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San Francisco, 10:56 PM
Fri Nov 27
17 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/17/09
How's the power running for that Times Square picture? Electric's mostly underground in Manhattan, and I see no evidence that they've moved the wiring overhead...
I expect Manhattan will get a seawall, if it turns out to be necessary.
-Kle. #floodednewyork
11/16/09
11/16/09
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11/16/09
11/16/09
I'm incredibly skeptical that we could clean the flood waters in NY enough to make habitation possible, even after 40 years. There are just too many potential sources of contamination; gas tanks/lines of all types, asbestos, cracked sewer lines, etc... #floodednewyork
11/16/09
I suppose its also a good argument in favour of the Flying Car. Many a nerds dreams come true. All we have to do is loose a few feet in street level!!! #floodednewyork
11/16/09
hang your head in /mock/ shame i09 #floodednewyork
11/16/09
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11/16/09
Just out of interest, why did you have this clip so readily to hand ? #floodednewyork
11/16/09
11/16/09
"Sunfish Boulevard"
"The Grouper of the Opera"
"Starfish Express " #floodednewyork
03/30/09
03/30/09
03/30/09
03/30/09
And no, not believing in Global Warming is nothing like deciding whether or not to go home and check to see if I left the stove on. The AGW (that's anthropogenic global warming for those that don't follow the debates) crowd are responsible for untold detriment to the global economy and unfathomable deaths. Every day human beings, real living people, die of starvation because we decided to use our corn for ethanol to "save the planet". Forgetting that more and more evidence is mounting to show that ethanol is not only not helpful but actually might be worse than oil, this is still a disgusting thing for us to do.
On top of that the "horrible conditions" that you mention people living in are directly influenced by the AGW crowd. It's very easy for the rich nations of the world to put together treaties like Kyoto and sign them. for us it is just a matter of spending a few extra billion so we can use more renewable resources. for developing nations however we are cutting off the very resources that are responsible for giving us this wonderful way of life, coal and oil. They continue burning dung to stay warm at night which leads to their horrible death due to lung cancer while we sit at home and debate whether we should stop driving our SUV and drive a Prius instead. Disgusting.
And don't even get me started on the other environmentalist causes like DDT. The people who banned the use of that are responsible for more human deaths than Hitler.
03/30/09
03/30/09
Oil prices and backroom politics I'd call transparent bribery drove the (now diminishing) ethanol flurry. And the notion that all this food would suddenly rush out to the underserved is about as unrealistic as thinking driving a Prius matters.
03/29/09
03/29/09
So where are all the people that militantly supported it before? Have they disappeared, or are they just ashamed of the hype they bought into?
(And my opinion for the record - yes, man's actions affect global warming to a small degree. No, they aren't significant enough to be measured or felt.)
03/29/09
Do you also believe in Dänikens "chariots of the gods"? Because he is in exactly the same position as the global warming sceptics.
I wonder what people have been measuring the past decades, since so far the "natural explanation" hasn't turned up.
03/30/09
[www.rasmussenreports.com]
And if you must appeal to authority and use scientists rather than people just check out:
[www.oism.org]
It is a petition signed by over 31,000 SCIENTISTS rejecting the "consensus" of global warming. Also check out the documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle" It interviews the lead author and other members of the IPCC document that is quoted so often to show consensus. They all rejected the "consensus" but had their voices silenced for political reasons.
03/30/09
Most of those scientists don't study climate change, or they're, like, weathermen from local TV stations. But I can see how that wouldn't matter to you, since normal people are just as good as scientists at science! If you have a kid and he or she gets sick, can I cure him for you? I'm not a doctor, but you don't wanna rely on their "authority" anyway, right?
03/30/09
Science is founded on debate, not consensus. If we went by consensus then we would all be flat-earthers, earth-centrists and still have warnings on sweet 'n low that says it causes cancer. The minority has been right many times in the past and can and will be correct in the future.
The recent convention in New York of accredited scientists discussing the falsehood of AGW should show that we are out there.
And, honestly, if a doctor says that my child has cancer but you show me in a logical fashion that none of the symptoms are there and were never there, that the treatment is doing untold harm to my child and that the doctor has ulterior motives to give this diagnoses over the truth then I would most likely trust you and stop going to that doctor.
As a philosophy major I take issue with any appeal to authority. Facts are facts and if someone can put the facts together to form a valid argument then that stands on its own. The question is not who is making the argument but whether the argument being made is valid and sound (the former means it makes logical sense and if the statements are true the conclusion HAS to be true, the latter that it is actually correct).
