Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message • Hacker News Board

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#71

Post by southern_cross » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #51

southern_cross wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've been keeping up with such things, then you know that there is currently a move to shut down many coal and nuclear plants, much of which is due to the economics of natural gas, but also due to environmental concerns. However, in parts of the U.S. there is also a movement to prevent the building of natural gas plants and the pipelines that feed them, again due to environmental concerns. If this path continues…

Reality is having a chilling effect on the fossil fuel industry?

I would suggest that anyone here who trashes the fossil fuel industry read "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels" before they continue such trashing. They don't necessarily have to agree with it, but they should at least read it.

I've read it, and do you know why? Because I saw an article somewhere which was just vehemently hating on the book (or more specifically its author, IIRC), and since I'd never heard of it before - and since much of that hate didn't seem to be terribly coherent to me - I went ahead and read the book for myself. I'm weird that way.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#72

Post by southern_cross » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 11:22 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #58

assblaster wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that alarmism has hurt climate science ever since the 1960s. Past mistakes matter because people generally won't trust the naysayers when they've been proven wrong so obviously that grade school children won't trust them. From https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/21/18-examples-of-the-sp... >Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) s…

Were some people wrong about the limits of resources? Yes. Are resources therefore limitless? No. Did some theorists dramatically underestimate the complexity of the world and rely too much on simple models in the 70s? Yes. Did scientists learn their lesson? Yes. Nobody's been doing that shit for decades. Even so, in your "alarmism" list: > “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in t…

Item number 6 above states that 4 billion people were expected to die, which obviously didn't happen. Governor Jerry Brown just stated (presumably relying on data from "experts") that billions of people might be expected to die soon enough from climate-related issues (heat plus disease). So apparently not much has changed after all!

https://www.c-span.org/video/?444172-1/california-governor-j...

As to London and the UK, the problems lately appear to be related to the cold and secondary issues caused by that. (See example article below.) So maybe air pollution shouldn't necessarily be their biggest concern at the moment.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/923627/UK-health...

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#73

Post by southern_cross » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 11:50 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #67

southern_cross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So every time you get in your car and start personally spewing excess CO2, that's a crime against humanity? Or you fire up your oil or gas furnace? Or you eat a burger or pretty much anything else produced by Big Ag? Or you build a concrete structure? And so on and so forth. As the old saying goes: "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones."

As pointed out, this is a rather trollish comment. I though the “significant” qualifier would be clear. Participating in a fossil fuel loving society is not enough; spending big money to systematically delay or silence climate research you know is valid, just might be.

But adding up any one person's carbon budget over a lifetime might be fairly significant. (And if it isn't, then why should any one of us make changes to their lifestyle?) Multiply that by the millions/billions and then it's really significant.

As the oil companies have rightly pointed out in the current court case (and this may matter a lot from a legal perspective), they aren't actually the ones who are emitting all the carbon - their customers are. (That would be "you" and "me".) The coal mines and the natural gas companies can make much the same claim, except their direct customers are generally the power companies.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#74

Post by mikeash » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

southern_cross wrote: post #68

mturmon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed.” This is a strange thing to say. By claiming X and not-X, it means precisely nothing, but it superficially sounds judicious.

If you bothered to actually read the site, then you'd know that the articles there come from many authors and many sources - some of them even from the so-called "alarmist" side of things, though the site itself is usually tagged as "denialist". (Hence my balanced comment - they do generally cover stuff from both sides.) Comments from the site's owner and from readers about all of these articles can get quite interes…

A site which misquotes people seems like a really bad source for a bunch of quotes.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#75

Post by southern_cross » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #53

tzs wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a recognized name for the fallacy southern_cross is using here?

It could be "Argument of the Beard", "Causal Reductionism", or "Fallacy of Composition" ( http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html ). In any case, you're right to point out that it's troll behavior to dump all of the effects of industrial pollution and the resultant politics on a single individual's shoulders, as though one person would have a measurable impact on global climate. ~southern_cross is j…

It seems you're doing some serious trolling there yourself - putting words in my mouth and all. And as to your "one person" argument, then by that logic none of us should be particularly concerned about making any changes to our own lifestyle, because it probably won't make any difference anyway - too insignificant. Amirite?

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#76

Post by southern_cross » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 1:39 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #48

southern_cross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called "Avoiding taking personal responsibility by trying to point the finger of blame at others." And it's something that children and immature adults often do. For those who are so torn up about the situation, nothing's stopping you from finding a piece of cheap real estate out in the middle of nowhere (maybe by a nice stream or a lake), building a yurt or whatever and then just living off the land. That's the…

So by your logic, because I have on occasion urinated outside in my backyard, where some small part of my urine will perhaps find its way to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I cannot object to Victoria, BC's dumping of 21 million gallons a day of raw sewage into it without being a hypocrite? Your argument is based on the assumption that if X and Y and Z all have a particular bad consequence, then X and Y and Z are all equ…

I'm sorry that you're apparently having trouble with the concept of personal responsibility, but I guess I'll just attribute that to a lack of proper upbringing. I mean, even though you are presumably now an adult yourself, I'm sure you'll sleep better at night knowing that you can pawn such failings off on Mom and Dad.

Not many people like to think about what they're actually swimming in when they're at the ocean. (Let someone pee in the pool, though, and everybody freaks out!) In any case, I expect that you're smart enough to know that likely not a drop of that urine is going to make it out of your back yard! And even if you peed directly into the ocean (even if you personally generated 21 million gallons of effluent), that's not really much compared to what's already out there naturally - fish pee and poop and rotting dead things and such. (Fun fact: Much of the sand on the beaches that you and your family love to play on may have itself started out as fish poop.) Even less so when you consider that most of that 21 million gallons is just water anyway.

