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The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

climate.gov

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Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#141

Post by throwaway2037 »

codr7 wrote: post #110
renewiltord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best things to come out of destroying environmentalism is that we can finally get working on renewable energy instead of being blocked by suicidal environmentalists who find wind farms too ugly.

Have you ever lived near wind turbines? They take quite a toll on both wild life and people living in the area. And are often abandoned as soon as they don't generate enough profits/are too expensive to maintain, with no one wanting to pay for cleaning up the area.

    > They take quite a toll on ... people living in the area.
How?

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#142

Post by lotsofpulp »

NortySpock wrote: post #52
artursapek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celsius is useful if you're a beaker of water. Fahrenheit is useful if you're a human.

30 is hot. 20 is nice. 10 is cold. 0 is ice. Not hard to remember for converting Celsius to how humans typically perceive temperature.

Perceiving temperature involves dew point and relative humidity, not just temperature.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#143

Post by throwaway2037 »

abootstrapper wrote: post #106
hallway_monitor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you cut? I don’t know what I would, but I do know that the United States is heading for a financial apocalypse unless drastic measures are taken now. I know there’s a lot of hysteria around this, but I’m still at the place where I can be optimistic that the US will come out ahead. At least they’re doing something besides spending more money and acting like everything‘s OK. From a long-term financial stabil…

> What would you cut? Nothing. Tax the billionaires.

It wouldn't raise enough money. Probably better to say: "Tax the multi-millionaires", or even people who earn more than 1M USD per year.

What if we change the tax code such that passive income (capital gains, dividends, coupon payments, etc.) is taxed at a higher rate than active (employment) income?

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#144

Post by josephcsible »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #143
abootstrapper wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would you cut? Nothing. Tax the billionaires.

It wouldn't raise enough money. Probably better to say: "Tax the multi-millionaires", or even people who earn more than 1M USD per year. What if we change the tax code such that passive income (capital gains, dividends, coupon payments, etc.) is taxed at a higher rate than active (employment) income?

> What if we change the tax code such that passive income (capital gains, dividends, coupon payments, etc.) is taxed at a higher rate than active (employment) income?

Doing so by lowering the active income rate wouldn't raise more money, and doing so by raising the passive income rate would kill investment and job creation and send us into a depression.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#146

Post by xeromal »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #20
timzaman wrote: post #12

Very interesting article, but since it's 16 days old, seems like quite irrelevant news to hit the frontpage.

Polar vortex collapse leads to cold polar air mass moving south over the course of the next few weeks. At least where I am, this article is coinciding within a day or so of the end of "fake spring". In fact, this might help explain the concept of fake spring in general. The final collapse of the vortex is ultimately caused by warming of the northern hemisphere as spring kicks in. This implies that the pattern of "get…

Had no idea what led to fake spring so thanks for this tidbit!

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#147

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

tnecio wrote: post #136
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We never solved it for the other material that we dug up and burned (coal). Oh yes. Having fucked up this badly with long chain hydrocarbon combustion, lets do it all over again with fission, because ... well, we did it once already, right?

The orders of magnitude are different here. Replacing something that becomes a huge problem within two hundred years with something that (potentially) becomes a problem in a few thousand years -- really is better than spending valuable time on developing an "ideal" solution

Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has any truly authoritative knowledge on when (or if) fissile waste will become a problem, and if it does, just how large (time, space, populations, ecosystems) of a problem it will be.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#148

Post by dmoy »

atkailash wrote: post #97
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-40 is the actual convergence point.

I believe that’s why it was qualified with “almost”

I'm originally from MN but have been using C almost exclusively for the last 10-15 years. Can confirm, -33 is "fuckin' cold" territory either way. Below like -25C it's all the same to me - bundle up as much as humanly possible and limit time outside, and if there's any wind at all, just nope.

That's like "you cry because it's so cold and then your tears freeze on your eyelashes and it physically hurts". I don't like it. Also, don't live in MN anymore

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#149

Post by defrost »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #147
tnecio wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The orders of magnitude are different here. Replacing something that becomes a huge problem within two hundred years with something that (potentially) becomes a problem in a few thousand years -- really is better than spending valuable time on developing an "ideal" solution

Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has any truly authoritative knowledge on when (or if) fissile waste will become a problem, and if it does, just how large (time, space, populations, ecosystems) of a problem it will be.

Fissile waste has been a health problem even before first mining uranium in the DRC well before WWII.

Hanford has a standing legacy problem of fissile waste from both weapons and energy work.

* https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

* https://www.icanw.org/hanford_s_dirty_secret_and_it_s_not_56...

Human activity aside, every valley with a substantial amount of granite rock about the planet pools with radon gas on a daily basis until the wind clears it out.

While this is just one of those things that's a risk on the order of a pack a day smoking habit to those who live there, radon is a fission by product from the breakdown of the uranium within the granite.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#150

Post by timschmidt »

briHass wrote: post #129
ttepasse wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main observation in temperature scale and imperial lengths discussions om the Internet is that Americans seem to have a strange aversion against fractional parts of numbers, as if those were irrational. (On the other hand a lot of Americans consume fava beans.)

I found this take from 'Torque Test Channel' (tests battery tools) humorous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUum9NymZY

Brilliant and hilarious.
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