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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

xkcd.com

61–70 of 286 posts

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#61
post #44

[flagged]

"""In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" to describe the phenomenon of experts reading articles within their fields of expertise and finding them to be error-ridden and full of misunderstanding, but seemingly forgetting those experiences when reading articles in the same publications written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, which they believe to be credible.""" https:…

~32 years ago I was in grade school and our class went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. There was an exhibit there depicting Manhattan under water due to global warming. It gave some year - I don't remember exactly which, but remember calculating that it would be before I would be "old".

It was very impressive, and left an impression on me which I still carry. And yet, it doesn't match reality or anything close to it.

And yes, you can argure that it was not setup by scientists - after all it was in the "Natural History" museum, which is probably not the ideal venue. But you get quickly into "No true Scotsman" territory when you discount every source that is found afterwards to be false.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#62
post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

[flagged]

Hey it's like that comic!

> We should improve society somewhat.

Yet you pariticpate in society. Curious!

I am very intelligent.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#63
post #44

[flagged]

"""In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" to describe the phenomenon of experts reading articles within their fields of expertise and finding them to be error-ridden and full of misunderstanding, but seemingly forgetting those experiences when reading articles in the same publications written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, which they believe to be credible.""" https:…

That phenomenona accurately describes the hackernews experience.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#65
post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

[flagged]

> Unfortunately, we cannot pick and choose civilisational paths like a buffet meal.

This is well-said. The path to human civilisation has been stochastic and literally disastrous.

> We can only start from where are.

And herein lies the latest danger: many people, and their pandering representatives (in the case of democracy), refuse to see where we are.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#67
post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things:

1. The rare instances of it going wrong look catastrophic, while the many times it does better than coal/oil/gas go ignored. Kinda like how people fear plane travel more than driving, despite the former being far safer than the latter.

2. It's more expensive to setup, so there's an economic incentive to either stick with what's there already (fossil fuels) or try and go with renewable solutions.

3. A certain percentage of the left/environmental movement seem to hate the concept, either because of subtle influencing from the fossil fuels lobby or because the idea of compromising and going with a system that isn't 'perfect' doesn't appeal to them.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#68
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At planet scale nothing will ever get better than: dig hole, pump oil, burn oil Until the alternatives are cheaper. I would recommend you to read: Not the End of the World, Hannah Ritchie

> Until the alternatives are cheaper. To get cheaper they'd have to exist in the first place

They do and they are? As far as electricity is concerned, that is.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#69
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know which one you mean, as I'm sure we all do, but it always amuses me that we refer to her as just 'Cleopatra' because... basically every queen of Egypt in that dynasty was named Cleopatra. They named the vast majority of the boys Ptolemy and the girls Cleopatra. Her mother's name is Cleopatra V Tryphaena. Her daughters name is Cleopatra Selene II. Her Fathers name is Ptolemy XII, she has brothers named Ptolemy X…

The entire Western pop cultural canon of ancient Egypt was created by a culture that ground mummies up for soup. It's not surprising that a lot of complexity and subtlety got lost in translation.

True enough;

The gory history of Europe’s mummy-eating fad https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mummy-eat...

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-...

but people generally don't like to be reminded.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#70
post #3

Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.

[flagged]

> We should make it illegal for software engineers to complain about industrialisation unless they give up laptops, gpus, air-conditioning, coffee machines and refrigerators.

By this logic, we should make it illegal for anyone to complain about anything, given that we all have benefitted in one way or another by industrialization.

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