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

New ice age? Don't count on it

newscientist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 119 posts

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#11

Post by pedalpete »

muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

As guelo points out, this is part of the propaganda campaigns,but who's propaganda.

I say go with your gut and do what's right. We know that burning gasoline and coal releases carbon and are dirty.

We know we should be clean.

Strip mining, not clean. Recycling, clean. Wind looks cleaner than a smokestack, go wind. Solar, well, if the panels are made from plastics are they really cleaner than gas? I think so, go solar, etc. etc. etc.

It gets confusing when you get down to the level of ethanol, but I think for the most part you know in your gut what's right.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#12

Post by [deleted] »

jessedhillon wrote: post #8
[deleted] wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Guessing? How so, by whom, and about what? The scientific consensus is that humans have had a significant, adverse impact on the global climate -- this conclusion is presented with scientific certainty. There is a complete lack of significant dissent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...

[deleted]

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#13

Post by narag »

muppetman wrote: post #6
[deleted] wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

And that's what it seems like to me. But everyone writes and discusses it so authoritatively that you almost feel silly if you question it. In computer science, no one seems to say "This is a fact" unless they know (or can prove) it is. Doesn't seem to hold true for climate change, which is what frustrates me.

In computer science, no one seems to say "This is a fact" unless they know (or can prove) it is.

If you mean theoretical papers and such, you're probably right. But that's not the case for practical work. Take a look to the "ORM is an Antipattern" story, currently in the front page..

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#14

Post by dodo53 »

pedalpete wrote: post #11
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

As guelo points out, this is part of the propaganda campaigns,but who's propaganda. I say go with your gut and do what's right. We know that burning gasoline and coal releases carbon and are dirty. We know we should be clean. Strip mining, not clean. Recycling, clean. Wind looks cleaner than a smokestack, go wind. Solar, well, if the panels are made from plastics are they really cleaner than gas? I think so, go solar…

The problem is that climate change and green energy are so complicated and political, it's hard to tell what is propaganda (and there's strong incentives in many different directions for the results to come out in a given direction). Ethanol used to sound like a good idea; now it sounds like it's mostly a corn/sugar-lobby way of getting money and not practical (although I'm sure it's not that straightforward).

For 'wind looks cleaner' - the Register argues that mostly it'll end up making energy more expensive without being much cleaner (in this one case in the UK), due to perverse incentives: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/national_grid_2020/

I think 'gut feeling' is exactly what we don't need. Things are not always intuitively obvious.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#15

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #12
jessedhillon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guessing? How so, by whom, and about what? The scientific consensus is that humans have had a significant, adverse impact on the global climate -- this conclusion is presented with scientific certainty. There is a complete lack of significant dissent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#16

Post by jessedhillon »

[deleted] wrote: post #12
jessedhillon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guessing? How so, by whom, and about what? The scientific consensus is that humans have had a significant, adverse impact on the global climate -- this conclusion is presented with scientific certainty. There is a complete lack of significant dissent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...

[deleted]

> Consensus, although comforting, is irrelevant in hard science. Particularly so when uncertainty is high, as in climate change modelling.

When you say "irrelevant," do you mean to say that the attempts of thousands of scientists to use the scientific method to repeat findings which constitute the body of research -- and consequently fail to falsify the theory of anthropogenic global warming -- do you mean to say that this is irrelevant?

Consensus is not merely opinion -- it's opinion informed by the results of experimental and observational science. I'm not sure what else you consider to be "hard" science.

EDIT: okay, this guy mrvc deleted everything he posted here, which were quite a few comments to the effect that the theory of global warming is comprised of guesses, drastic underestimation of uncertainty in the data, and propaganda.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#17

Post by bad_user »

guelo wrote: post #7
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

FUD. That's the point of the decades long propaganda campaign by the energy companies. If they can't convince you outright they at least want to create the confusion and doubt.

Working surprisingly well too.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#18

Post by oelewapperke »

guelo wrote: post #7
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

FUD. That's the point of the decades long propaganda campaign by the energy companies. If they can't convince you outright they at least want to create the confusion and doubt.

Problem is, of course, that there are serious amounts of lunacy on both sides. The recent tornadoes, for example, are NOT the result of global warming. Neither is Katrina or any other historical event.

Unfortunately, it's very obvious that the truth does not lie "in the middle".

Also what this article does is so patently stupid it strains credulity. Event A will affect 100 variables and, by itself, cause a temperature drop of 0.3 degrees. Event B will affect the SAME 100 variables and, by itself, cause a temperature increase of 2 degrees. So now let's ignore all those variables and say "that'll give 1.7 degrees". That's NOT how it works, you have to simulate the effects completely, and then make an entirely new prediction of the combined effects.

And, frankly, given the success rate of IPCC predictions (they've been making them since 1990 you know) ... I don't know how any scientist can claim with a straight face their predictions are reasonable.

(we're outside their 95% confidence interval for their predictions for 1990, 1995 and 2000, and we're very close to leaving the 95% interval for the 2005 report too, given 1 prediction per 5 years and 3 mistakes already ... how exactly is this "95%" thing reasonable ? Each of these reports gave predictions 100 years out, and none of their predictions have happened after a mere 10 years (BTW: in all cases so far, it's cooler than predicted. I'm not saying the climate hasn't warmed)

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#19

Post by ars »

pedalpete wrote: post #11
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

As guelo points out, this is part of the propaganda campaigns,but who's propaganda. I say go with your gut and do what's right. We know that burning gasoline and coal releases carbon and are dirty. We know we should be clean. Strip mining, not clean. Recycling, clean. Wind looks cleaner than a smokestack, go wind. Solar, well, if the panels are made from plastics are they really cleaner than gas? I think so, go solar…

Except your gut is wrong. Recycling is not really clean. For some things maybe but not for everything (it uses far too much water).

Solar? Not clean at all. (For photovoltaic which is what most people mean. Solar thermal is good though.)

And just because they are made from plastic means nothing. Plastic is cleaner than wood you know (i.e. uses less energy to make and use).

There is a fact that no one wants to acknowledge: In timeframes of under 20 or so years there are NO energy technologies that are clean. None. For timeframes longer than 20 there is exactly one: Nuclear. There is nothing else.

A solar cell will probably fail before it manages to return more energy than it took to make (it's hard to say for sure though how long they will last, none have been around long enough yet). Wind can never be more than a minor part of the energy supply. Hydro is fully tapped out. Geothermal causes earthquakes. What else is there? Maybe solar thermal, but that requires a huge amount of electrical wires (the energy source is very far from the consumption point), too much apparently since no one is doing it except for some tests.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#20

Post by Luc »

pedalpete wrote: post #11
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

As guelo points out, this is part of the propaganda campaigns,but who's propaganda. I say go with your gut and do what's right. We know that burning gasoline and coal releases carbon and are dirty. We know we should be clean. Strip mining, not clean. Recycling, clean. Wind looks cleaner than a smokestack, go wind. Solar, well, if the panels are made from plastics are they really cleaner than gas? I think so, go solar…

> for the most part you know in your gut what's right.

For complex issues, that is the worst advice possible. Humanity is barely rational as it is. The last thing we need is politicians (and those who elect them) 'going with their gut'. This really is an anti-intellectual stance.

Post reply on HN