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July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

nytimes.com

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Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#501

Post by donw »

jmnicolas wrote: post #83
staticelf wrote: post #37

I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other weapons easily available. People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

Make no mistake there are a lot of guns in Europe : we had so many wars, WW1, WW2, Yugoslavia and now the Ukraine. Each time quantity of weapons "disappear" only to reappear later. In France criminal and terrorists organizations are mainly using surplus from the Yugoslavian war but the Police still seize regularly WW2 guns which are still quite capable compared to more modern guns. So if we didn't manage to clean the…

Very true.

The invention of the modern firearm, one that fires an integrated cartridge (what the layperson would call a bullet), predates the invention of the bicycle.

Both bicycles and firearms have about the same number of moving parts, and manufacturing either does not require any tooling or materials outside of what you can buy at a home supply store.

Basically, the genie left that bottle a long time ago. You can certainly disarm people that follow laws, but that's about it.

Doesn't seem to make life harder on the criminals at all. A pistol runs about GBP 150 on the black market in the UK, and a lot of criminals are armed, although said guns are used more to intimidate and coerce than to kill.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#502

Post by RankingMember »

throwanem wrote: post #484
RankingMember wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon man don't throw a thesaurus at us like that.

Language can be a form of play! I picked up my vocabulary from books, back when books were what you had to use. You have the Internet. Go thou forth and roll around in it!

I also speak Spanish, but not in comments since my goal is to have the people understand me. ;)

IMO it's important to keep the person who's going to read your words in mind if you want them to understand you rather than using your favorite high-dollar words to try to sound smart. Making word soup like that obfuscates your message, as evidenced by the off-message conversation we're having right now.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#503

Post by stillsut »

nl wrote: post #488
stillsut wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way that PG showed us how startup = growth, AGW = continued exponentially growing emissions.Since the effect of CO2 on temperature is logarithmic, there can only be marked warming in the continued exponential growth scenarios. Europe and even US have negative emission growth recently, even though our populations are slowly growing, our emissions efficiency is outclassing our increased consumption for a ne…

As far as I can tell, I think most of your assumptions here aren't born out by the evidence. Firstly, 6B in Africa is the most pessimistic assumption possible[1]. Secondly, this is completely wrong: 1st world alone, and at their current and projected rate we'll continue to increase CO2 concentration and warm but second derivative of temperature will go strongly negative, and we will never hit a crisis. To quote Wikip…

nl, do you deny there has been global warming?

We've already warmed close to +1C. While this huge +1C warming crisis was going on, we raised agricultural output by 10x. We've gone from thousands of people dying in hurricanes to dozens.

There is a warming amount ("climate sensitivity") that will rock our civilization, but it's not 2C - that amount would be background noise in the progress on the 21st century.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#504

Post by AngrySkillzz »

zaroth wrote: post #498
AngrySkillzz wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Principle of charity, give the person a break. Obviously people are going to think about that before enacting a carbon tax. Funnel some of that money into offsetting transfers to low income households and you're all set. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Taxes can be progressive, flat, or regressive. This is actually one of the most important qualities of a tax. A carbon tax is decidedly not progressive. Take a look at the carbon map [1] of the 'Americans Carbon Footprint' and you will see, the problem is not the rich motoring around in their their yachts. Now, the biggest factor in carbon footprint is the zip code you live in -- due mainly to energy use and transpor…

It doesn't matter whether a tax is progressive or regressive on its own. What matters is its place in the overall system of taxes and transfers. You can have a progressive wealth redistribution system based mostly on regressive taxes (sales tax, carbon tax, vice taxes) by ensuring that transfer payments and tax breaks are heavily directed towards low income residents. "Regressive" is not an end-all reason to reject a taxation scheme that has many other desirable properties, namely internalizing externalities and directing market forces towards less pollution-intensive technologies.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#505

Post by madaxe_again »

sevenless wrote: post #500
flukus wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. There are plenty of places in the world that regularly ge t those conditions. People/Animals survive.

I don't think so, not with that humidity. People can't live in conditions where wet bulb temperature exceeds body temperature for long. You simply can't cool down by sweating.

You're correct, but HN isn't a place to post uncomfortable truths, you'll just get downvoted.

I'd like to see flukus spend a day in a hot sauna with water continuously dripping on the coals.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#506

Post by mikeash »

James001 wrote: post #493
mikeash wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without a citation, might i add" Odd card to play when your comment had no citations either, and you seem to be ignoring my request for them....

