Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
There’s a war going on. A war waged by religious extremists (of at least two major world religions), the extreme right, and fossil fuel-funded politicians, against the very foundations of our secular, post-Enlightenment, post-scientific revolution society. You think I’m exaggerating? I wish. Extreme right websites are asking their readers to pick up arms against scientists. That’s where we are.
Religious extremists, the extreme right, and fossil fuel-funded politicians know all too well that science, secularism, and a clear, non-negotiable separation between church and state are grave threats to their continued existence. We – as a species – have come a long way these past few hundred years, but it feels like today, with the all-out attack on science by these deplorable parts of our society, we are regressing backwards into the dark ages.
Science is the only foundation of progress. Any who seek to erode this foundation are the enemy of the Enlightenment – mankind’s greatest invention. Pick your side carefully.
Why would the real scientists want the data to disappear as it proves the whole thing is a hoax so that the priests of Gaia who wish to destroy western civilization and return to the stone age can get grants?
Emailgate proved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCU6bzRypZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrWznOFq38s
https://wattsupwiththat.com/
The alarmists don’t want the raw data to be exposed because you can see how they massaged and fudged it.
The alarmists are the dogmatic side that wants to silence and burn everyone who disagrees and don’t want to discuss data, method, models, or what is actually going on.
Thay is why “the science is settled” about the next ice age in 1975, then “global warming” in 1995, and now it is “climate change” because you have no idea which side you will need to panic people with so they will be willing to sacrifice to your god Gaia.
Nothing in the news was about hiding data – did you actually read it?
Of course he didn’t. He’s had 5+ years to read that stuff. He hasn’t yet, he isn’t going to start now.
He’s not interested in that sort of thing.
Global warming was always an inaccurate term for planet-wide climate shifts, because not all parts of the planet will actually warm (in fact, some parts might get a lot colder). But that’s how science works: as we gather more knowledge, terminology gets ever more accurate. It’s clear you do not understand how science works.
Didn’t you use to deny climate change referring to it as ManBearPig? I seem to remember more than a few rants against it on your old blogspot.
The problem is the Climate is ALWAYS CHANGING.
“Climate Change” is the motte, but the bailey is “MAN IS CAUSING IT”.
Maybe. .00002%. The Sun’s output changes. The oceans have a big effect on the land. Volcanoes change lots of things including dumping billions of pounds of chlorine directly into the stratosphere, but it is CFCs (which are heavier than air, go into the soil and are digested by bacteria) which are somehow responsible for any “ozone hole” – a 1% reduction equivalent to moving 100 miles toward the equator.
Every bad event is blamed on “fossil fuels” today just as it was blamed on “witches” before, but it is easier to panic and screech “heretic” than just accept things change and whatever happens to the climate we can adapt.
Then why did all witch hunts against Michael Mann and co turn up nothing?
Something did happen.
Physicists like Professor Muller decided to make transparent their climate raw data and any associated manipulations of the raw data (i.e. the formulae) public so that anybody can back track and confirm the findings. This was because of Muller’s observation that applying Mann’s statistical analysis techniques to stochastic (Monte-Carlo) data causes the generation of a “hockey-stick” morphology in the data which implied an artifact in Mann’s statistical technique(s). This cannot be refuted, it is an valid empirical observation. No amount of usage of terms such as “concensus”, “general acceptance”, “prevailing view” can have an impact on changing the result of this observation. Science is not about concensus, it concerns the explanation of experimental results.
As a person with a bachelor and PhD degrees in an applied science discipline, I was not happy with the unambiguous fraud evidenced during my own perusal of the climate-gate emails back in 2009. I do not believe that scientists begin life with a fraudulent agenda, since we are initially trained to search for the “truth”. However, pressures from the grant-system, political/social agendas, tunnel-vision (i.e. getting too close) effect, love-hate relationship with a theory (i.e. pushing a theory/aspect for a long while and then realizing that possibly that theory/aspect is not very useful; which, to me, is still a result be it a “null” result) can make the best of us a bit wayward.
https://skepticalscience.com/Muller-Misinformation-1-confusing-Mikes…
https://skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
You are more than welcome to retread old ground that has been counter debunked.
Skeptical Science doesn’t understand irony. It is totally devoid of scepticism. The author is an activist employed by the University of Queensland.
This is the textbook example of an ad hominem fallacy.
