proof that the Clinton wing of the DNC and Bush wing of the GOP, are far more alike than different.

      My take? Fuck'em both.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:19AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:19AM (#445308) Homepage Journal

      Pick an issue. Personally, I don't see that there's any reason to compromise on much of anything. Progressives are quite happy to take their victories towards insanity by inches, which means every compromise is a win for them and a loss for conservatives, libertarians, and even sane liberals.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:12AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:12AM (#445336)

        Have fun in the echo chamber you work so hard to build. Your own reality distortion field makes any of the many, many comments you make hilariously obtuse, and that's before you get into your gross generalizations and simple-minded "us vs them" view.

        Pray tell, what homogeneous area do you come from?

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:26AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:26AM (#445343) Homepage Journal

          Your own response puts the lie to the echo chamber argument. Truthfully, I don't think you even know what the phrase means. Here, maybe this [wikipedia.org] will help.

          Ignoring the insult and moving along...

          Generalizations are an imprecise but useful tool. I am genuinely amazed that you never use them. Do tell me how you find the time to weigh every decision on the distinct, individual merits of every variable that could possibly go into it. I'll wait.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:51PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:51PM (#445591)

            Ahh, and more logical fallacies combined with a failure to read another persons words properly.

            Thanks for the informative link, the echo chamber I was referring to is this exact site, which I'm pretty sure counts as media. *You* personally are the reason I don't engage in this site less and less; it had so much promise at the start until it became evident that you don't discuss anything; you dismiss and misdirect, misinterpret words, and reduce the quality of discussion here. And the fact that you clearly devote a lot of your day to patrolling the forums and spouting your nonsense everywhere derails interesting conversations left and right, which makes soylent a headling-scanner site at best. So enjoy the fruits of your labor!

            Duh everyone uses generalizations, hence my use of the word "gross." I'd provide a condescending link explaining the use of that word, but I don't want to step on any toes.

            Again, what homogeneous part of the country do you live in? I assume since you didn't address the point, I've described it accurately?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:43AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:43AM (#445349)

        I think the parent meant that if different groups can find some common ground in areas where it is worse to take no action, then maybe people could figure out steps to make things better. In this case compromise would be beneficial for all sides (unless a side is incompetent at negotiating and the other is incompetent at solving problems).

        I think TFS wanted to try to bring people together with some common ground, but already messed-up this chance, since it picked a very political topic and put a slant on it (especially the human cause part).

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:48AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:48AM (#445352) Homepage Journal

          I agree, but I can't currently think of a topic that wouldn't result in me having to explain that feelings are not rational arguments. Thus, pick a topic.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:20AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:20AM (#445381)

            Any disagreements over anything other than technical topics (and not even those many times) will cause people to act irrationally.

            With this community, I'd go for something more on the pro/anti-authoritarian spectrum, instead of left/right, since there seems to be more common ground on that axis.
            Which parts of airport security are ineffective and should be removed?
            How much, if any, domestic surveillance should be done on citizens with no cause or prior history of criminal activity?

            After agreeing on certain points, then we could move on to what conditions would warrant exceptions or what are realistic cost/benefit thresholds.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:23AM (#445310)

    I will stipulate that it is impossible to debate the topic because it is getting to the level of religion.

    I don't think global warming is happening, so I'm biased and a hateful person. I look at the research and come to the conclusion that it is, but I doubt that it is man caused so now im still a biased and hateful person. I read up on it and think that it is possible we are having an effect but think we should consider solar cycles, and now I am still biased and hateful for coming to that conclusion.

    I don't plan on not eating meat, I don't plan on walking to work everyday, I don't plan on taking a massive step back in standard of living from the setbacks the boomers already got us stuck with. Where I can I modify my life to lessen my impact where it makes sense. Driving less, buying products produced locally, paying attention to packaging options, not eating beef. But I suspect no matter what I do I will always be a biggot and ignorant because I won't go as far as I am directed to go.

    I intend to wake up tomorrow and continue to smoke, drive, and eat meat.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:49AM (#445318)

      Here is what you should do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager [wikipedia.org]

      That is it. Even *IF* you think it is bunk treat it as if it is. Pollution bad. Simple.

      We should strive to create things that lower our impact on the world. I say this as a dyed in the wool capitalist pig. Pollution is waste. Waste by definition has no value or negative value. It subtracts from the value of our world and others AND most importantly your bottom line. You should strive to minimize or reverse the negative effects. If your scheme involves creating taxes/incentives you are *going* to distort the market. That distortion will not be predictable. It probably will hurt you and the very people you were looking to help. Any economist selling you that they know what is going to happen is lying.

      To properly reduce pollution. You need to make the polluting way more expensive. Most gov busy bodies reach for taxes to do that. It works short term. Long term you create a distortion you can not measure. It may be good or bad. For example the alternative way may raise its price to match the old way making them equal and fungible in purchase. You can not predict that. The proper way to do it is actually harder. You create things that are better and actually cheaper than the original thing. The US has managed to reduce its emissions. Not through any magic. It was the market. The price of one item to burn became cheaper than the other. It also has a lower carbon footprint. THAT is the market at work. When it does work it moved swiftly and efficiently. You introduce a tax you will get people playing games with arbitrage and lawsuits and law lock in. Count on it.

      The divide is clear and present on this site as most everywhere else
      Also this whole article is little more than flamebait. It started off OK. Then went straight for a third rail issue. This is one of the reasons we end up with debates that go nowhere. They picked an issue and then started with their position. Instead of stating both sides of the position. It was a thinly veiled attempt to basically create a giant yell fest that goes nowhere. https://media.giphy.com/media/srTYyZ1BjBtGU/giphy.gif [giphy.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:52AM

      by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:52AM (#445323)

      That doesn't sound hateful to me, but I don't know who you're hanging around. I've never seen the walk/bike never eat meat crowd around here on SN, but then again its not a topic I pay much attention to.

