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It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

noaa.gov

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Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#421

Post by coldtea »

SigmundA wrote: post #220
pessimizer wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…

I have never been able to get my head around the religious paradox of God has a plan and free will. Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan? It can't be both right? Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control? I don't blame my program when it does something wrong, I mean I wrote the code that tells it how to behave.

>Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan? It can't be both right?

Given the appropriate doctrine, sure it can.

First, in some religions (and some denominations of Christianity) God exists outside of the framework of logical necessity. God being tied to logical necessity himself is a later western theological concern (say, starting with Augustine and co). Not really a tenet of earlier Christian doctrine, or accepted by e.g. the orthodox church.

That is, what looks "impossible" or a "a logical contradiction" to us, isn't necessarily so to God (which is also part of the case with miracles - they're not just cool feats like a Marvel character with superpower would do, they are the bending of physical rules and reality itself).

In that context:

> Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control?

Both. He created everything AND he gave it free will to chose for itself.

"I don't blame my program when it does something wrong, I mean I wrote the code that tells it how to behave".

That's because you're not God to your program, but merely a human that developed it. So you can't both make it and give it free will (among lots of other limitations, like not being able to make water wine at will).

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#422

Post by yvdriess »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #357
linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

Is this a pitch for a script for Idiocracy 2: Electric Bugaloo?

Yes, but this time they don't need time travel.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#423

Post by d23 »

titzer wrote: post #264
starik36 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. Whether someone virtue signals or not, actions are what's important, not words. The CO2 emissions output has been coming down since the high in 2006. With the old boss and the new boss. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide... If anything, fracking helped the environment, since it offset resources being mined by the traditional, more wasteful methods.

> This is nonsense. Deleting this sentence from your comment really improves not only your argument, but the tone of discussion. It just makes things needlessly adversarial to lead with fighting words, and for sure it triggers defensive mental antibodies before you've even started.

Normally I'd agree with you, but the rest of the response is such a whiff I imagine it'd be hard to be insulted by it.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#424

Post by anyfoo »

panzagl wrote: post #407
anyfoo wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change does not care about ideology, psychology, or any of the issues you listed. It's a problem that affects literally everyone, and it needs solving.

Right. But the solutions can't impact the environment, or the developing world, or the disadvantaged. It's pretty obvious that the US, UK, and Commonwealth countries are going to be expected to disrupt their lives and economies while the rest of the world dithers and screams that not enough is being done.

Who are you arguing with? Because I'm pretty sure climate change cannot hear your complaints or arguments. It's just going to do what it does, destroying your world and that of your children, while you argue about... commonwealth, I don't know.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#425

Post by UnFleshedOne »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #352
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

There is a very prevalent group of people on HN who don't deny that global warming is happening, but strongly deny that it is a serious problem. This group deeply believes that technology will solve their problems, no matter how large. All that is required is believing in this strongly enough. There is a nearly rabid belief that everything will be fine because "technology" will find a way. What these people fail to r…

There is also a major group that would be severely disappointed if technology did magically save us (say if 10 years to fusion was actually this decade), because it would deprave them of the possibility to solve other societal problems or push through reforms using climate change as a lever.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#426

Post by slg »

linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

The difference is that an asteroid is an existential threat to humanity while climate change is just short of that. The rich and powerful are always going to be protected from experiencing the worst aspects of climate change.

They won't be the ones working outside when the air quality is dangerous from wildfires. They aren't going to be the ones who can't sleep because it is 90 degrees in their home. They won't be stuck in the path of a hurricane without anywhere to evacuate to. They won't be the ones who are left homeless and penniless due to a flood. They won't be the ones who can no longer afford the high prices of food or water. They won't be the ones fighting in wars over dwindling resources. Short of those future resource wars going nuclear, they don't really have to fear climate change the same way the rest of us do.

And if their primary fear of climate change is decreased wealth, it isn't a surprise why that wouldn't be enough for them to sacrifice their current wealth.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#427

Post by Ma8ee »

adam_arthur wrote: post #367

Any policy should be evaluated on the basis of costs and benefits. Too much of the conversation on global warming is either broadly dismissive or exasperatingly alarmist. Fundamentally policy changes to curb global warming will have economic consequence, those of which will be borne disproportionately by the poor. E.g. efforts to curb oil and coal extraction will naturally result in the price of energy going up. I ca…

I’m sorry, but what kind of hole (or bubble, to use a more popular term) have you been living in the last decade? There are a studies like the one you are requesting coming out regularly. Unfortunately, they can’t tell you exactly how many dollars different policies will cost, but that is due to the nature of the subject, not because of any faults of the studies.

But the conclusions are unanimous: it’s going to cost much more to do something today than it would have cost yesterday, and it’s going to be much more expensive tomorrow. The poor are the ones that will be hardest hit, not because they can’t afford AC, but because its their food that won’t grow when there’s no rain or too much rain, and they can’t move.

Science is currently speaking loud and clear: do much more than is currently planned, or we are facing centuries of wildfires, floods, storms, food and water shortages and hundreds of millions of refugees trying to find new futures.

And this is not alarmist. This is what climate scientists, like Cassandras, have been shouting about for decades.

I’ve met a few like you, who think they represent the voice of balance and reason. But you are the ones that still are haggling over the price of buckets while the fire breaks through the roof of the orphanage.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#428

Post by convolvatron »

hotz wrote: post #90
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

Maybe if the cost of it was reasonable more people would bother. With the cost of electricity rising, people naturally buy/replace appliances with more efficient versions. The fact that anything green related costs an arm and a leg makes some people think it's all a money making scheme. The more renewable energy gets installed the more articles like this pop up. We get it, people are worried about the climate, pushin…

you'd think that asking capitalists to user more energy-efficient processes would be an easy sell because of cost.

apparently thats just completely backwards

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#429

Post by noobly »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #419
noobly wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, the sun has also been getting hotter, hasn't it? I agree that man contributes to climate change, but quantifying this is where I think the conversation gets interesting. I haven't really gone very far down this hole though as it seems too muddled. And then if you do conclude man is primarily at fault, what do you do? The US is only responsible for so much output, for example, and sources like…

The US is only responsible for for so much of worldwide murders. Why trying to limit the number of murders in the US, then? It won’t change the total number of murders on the planet in a significant way.

That analogy doesn't really apply imo.. Global murder totals don't impact me like murders in America do. Similarly, climate change effects all parties, no matter their contribution. A better analogy, imo, would be something like a leaking ship, where the portion we're responsible for has a pinhole that we're debating on if/how to patch up, while other parties have gaping holes gushing in water constantly with no clear intent to fix the hole, as we all begin our descent.

And in this case, I don't think buying a Tesla or some vegan burgers is going to make a substantial difference. As long as there's economic incentive to negatively contribute climate change, it will happen.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#430

Post by olivermarks »

CyanBird wrote: post #355
olivermarks wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be contrarian: lies, damn lies and statistics...the scholarly arguments about the extent to which man is influencing our climate and the extent to which natural cycles and space weather are far more important is essentially a data war. Both sides have a plethora of data and statistics to make their case. I do wonder and worry about the damage this 'you did it' alarmism is very negatively affecting the human p…

> lies, damn lies and statistics The first hard data that existed from global warming came from Exxon and a small team of scientists on the 70's or so, when they attached temperature sensors to a couple oil tankers and measured the temperature of the ocean as it traveled If you call for "less data" because things scare you, then I am sorry to say that you are a coward and unscientific

I think you entirely missed my points followed by a couple of insults.
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