Quick quiz: What do you think becomes of things like E. coli and other nasties when they hit seawater? (Consider issues like temperature, salinity, and pH.) And if you're worried about viruses and such, then maybe you should go ask J. Craig Venter about that.

In other words, while 21 millions gallons of untreated sewage sounds like a lot (and I personally wouldn't want to swim in it or anything), it's probably less of big deal than you think it is. It would probably be best to filter out the biosolids first, though, since those may have actual value. As might the nitrogen in urine (urea), if that could be extracted.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#77

Post by southern_cross » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 2:30 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #74

southern_cross wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you bothered to actually read the site, then you'd know that the articles there come from many authors and many sources - some of them even from the so-called "alarmist" side of things, though the site itself is usually tagged as "denialist". (Hence my balanced comment - they do generally cover stuff from both sides.) Comments from the site's owner and from readers about all of these articles can get quite interes…

A site which misquotes people seems like a really bad source for a bunch of quotes.

Well, it's actually more of "Don't put quote marks around things which aren't actually quotes, but rather paraphrases" situation - so not necessarily an inaccurate assessment of what was being said, but not an actual quote either. Which is not a good thing at all, but at least they don't just make things up out of whole cloth, as I've seen some other "news" places do.

Along those lines, I once saw a place which laid out an imaginary conversation with someone in the public eye (we'll say John Doe) where they "asked questions" and John Doe "gave answers". Then they actually had the gall to lay out a headline with one of the those imaginary answers - in quotes, no less. And then that headline made it into my supposedly legitimate newsfeed.

Another time they interviewed someone who was speaking about John Doe, and they said something like (and I'm just making this up because I don't remember the actual context) "Deep down inside John Doe probably thinks that all illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!" And then the headline was 'John Doe: "All illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!"' And once again that headline made it into my newsfeed. Crap like that makes me wonder if there actually any truly legitimate news organizations left around these days.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#78

Post by mturmon » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 2:59 AM UTC

southern_cross wrote: post #68

mturmon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed.” This is a strange thing to say. By claiming X and not-X, it means precisely nothing, but it superficially sounds judicious.

If you bothered to actually read the site, then you'd know that the articles there come from many authors and many sources - some of them even from the so-called "alarmist" side of things, though the site itself is usually tagged as "denialist". (Hence my balanced comment - they do generally cover stuff from both sides.) Comments from the site's owner and from readers about all of these articles can get quite interes…

I have read the site, and its contents border on ridiculous. The viewpoints are obviously biased toward a desired conclusion.

But more importantly, the articles will typically take one plot, image, or paragraph out of context and then build a story around it. The comments are just a bunch of back-slapping.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#79

Post by nikdaheratik » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 3:38 AM UTC

southern_cross wrote: post #37

js8 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, despite your claim: "I think that alarmism has hurt climate science ever since the 1960s." Only one person in the above quotes is talking about climate (10, 18). And you could certainly find 10 climate "skeptics" who have been horribly wrong in the 90s. I don't understand who is exactly being hurt by alarmism. Most people choose to ignore it anyway. Maybe you could provide some example where overzealous appl…

If you've been keeping up with such things, then you know that there is currently a move to shut down many coal and nuclear plants, much of which is due to the economics of natural gas, but also due to environmental concerns. However, in parts of the U.S. there is also a movement to prevent the building of natural gas plants and the pipelines that feed them, again due to environmental concerns. If this path continues…

I think the problems the fossil fuel industry are having, such as they are, have little to do with climate change and more to do with either economics being against them, in the case of coal, or fraking in the case of natural gas. The "environment concerns" around fraking include increased earthquakes and contamination of groundwater and are a pretty big deal. The tradeoff is that by allowing fraking, the US is no longer dependent on the middle east for oil and doesn't need to worry about having to import natural gas for the foreseeable future, so it's not as clear cut as it would otherwise be.

I don't think anything that the Trump administration has done has changed any of the core issues. All of the changes they have made have been pretty blatent givaways to their donors, which also happen to be alot of fossil fuel companies, but they're still rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic as far as actual effects on coal. As far as Oil and Natural Gas, there's still the problem of regulatory uncertainty and the dropping cost of alternative energy, which means companies are still more likely to keep fraking going on existing wells until they're dry rather than try to actually drill in the new areas that have been opened up. They still want the option to drill later on if conditions change, but they're moving very slowly in most cases.

Re: Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message

#80

Post by nikdaheratik » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 3:52 AM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #6

Much as I agree that fossil fuel burning is a horrendous thing that has sent us on a life-threatening trajectory, I also think this narrative is overly simplified. The fight to minimize fossil fuel would benefit from a more realistic (i.e. humble) approach IMO. Doubting if Thomas Mann will be the person to do that though. To be clear, climate science has come a long way and has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that…

I disagree about needing more "humility". The problem is that climate modelling is much more difficult than many of the "solved" physics problems, but due to what we already know about the problem of Climate Change, we need the answers as soon as we can get them.

The closest historical example that comes to mind, as far as physics goes, is the Manhattan Project, and there we had a clear goal in mind and a timeline that was dictated by wartime necessity. The number of lives affected by Climate Change is comperable, but there's no clear enemy dictating the an agressive timeline.

The other issue is that the people with the money to burn, so to speak, are the fossil fuel companies and they have a vested interest in delaying the changes we need as long as possible. So they put that money to use in both the media and political arenas to play up the "debate" as long as they can. This is all exactly like it was with the Tobacco industry which fought for decades to keep the dangers of smoking from being publicized. Only it's not just smokers who get killed by melting ice caps.

TL;DR: we know enough about climate change to know that it's happening, it's a big deal, and we have to make major changes to avoid massive damage to our planet. The majority of the noise about how we "don't know enough" about it is coming from the people who have a vested interest in delaying these changes as long as possible.