      Modifying your life where possible is already a huge step in the right direction, and I can only imagine you were called a hateful bigot because of whatever context the argument was in. Don't give in to

      I suspect no matter what I do I will always be a biggot and ignorant

      , call people out if they're unfairly characterizing you. What you just said wouldn't get praise from much of anyone, but I have a hard time imagining it would be met with scorn. Most people I know would say "at least you're doing something".

      --
      ~Tilting at windmills~
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:16AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:16AM (#445339) Homepage Journal

        You haven't been paying attention then. Serious progressives do not allow for the possibility of anything but guilt. Witness such in the phrase "white privilege".

        call people out if they're unfairly characterizing you.

        Really? How exactly do you prove the negative that you're not a racist, for instance? Cause I guarantee you even if you come up with a thousand people testifying to your character, they'll simply change the definition of racism until you do fit it.

        There's a really spot-on blog entry [blogspot.com] I read earlier today detailing exactly what people face from progressives every single day. Thankfully it also offers solutions on how to deal with said malevolent idiocy.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:39AM (#445346)

          That link has a strange obsession with"Milo", is that normal on political blogs these days?

        • (Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:20PM

          by Sulla (5173) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:20PM (#445610) Journal

          I enjoyed the supposition. Before we move forward it is important that you give in and agree with my entire premise, then I can move on to the social issues and call my opinion common sense logical and if you would just agree with everything I say then we can move on.

          Plays into the opinion that they don't want debate they want capitulation.

          Debating is pointless when the opposition is unwilling to give ground, and every suggestion you try to make as a concession is not enough.

          --
          Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
          • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:21PM

            by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:21PM (#445632)

            You're too stuck in the us vs. them mentality. I was not looking for capitulation. I am looking for a discussion of the issues so we can find a way to solve our problems that is agreeable enough to everyone concerned. I opened with my own supposition in order to get the discussion rolling and I made a comment about how there seems to be consensus about reducing fossil fuels. Therefore I don't care if you don't believe in AGW as long as we can agree on reducing fossil fuels.

            Don't be a fatalist and move to your imagined "end" of the debate without even trying.

            --
            ~Tilting at windmills~
        • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:30PM

          by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:30PM (#445633)

          My response is to agree with your statement about some progressives being insane but that same complaint goes the other way. The only way to handle crazy insane shit is to not react and as calmly as possible focus on the actual issues. If someone calls you racist you just say "nope, try getting a real point if you want to have a real discussion" or something to that effect.

          I did something similar recently, went to a bar with a girl who wore a camo jacket and some old conservative dude was friendly to her and straight up insulting to me. I hadn't said anything and was laughing at what seemed like over the top characterizations until he really got serious about his insults. He characterized me based on my appearance and treated the camo jacket wearing girl as a compatriot. I stayed calm, and after we moved away he still wanted to get my attention so we had a brief, useless, but decent little conversation about the "fake news" problem. My takeaway from that was to be really REALLY worried that a lot of people will support violating the 1st amendment if it lets Trump "clean house". However, by staying calm enough I was able to move it from "likely bar fight" to "almost civil conversation".

          Sometimes you just gotta ignore the assholes trying to start shit because they're upset at something and taking it out on you. Left / Right we're all human and have quite similar reactions.

          --
          ~Tilting at windmills~
  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Username on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:06AM

    by Username (4557) on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:06AM (#445332)

    Glen Beck and Sam B are both on the crazy train to obscurity. Which it should be. They’re neither entertaining nor informative. Their specialties are zoom eyes and over pronouncing the word va-gi-na. Only thing they’re trying to bridge is the gap back to a successful career.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:42AM (#445348)

      I think that is entirely too pessimistic. They both alienate their user base for greater success? Doesn't scan.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:16AM (#445338)

    We also need to look into some of the historical backgrounds of social views in the US.

    In some ways, Britain was annoyed, but happy for the US - they had somewhere for the Quakers, Puritans, Calvanists, convicts, etc to go to now - they could export some of their social problem children.

    So here we are now...

    I don't think it's really inbred in people, but it does seem to be a long-living bunch of self-reinforcing/self-perpetuating memes that keep it going. Those memes are all over the map.

    In 5 or so years, when some of these automated systems [cars, trucks, buses] take off, and automated systems really start to make inroads into all sort of white collar jobs [IT, analysts, programmers, mid-level management], thus displacing a LOT of people used to being able to live off of other people's backs, and thus moving some of the blue collar angst further up the food chain, as it were, it'll really bring some of those things about us to an interesting head.

    Obviously, I do not forsee myself fitting into or being allowed into the Elysium class, so... District 9 it will be for me.

    At least for awhile, it'll make trickle-down "someone's peein' on my back and calling it rain" economics look pretty good...

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NightHawk on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:56AM

    by NightHawk (3745) on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:56AM (#445353)

    It's probably fair to say that democracy in it's (most commonly) accepted form is part of the problem. The way it works for example in the US, the UK and Australia polarizes the population - you're either on the left or the right, or the far-left or far-right.

    It's about as productive as 2 groups of sports fans yelling at each other across a large divide, with just enough people willing to "change sides" each time a new season starts to make a headcount seem worth-while. It's not a great way to find common ground.