John Cook is a climate activist employed by the University of Queensland. He even teaches a course called Making Sense of Climate Science Denial.
http://www.gci.uq.edu.au/john-cook
Trying to save your ad hominem fallacy with yet more ad hominem fallacy doesn’t work.
His hockey stick proved forced and based on broken data and models. Is that “nothing”?
“deplorable parts of our society”
Were you a Hillary supporter ?
If so, you were fine supporting the modern version of Kissinger, i.e. the “indirect” mass murderer of Libyan people, etc. while Trump did not have “blood” on his hands; Trump’s “dirty” thoughts, for some “unknown” reason, seemed to be more important.
“All-out attack on science” ….
A bit over the top. I’d rephrase it,
“All-out attack on boy’s club peer review process”.
It is the “establishment” related entities behind the CLIMATE-GATE scandal (2009) who sought to erode our “foundation of progress”. As someone who has a bachelor and PhD degrees in an applied science discipline, the unambiguous fraud perpetrated by the CLIMATE-GATE scientists was unacceptable to me; I do not value accepting grant money in order to keep my mouth shut while I am aware of a crime against intelligence, I do not value the POP (publish-or-perish) system as it emphasizes quantity over quality, etc. Unless someone has been involved in the basic/applied research environment, they are not aware of the deleterious machinations that may manifest in that environment.
Also, “fossil fuel-funded politicians” do not prescribe to a particular political ideology (i.e. left of right), they do not need to. The fossil-fuel industry (be it good or bad) have no need of political ideology, they find friends everywhere. This all stems from the fact that “alternative/more-green/etc.” energy infrastructure cannot (or in some instances will not be allowed to) compete with existing energy infrastructure. I remember Obama, the “dreamer”, thought prior/during his first term that he would increase the US’s ~2% dependence on alternative energy to ~10%. Big “pipe” dream that disappeared quickly.
e.g.
It has been obvious for many years, many documentaries,
that compact water-based (hydrolysis/?) engines can propel vehicles to useful speeds but the “establishment” politicians would never want large scale introductions of similar technologies since alternative energy empowers the citizen and provides a way to avoid fuel related taxes (harder for government to audit a citizen’s “free” energy usage); amongst other positive things.
The CLIMATE-GATE (is it an acronym now?) thing turned up nothing. Yes, it was a scandal. Only because people made it into a scandal. The existence of a scandal doesn’t mean the claims of a scandal are factual.
But then, people voted in a president based on magical thinking (if I believe this about something, it must be true), so I’m not surprised.
Did you peruse the climate-gate emails ?
Back then I did, for the minimal reason that I hold bachelor/PhD degrees in an applied science discipline (as well as having ~25 years of software engineering experience) and was interested in the quality of the climate research (science and computer modelling) inferred by the emails.
To my surprise, and what I remember, the emails made evident:
– the non-reporting of “null” results; i.e. instances
in which the AGW theory was not relevant in explaining climate-related results
– source code “hacks” to make source code execute according to a predefined agenda; e.g. avoiding or brushing over certain mysteries/inadequacies implied by the “data”, hard coding a predetermined result, manufacturing data to output a predetermined result, applying “VERY ARTIFICIAL” corrections to the data,
bypassing data integrity issues using source code hacks designed to instill a “fake confidence” in the compromised data present in the database
– selective use of data.
At least in the computer modelling arena, I expected higher quality source code implementations. Even if the “raw data” had issues, this should have been addressed over the decades even if it meant slowing down a little and standardising aspects of data measuring/retrieval. But no, full steam ahead … we have opposition to our “ideas” and need to quickly convince people of the “threat”; like back then when some of these people were peddling the “ice age” theory a few decades ago. Because, like many, they were not patient and got sloppy leading to production of “compromised work”.
Of course the “system” (“journalists”, compromised academics/etc. who prioritize too much on grant funding, etc.) would preach a story in which the quality of the work was fine, no need to nit-pick, etc. and believing there was no “fraud” (at least, to me, the fraud related in getting too close to a theory, liking the theory too much, and later losing one’s objectivity such that multiple theories are never really investigated).
You forgot to mention N Machines and Free Energy. Why not throw in a dash of moon landing hoax at the same time?
Conspiracies collapse at a rate proportional to the size of the conspiracy. The greater the number of people involved, the faster a leak occurs, the faster it all deflates.