03/30/09
In this case, a consensus has been reached by a lot of experts. My point isn't that I'm sure they're right -- if they're good scientists, even they're not "sure" they are; they have to allow for the fact that more evidence may come to light. My point is just that if a doctor tells you it looks like cancer and shows you the charts to back it up -- and they have the charts, and the charts do back it up, and no other explanations are as credible as cancer at this point -- it's reasonable to act as though you have cancer and take the appropriate steps. People say, "But what if the charts are wrong?" Well, if the doctor says you have limited time to live, but the sooner you start treatment, the better, and the longer you wait, the worse it'll be, I'll take the rational risk, please. Especially when what it means is releasing fewer pollutants and consuming less stuff, because frankly, I'd like to do those things even if I didn't think global warming was real.
And honestly, I take issue with appeal to authority being tossed out as an arguing point as often as I do in these comments. Yes, it can be a fallacy -- simply saying that Dr. So-and-So said such-and-such doesn't make such-and-such true. But we rely on appeals to authority all the time in daily discourse: The weatherman said it would rain. My mom said the store was still open. My accountant said this wasn't illegal. If a source is credible, you can appeal to them, bearing in mind that the appeal isn't any kind of proof in and of itself. Otherwise, what? Everyone needs to spend years studying climate change and review all the technical data and do all the math themselves before they can hold an opinion on climate change?
03/30/09
03/30/09
[wattsupwiththat.com]
03/30/09
Also, keep in mind that Dyson does think global warming exists -- he's just doesn't think it's as big a problem as others do. (And I appreciate that Wikipedia is far from a perfect source, but it seems to be reliable here.) Also keep in mind that you're using an argument from authority here by dropping his name -- which is fine with me, because I think he's a reliable authority and that you don't think that his position puts the question to rest. I just wanted to make sure you knew you were doing it. ;-)
03/31/09
In regards to appealing to authority. I hate doing it but when it is all that people accept anymore I have to lower myself to it. It is kind of sad that people have been conditioned to not trust their own judgment anymore. The internet has made us all just as capable of determining what is and is not true as any scientist. Before we had to listen to them because they had the data, now we can all look up what the temperature record has been for the last 10,000 years and decide for ourselves.
Even I can admit that AGW might be happening, but if it is it is such a minor thing and nothing at all to worry about. We all seem to forget that the world constantly changes. The way it is today is not the best way for us to live, so why are we struggling so much to keep it the way it is? They were farming grapes in Greenland years ago, why is its melting front page news? Yes, it will mean relocation of people, but that will happen one day no matter what we do. It is our fault for putting gigantic cities right near the ocean.
03/31/09
Certainly, people need to get better at fine-tuning their crap detectors, but saying that everyone's judgment is equally sound given the same information to apply it to is absurd, and dangerous. Sometimes it works, but often, there are factors at play that simple common sense won't bring to light -- ergo, we have experts trained in a field who study and learn about these things. That's not to say we should take their word unquestioningly on anything and everything, just that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss it.
03/31/09
Of course there is more to it than temperature, for you to say that is just absurd. I was obviously using an example. Nearly every study that is performed has their results released on the internet with the scientist's interpretation attached. I am saying that we no longer are limited to that interpretation but can actually look at the data that they used to make that interpretation and decide for ourselves.
Should their opinion be given more weight? Probably, but nowhere near the weight that is being given since people aren't interpreting at all anymore, they just quote the scientist and move on.
We can look at the temperature data, look at the CO2 levels, read a scientific article on the true effect of CO2 in a climate type scenario, find out the various effects that all greenhouse gasses have and compare them to each other etc. etc. etc. We are not slaves to scientists anymore except for the data that they provide. That is all that I am saying.
As you saw with my mentioning of Freeman Dyson, the New York conference and the Ohio petition I am susceptible to it as well but only in a small degree. I use them to back up what I have viewed and understood to be correct.
For example: I look at all the data and all the studies and say "X is correct and look these guys agree with me so I'm not a crazy lunatic". However, most people look at the scientists who say "Y is correct" and say "Y is correct because these guys say Y is correct"
04/02/09
Moreover, it's important to remember, when we naysay the scientific experts' conclusions, that in the case of something like climate change, they've already been naysayed -- or had the chance to be -- by a whole bunch of people: themselves. Peer review and publication aren't perfect, but the whole point is that these folks aren't patting each other on the back; they're looking desperately, competitively, for holes in each other's arguments. That's another thing that drives me nuts about armchair science -- there seems to be an implicit assumption that the official expert opinion is being treated like holy dogma, when that's generally not going to be the case at all.