    Another issue - We're fundamentally a selfish race. We have the resources to meaningfully improving the quality of life for others in foreign lands for example - but that would mean less resources for us. Our enemies and frenemies would grow comparatively stronger if we took a hit doing something so costly yet compassionate, and then who knows what would happen long term! Who would do something so stupid as to trade wealth for the well-being of others? We're programmed to take care of our own first and foremost, it's understandable up to a point.

    Maybe if we could find a meaningful way to move away from 2 party politics it would be a start. Instead of casting one vote for our "favorite team", we could be polled in detail about what we consider important priorities, maybe rank them, then act on the results. Something more fine-grain and less coarse? The concept of meta-democracy (?) seems to only appear once in a blue moon which I find disappointing, it's only becoming more viable as time passes.

    Merry Christmas, go forth and be awesome to each other.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Sulla on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:04AM

    by Sulla (5173) on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:04AM (#445358) Journal

    I am not an optimist. The way I see it global warming doesn't mattter, burning coal doesn't matter, depletion of aquifers doesn't matter. Either we are a decade from Fusion where we get infinite power to pump water to the great plains, pull carbon/methane out of the air, basic income, and replicators to print minerals. Or fusion isn't possible and we get to choose whether to die by climate change (now or 50k years in the future), atomic fire, polution, etc. Fusion works or we get to tragety of the commons this small planet.

    That said, I see no reason not to live as a TR Bull Moose conservationist. Protect resources for future generations to exploit (we are not that generation), clean up our land/air/oceans because polution is icky, not use plastics and chemicals friviously, look for innovative ways to acomplish these things.

    Completely different topic, had a fever dream about GMOing cows and the possibility of using some sort of Methylomirabilis oxyfera type organism to eat the methane and waste nitrites in its system producing oxygen.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:49AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:49AM (#445472)

      We don't need fusion. We just need half-way sane (Generation IV) fusion reactors.

      Reactors in service really don't burn the majority of their fuel. Burning Thorium is also smarter than burning Uranium because it is more plentiful.

  • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:25AM

    by meustrus (4961) on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:25AM (#445363)

    How about a different topic?

    Ever since the Democratic Party became basically identical to Republicans on economic issues, the only thing that mobilizes their voters anymore is social progress. These voters want to end racism, sexism, and homophobia.

    But because people are stupid, some people take it too far. Or at least talk about taking it too far. Plenty of people around here are upset about so-called Social Justice Warriors who take it upon themselves to equalize society through active bias against society's traditional winners.

    Thoughts?

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:49PM (#445523)

      People should try following the SCOTUS example in the University of Texas admission case:
      Racism still has a negative impact on society
      It is acceptable that institutions attempt to balance the effects of racism, but actions should be race-neutral

      Race-neutral actions to combat bias or institutionalized racism is the best way to approach these problems because:
      They do not discriminate against the majority group or less disadvantaged minority groups.
      If you don't believe racism/bias causing a disadvantage, then the positive effects would be race-neutral
      If you believe in racism/bias causing a disadvantage, then the positive effects would disproportionately help minorities that are disadvantaged

      Examples of a race-neutral groupings for education would be parental income, parental education level, and attendance in a low-performing school. Programs that helped students in those groups would help disadvantaged kids independently of race.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:34AM (#445389)

    > An Anonymous Coward writes:

    Dear Anonymous Coward,

    Go fuck yourself.

    Love, The Internet

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:10AM (#445400)

      Wrong thread -- you want the one about surfing Facebook.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:45AM (#445502)

      Anonymous cowards are always so blissfully unaware of how ironic they really are.

    • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:16PM

      by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:16PM (#445628)

      Love you too pal :)

      I'm curious, were you also making a meta joke? Or just venting some steam?

      --
      ~Tilting at windmills~
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:47AM (#445391)

    You have probably all seen the X-Y plot with one axis economic [conservative-liberal], and the other axis social [liberal-conservative]. Here's a sample, http://reason.com/poll/2014/07/17/millennials-are-social-liberals-fiscal-c [reason.com] (~three screens down from the top)

    This Cartesian plot is a slightly better representation of personality than the single axis descriptions that use left-right or other pairs of descriptors.

    I don't know about you, but I like to think that I am a lot more complex than two variables! I'd much rather plot myself on a spider chart with many more attributes. Some possibilities, in no particular order:

      + Simple stuff like calendar age, or more broadly -- Boomer, Genx, etc. And next to that, perceived age (I know a 30 year old who acts like a 12 year old much of the time).

      + After reading "The Authoritarians", there certainly needs to be something about how easily one can be persuaded or lead around, and Bob Altemeyer's book presents a number of self tests to check this tendency

      + There is severe mental illness in my family and while I manage to keep things together, I can certainly see that I could slip over the edge in the wrong circumstances. Must be some scale for "proclivity to schizophrenia" or "potential depressive"?

      + While I don't put a lot of faith in IQ, if nothing else it's been tested for many years.

    What axes would you like to see?

    For extra credit, design a compact way to present this information in ascii or other text -- so we can experiment with it here at SN. Wouldn't it be fun/interesting/depressing to self-rate and then also rate each other?

    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:31AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:31AM (#445496)

      So we all try to map our political viewpoints? How would that help? Simply make it easier for the "5 eyes" to keep track of the more dangerous self-selected people?

      The best objection I can come up with is that it would ruin both anonymity and psuedonymity. But then, so can text analysis.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:22AM

    by looorg (578) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:22AM (#445406)

    Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes.

