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Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

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Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#131

Post by indefatigable »

graeme wrote: post #122
indefatigable wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? Or the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic ocean acidification?

I could equally ask, how do you falsify the theory of 'things continue to be fairly ok'. I'm not trying to be facetious. I'm not sure absolute falsification is meaningful with this kind of prediction. We only have one system, very hard to falsify. We can falsify elements of evidence which suggest one planetary state over another. That's about it.

I'm not sure absolute falsification is meaningful with this kind of prediction.

Then it's not science.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#132

Post by rwallace »

indefatigable wrote: post #73
yetanotherphd wrote: post #37

The most important component of a strategy to reduce CO2 emissions is a carbon tax, which is economically equivalent to a cap-and-trade system. However, people involved in tech seem to be especially prone to what I call a "problem solving" bias: discrete problems require discrete solutions, and we just have to figure out if the right solution is solar, nuclear, or the Savory Institute. The (correct) economic point of…

Giving politicians the authority to levy a carbon tax is an absolutely terrible idea, and it has nothing to do with how I feel about China.

Why? I mean, as a moderate libertarian, I do tend to be suspicious of any proposal to give politicians more power, but given that sooner or later we are going to have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, surely the best way is to levy a carbon tax and let the market find the most efficient ways to do the reduction?

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#133

Post by andrewflnr »

patcon wrote: post #121
zeteo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be too emotionally committed to listen to any skepticism, but for whatever it's worth: 1. Your language ("sin", "evil", "believe") indicates a major subjective component in what you're saying. As with everything subjective, you're probably aware that it's not provable with cold facts and logic, and it might justifiably be rejected by others' own subjectivity and take on facts. 2. A pervading feeling that the…

I find it unfortunate that rationalists are not really allowed to get as angry and emotional as their "opponents". Those on the other side of the debate get to, in their ignorance, harp about the human side of their view on economics, or the spiritual side of certain societal decisions. Rationalists are allowed to get emotional, and it's not a detriment to their cause when they do. While not every rationalist will, w…

Fine, but if you're a materialistic atheist, I expect you to not try to talk about the spiritual side of anything, except hypothetically for the sake of argument.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#134

Post by RodericDay »

zeteo wrote: post #125
patcon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it unfortunate that rationalists are not really allowed to get as angry and emotional as their "opponents". Those on the other side of the debate get to, in their ignorance, harp about the human side of their view on economics, or the spiritual side of certain societal decisions. Rationalists are allowed to get emotional, and it's not a detriment to their cause when they do. While not every rationalist will, w…

Rationalism is more about mental hygiene than any specific beliefs. I don't think it precludes emotion, but it definitely involves being aware of how undisciplined emotion can drive you away from actual truth: confirmation bias, tribalism etc. You can have rationalists on both sides of a debate, and I actually think society benefits a lot from such discussion. After all, each side is usually wrong about some things.

this is just too much

http://plover.net/~bonds/positivism.html take this not as gospel, but as a starting point

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#135

Post by prawn »

geedy wrote: post #46
DanBC wrote: post #16

What can I, as an individual with no money nor power, do to help stop this? I can reduce my energy use as far as possible. Apart from the online stuff I'm pretty low CO2. I can reduce, reuse, and recycle. (I need to get better at that.) But what else can I do?

Crowd fund energy initiatives. Depending on your views on various energy sources, i.e. solar, take a look at https://www.sunfunder.com/ https://joinmosaic.com/ Also, don't become too pessimistic. Even here, its pretty obvious that people tend to fall into two camps: doomers or deniers. Very few in between. I have spent the better part of a year struggling with depression related to the realization of the scale of env…

On top of that, opportunities to address the challenges faced can be exciting, especially in the business world. Not all doom and gloom if you look at it that way.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#136

Post by patrickg_zill »

lutusp wrote: post #50
patrickg_zill wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten, is not as bad as a little more CO2? By the way, not 1 word in the article, filled with all sorts of scary quotes, about diatoms and their role in CO2 sequestration.

> Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten ... This false view has been partly inflamed by an "environmental" website that posted an alarming picture of Fukushima radiation spreading across the Pacific -- except the posted picture was actually of the tsunami wave's height, not radiation, spreading across the Pacific. Fukushima isn't going to release nearl…

You are making a straw man argument, conflating a bad map with supposed bad science...

Japan's own testing showed contamination even in 2011, by cesium isotopes, some 2000km out to sea from Fukushima.

