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NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

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Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always in how the numbers are used, cherry picking by both sides. However the real take away here is that they figured out they were wrong yet again. Of course they lean towards the more extreme each time but even some publications indicate that Antarctic changes are due to natural variability. Then lets play with sea rise, the fear is always that some islands will wash away and port towns will be at further ri…

This is an idiotic response at best. Are you honestly trying to say that the variations are natural? We have thousand upon thousands of years of climate details in ice cores, and while there is natural variation, the last 100 years vary more than anything else we can find in history. Here is an unbiased visual representation of all the temperature data we have from the last 20,000 years or so. Notice how the temperat…

You realize an infographic involves opinion right? What data to use, what scale, etc. You can't just present one graph and say you win... Both sides could find a graph or 3.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#152

Slight tangent, but how does one with SWE/product skills get involved in climate work? There seems to be some research every other day indicating how disastrous global warming is going to be, but a dearth of jobs outside of solar installation or academia.

Make the Linux kernel more efficient, save a bazillion CPU cycles in datacenters all over the world.

Which hipsters with Ruby and Node will burn away.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always in how the numbers are used, cherry picking by both sides. However the real take away here is that they figured out they were wrong yet again. Of course they lean towards the more extreme each time but even some publications indicate that Antarctic changes are due to natural variability. Then lets play with sea rise, the fear is always that some islands will wash away and port towns will be at further ri…

>In other words, the climate does change but we don't know all the variables and people's whose very jobs depend on income from both studying it and "fixing it" (read : GE) will always push the numbers that support their side. Just like big oil will try to claim that oil isn't the leading cause; its cows btw. Potentially, not anymore! http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/seaweed-livestock-methane-em...

In my place, animals die if they wander in places with seaweed (the sprawl of which is caused by industrial agriculture and breeding), because those produce toxic gases when they rot.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#154

Duh. The important thing at this instant is to develop a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colony or a means by which some people can survive far above the surface of the Earth for 30-80 years. Life on Earth itself has less time than most people are even ready to know. Something on the order of 1-10 years left. There are massive changes coming which will destroy all human civilization on Earth. Global warming is just…

Earth has been warmer before without all the catastrophic effects you describe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.sv...

The point is not the temperature itself, although my simplified description implied that. It's the fact that human activities are causing and have caused the natural environment to lose its homeostatic balance and to do so very quickly. This fact generates the catastrophic effects, not the resting temperature of the planet.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#155
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be painting too rosy a picture of the past. Gyrating wildly? The UK no longer gets bombed by the IRA, there's no cold war, there's no crippling union strikes everywhere. As for more serious but less sexy problems, it'll take a lot of climate change to compete with disasters we've already had/are having: Global deaths from famine from 1900-2000: 80,000,000 [1] Global deaths from malaria from 2000-2015: 9,000…

I'm not entirely sure the Cold War ever ended, we just don't use that phrase anymore so that people don't think about it or know how to refer to the arms race of continual production of nuclear weaponry around the world.

> I'm not entirely sure the Cold War ever ended

The 70% nuclear arms reduction from the late 1980s [1] and the collapse of the Soviet Union are pretty definitive.

http://www.nukestrat.com/WorldNuclearStockpiles.jpg

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#156
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Given the general staidness of the actual research, I think we need to worry a lot more about where climate science has underestimated the change than where they've overestimated it. The loss function will be brutal on that side.

> People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Climate researchers have _not_ been implying that the bad effects are way out in the 21st century: they've made hundreds of testable predictions that catastrophe was at hand in the 80s, 90s, and aughts. We were going to see the…

[deleted]

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#157

Duh. The important thing at this instant is to develop a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colony or a means by which some people can survive far above the surface of the Earth for 30-80 years. Life on Earth itself has less time than most people are even ready to know. Something on the order of 1-10 years left. There are massive changes coming which will destroy all human civilization on Earth. Global warming is just…

You scare me when you say 1 to 10 years. I want to change. Please provide more info,stats and material to inspire people to change. Atleast,what should i can do in the immediate term

Hi, If you genuinely want how to change then the essential information you have to know is that this world operates by one fundamental principle which means that everything, including the Earth, makes results on the basis of what is in problems. To change yourself you first need to become properly aware of yourself and any problem you have, and then you need to formulate good problems for yourself through 'what is' in reality. Same process for changing others. Problem is that before being able to become aware of 'what is' correctly and precisely you either need an extremely long time of practicing good deeds or you need to learn from a truthful teacher who has already opened his own eyes to the world. Those teachers are extremely rare. However I found one about a decade ago. He talks about the coming changes to humanity only generally in public but he traveled to dozens of countries and has met and had recorded conversations with scientists at hundreds of the world's top universities. Here's an English website about his work. Sorry that it is so late. He passed away already in 2008, else you would have been able to personally ask him questions.

http://tathagata2000.tripod.com

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#158

Duh. The important thing at this instant is to develop a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colony or a means by which some people can survive far above the surface of the Earth for 30-80 years. Life on Earth itself has less time than most people are even ready to know. Something on the order of 1-10 years left. There are massive changes coming which will destroy all human civilization on Earth. Global warming is just…

Fascinating. Do you have any sources on this? I'm interested in learning more.

Please see my reply to veeragoni.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the Linux kernel more efficient, save a bazillion CPU cycles in datacenters all over the world.

Which hipsters with Ruby and Node will burn away.

I hope you are being sarcastic.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#160
post #130
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is definitely not the problem. And that way of thinking is what leads to despair and helplessness, because we will never stop making and consuming. Apart from a very few things (cement, steel, ammonia), producing things does not directly release any C02. What we need to do is stop burning fossil fuels to produce and consume energy. And that is already happening now. The biggest question is how fast can we make t…

You forgot meat, which stands for 10% or so of CO2 emissions [1] (and that isn't needed at all, compare meat consumption in the west with global average). And I'd consider "travel" a product too, I'm sure it factors into GDP which was the metric under discussion. You are right, the biggest question is how fast we can make the transition. In considering that question, you can't dismiss lifestyle changes (=current over…

No I didn't forget meat. Meat production does not directly put carbon atoms into the air (forget methane for a second). That is what I mean by direct emissions. When we decouple energy from carbon, the amount of greenhouse gasses produced by agriculture changes. The problem with such calculations you refer to is that they assume the current rate of CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced/consumed. When we reduce that number to zero, which we will, those calculations are useless. (Farming is a little more complex due to deforestation and methane, but still the argument stands.) This is whats wrong with people who try to calculate MPG equivalents of electric cars based on the current emissions from power production. Electric cars do not release any CO2, period. Power production currently does, but we will fix that separately.

We need to apply system level thinking to this problem, what is a strategy that will lead to zero (acceptable) emissions? We need to focus 100% on that strategy. I believe lifestyle changes based on moral arguments are a distraction due to the following reasons:

1. Its completely unrealistic to change behaviour at that scale

2. Even if successful the effect is only a minor delay, not an actual solution. Any gains due to consumption reductions is more than offset by growth.

3. Focusing on such things may be counterproductive. First by creating opposition to the entire climate change agenda, telling people to change their way of life makes them oppose it any way they can, including denying the problem completely. Secondly we need to stimulate demand for zero emission technologies, reducing consumption is counterproductive to that.

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