    This won't start well, or move forward much. On a planetary scale I believe us to be quite irrelevant. The planet seems to have a bit of a life of it's own. Sure we have an impact on it. Question is more how much of an impact and if we can really do anything meaningful to reverse the supposed damage. Environment wise we have heard that the end is nigh now for many decades and in some way it doesn't really make a lot of sense - we have heard of global warming, then its talk of a new ice age and then the polar caps are melting and at the same time they are not melting more then normal, water is rising and water is going away etc. Our impact just can't be this massive to allow for all these things to happen at this pace at the same time. Someone or something is wrong. Possibly all these things won't happen at the same time all over the place in which case we'll move to some other place of the globe for a bit. We adapt, that is what humans do.

    I don't deny that we have an effect on the planet. I just don't see us being able to do anything relevant about it by "going green" or trying to conserve resources. As I see it either we are going to tame the planet with technology or die trying. Saving resources is just not going to save the planet, nobody is going to volunteer to go backwards progress wise or deny themselves the luxuries of the modern world for some imaginary future. It's not all a matter of wanting - some countries and people probably can't. The efforts involved would probably be to extreme. So either technology to solve the issues or we are going to have to be invented or we be f*cked sometime in the future.

    Locally the Baltic Sea it's apparently going to rise by 1-2 meters by 2100. Unprecedented really since it hasn't risen that fast ever before in recorded history. So I'm either getting beach front property or going to have to learn how to breath under water. Neither seems likely unless there is some new biblical flood around the corner.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    That said there is probably more common ground then non-common ground. The differences are just being hyped up to create some drama. That said I stopped watching Samantha Bee after two or three episodes cause she was just to annoying and not very funny. At least Stewart knew he was making funny-news between cartoons and sock-puppet-shows and he played to that. I never watched Glenn Beck so I can't say anything about him, his show isn't on over here.

    Do we even want to move forward together? Electing Trump and the aftermath to that seem to indicate to me that the sides don't want to move anywhere together - least of all forwards.

    If one wanted to pick some other topics just jump into 'are all cultures equal', some are clearly better then other. Are men and women equal? This whole environment thing is just to abstract.

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:58AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:58AM (#445420)

    So lets all come together.... with the ground rule being one side accept the biggest load of horse squeeze the left has pushed in decades as the price of admission. Well I guess it is progress of a sort, we aren't being ordered to self immolate. But this is the old "moderate" lie, where compromise and "bipartisanship" always requires the Right to surrender to the left, the "compromise" is that only a small surrender is demanded. But of course when the required tribute is paid the demand only returns for another "compromise". This is well documented as Progressive doctrine in Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. But it predates him, it is the very definition of Progressive. The Marxist Revolutionary lives for the day of the Revolution, where the streets run red and the glorious future begins; the Progressive wants the same glorious future but by slow progress, baby steps, instead of a bloody revolution. Well that worked on the old Conservatives because they had to plan other than to lose slowly.

    New game, as Ronald Reagan declared for the Cold War, "We win, they lose." And we just had a year where everybody suddenly saw the impossible happen, Progressives can be beaten, not slowed, beaten. Behold the God who bleeds. BrExit, Trump, and quite likely more such shocks in the year ahead. We now see the possibility of actually winning, why go to the negotiating table to discuss the terms of our surrender now? Now if YOU guys want to make an offer to buy a short term peace, some might want to listen.... they might be tired of winning already. I'm not.

    So in the spirit of debate, lets use the offered topic of AGW to illustrate why compromise isn't possible.

    Lemme try to summarize the two camps:

    1. Progs/Greens believe AGW is obviously true settled Science beyond debate and thus anyone dissenting is arguing in bad faith in service to a political agenda. We must seize the world's industrial capacity, place control into the hands of the UN or suchlike and reorder every aspect of our civilization in the desperate hope we can still avert the impending disaster.

    2. We see little Science in AGW. No testable hypothesis, a theory that can't be falsified, scientists speaking like politicians with their blather about consensus, we have read the ClimateGate emails, seen the bogus rewriting of the historical record to cover the defects in the theory, seen Mann's fraud of the Hockey Stick generate zero backlash from these so called scientists. Now we come to the supporters. We see every one our political enemies, the Marxists who have proven wrong on everything, lie so casually one would be excused is they believed they don't just do it to cover their mistakes or convince voters, they do it because they like it. Every single one of them, support AGW like a religion. We aren't entirely sure how this mess started, confirmation bias gone wild, side effect of the infection of the academy, shotgun marriage between scientists and the politicians who stand to gain from the solution, something else? Who knows. Who cares. Because the cold reality is that the single proposed solution requires Western Capitalist civilization essentially commit suicide, turn the keys over to the Marxists and hope it all turns out ok, they weren't wrong/lying and we don't all burn up. But since we would be living in the Hell on Earth of a socialist paradise it doesn't really matter.

    Now there ARE obvious ways these two viewpoints could compromise. Which is where it gets curious... at least for those who don't realize that SJWs Always Lie. One obvious compromise would be for both sides to agree that AGW would be a terrible thing, waiting long enough for a fresh set of models to prove themselves in twenty years might be too long, so why not work on a solution that would solve the carbon problem without requiring worldwide redistribution of wealth and other general reordering of civilization into a one world socialist Hell. Widescale fission as a bridge while an all out effort to fusion is undertaken. This is the point where the plot thickens. The Progs/Greens outright reject this as an option, many when pushed will admit the goal is the socialism, the general reining in of the "excesses of Western Capitalism", reduction of the ecological footprint of humanity, blah blah.

