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Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

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Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#111
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant portion of either side of the debate. Denying climate change is easy. We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater and the problem is so abstract it's easy to call BS. Short of Trump changing his mind and using his super power of convinci…

In similar ways, majority of people that believe in climate change do nothing (or barely anything) to fight it. No one is reducing their heating/cooling, no one is changing their diet, no one is measuring their heating patterns and trying to optimize it (by no one I mean barely anyone). People still want their 24/7 AC, their steaks, their huge cars, their big heat inefficient houses, their plane flights etc. No one d…

"Eat your vegetables" is never the answer. In climate change, because of the coordination problems, "Eat your vegetables" is so emphatically not the answer that it shouldn't even be discussed as anything except a desperate, ineffective stopgap.

People will keep eating candy. They will never eat their vegetables, unless they taste like candy. It's pointless to imagine worlds in which they eat their vegetables and everything is great because, although it's possible to write a plan to get from here to there, those worlds are strictly fantasy. The plan can not be followed. I could also write a plan for the sun to rise in the west—and it would also fail, for largely the same reason.

If you want to solve the problem, make a better, cheaper vegetable that tastes like candy.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#112
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this advice can be simplified greatly: reduce your expenditures. If you're spending less money, then you are consuming a smaller share of the world's bounty.

If you save that money instead it goes into a pool that is invested in things that then go and spend it elsewhere.

So your position is that personal consumption does not result in additional resource usage?

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, a 30 year gap between record highs is not supportive of global warming. Global warming should be making record weather events more common, which would imply records being broken in rapid succession.

> Global warming should be making record weather events more common Not necessarily. If there was no long term warming trend, records would become less common over time, since they would be weather-related random values and there are more previous year data points to compare against. A warming trend would act counter to that effect, but not necessarily overcome it.

Yeah, but we haven’t been measuring temperatures for that long.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#114
post #41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant portion of either side of the debate. Denying climate change is easy. We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater and the problem is so abstract it's easy to call BS. Short of Trump changing his mind and using his super power of convinci…

As someone who is convinced of climate change, I like to think my mind would be changed rather easily with some comforting graphs and believable theories on how those graphs show the earth is in fact not warming ever more rapidly since the industrial revolution. I mean, that would be really really nice.

As far as I understand the argument from people like Alex Epstein and a host of other climate alarmist sceptics is a little different.

Everyone is agreeing there is climate change, in fact there have always been climate change and according to them the climate have been much worse than it is now.

Most sceptics even agree that humans affect the climate.

The discussion as far as I can understand is to what degree do humans affect it. I.e. is it enough for us to worry about it.

There is as far as I have been able to learn no actual consensus, in fact, ICSC has been lowering their projections over the last 10 year or so.

If you want to figure out whether you should worry or not may I suggest you try and find out what the official consensus on humans effect on the climate is. You will be surprised how little certainty you will find. I certainly was.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having one less child has far more of an impact than all of those lifestyle changes combined.

Yeah, but then you are probably reducing the frequency of people who care about the environment in future populations, which may be a net loss.

Extrapolating that out environmentally concerned people should have as many children as possible and outbreed those not concerned about greenhouse emissions?

Such a statement seems to assume that the mind is an immutable object only created in childhood.

While it certainly causes cognitive dissonance for some, an SUV driving redneck carnivore with no children has created far less emissions than a public transport using vegan environmentalist with 2 kids.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#116
post #46
post #2

Anecdotal: Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2 or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting. As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love the snow. Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...

It seems the cold moved to central Europe, giving us -15 degrees celsius at night in the upcoming week.

And some of us in Eastern Europe are expecting -24 °C .

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but then you are probably reducing the frequency of people who care about the environment in future populations, which may be a net loss.

Extrapolating that out environmentally concerned people should have as many children as possible and outbreed those not concerned about greenhouse emissions? Such a statement seems to assume that the mind is an immutable object only created in childhood. While it certainly causes cognitive dissonance for some, an SUV driving redneck carnivore with no children has created far less emissions than a public transport usi…

Mostly I’m just saying that, given that most aspects of personality are 30-80% heritable, I think people should really think twice before contributing to a future with less long-term thinkers in it.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#118
Anecdotal:

I live in Whitehorse, Yukon. For reference I drive due South to Alaska.

The weather here is nothing, and I mean nothing like it used to be. It would reliably be -40 for all of Jan and Feb in the past. The river would freeze to the point of holding the massive festival ON the river with cars, tents, thousands of people ,etc.

The river has not frozen for a decade, it regularly goes above freezing in Jan and Feb, and even some of the mighty lakes up here don't freeze enough that you want to walk on them. The ice used to be so think my 4 ft. ice auger wasn't long enough to let me ice fish.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extrapolating that out environmentally concerned people should have as many children as possible and outbreed those not concerned about greenhouse emissions? Such a statement seems to assume that the mind is an immutable object only created in childhood. While it certainly causes cognitive dissonance for some, an SUV driving redneck carnivore with no children has created far less emissions than a public transport usi…

Mostly I’m just saying that, given that most aspects of personality are 30-80% heritable, I think people should really think twice before contributing to a future with less long-term thinkers in it.

Certainly do understand the motivation, it just seems like a race environmentalists can't win.

There are better ways to change minds.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#120
post #118

Anecdotal: I live in Whitehorse, Yukon. For reference I drive due South to Alaska. The weather here is nothing, and I mean nothing like it used to be. It would reliably be -40 for all of Jan and Feb in the past. The river would freeze to the point of holding the massive festival ON the river with cars, tents, thousands of people ,etc. The river has not frozen for a decade, it regularly goes above freezing in Jan and…

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