It's well established that increased CO2 leads to increased plant biomass, thereby satisfying my claim that it leads to increased agricultural yield (as per greenhouses for example). My claim that increased CO2 leads to more biodiversity is more tenuous but is more likely than a decrease in biodiversity, all other factors being controlled for.

Typical double standard, your speculation is perfectly reasonable but the other guy's claims need scientific backing. Annoying, and not very convincing!

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#507

Post by James001 »

mikeash wrote: post #506
James001 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well established that increased CO2 leads to increased plant biomass, thereby satisfying my claim that it leads to increased agricultural yield (as per greenhouses for example). My claim that increased CO2 leads to more biodiversity is more tenuous but is more likely than a decrease in biodiversity, all other factors being controlled for.

Typical double standard, your speculation is perfectly reasonable but the other guy's claims need scientific backing. Annoying, and not very convincing!

You must have never delved too much into science then. There are certain claims that have been well established for so long that citations are no longer needed. For example, we don't need citations to state the order of colours in a rainbow. Likewise, I don't need a citation to state that plant biomass increases with a greater concentration of CO2. That's basic science, it's unequivocal and not controversial. On the other hand, the previous dude made wild speculation about increased CO2 causing increased soil depletion. I'm sorry if you don't see the difference. Not everyone is suited to being a scientist.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#508

Post by James001 »

mikeash wrote: post #443
monk_e_boy wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't CO2 much higher in the past, hence why plants were so massive and could support big dino's.

Yes, CO2 was into the single-digit parts per thousand for much of the dinosaur era. I have no idea how that affected plant growth, but even if that's the cause, it seems tenuous to look at Mesozoic plant growth and assume modern agricultural crops will imitate them. Certainly far more tenuous than the evidence that climate change is causing damage and will cause more.

It is not tenuous to suggest that modern agricultural crops will yield more in a higher CO2 environment (look into greenhouses). It is actually far less tenuous than speculating that CO2 is causing runaway global warming.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#509

Post by tripzilch »

DannyBee wrote: post #352
bad_user wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that costs are subsidized by basically letting businesses destroy the environment. The solution should be simple: add lots of taxes, let the off-the-shelf cost of meat and gasoline reflect the real cost to our environment, make deforestation a crime, tax the shit out of all polluting industries and if a country is not participating add taxes on imports from said country, or ban those imports altogether…

"The problem is that costs are subsidized by basically letting businesses destroy the environment. The solution should be simple: add lots of taxes, let the off-the-shelf cost of meat and gasoline reflect the real cost to our environment, make deforestation a crime, tax the shit out of all polluting industries and if a country is not participating add taxes on imports from said country, or ban those imports altogethe…

Apologies for just cherry-picking this phrase;

(Disclosure: part of a populace)

> that your populace won't want that to happen?

I'd be willing to, if it helps the planet. I could be more thrifty in what I buy. Currently I'm not because I'm buying organic meat (even then, not very often) and other extras for sustainable things. Of course then I'd need to be thrifty on other stuff, but if that's what it takes. It helps if everyone else has to do it, too :) (for encouragement, and also because it's easier to be thrifty as a populace). Maybe it would even be nice.

It feels a whole lot more effective than my personal decision to restrict my consumption of meat to the occasional delicacy :P I often wonder, I try my best to leave a relatively small footprint, but it's real hard to get an idea what gives the biggest bang for your effort. Is it meat consumption? Maybe all those litres flushing the toilet? (although in NL, we got so much water we like to banish it) And does it really weigh up to what the industries are doing, or is it really just a drop in the ocean?

When I was a kid, one of my favourite authors, Midas Dekkers, a biologist, wrote this thing that always stuck with me: You can procreate, put a new human on this planet, or instead you can throw your empty batteries into the ocean all your life and still impact the environment less.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#510

Post by nl »

stillsut wrote: post #503
nl wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, I think most of your assumptions here aren't born out by the evidence. Firstly, 6B in Africa is the most pessimistic assumption possible[1]. Secondly, this is completely wrong: 1st world alone, and at their current and projected rate we'll continue to increase CO2 concentration and warm but second derivative of temperature will go strongly negative, and we will never hit a crisis. To quote Wikip…

nl, do you deny there has been global warming? We've already warmed close to +1C. While this huge +1C warming crisis was going on, we raised agricultural output by 10x. We've gone from thousands of people dying in hurricanes to dozens. There is a warming amount ("climate sensitivity") that will rock our civilization, but it's not 2C - that amount would be background noise in the progress on the 21st century.

Hu? Of course I don't deny there is global warming(!!?)

2C is generally considered to be the line above which things are critical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoiding_Dangerous_Climate_Cha...

http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/below2degrees_tcm9-132866.pdf

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