Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 252 posts

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#241

Post by JupiterMoon »

brc wrote: post #168
JupiterMoon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK produced significant coal until the early 1980s and the significant reduction in output then was for political rather than geological reasons.

Actually it was for economic reasons. The UK lost comparative advantage for coal production. The way they mine coal in the UK is positively archaic compared to monster open cut mines which out produce the UK deep pits by a wide margin.

This isn't always a fair comparison. Some of the UK pits were high quality anthracite. Also some cost savings could surely have been made if the two political sides had been able to actually make meaningful compromises.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#242

Post by brandmeyer »

epistasis wrote: post #229
brandmeyer wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I think you're off by about 2x for wholesale lithium battery prices; they are closer to 300 USD/kW-hr. 2) a) The economics of battery energy storage are effectively a type of arbitrage in time, where you get some fraction of depth-of-discharge over the time in question. 2) b) In the most limiting case, lets assume that battery energy storage is only being used for daily cycling, that the maximum cycle depth is 75%…

Agreed, storage is arbitrage, but arbitrage that's going to have a ton of economic purpose and necessity, not just somebody being a middleman. The Chevy Bolt's batteries have been widely reported to cost $145/kWh, see for example [1]. I'm not sure what's excluded from the whole component to get to the price, but it's a point of reference at least. The full life of various lithium ion batteries is still being studied…

With regards to cycle life, the amount of cycle life you get by reducing the depth of discharge is very nonlinear. Some internal studies show it be a strong power ((1/fractional_depth)^4 or more).

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#244

Post by midwest1 »

mikeash wrote: post #212
DasIch wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence. There is no one who deserves to be taken seriously arguing that climate change doesn't exist or isn't caused by humans.

This really should not be downvoted. It's absolutely true. Yes, there are good reasons politicians and news organizations would want to peddle fear. But in this particular case, the origin of the fear is the work of thousands of smart people who have made it their life's work to study this stuff, and they almost all come up with the same answers over and over and over again. The media wants to scare us? Sure. Politic…

I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science.

To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with.

In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#245

Post by [deleted] »

galactical wrote: post #197
drewrv wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This book seems explicitly one sided to me, it says right in the blurb: > The authors of Climate Change: The Facts number some of the most prominent dissenters from Big Climate alarmism

It's definitely one sided, I just thought the author list consisting of climatologists, professors, and scientists would be more fact-based than a lot of the other books out there. Which is why I'm frustrated that that does not appear to be the case.

[deleted]

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#246

Post by midwest1 »

nikdaheratik wrote: post #230
karmawitch wrote: post #157

is it just me or is it quite rare to see such a low level of discussion on HN?

I think it depends on what kind of article you're looking at. It's related to a political issue early in the U.S. election year, so there's alot of noise from people who don't usually comment. Only 10.5 months until the nonsense goes away for awhile.

Is this a typical thing on HN in election years? This is where I come to escape, dammit! :)

I would give a finger to have an entire forum of people from various technical backgrounds who could have intelligent conversations about various topics without the bumbling interference of the devoted true believers of whatever creed.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#247

Post by mikeash »

midwest1 wrote: post #244
mikeash wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really should not be downvoted. It's absolutely true. Yes, there are good reasons politicians and news organizations would want to peddle fear. But in this particular case, the origin of the fear is the work of thousands of smart people who have made it their life's work to study this stuff, and they almost all come up with the same answers over and over and over again. The media wants to scare us? Sure. Politic…

I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science. To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with. In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.

I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data.

But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated, to ensure everybody gives the same kind of fraudulent results.

It's especially unbelievable because many countries have a vested interest in the world's ability to continue burning fossil fuels. If climate change were a fraud, they would have a huge incentive to show that. Why would places like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and indeed even the United States not massively fund climate science to debunk the climate change fraud?

I could buy the fraud argument if it were a few people. I could even buy it if, for example, there were a massive schism in the field, with one big group saying climate change is real, and another big group saying it's not. But when they all speak with one voice, aside from a few tiny dregs of dissent, fraud isn't a good explanation.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#248

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mikeash wrote: post #247
midwest1 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science. To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with. In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.

I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data. But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated , to ensure everybody gives t…

Another reason: the evidence is worldwide and obvious. Siberia melting in a couple of years, which it hasn't done in 40,000 years. All the glaciers receding drastically. The Antarctic ice shelf undergoing irreversible melting. It doesn't take a century of temperature measurement to see the result of heating up.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#249

Post by midwest1 »

mikeash wrote: post #247
midwest1 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to evaluate the work of scientists for the US government. You would be surprised at the rampant amount of fraud in science. To answer your last question, job security. Many other reasons... adulation, professional competition. Generally the types who go into environmental science are true believers to begin with. In rare cases, there is some money to be made by whoring yourself out.

I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data. But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated , to ensure everybody gives t…

Many of the sciences do suffer from systemic incompetence, if not fraud.

There is evidence that dissent in climate science is punished. That alone is enough for me to pull out the microscope and take the words of minority researchers seriously.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#250

Post by midwest1 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #248
mikeash wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt there's fraud in science. Stories pop up pretty frequently that show researchers claiming some new breakthrough with fudged data. But what would be required here would be far more than that. Individual fraudsters wouldn't be enough. Even systemic fraud wouldn't do it. It would need to be universal fraud, across basically the entire world. And it would need to be coordinated , to ensure everybody gives t…

Another reason: the evidence is worldwide and obvious. Siberia melting in a couple of years, which it hasn't done in 40,000 years. All the glaciers receding drastically. The Antarctic ice shelf undergoing irreversible melting. It doesn't take a century of temperature measurement to see the result of heating up.

Did a scientist tell you this? That is not how science works. You cannot attribute events around you to some notion of obviousness. That reasoning would not pass any physicist's approval.

Climate science is predicated upon a proper understanding of physics. Any scientist who tells you that worldwide evidence is obvious should be treated with the same level of respect as Dr. Oz.

The typical response would be that the physics is proven. Well, AFAIK, yes, at least to the degree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it has SOME effect on climate. The magnitude of contribution to toal effect by various sources and sinks seems far from certain.

To draw a parallel, which a physicist (scientist) would do when instructing - this is like saying salt makes blood pressure go up, so it's bad for you... And ignoring all the ways the body can come to equilibrium. Stop eating salt, today, or you'll burst.

So if a physicist calls it bullshit, that's pretty much your trump card. Which is why people put so much stock in Dysons opinion, because he was an expert in properly using the tools that most climate scientists are not experts in.

Were you to go study physics at a masters level for a bit, and then read scientific studies yourself with a critical eye, you'd learn how much of what we call science is grade A bullshit.

Until then, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to debate with you. It's kind of like me arguing American football with John Madden.

Post reply on HN