Anthropocentric climate change is real. Critically think about what would be involved in getting tens of thousands of climate experts to agree to misreport their scientific findings. How would that even work? What are the motivations for them to do so? And if your reply is ‘grant money’, you don’t think the vastly better-funded fossil fuel emitters would be deliriously happy to fund any halfway credible climate scientist who broke away from the consensus?
Tossing in “Gaia” doesn’t help either. It might be worth you trying meet some top tier climate scientists. They’re not hippy-dippy tree huggers who weave their own pubic hair. They are serious-minded people, who care about facts. Objective truth. Not bias. Not media spin. They take the measurements and interpret the data. In many cases, they would absolutely _love_ to be wrong about climate change. It would be much easier.
Climate change is real. Look at the polar ice cap photos over even the last 15 years. Couldn’t be more clear. 15 out of the last 16 years have been the hottest on record. The only question left is how we deal with it, and how quickly we react.
Sorry, meant anthropogenic not anthrocentric.
You mean like how they leaked the existence of the Manhattan project?
And I’ll choose to believe those trained in climate science vs. someone who claims to possess advanced degrees in materials science, and who ignores the simple and obvious weighting of “who profits” from the released data and “facts”. Bottom line, from climate change scientists, I see a lot of data. From supposed anti-climate change people (fossil fuel backed “scientists”) all I hear from them is “Nuh, uh.”
And the question has never been about whether climate change was real (of course now that trump is in office, that narrative will probably change). The debate was about climate change being accelerated by man.
The intensity of the anti-science ranting is really starting to stagger me. The world I live in isn’t sophisticated enough to support the ridiculous conspiracy theories that seem (from the ferocity that they are suddenly being screamed from the rooftops) to be turning into mainstream sentiment.
I can only hope that it’s only that the enabling circumstances of recent developments that is bringing these maniacs out from the shadows and they are truly a vocal ultra-minority. If we are in fact at the point where a lot of people believe this crap then we are in fact doomed.
If divining the future from chicken entrails and dying of cholera at the age of 15 was good enough for our ancestors, it’s clearly good enough for us!
I do believe in climate change but something has happened. What our grandparents have been told to believe in, doesn’t make sense anymore:
put your money in the bank, so it will be safe (creditcrisis), believe in government (invasion of Iraq, and the corruption of politics), work hard and you will do well (CEO’s earning more than 100 times more than the rest are laying off ppl. left and right), study hard and you will do well (college tuitions), believe in the God and the Church (child abuse) etc. Believe in all this and you will be fu…. in the process. Science is simply seen as a facilitator and supporter of those institutions.
I appreciate your perspective. But true science (as a structured way of discovering objective truth) is the only way out of this mess. Not fig-leaf pseudoscience, manipulated and misrepresented by politicians and clickbait web “news”. Real, “dive deep into the details”, “always trying to disprove your own assumptions and conclusions” science.
Are you a philosopher? If so I have some funny Feynman jokes to send to you.
Being more serious about the subjects and comments:
– Consensus in science is not something to brag about with fervor, as the lessons of history have shown too many times;
– What some call truth is, many times, a thing to look with reservation; in science we have models and their consequences and they may or may not agree, to a degree, to watch we can observe. When things don´t add we try to identify the shortcomings on our models (way more probable) or on our measurements. Our models are continuously refined by this process of improvement, sometimes with completely new ideas, what is quite rare actually, and scrutiny;
– Real world is very, very complex but our models, even the sophisticate ones, are usually very simple on balance. There are very few phenomena where all other factors kicking in can be neglected, most of them related to gravitation and its direct effects;
– Climate is a very hard field because it has so many important factors giving appreciable contributions.
Do I believe we are spreading havoc on our environment and that it may be causing the climate to change? Yes. Do I believe that it is caused by what climatologists say is the main factor? Yes. Am I sure? Of course not, I had too many lessons of physics on my life to be sure of anything, science is not a field of math, only there, with the rigorous methods developed on the XIX century, and since then refined, we can speak of anything close to sureness.
As a side note, most of us agree that the risks and the consequences possibly associated to climate change are too bad to not deserve immediate actions to tackle the problem, as we don´t know how resilient the environment we need to survive really is, we may very well have already put in march transitions with catastrophic consequences for us.