Finally, this came across my reader this morning, re Dyson: [scienceblogs.com]
03/29/09
03/29/09
03/30/09
Oh and BTW..the govt. is the biggest polluter EVER. No companies that I know of have ever set off a nuke. Not even Wal-Mart.
03/30/09
03/30/09
But here, we're blind. We don't know the odds, and don't know how much we've bet. That's one of the glaring problems with the Pascal's Wager analysis: live right, die anyway. We could play it safe and still bungle the whole damn thing by not doing the right sort of changes, and be doubly worse off for it.
03/29/09
1) Global warming doesn't exist because of [insert natural climate change thingy here]
This is so absolutely silly an argument that I can't believe it crops up so much. It's a testament to how little people care about logical argument or debate that it's even regarded as a defense.
No credible scientist has ever claimed that natural climate changes and natural processes don't exist and don't happen. Permafrost sometimes melts. Glaciers sometimes melt. Deserts sometimes get bigger. That's just what happens.
BUT our activity has so radically altered the time frame and the scale in which these things take place that what used to take 10 000 years to happen now seems to be on track to happening in 150 or even 100. A temperature change which might naturally have been 1 degree is now 4.5 degrees. Which makes a slow and gradual change into something nigh-on-apocalyptic. Take the desertification of actual deserts. Air rises at the equator, floats towards the poles, loses moisture and the hot dry air falls back to earth in two belts north and south of the equator in which pretty much all of the deserts on earth
exist. A small increase in global temperature means that these hot dry winds get exponentially more powerful and deserts get bigger, and drier, faster.
2) Who cares? It's just another natural disaster
If you actually think this, it means you don't really understand anything about the way the world works. Governments and countries are built on frameworks and infrastructures. Water, food growth, weather patterns. Each and every country depends absolutely on certain natural patters and with a small disruption in these, the country becomes unstable. A small change in the weather disrupts the Chinese monsoon, and with that, the rice crops don't grow. And suddenly you have a giant nation of hundreds of millions that has maybe 75% of the rice they need to eat.
Read a book called "Climate Wars" by Gwynne Dyer and you'll see that every nation on earth is preparing for military action based on these future scenarios. India is ALREADY BUILDING A WALL to keep out the millions of Bangaldeshis who will need refuge when their nation sinks.
3) What can we do? We can do nothing.
Not true. It's absolutely essential that we do as much as we can. Advancing technologies, advancing energy generation as soon as possible. Geo-engineering is almost certainly required. Rapid scrubbing of CO2, or increasing the global albedo can certainly buy us enough time to bring the globe back into balance.
We won't limit our intake of resources anytime soon, but a little voluntary withholding on our part can make everything else that much easier. The whole thing will almost certainly not be solved without the help of large technologies and industrial revolution, but our voluntary withholding will certainly stretch out our timeframe for disaster.
03/29/09
I dunno. In my darker moments, I think the people who dismiss climate change unequivocally ought to be punished with a science-free existence. If you think there's no chance that many scientists could be right, no car for you, no TV, no computer, no thermostat, no...well, anyway, I keed, I keed.
03/29/09
It has been around for several decades, it seems the physics community at large has accepted it as quite true, the public seems to be accepting it as true (as true as they can think it is without knowing the science). And yet, the theory has yet to be...soldified. There are (I'm getting this from a book by Lee Smolin) more than 10 to the 500th power different variations. And there doesn't seem to be any conceivable way anyone could prove or falsify string theory at this point (or any foreseeable point) in human history. So on what basis is it being accepted? Certainly not a scientific one. Considering that science would never accept something that was incapable of being checked for falsifiability.
And every time I see talk about anthropogenic climate change it is talk of "believing in it" versus "thinking of it," I am worried a little bit, because science and facts are not supposed to be based on beliefs. How am I supposed to trust decisions based on science if the science is faulty and riddled with baseless conjecture? This is getting into a different point and this comment is becoming a bit lengthy.
Nowhere near a perfect analogy, but my point is that it could all very well be wrong. That is all I want people to consider and appreciate. It is my job to consider and appreciate that it might be correct. Unfortunately, I do not think either one of us is doing a good job of convincing the other that the other side is worth appreciating.