The answer is, that you don't know.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#137

Post by Steko »

indefatigable wrote: post #115
graeme wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say it's not falsifiable to say the world is warming? We can measure temperature over time, as well as factors such as net energy entering the atmosphere. (I can't find the source for the last one, but remember James Hanson mentioning it. Anyone know what I'm referring to) Similarly, a factor such as carbonization of the oceans is very falsifiable. And experiments can measure the impacts on species individ…

What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? Or the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic ocean acidification?

"What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"

A rapid unexplained significant decline in global temperatures over a decade despite increasing carbon use would clearly falsify the idea of AGW.

edit: or just a theory that explains global temperature trends better than the current climate models that use anthropogenic carbon emissions. Or data that conclusively overturns the record of recent warming.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#138

Post by lutusp »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #136
lutusp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten ... This false view has been partly inflamed by an "environmental" website that posted an alarming picture of Fukushima radiation spreading across the Pacific -- except the posted picture was actually of the tsunami wave's height, not radiation, spreading across the Pacific. Fukushima isn't going to release nearl…

You are making a straw man argument, conflating a bad map with supposed bad science... Japan's own testing showed contamination even in 2011, by cesium isotopes, some 2000km out to sea from Fukushima. The answer is, that you don't know.

> You are making a straw man argument, conflating a bad map with supposed bad science...

The map was bad, and the science was worse, but there's no meaningful connection between them, certainly not in my presentation.

> Japan's own testing showed contamination even in 2011, by cesium isotopes, some 2000km out to sea from Fukushima.

Yes, measurable with specialized equipment, but not significantly above the natural background radiation level.

This is not to diminish the seriousness of Fukushima -- it is very serious -- but it's not going to render the Pacific's fish unsafe. That's a fantasy.

> The answer is, that you don't know.

The figures are easy to collect and easy to interpret, and they have been. The claim that the Pacific's fish will become inedible is not connected to reality.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=83397&tid=3622&cid=94989

Quote: "By the time tuna are caught in the eastern Pacific, cesium levels in their flesh are 10-20 times lower than when they were off Fukushima. Moreover, the dose from Fukushima cesium is considered insignificant relative to the dose from naturally occurring polonium-210, which was 1000 times higher in fish samples studied, and both of these are much lower relative to other, more common sources, such as dental x-rays."

> The answer is, that you don't know.

You're the one who doesn't know, even though the information is easily accessed.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#139

Post by 001sky »

Steko wrote: post #137
indefatigable wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? Or the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic ocean acidification?

"What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" A rapid unexplained significant decline in global temperatures over a decade despite increasing carbon use would clearly falsify the idea of AGW. edit: or just a theory that explains global temperature trends better than the current climate models that use anthropogenic carbon emissions. Or data that conclusively overturns the reco…

...didnt that just happen? check the data post 98

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#140

Post by lutusp »

b1daly wrote: post #127
lutusp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... read about the history of eugenics if you'd like to know how other people might misinterpret your argument. In the above post I did explicitly point out that there are no political solutions to the population problem -- I called them disasters, and eugenics is certainly on the list of all-time political disasters. The reason is simple -- nature is smarter than us. When evolution works, when nature produces some…

Jesus man, nature, at least in the context discussed here as evolution, is not smart. It's just description of what happens. I've heard of no convincing explanation of natural selection that describes it as an intentional force. On the contrary, nature is about as dumb as a rock.

> Jesus man, nature, at least in the context discussed here as evolution, is not smart.

You mean, speaking as the product of random, undirected evolution by natural selection? My remarks were meant to suggest that evolution sometimes produces results that are so fantastic that poorly educated people are tempted to attribute the outcome to supernatural forces.

> I've heard of no convincing explanation of natural selection that describes it as an intentional force.

Who said anything about intention? Evolution by natural selection is a totally random process that selects the most fit genotype during a random selection process. We are the result -- everything we are, results from a process with no goal or even complex rules. What's truly amazing about evolution is how much results from such simple rules.

> On the contrary, nature is about as dumb as a rock.

Quite true -- and the smartest person, the most beautiful creature, the richest works of art, all sprang from nature "dumb as a rock". Which means nature is smarter than us. Maybe this time you'll understand what I'm trying to say.

No God, no designer, no wizard behind a curtain, just natural resources and natural selection. With the results that we see around us.

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