Oh dear – it looks like my post on this thread has been deleted. If it has been deleted it sadly reflects an all too common practice in the arena of debating climate change. My post was a bit long but I thought reasonable, rational and on topic. Thom – if you did delete my post (and I didn’t just muck up posting it) would you be so kind as to explain why?
…you posted that comment on the wrong story. It’s still there.
Edited 2016-12-14 00:57 UTC
Thanks Thom – sorry for my stupid.
Quoted in full to show the level of persecution complex AGW deniers perceive themselves, while not blaming themselves for their own errors, to make themselves feel good.
Not especially surprising given the embodiment of reality distortion field known as Tony Swash.
Edited 2016-12-14 02:14 UTC
Its not a persecution complex. When I began to doubt the alarmist position about climate change I started to participate in online discussions in places like the Guardian’s website comment pages where I would raise questions or sometimes post links to scientific papers or data that seemed to contradict the alarmist climate articles in the paper. As a result I found myself being seriously attacked personally, called a right wing ’denier’, a shill for the fossil fuel industry, and very often censored by the Guardian itself as most of my comments were deleted.
Interestingly the more barmy and obviously right wing a climate sceptic commentator is the more likely the Guardian is to allow their comments to stand. Such comments reinforce the political polarisation after all. What the Guardian seems to really object to, object so much that sometimes my comments have been deleted within minutes of being posted, is comments that come from the left of centre and which are polite, rational, argued and which contain references to actual data or research.
The irony is that my daughter works at a senior level as a journalist at the Guardian. I have read the paper for decades now and love it but it’s position on climate change is not just barmy but actually disturbing in the intensity of the hysteria it tries to promote.
Yes it is. Instead of bothering to check whether you screwed up, you immediately assumed Thom deleted your article. You even gave the title of your comment “climate debate censorship”.
It was already a foregone conclusion in your mind that Thom deleted your comment. Persecution complex to a T.
You talk like an cultist, using terms like “denier” is something extreme religious sects without proof slings around when “heathen” or apostate” does not seem to take root.
Yawn.
Language is a living thing, and just not accepting the existance of something make you a denier? I refuse to believe in Allah, YHVE or Lord Shiva, and according to those people i am an denier as well. Their claims is that their scripture proves that their scripture is true and thus said god exists. This loop of confimation bias for the sake of agenda is exactly what i have been observing in the discussions on climate change. The scientists and sound people say “climate is changing” alarmists and profiteers screams “we are all going to die, unless you give us your money volountarily or by force!”
Using the term climate-deniers is one of the reasons the debate have become so polarized just as when you call people no longer believing the bible as being the word of god being deniers. It is just helping people that want to abuse and scaremonger and not the actual debate.
That’s funny, the total lack of self-reflection in your entire comment. You actually perform the scaremongering alarmism act to a T. Just like when you and your type go on and on about SJWs and how they want to take away your sad games, merely because they posted a Youtube video or wrote an article.
Edited 2016-12-15 02:54 UTC
ah i remember when i was naive like thom and science was pure and religion a hoax… now science has become more political and more like religion. The global warmists, the environmentalists, have made it the new religion for the 21st century. True science will die, and we will all be back in the dark ages hugging the nearest tree. At least there is no more fear left in the world…
This the comment I stupidly posted in the wrong story.
I was pitched into a long career as a left wing activist by the events of 1968. I have spent a large part of my life working to support progressive political and social causes. It was friends of mine that were leading figures in the creation of the women’s movement and gay liberation in the 1970s. Almost all my many friends now are still on the left. I have been a life long atheist. I despise Donald Trump. I have never been paid a penny by the fossil fuel companies.
But apparently I became right wing in 2006 shortly after a visit to Athabasca glacier in the Canadian Rockies. I went up the glacier a left wing, right on sort of guy and I came down a right wing shill for the evil fossil fuel industry.
How did that happen? It happened because my trip up the glacier prompted me to ask a simple question and it was asking that question, and the answers I eventually found, that apparently turned me into a repulsive science denying right winger
The Athabasca glacier spills over and down from the elevated Columbia Ice-field and on the way it drops over over three giant bedrock steps. The glacier flows down the valley like a frozen, slow-moving river. I spent a day at the glacier, first hiking up the valley tracing the old route of the glacier before it retreated and then later riding a snowcat out on to the surface of the glacier. It was pretty wonderful day but I didn’t realise at the time that it was turning me right wing.