    And that is the point where we must reject the premise of debate, compromise, etc. and simply face up to the reality that we have two factions who do not wish to live on the same planet as the other. One must lose badly enough that they become willing to reevaluate their victory conditions.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:13AM (#445429)
    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:49AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:49AM (#445441) Journal

      OP! See what you have done! You have opened the rift, you have allowed chaos, the gap between reality and everything else, to come into being! And you have given an opening for a jmorris manifesto. Think, next time, before you meddle with cosmic forces! We could all be sucked into a black hole of right-wing nonsense! Didn't you think of that? And, yeah, scientific consensus is the anthropogenic global warming is real. But that is not going to stop jmorris, khallow, or the Minty Buzzard, because they are not scientific, and cannot form a consensus since they merely take orders from the Kock Brothers...

    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:33AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:33AM (#445469)

      Um, Capitalism can help solve the problem: the only problem is that the right wing rejects that solution.

      All you have to do is put a tax on Carbon (or more generally, emissions). The atmosphere is a shared resource. Without a tax, you have the Tragedy of the Commons.

      With a tax, the price system can actually do it's magic. I still don't trust Capitalism since the price system fails to tell you why one product is cheaper than another. Buyers are expected to have perfect information, which rarely if ever happens.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:28PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:28PM (#445572)

        All you have to do is put a tax on Carbon (or more generally, emissions). The atmosphere is a shared resource. Without a tax, you have the Tragedy of the Commons.

        There is truth there. But it fails in the real world for a simple reason: It would require a World Government to implement and is a solution far worse than the problem. Create a worldwide entity with the power to raise trillions per year, the power to dispose of those resources in whatever way it deems required and the power to enforce it's demands and no matter the safeguards, it WILL be a world government. And if you think it would fold up shop and disperse once we cut over to fusion you do not understand the Progressive movement.

        I still don't trust Capitalism since the price system fails to tell you why one product is cheaper than another. Buyers are expected to have perfect information, which rarely if ever happens.

        You misunderstand. You are not required to have perfect information. A system requiring it fails reality. Modern understanding in information theory (i.e. newer than Marx) confirms that such perfect information is impossible for any single person or group to ever attain. This is an argument for a Capitalist economy and the final nail in Socialism's corpse if the Progressives could actually accept Science.

        Which is actually funny. I'm told I must Accept Science when the warmists produce flimsy evidence and then when the "only" solution to the problem they invented requires a form of government the math geeks in Information Theory proved impossible... I'm declared wrong. And lets not even touch what Science has been saying about Human Biological Diversity and the Equalists... what should be a totally unrelated topic about an entirely different group of people but again reality is funny, the two groups are almost entirely identical. Hmm. And the Science of Biology says very different things than the 57 gender identity idiots and again we see an unnatural mapping between the three groups. Wonder what could be going on here.

        • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:11PM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:11PM (#445604)

          One way to dispose of the carbon tax is to implement basic income. That way, everybody should have their basic needs met, and can even start a business if they want.

          The reason that the price system requires perfect information is that the buyer does not know if a good is cheaper because

          • They cut corners (cheated) in some way
          • They found a better way to make it that actually costs less, and is more reliable (fewer parts perhaps)
          • They found a cheaper way to make it, but it will likely fail after the warranty expires.

          I think somebody on this website pointed out a few months ago that the amount of information the Internet of Things gives planners may now make a centrally planned economy possible. I prefer a mixed economy due to the freedom and innovation a free-market economy gives.

          • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:57PM

            by jmorris (4844) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:57PM (#445621)

            Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have our "Perry Mason moment here" where the witness breaks down on the stand and confesses. Exactly as I said, AGW was pretext for Socialism.

            You don't require perfect information. Brand reputation performs the function you seek. If Samsung products develop a track record of being unreliable crap no better than random unpronounceable Chinese junk then people will learn and stop paying a premium for their name badge. Will every transaction be perfect? No. But aggregated over time the market will price things correctly. Compare to your central organization, will it perfectly know when a factory is substituting substandard components to meet an unrealistic production quota imposed from Capital City? It will not. But buyers, denied the brand information Capitalism uses, probably won't know which factory the product being offered even came from. Assuming of course they even have one choice to pick from, rather than getting onto a waiting list for a product delivered at some unspecified future date, which is the typical "command economy" situation.

            Look at the recent Samsung situation. When problems developed they did what everyone else in the industry did, recall and replace the defective batteries. When that failed to solve the problem and they realized this was something new, they recalled every one of the products at a substantial hit to their balance sheet. But now let us ask the important question: Does this make you more or less likely to buy Samsung over some generic Chinese import in the future? Oh Hell yea I would buy a Samsung product.

            Consider how brands come into being. New entrants sell at a discount to entice customers to take a chance on them. But every such manufacturer chooses one of two tracks. Some are content to be bottom feeders, selling shoddy crap until their reputation is shot, then change the name on the boxes and spin again. Others try to sell high quality goods at a discount in an effort to develop their brand to a point where they can get shelf space in better retailers and begin to command the price premium their reputation for quality now allows; and a new "name brand" is born.

            You as a buyer aren't required to know why prices change. You are only required to react to the fact they do change. If butter jumps in price you do not need to know what chain of events caused it, only that the price is now higher and you either buy less, decide it is important enough to justify buying less of something else and continue buying at the higher price, seek out a substitute ingredient, or investigate getting into the dairy business (at which point you WILL want to know the why). The price system is what abstracts away the need to know a lot of stuff.

            • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:31PM

              by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:31PM (#445634)

              Exactly as I said, AGW was pretext for Socialism.

              That is what you got from my comment?

              The problem with the brand reputation theory is that it takes time for reputation to change. Clever marketers can exploit this my buying the rights to a well-know brand in order to sell their crap. It is also common for a brand to have both a "cheap" and "premium" line, if for no other reason than price bracketing.

