161–170 of 211 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By "conservative rhetoric" I assume you mean the only scientifically provable stance that there is on the issue.
It's widely accepted in the scientific that specific occurrences such as the ozone hole above Antarctica are created as a result of human activity in the past 50 years.
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> I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. This is because warming is only one component of the problems we're facing as a result of pollution. See for example ocean acidification. > Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat duri…
> Having a better environment for businesses boosts profits, not innovation. Of course, but more profits encourages people to create more businesses which create more innovation. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
It isn't obvious at all. In fact, there are some indications that the opposite is true. For example, there are some simple economic models in Blatt:Dynamic Economic Systems where rate of profit and rate of growth are inversely proportional. Also, data from Piketty aren't very optimistic in this sense either (it seems that economic states with lots of private capital correspond to low growth and vice versa).
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Conflating six heads in a row with a periodic new record is unproductive. For any given area of the country we generally have several record highs per year, and record lows per year, and have every single year since 1880. That's the nature of having a very small period of records. People acting outraged about a simple statement of fact like "since 1880", or the notional, obvious statement that a sporadic high or low…
Daily records at a point are completely irrelevant to this discussion. The fact that points set multiple daily records per year has no bearing whatsoever on the significance, or lack thereof, of a monthly, global record. You're right of course, that a single record high is not compelling. Even when it's a global, monthly record high. My point in my original reply is that pointing this out is irrelevant and annoying.…
Exactly the same principle applies.
Look at the title of this submission. Stop and before you knee-jerk a response, contemplate that this isn't "it's hot, yo, and getting hotter". It is specifically that July was the hottest month "ever recorded", which someone quite rightfully noted was since 1880.
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I've always found it incredibly frustrating that both sides focus so much on "is it caused by people". It makes things personal, it sounds to many people like an accusation – " you're ruining the world just by living your life" – which (understandably!) makes people defensive, and it's completely beside the point. There are only two relevant questions: 1. Is it happening? and 2. What can we do right now to fix it? Th…
The question I would like answered is "What is the optimal mean surface temperature of the Earth?" It's hard for me to get all worked up over climate change when no one can tell me whether the observations indicate a trend towards or away from an overall improvement. It's easy to show that things are changing. It's slightly more difficult to show that such changes are resulting from human activity. But no one seems t…
I would really like to see a graph of the mean temperature of the hottest month in each year, so we can see how this trend compares to noise.
They have a nice comparison list of the ten warmest years [1].
[0] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2015/5/supplemental/pag...
[1] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2015/5/supplemental/pag...
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It has been that way for a very long time now. The right-wing angle on the debate has always included: - It's not happening. - It's happening but it's natural. - It's happening and might be man-made, but it's beneficial. - It's happening and might be man-made, and it's harmful, but it's not worth the cost to mitigate. - It's happening and might be man-made, and it's harmful, and free-market solutions will solve it. A…
There are four dimensions there: happening/not, natural/anthropogenic, beneficial/harmful, and the relative economic impact of intentional terraforming efforts. Of those four, only the last two are worth debating, and they're really almost the same thing. Everyone who screams about those first two dimensions are probably profiting more by perpetuating a meaningless conversation than by solving an identifiable problem…
But the first two strongly feed into the last two. If climate change is not anthropogenic, then cutting emissions will not provide any benefit, while potentially causing economic harm. If climate change isn't happening at all then there is no need to do anything, and the entire framework for predicting the outcomes of changes to human activities is completely busted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. This is because warming is only one component of the problems we're facing as a result of pollution. See for example ocean acidification. > Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat duri…
> Having a better environment for businesses boosts profits, not innovation. Of course, but more profits encourages people to create more businesses which create more innovation. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
"Liberals want to heavily tax fossil and subsidize renewable energy. Problem with that is that taxing fossil make life and the economy harder in the meantime and subsidizing often goes to cronies which is bad for innovation"
Something to consider here is that taxing oil production or similar carbon emissions creating isn't really a tax. It's actually just reflecting the real cost of the activity. The problem with these industries is that they have externalities which are not reflected - some of their profits are created by a cost being put onto society. Nobody likes 'taxes', but I think everyone can agree that any activity should reflect it's true cost.
Plus, if you step away from climate change for a moment everyone can see that the demands for energy are only increasing. Some of the new technologies around energy generation will be extremely profitable - whole new sectors. The USA has a strong tradition of supporting innovation and then reaping the rewards in private enterprises. So you might consider the "subsidies" as just priming innovation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always found it incredibly frustrating that both sides focus so much on "is it caused by people". It makes things personal, it sounds to many people like an accusation – " you're ruining the world just by living your life" – which (understandably!) makes people defensive, and it's completely beside the point. There are only two relevant questions: 1. Is it happening? and 2. What can we do right now to fix it? Th…
The question I would like answered is "What is the optimal mean surface temperature of the Earth?" It's hard for me to get all worked up over climate change when no one can tell me whether the observations indicate a trend towards or away from an overall improvement. It's easy to show that things are changing. It's slightly more difficult to show that such changes are resulting from human activity. But no one seems t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand what the fact that the previous record was 17 years prior has to do with my response, or your response to my response. You're right, the discussion is mostly awful. Climate change has been turned into a political issue, and awful discussion is a predictable result of that. On the other hand, I don't see how your comment improves that any.
Conflating six heads in a row with a periodic new record is unproductive. For any given area of the country we generally have several record highs per year, and record lows per year, and have every single year since 1880. That's the nature of having a very small period of records. People acting outraged about a simple statement of fact like "since 1880", or the notional, obvious statement that a sporadic high or low…
But I'll also note that you haven't even bothered to go back and compute the probabilities in the first place.
It was one thing to make this argument in the 90's, but two decades of data later it's plainly ridiculous and it doesn't take nuanced data analysis.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/glob/201506.gi...
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/lo-hem/201506....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Daily records at a point are completely irrelevant to this discussion. The fact that points set multiple daily records per year has no bearing whatsoever on the significance, or lack thereof, of a monthly, global record. You're right of course, that a single record high is not compelling. Even when it's a global, monthly record high. My point in my original reply is that pointing this out is irrelevant and annoying.…
The fact that points set multiple daily records per year has no bearing whatsoever on the significance, or lack thereof, of a monthly, global record. Exactly the same principle applies. Look at the title of this submission. Stop and before you knee-jerk a response, contemplate that this isn't "it's hot, yo, and getting hotter". It is specifically that July was the hottest month "ever recorded", which someone quite ri…
> zealots such as yourself
Stuff like this breaks the HN guidelines, and there is much of it in your comments. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all, even when others are wrong. In fact, especially when others are wrong.
