>There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause. This document was last updated in October 2024, but I am a little surprised to see this still available on a .gov site.
Why?
There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
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Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#272I've shifted my mindset to abandon this idea that humanity will survive forever, or that we should strive to live as long as we can. Intelligence is a scarcity and it cannot overcome the majority of people that are incredibly stupid or ignorant. So accepting that we are doomed relieves some of the stress. I won't have children to worry about their future, either. I still live my life in such a way that minimizes my i…
Excellent attitude. This needs to be adopted by more people IMO.
Why are people trying to keep the earth the same as what they think it should be forever? We are a blot on the history of the earth, The human race will perish when considtions on the planet no longer suit us, just like many other large species before us. The planet will warm and cool over millions of years long after we are gone, and nature will continue to evolve many more wierd and wonderful things.
Humans need to hurry up and accept that they really dont matter at all to the planet.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#273Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a different kind of crotchety. I think it's real and potentially catastrophic. But I see very little chance of (sufficient) coordinated action to mitigate it. I.e., I think there's too much temptation for individual countries to pursue a competitive economic or military advantage by letting everyone but themselves make sacrifices. I hope I'm wrong.
Luckily the effect is much larger in the opposite direction: weaning oneself off of foreign oil is a huge advantage both economically and militarily.
India and China are doing just that.
How are they doing that, you ask? Switching to coal ... India's adding 80GW of coal, and China having 95GW planned and building.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
It implies change over a couple human lifetimes. Change faster than has ever occurred before, and due to human activity.
It doesnt really imply that though does it. It just means the climate is changing. IMO this is why there was a big pushback against it for a long time, the term used to describe it does not infer anything wrong.
> IMO this is why there was a big pushback
No the pushback is because of money. The words don't matter when so much money is at stake.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#276>There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. I agree it's warming but unequivocally at an unprecedented rate is iffy. For the article they cherry picked a stable period but if you look at the full temperature history as shown here https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2014/05/05/can-make-b... there has been loads of instability and heating and cooling. Also while CO2 levels are up f…
https://thecottonwoodpost.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/emi... https://thecottonwoodpost.net/2019/12/10/modern-climate-chan...
There's some truth to what they're saying.
Simply on a factual basis, the data we have from previous extinction events does not have the temporal resolution needed for us to determine how quickly the temperature increased/decreased. E.g., "how quickly did the atmospheric temperature change after the Chicxulub event?" We don't know. Decent-quality global paleoclimate proxies only extend back ~15k years or so. It's possible that there was rapid global climate change in the past outside of major extinction events; we genuinely don't have the data to tell.
This also doesn't really tell us much about how the modern Earth and its ecosystems would handle those old climate shifts, because there is much much less wild lands (and so, less resilience within natural ecosystems). It's true from a climate science perspective, but not useful for assessing the damage that climate change can cause to modern society.
And: to the best of our knowledge, the current rate of warming is fast enough to cause major issues. Civilization only arose once we had relatively stable and moderate temperatures, and stable temperatures may be needed to maintain civilization under present technology. Ecological and glaciological studies back this up. And no, scientists are not looking to just scare us into action; the evidence itself should be alarming.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, and don't even get me started on historic emissions. China has only produced significant CO2/capita in the last decade. The US and Europe are responsible for the accumulated GHG that have gotten us into the current mess. We blew nearly the entire CO2 "budget" for keeping us under 2C of warming, just by ourselves, so it's kinda odd to be pointing fingers at the foreigners who are just now halfway catching up to…
But those historic emissions have also produced scientific and engineering progress that other developing nations got to piggyback off of for their development.
Aye, true, but we also then have a responsibility to produce scientific and engineering progress to get off of fossil fuels. And then to follow through, and get off fossil fuels.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
You weren’t already doing that? You guys literally changed a dictionary definition to make a conservative appointee look bad: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/merriam-webster-changed-def... Trump, a democrat himself, is simply using the multi-front strategy he already knew.
thats a wild take... isnt this exactly the purpose of a dictionary: to reflect the words used in general language usage?
Right, the definition should reflect general usage. Did the general usage here just coincidentally change days after a Republican appointee used a word in a hearing? That’s a heck of a coincidence! No, what happened was that liberals used their control over putatively neutral institutions like M-W to advance their position in a political dispute.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesnt really imply that though does it. It just means the climate is changing. IMO this is why there was a big pushback against it for a long time, the term used to describe it does not infer anything wrong.
> IMO this is why there was a big pushback No the pushback is because of money. The words don't matter when so much money is at stake.
Im refering to pushback of regular people who deny climate change like they do any other conspiracy theory.
Re: There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
> IMO this is why there was a big pushback No the pushback is because of money. The words don't matter when so much money is at stake.
Im refering to pushback of regular people who deny climate change like they do any other conspiracy theory.
Why did regular people start thinking of climate change as a "conspiracy theory" in the first place? Money.