    • (Score: 1) by NightHawk on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:08AM

      by NightHawk (3745) on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:08AM (#445510)

      I'll try and keep this short - You reject that global warming is man made and/or that we should take action to mitigate our contribution to climate change... That we should take no action and nothing insurmountable will occur as a result long-term. That's your opinion.

      What if you're wrong..?

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:50PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:50PM (#445576)

        Not exactly. I have sufficient doubt as to the trustworthiness of the theory, the scientists and the politicians grouped with them that I judge the Extraordinary Claim they make to lack the Extraordinary Evidence required to take actions that I know with metaphysical certitude will be extremely harmful.

        A quick search of the Internet will find an almost unbounded set of dangers proposed and solutions. There isn't even enough hours in a day to even become aware of every crackpot and attempt to act on all of them based on "What if I'm wrong....?" would be insane.

        I'm an agnostic. Pascal's Wager [infogalactic.com] didn't do it for me either and a lot larger "consensus" is assuring me I'm wrong on that one.

        And you reveal your biases when you can't even bring your self to speak of the first doubt: That warming is occurring at all. By that I mean warming outside the bounds of normal climate variability. Remember that we have hard evidence that warmer readings from the first part of the 20th Century have been airbrushed out of the official records. Once you can't trust the records there really isn't much point continuing the debate as to whether it is even an unusual event. And when we look at the records that are fixed (i.e. written down such that NASA and NWS couldn't destroy them, i.e. in old paper books) we aren't seeing anything that written history doesn't record as within the realm of what has happened in the past. Now look at the historical records that strongly suggest sunspot activity is tied to the climate here on earth, take a look at Sunspot Cycle 24 and the beginnings of predictions for Cycle 25 and try to do some Science. Then go check your supply of thermal undies because it sure looks like what went up is about to go down again... hard.

        • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:47PM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:47PM (#445650)

          The harper government recently destroyed climate records going back 300 years.

          My feeling at the time was that they were covering up climate change.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @04:56PM (#445577)

      thing is, only the "right" is pushing something, everyone else is just describing the pile of destruction this right and machinery left behind

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:55AM (#445442)

    This cartoon always comes to mind when talking about pollution, energy and such https://climatesanity.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/cartoon-from-trenberth-ams-paper.jpg [wordpress.com]

  • (Score: 1) by teckesk on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:55AM

    by teckesk (3418) on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:55AM (#445443)

    Whether you "believe" in climate change or its genesis or not changes nothing. Believing in gravity is about as useful. Facts is facts, and the science is clear. Someone's belief is not part of the equation. None of the yeast that fermented the beer I could be drinking were aware of their impending demise. They just consumed all the resources available to them until their environment too was too toxic for them to survive. Now we have delicious adult beverages. It will be much the same with earth if we consume resources uncontrollably, things have a way of balancing out, and not in a way that is particularly advantageous to the (current) dominant species. If humans can't get their act together, oh well. The earth will keep right on turning with or without us. The root of this problem is economic, of course. Our current economic models price energy too cheaply because the cost of the damage to the environment is not included in its current cost. It's similar to cheap cigarettes. The cost to grow, harvest, process, and sell tobacco products is modest. However the damage that tobacco caused was not priced in until recently. The true economic costs of tobacco consumption are now known and factored into pricing via both industry and governmental (taxation and law suits) pressures. The problem with energy is -- unlike tobacco -- our comfortable western lifestyle/economy is dependent on cheap energy. And you thought quitting smoking was tough...

    P.S. The comment above may just mean I miss smoking and drinking too much.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fubari on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:14AM

    by fubari (4551) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:14AM (#445449)

    Janrinok wrote (emphasis added):

    The divide is clear and present on this site as most everywhere else, I would like to see a meta discussion where we fact check each other and drill down through the rhetoric until we get some straightforward lists and proposals on how we can move forward together .

    What does "moving forward together" actually mean?
    I am totally 100% sincere in this question.
    Janrinok, are you advocating:

    • Starting a new activist group (maybe a political party)?
    • Generating a to-do list of debate topics?

    r.e. "The divide is clear and present"
    Maybe. Maybe not.
    Could it be that you are filtering what you read through the lens of your ideology.

    How much of a divide is really here on SN?
    Everyone in the United States seems kind of on-edge now. But most comments I read here on SN don't seem all that knee-jerk. They tend to seem... thoughtful. And well considered. (This observation could just be my filter at work, since I tend to skip over comments that seem un-thoughtful and ill-considered so my sampling is certainly biased. :-) )

    Let's do some data anlaytics: do we have any downvote moderation victims that are "crushed" because of opposing ideologies? How about some text analytics for downvoted comments? How about some topic-clustering to see if up-votes / down-votes have any biases?
    (note: I'm looking for an interesting student project for a big data class I'm doing, I'd be interested in attempting an analysis like that... how big is SN's database now?)

    Look, I visit Soylent News because I find the diverse and often opposing points of view informative.
    I find the conversation remarkably civil compared to other corners of the internet.

    There's the occasional moment of 4-chan level attempt at humor or trolling.
    shrug
    But I had always figured that was the price-of-admission for going online in the first place. Nothing new here, trolls has been around since usenet was "the place to be."

    But Janrinok, I don't think you're really talking about simple trolling.
    Can you elaborate on what it is that you're trying to bring into focus?
    (Lastly, I'll say I find your post interesting... seems like you're attempting something ambitious, I want to see where it leads - here's wishing you success.)

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:06PM

      by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:06PM (#445624)

      Hello, Janinrok was just the editor I submitted this as an AC so no need to call him/her out.

