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Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

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Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#111

Post by um_ya »

mmcgaha wrote: post #93

Warnings of impending problems serve a real purpose even if they miss the mark. We absolutely want folks thinking about environmental responsibility, and the consequences of their choices. Unfortunately, some of the more doom and gloom predictions can send young people down the wrong path. I remember listening to 10 in 2010 and imagining that I would never make it to 40. Well here we are in 2020, and somewhere along…

How much research has been done into the positive effects of global warming? More rainfall, warmer waters, more tropical climate. It's hard to believe these things might be bad.

Has no one done this kind of research before?

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#112

Post by ThomPete »

ConsiderCrying wrote: post #102
mmcgaha wrote: post #93

Warnings of impending problems serve a real purpose even if they miss the mark. We absolutely want folks thinking about environmental responsibility, and the consequences of their choices. Unfortunately, some of the more doom and gloom predictions can send young people down the wrong path. I remember listening to 10 in 2010 and imagining that I would never make it to 40. Well here we are in 2020, and somewhere along…

I agree and I'd hope to see the information tweaked based on latest research, which is what they're doing. Hope other spots with similar plaques and signs follow suit. Just so skeptics have less to argue with, not just entering the park and going 'Ha, see, signs in this place are wrong so, clearly, climate science is wrong.' Yes, true, our estimates are changing on the regular but that's better than just pretending l…

It's not a question about whether climate science is wrong.

There are plenty of observations that are pretty well established. The problem is that the media only portraits the most catastrophic of the claims. But a lot of climate science is speculation not a demonstration and we have to be much better at calming down and looking at different things with different certainties rather than just claiming the sky is falling.

Even the IPCC report is scaling back on some of the more alarmist rethoric.

There isn't to my knowledge any scientifically demonstrated consequences of climate change we don't know how to deal with.

That should be a good thing yet somehow we've end up in trench wars.

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#113

Post by beerandt »

shadowgovt wrote: post #32
bregma wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure in the '70s I read the Earth would be a big ball of ice, but it's OK since if we didn't nuke ourselves the overpopulation will have killed us all off.

It's sad when people underestimate the amount of work that was done both to find a path through the threat of MAD-style militarization and the pressure of human population on the global food supply. Neither of these worst-case-scenarios were avoided by chance. They were avoided by the hard work of decades of politicians and scientists. The world was a single soldier executing a single order away from a superpower-sca…

I'd say the ww3 thing was exactly avoided due to chance.

It's also wrong to assume that improvements only happened because of dire threats. It's not like we haven't been trying to increase agricultural yields for thousands of years.

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#114

Post by Karunamon »

ljm wrote: post #92
Karunamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say this goes beyond being "slightly wrong" and into being outright fearmongering. If the science doesn't support a deadline, then you don't pull one out of thin air while passing it off as a scientific conclusion. To do otherwise is dishonest, even if you think you're doing it for noble ends.

We're just generally bad at estimating though, right? It's not just for climate change. Both nuclear fusion and the depletion of fossil fuels have been a good 50 years off now, for pretty much my entire three-decade lifetime. The estimates might well be genuine at the time of publication, but our response to them will make the estimates inaccurate. Maybe all we're managing is to maintain equilibrium rather than posit…

>I don't assume intentional dishonesty here because the risk of being completely discredited is way too high.

We're talking about the prediction "These glaciers will be gone by 2020".

And I'm not going to subject myself to a bunch of science denier sites to come back with a list of other failed predictions, but there are quite a few of them. Ones that are far more dire and breathless than a tourist trap going away.

If there's a risk of being discredited, it doesn't appear to apply to this topic. Intentional dishonesty? Nah, this is more like depraved indifference. There are no consequences for speaking out one's ass, and most attempts to enforce those consequences socially gets one branded as a "denier".

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#115

Post by etrautmann »

landryraccoon wrote: post #51

Is there an investment fund that is designed to specifically invest in companies that have solid plans in place for mitigating or taking advantage of climate change, or taking short positions against industries or regions that are at risk and totally unprepared? Examples would be shorting Florida coastal real estate, shorting flood insurance, long on agricultural and real estate investments that depend on moving grow…

The unfortunate consequence of such an attitude is that it creates further economic incentives to not attempt to mitigate the damage from or slow down climate change

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#116

Post by falcolas »

Torgo wrote: post #36

What was the park's plan for 2020? Close down? Change the name of the park? Without the glaciers, what would be the draw?

Glacier or no, it's a beautiful piece of nearly pristine land. I imagine they'd simply find other attractions (there are several possibilities) or focus on the hows and whys of the glacier's disappearance.

If you haven't, I recommend visiting. If you can't visit, have a look at some of the pictures taken by those who have.

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#117

Post by landryraccoon »

etrautmann wrote: post #115
landryraccoon wrote: post #51

Is there an investment fund that is designed to specifically invest in companies that have solid plans in place for mitigating or taking advantage of climate change, or taking short positions against industries or regions that are at risk and totally unprepared? Examples would be shorting Florida coastal real estate, shorting flood insurance, long on agricultural and real estate investments that depend on moving grow…

The unfortunate consequence of such an attitude is that it creates further economic incentives to not attempt to mitigate the damage from or slow down climate change

I’d argue the opposite.

The problem with your position is that you are already describing the status quo of our society - virtually every entrenched interest in our society already gains from climate change denial. Fossil fuel exploitation industries and transportation are a trillion dollar industry already.

On the other hand, the other side of the scale has nothing. A billion dollars in a hedge fund won’t be the tipping point when Exxon already has a market cap of 300 billion.

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#118

Post by falcolas »

A National Geographic piece on Glacier National Park. You can see some "before" and "after" pictures of the last hundred-ish years in the first minute of the 3.5 minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4

Are they gone? No. Are they going? Sure looks like it.

I recommend visiting (in the summer), regardless of the glacier status. It's beautiful.

EDIT: Another site with picture differences, with a slider view window. Care of the National Park Service.

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm

Re: Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs

#120

Post by [deleted] »

lwhalen wrote: post #109
powowow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really fucking clear-cut from a risk management point of view.

I mean, so is Pascal's Wager. I'm no climate scientist, but from what little I've read is that _all_ climate models are terrible at predicting more than 10-20 days out, and are on the same level of accuracy as financial forecasting models (i.e., 'not at all'). In my vast and inky ignorance, I'm just not convinced we need to _drastically revamp the entire economy soup to nuts_ in order to satisfy predictions from inac…

[deleted]
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