@Pope John Peeps II: No one but the scientists who study climate and any related topics (and are devoted to science not because of emotional investments or politics or glory or money, but purely for the sake of knowledge) have any business debating these matters of "global importance." These important matters are scientific, and should thus be left to knowledgeable scientists to discuss. Those of us who are not such scientists (most people) should base our decisions and actions on the conclusions those scientists reach, not whatever is said by Al Gore or Michael Crichton or commenters on io9 (unless those commenters are the aforementioned scientists). I am not one. If you are one, or anyone else here is one: I apologize, I did not know your background. I say this only because I see it as inappropriate that those wallowing in ignorance should speak as if they are steeped in knowledge.
See how my ignorance and inexperienced principles (I am only 17, give my thoughts little credence) have manifested into this long and terrible and poorly written comment? I am ashamed.
03/30/09
The same thing with global warming. An incredibly vast majority of scientists believe that evidence points to this thing happening. So therefore we as laymen should believe the preponderance of experts.
03/30/09
The distinction lies between technological and political will. Tragedy of the commons? Yeah, on a global scale.
03/29/09
Right, right... just like voting. I mean, one person's vote cannot possibly count to elect a better candidate, right? Where would Obama have been if the people who voted for him subscribed to that idiotic line of reasoning?
Americans have the benefit of much easier access to wealth and information, compared to any other group of people on the planet. They correspond to about 8% of the world's population but produce 35% of the world's waste. (These numbers are from several years back and may have changed - I didn't bother to find more recent ones because I, too, am lazy, despite not being Italian.)
If every American (really, every person on the planet) got off his or her ass and started doing even small things to help preserve the environment, the accumulated effort would pay off. Also, other countries would follow their example since, for better or worse, the US is a trend-maker for the rest of the world.
For instance, grow up and stop drooling for bigger cars. Cars aren't toys, they're merely means of transportation, you know. So, stop buying and driving SUVs. That alone would have an impact, though, admittedly, not a large one because the percentage of people who drive SUVs is relatively small. But start there, and then go on with forcing the auto industry to look for alternatives to fossil fuels and to make more efficient and environmentally-safe cars.
03/29/09
To make real strides, large industries need to make changes, and ultimately, that's not going to happen without government intervention. The line you quoted from my post isn't nihilistic pessimism -- it's reality, which is something we need to get acquainted with if we're going to make any progress here. It's easy to say "If every American got off his or her ass..." and it's not that you're wrong, but it would probably be foolishly optimistic to hang our hopes on that, or anything close to it, happening any time soon.
03/29/09
What we CAN do to prepare for the ensuing disaster is to begin hydroponic food production en mass. Get ready for massive droughts by building desalinization plants and massive underground reservoirs etc.. We CAN prepare. I haven't seen a single sign of preparation. Nothing. Everyone is still pointing fingers to coal and CO2 etc... We need to stop and prepare.
03/29/09
heh.
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03/29/09
A)actually, they wouldn't be in North America if it weren't for people
B)they wouldn't be nearly as populated. Farm animals exist in far higher concentrations as what the normal, non-human enhanced carrying capacities would be
C)the diets that we give them actually causes them to have more gas
Also, besides just releasing methane, those permafrost layers will release even more CO2.
03/29/09
Even the water fountains, hand dryers, and urinals have signs announcing how much water and energy they save compared to all you horrible people in your selfish, panda-killing private homes. As you leave there are special museum personnel who tell you, "Thank you for your visit, and way to go screwing up the planet, Schmuck!"
I love the new Academy building and have been a member since I was kid, but I think they should rename it the "Hall of Massive Guilt Trips".
Maybe that's the only way people will shape up and change their behaviors to fit the realities of the current Ecopocalype. Constant nagging from Mother Earth!
03/29/09
03/29/09
It's only a matter of time before we in the Bay Area get the Big Quake. Of course earthquakes aren't caused by climate change, pollution, or disposable water bottles, only our own sinful, sinful ways.
03/29/09
My family is doing OK. My parents live right at the 43-foot danger zone, so they were prepared to possibly evacuate and definitely get water in at least the basement until Friday evening when the river stopped rising. It's still a wait-and-see thing -- they're expected to get more snow soon, on top of the seven inches they just got, and that plus the ongoing pressure of the river means some of the sandbag dikes may break down. And then there's the question of where exactly all that moisture is going to go. It is a troublesome and ironic shame at times like this that there are people in the world without fresh water to drink.
03/29/09
Note to self: visit West Fargo.