      Moving forward together means that we figure out what items we can agree on and have bipartisan support (hopefully do away with the idea of bipartisan someday....) to implement the needed technical and social changes. So far it seems pretty well agreed that we need to move away from fossil fuels whether global warming is something to worry about or not. I believe climate change is real, but that debate is not necessary if we agree to move to renewable / sustainable energy practices.

      I would like to see some conversation on regulating pollution as our current EPA efforts are ineffective for some industries, and overly restrictive for others.

      I also come to SN for the better quality discussion, but maybe you haven't been paying attention this year.... There is a huge divide amongst some of the more prolific users. I don't see it as a big problem, but the divide is there. I wasn't trying to say its some huge problem, I just acknowledged that its there and requested we try and ignore it for this discussion.

      I was trying to simply get some less reactionary discussion so we can calmly read what others think. It is very hard to figure out the specifics of why we can't come together to solve our various problems, and it becomes impossible when people throw insults back and forth. In order to move forward together we have to understand the details of each "side" so that we can come to a compromise. As I said above, most people are on board with reducing fossil fuels so it would be easier to focus on that instead of climate change (when talking to someone that doesn't agree with your views on climate change). Finding common ground to move forward.

      --
      ~Tilting at windmills~
      • (Score: 2) by fubari on Sunday December 25 2016, @05:55AM

        by fubari (4551) on Sunday December 25 2016, @05:55AM (#445743)

        Hello Zz9zZ. Sorry about attributing that to the Janinrok; would edit my post if I could.

        I do appreciate the followup.

        Zz9ZZ wrote (emphasis added):

        Moving forward together means that we figure out what items we can agree on and have bipartisan support (hopefully do away with the idea of bipartisan someday....) to implement the needed technical and social changes .

        That is indeed ambitious.
        Some observations about the United States...

        Excerpt from ballotpedia [ballotpedia.org]

        As of April 2016, there were at least 28 distinct ballot-qualified political parties in the United States. There were 214 state-level parties.

        If we go by what ballotpedia says, the US already has more than two parties. :-)

        More seriously, getting beyond the "2 party strangle-hold" on presidential elections is going to be a long, very long, road. There is a serious entrenched power base that opposes changes, they like the way things are now. (Otherwise we would have had Gary Johnson [wikipedia.org] involved in the nationally-televised debates.)

        Note that countries with 5+ parties do not evidence significantly better cohesion and harmony than the "hyper-polarized" United States does. I won't single any one of them out, I'm just saying the default "human nature" seems to be bicker.

        *shrug*
        So you can change human nature.
        Or you can work with what you have.
        So unless we can replace human nature, it is better to focus on incentives.
        In other words, working with human nature means reverse engineering incentives and using that to drive your policy changes.

        In the US, people will continue to yell at each other until some serious disaster comes along... then we'll deal with it well, or not. I'm thinking Malthus [wikipedia.org] for disasters.
        Working towards the United States and harmony and optimal reminds me of a bumper stickers that said "Stop Plate Tectonics". I don't mean to be harsh, I find a certain level of amusement in it... if I were going to start another career I might dual-major in Political Science and Anthropology :-) (But to be honest, my heart isn't really in that - the best I can do is be an interested lay-person.)

        Zz9zz9 wrote (emphasis added):

        So far it seems pretty well agreed that we need to move away from fossil fuels whether global warming is something to worry about or not. I believe climate change is real, but that debate is not necessary if we agree to move to renewable / sustainable energy practices.

        r.e. pretty well agreed: Maybe in the soylent news demographic (could this be a SN poll? "People should move away from fossil fuels. Y/N.")
        Lots of people (and parties) out there would disagree with you though.
        Trump talks about increasing use acquisition and use of fossil fuels.

        For example, I don't see a way to stop fracking, once it became profitable I just don't see how to fight the incentives. That ugly little scenario will have to run its course.

        r.e. moving away from fossil fuels: Still, this is a fair goal, it is concise and actionable

        There are lots ways that could happen.
        Starting by getting everyone to agree on the goal is unproductive.
        Because even if they agree on the goal (which won't happen), those that do aggree on the goal will disagree about how to achieve it.

        Show people why a certain policy or technology is better for them personally and you might get somewhere.

        Instead I believe our specie's future will be driven by the enlightened self interest of the smarter capitalists.

        For starters, I will assert that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are doing more for our future with their space efforts than any ten presidents combined.

        Next, I will double down and claim government research efforts do not and can not go far enough. Our politicions have very little incentive to think long term (more than 10 years, let alone 4). Look, I'm grateful for what we can get from government research - it does help. I just wish it went 10x further.

        One last thing I will call out:
        Here is a fascinating read for you (just for fun, I'll toss it in the SN queue).
        Bill Gates Launches $1 Billion Breakthrough Energy Investment Fund [forbes.com] They're looking at a 20 year investment window as I recall, not the more traditional one or two year "conventional" venture capital fund.

        People who believe in the goals will work in careers and causes to advance them.

        Ok Zz9zZ, that is enough rambling from me.
        Your ideas are thought provoking, and your sig may prove prophetic.
        Thank you. :-)

        • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday December 26 2016, @06:59PM

          by Zz9zZ (1348) on Monday December 26 2016, @06:59PM (#446116)

          Thank you for that post, the main reason for my submission was to try and figure out which points are the most contentious. Right now it feels like a lot of angry shouting without any clear idea of the specifics and I was hoping to get us all focused more on those specifics so we can debate real solutions. Private industry definitely has the ability to do things that the gov won't do, but I don't see that as a very great way forward. The dystopian corporate states (which are basically already here with the transnationals) terrify me, I would prefer a more distributed model for humanity's future over the standard pyramid system of massive corporate structure. There are plenty of smart people in the world, and limiting ourselves to the few billionaires that managed to rise to the top is a waste of talent. I don't have a detailed replacement, but massive corporations strike me as a return to the feudal system we struggled out of.

