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

Mirroring US climate data

climatemirror.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 166 posts

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#71

Post by gus_massa »

nirav72 wrote: post #3
trothamel wrote: post #2

Can I be the first to claim that the people running the mirror are changing the data for their own nefarious purposes? Not that I believe this or anything, but come on - you know that accusation is going to go around. It might make sense to use a remote server to timestamp files as they're uploaded, or something like that.

When there is a broad consensus across the scientific community about climate change, does it even matter at this point if the data has been changed? The U.S isn't the only country that collects this data. So even if changed, it doesn't matter.

Consensus without data is indistinguishable from religion.

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#73

Post by gus_massa »

ajmurmann wrote: post #23
danbruc wrote: post #11

Having backups is obviously always a good idea but that aside, how likely is it, that mirroring this data is actually necessary? There are obviously at least some people believing that it is necessary but then there are always people convinced that the most silly things are necessary. I am really unable to tell whether this is more of an overreaction or an urgent necessity, especially as someone not living in the US.…

Well the EPA had been asked by Trump's transition team to provide a list of employees who have attended conferences about climate change. See NPR story: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505041927/... They have also removed all mentions of climate change from the white House website and we now many Republicans don't believe in man made climate change. So I think this is an entirely reasonable fear. We…

> They have also removed all mentions of climate change from the white House website

They replaced the old website with a new website. The old website is stored in: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ This is usual. Obama toke the same measure. Here is the Bush website if you like it: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/

With the change, Trump (technical staff) removed many subject they disagree, and many subjects they agree with. If Obama had a page about how great are ginger hair people, it would have disappeared too.

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#74

Post by simonbarker87 »

tukelully wrote: post #61
tracker1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that not everyone who rebuffs some of the proposed actions is a climate denier. There's still some question as to the extent of human involvement. That said, smog is enough for me to be in favor of working towards renewable, less polluting energy sources. In my lifetime I've gone from having allergy-like flare ups once every few years, to now 2-3 times a year, mostly seems to follow the pollution le…

In your first sentence which actions are you referring to?

Not OP but the general complaint is that we shouldn't switch from a cheap energy source (coal) to expensive renewables which are relatively untested at scale if the human impact of climate change is minimal or already past the point of no return. I don't personally believe this but this is a not unreasonable argument I have heard.

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#75

Post by angry_octet »

fsttx wrote: post #38

Another useful tactic is to archive news and commentary (left and right) about current political events, both for accountability and perhaps, to prevent the rewriting of history in the era of "alternative facts".

It is not sufficient to have a record of facts when others have alternative facts. To your signed record of facts they would just introduce alternate facts with alternative signatures and claim you had made it up. Normal people don't have the tools or experience to differentiate, and the alternative facts support a story they want to believe, rather than hard truths.

News media won't even mention your so-called 'real facts', facebook and twitter might not let others see them. Before you know it you'll be denounced by your neighbours, work colleagues and friends as a traitor, a madman. You'll lose your job, or your partner will. There may be a show trial and public denunciation. This has all happened before: the USSR, McCarthy.

If you don't want that you need an alternate means of distributing real facts, and countering fake ones. It has to be hosted so deeply in our tech infrastructure that it can't be firewalled or jammed. It needs to be accessible covertly. And it needs to record all the alternative facts too, because they like to change their facts.

Let's call it Samizdat.

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#76

Post by ams6110 »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #45

I heard that Trump has given NOAA 100 days to justify their existence, or face heavy cuts. Does anyone know the details? Here is the closest article I could find: http://www.salon.com/2016/11/23/politicizing-climate-change-...

Why shouldn't government agencies have to justify their budgets and operations periodically?

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#77

Post by rmc »

tempestn wrote: post #72
jl6 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hash the content and store the hash in the Bitcoin blockchain.

Alternatively you could publish the hash in a major newspaper.

I don't have write access to a major newspaper. Sure, big organisations, when the political climate is right, can do things like that. What is there available for the little person?

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#78

Post by Turing_Machine »

danbruc wrote: post #33
danbruc wrote: post #11

Having backups is obviously always a good idea but that aside, how likely is it, that mirroring this data is actually necessary? There are obviously at least some people believing that it is necessary but then there are always people convinced that the most silly things are necessary. I am really unable to tell whether this is more of an overreaction or an urgent necessity, especially as someone not living in the US.…

Why was this comment by ajmurmann flagged? Up to now that seems the best evidence provided for answering my question even though I think it is relatively weak evidence and it lacks a source for the second paragraph. Well the EPA had been asked by Trump's transition team to provide a list of employees who have attended conferences about climate change. See NPR story: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/5…

I didn't flag it, but I would guess that this is part of the reason:

"They have also removed all mentions of climate change from the white House website "

As gus_massa points out above, the entire Obama White House website (not just the pages dealing with climate change) has been transferred to the National Archives (not "removed") and has been replaced with a completely new site.

While the web is still new enough that it's hard to argue tradition, Obama did the same thing to Bush II's site, and Bush II did the same thing to Clinton's site (Clinton was the first, so there's no data before that).

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#79

Post by czep »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #74
tukelully wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your first sentence which actions are you referring to?

Not OP but the general complaint is that we shouldn't switch from a cheap energy source (coal) to expensive renewables which are relatively untested at scale if the human impact of climate change is minimal or already past the point of no return. I don't personally believe this but this is a not unreasonable argument I have heard.

Contribution to climate change shouldn't be the only criteria for evaluation of an energy source. Shouldn't we also keep in mind pollution? Coal burns, it releases fine particulates into the air that cause cancer in people's lungs. Pollution sucks. We should stop talking about climate change and go back to the 70s when people were talking about pollution.

Re: Mirroring US climate data

#80

Post by dhimes »

lawless123 wrote: post #69
esaym wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the same thing. Do you think you will really convince a climate denier with this data that you copied off of the Internet that, was copied from a gov server, on to another server and then torrented and copied to another server and then downloaded onto you PC... doubt it.

>Do you think you will really convince a climate denier with this data These people where convinced a pizza restaurant was the center of a global pedo ring based on nothing but deliberately misconstrued sentences they claim are code. They'll believe whatever they want.

Agree. I think we're better off reproducing altered versions of the Bible and getting the message out that way.

(I think I'm being a smartass, btw. I think.)

Post reply on HN