          We're in the midst of humanity's growing pains trying to figure out how to make society work in this new Tech Age and my personal opinion is we should strive for community self-sufficiency instead of these corporate/gov mega structures.

          Starting by getting everyone to agree on the goal is unproductive.
          Because even if they agree on the goal (which won't happen), those that do aggree on the goal will disagree about how to achieve it.

          I wanted to get a clear picture of what the hurdles are and what compromises would allow the wildly different viewpoints to work together. I've noticed the uptick in renewable energy investment, which has made me very happy, so I think the world will move that direction because it makes economic sense. However, there are a lot of other issues to tackle for long term survival of humans.

          --
          ~Tilting at windmills~
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:08AM

    by shortscreen (2252) on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:08AM (#445513) Journal

    Agreement on climate change? I wouldn't count on it. We'd better start with a more basic premise: fossil fuels are a finite resource. Switching to alternatives will be necessary sooner or later, even if predictions about climate change turn out to be baloney.

    More broadly, the status quo is unsustainable. Energy, population growth, economic factors... a lot of things seem to be headed for upheaval. But these issues are actually complicated and difficult to approach, which might be why popular political rhetoric is focused on inflammatory partisan crap instead.

    A real miracle would be if we could bury the myth that all viewpoints must come from either the Left or Right bucket.

    Glenn Beck and Sam Bee are caricatures. They don't represent any significant range of people or ideas.

  • (Score: 2) by BK on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:04PM

    by BK (4868) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:04PM (#445599)

    Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes.

    Climate change is real

    Agreed. Climate is not static.

    and human activity has an important effect on it.

    This could mean anything. Humans build cities. Cities retain heat differently then the surrounding land. This affects climate.

    A statement more to the point is that human activity in energy production produces CO2 which affects climate. The idea that atmospheric gasses might have some affect on climate is... reasonable. The alternative is to assume that NOTHING affects climate or could. This is unreasonable.

    Humans dump fucktons of all kinds of things into the atmosphere including CO2.

    Stop here and you can find consensus or something approaching it. Even jmorris could get to here.

    We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and

    It's the AND that gets us. With the AND, everyone is on the defensive.

    and [stuff that matters to you] must be handled after needed environmental changes.

    What a stinger. Wow. So much here.

    needed environmental changes.

    Which ones are those. Be precise. In this place there is no consensus. Not on the left. Not on the right. Not among scientists. Certainly not in industry. This is the stopper. At least some of those who assert that AGW is impossible do so because of THIS. The implications are profound.

    social/economic issues must be handled after

    The handling of the needed environmental changes ARE social and economic issues. The belief that they can be considered separately or consecutively is as unreasonable as the belief that AGW is impossible.

    YMMV

    --
    ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:52PM (#445620)

      Good points, I submitted this conversation starter and did not mean to separate out social and economic concerns from the climate change / environmental discussion. I didn't even mean to restrict environmental issues to just climate change. My point was that we must save our environment first in order to maximize our survival potential, and arguing over socialist / capitalist / left / right is something we can do after we address our environmental problems. We should be dumping a lot of effort into getting all businesses and countries on board with sustainable industry as much as possible.

      We have a huge recycling problem, many waste management companies are now dumping everything into landfills because it is simply not profitable to handle recycling. My opinion is that we should create a new government organization to set up recycling centers as a public service with cheap recycled materials offered to businesses. At least that would help stimulate the economy along with saving the environment from unnecessary landfill.

      My submission was a conversation starter so please don't pick it apart like its a thesis, it doesn't warrant that much consideration. I was more interested in getting people to simply discuss our partisan divide.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:32PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:32PM (#445669)

        My point was that we must save our environment first in order to maximize our survival potential, and arguing over socialist / capitalist / left / right is something we can do after we address our environmental problems.

        There ya go again. If we all just ASSume you are right that we face Armageddon and go ahead and just give you a Socialist One World Government (since your side's assertion is that is the only power that can actually solve the problem) that after you "save the world" we can THEN talk about whether we shall have Capitalism or keep the Socialism your side will already have. Pull the other one pal. Do you really think we are that stupid?

        Your forked tongue speaks of conciliation, of coming together and speaking of reason but then you assume the sale, that all who are to sit at the table must agree you are right and we are only to talk of how we might serve your goals.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @11:47PM (#445682)

          You shouldn't feel like it is a personal attack, and I went out of my way to point out that I wasn't suggesting anything overly specific besides "save the planet". It is your inability to have a reasonable discussion here not mine.

          For many people the planet/environment is the most important issue. If you think its OK to pollute and destroy the planet we live on then there will be no reconciliation or compromise with you involved. You say I have a forked tongue yet all you provide is division and insults. My supposition in submitting the article was to point out the biggest issue "liberals" have, though there are many we could discuss. If you disagree with environmental protections and think we should let businesses do whatever they'd like, then say so and we can go about our separate ways.

  • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:12PM

    by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:12PM (#445626)

    My thanks and appreciation for taking this idea seriously.

    I was the AC who submitted this and I am very shocked at how civil and well thought out 95% of the thread is!

    Except jmorris of course, he always has to stir the pot. And the one AC who just needed to get one more insult off his chest for 2016, I hope the rest of your holiday goes better than your experience reading my submission.

    --
    ~Tilting at windmills~