As I hiked up the valley towards the leading, and melting, edge of the glacier, I came across date markers showing where the leading edge of the glacier had been in the past. What I noticed, and what piqued my interest, was that the dates for the retreat of the glacier started in the mid-19th century and that the glacier was already retreating when the valley was first mapped by early western explorers. Later in the visitors centre I read that because of a warming climate, the Athabasca Glacier has been receding, melting, for the last 125 years, a fact I found very interesting.
The reason I thought the long history of the Athabasca glacier melting was particularly interesting was because it meant that there must been been a strong natural warming process underway back in the middle of the 19th century well before 95% of the human CO2 had been emitted, before human caused warming had started.
So the question the trip up the glacier prompted was “How have the climate scientists worked out and separated effects of natural warming and human caused warming?â€
I thought it would be interesting to find out more so out of interest when I got home from our holiday I started to investigate the science a bit more. Up until the trip on the glacier I had had thought the case for human caused dangerous warming looked pretty strong, I had watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truthâ€, but I had never bothered to explore the issue in any detail. As I started reading the relevant books and blogs, and increasingly the scientific papers themselves, my interest grew and grew as I realised something was not right. I spent the best part of two years burrowing away into the science and also into the political economy of climatology and global warming.
What I discovered was a big shock, which was that the science upon which the entire theory of dangerous human caused global warming is based is painfully flimsy. The entire ‘proof’ that the recent warming period was caused mostly by human CO2 and not by the natural mechanisms that had caused all the other recent warming epodes is based on models of how the climate works. The models adds up all the things that climatologist think, based on current knowledge, can change climate and when that is done the current models cannot find any other explanation than the CO2. That’s the entire proof. Of course those theories about how the climate works, the theories that say only CO2 can be to blame, are just that – theories – and and as such have to be tested against real world data. The climate models can be used to make predictions about future climate change. All those models, I repeat all, predicted 20 years ago that the amount of CO2 that has been added to atmosphere in the last couple of decades would produce a strong warming signal. All those models, I repeat all, were wrong. Around a quarter to a third of all the CO2 ever added by humans was added in the last twenty years and yet there has been barely any warming for eighteen years. There was some warming between 1975 and 1998 but that warming has more or less stopped since then. Sure there are screaming headlines about ‘hottest years ever!†but the temperature records are to do with thousandths or hundredths of a degree celsius and are smaller than the error bars of data collection system. Every year without a strong and clear warming trend further invalidates the current climate models.
The issue of the climate data sets is a big one, and something I investigated for a long time after my trip up the glacier. In summary what I found was that the surface climate historical data sets were poor, patchy and were constantly being ‘adjusted’ by their collectors and custodians all of whom had a deep professional, career and often idealogical stake in the the theory of human caused climate change. The small and closely connected teams that maintain the climate historical data sets are also extraordinarily secretive about the adjustments that are made to the data (they are quite open that such adjustments occur, and publish revised historical data all the time).
Based on the deep problems with the surface temperature sets I now tend to only really trust the satellite data, and as much as I loathe Donald Trump the possibility that his presidency might lead to a clean up and opening up of the unhealthily closed world of climate data is to be welcomed.
BTW the answer to the question I posed on coming down from the glacier, when I asked “How have the climate scientists worked out the separated and calculated effects of natural warming and human caused warming?â€, is that the climate scientist cannot separate the natural from the man made warming. In fact the scientists have no idea what caused the warming in the 19th and early 20th century, or indeed what caused the preceding and very cold Little Ice Age, or what caused all the well documented warming and cooling episodes stretching back thousands of years. The science is not settled, its hardly started.
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess
Ronald Coase
British economist
Tony,
You didn’t “discover” anything. You read stuff, and made a conclusion. I suppose you consider yourself intelligent, but even intelligent people shouldn’t draw conclusions on fields they are not working in, nor have an education in. You’re an economist. You are (I assume) qualified to judge papers on the economy. I doubt you are qualified to judge papers on climate change. All we laymen can do, is see where the scientific consensus lies, and assume that, at least currently, with the latest insights, holds true. We know that the scientific consensus can change, if more data is discovered and explained. But to draw conclusions ourselves, and say “it’s all bogus, I read the papers!” that’s bloody arrogant.
Besides, I don’t even know *why* people would like to deny human-induced climate change, or even climate change at all. Yeah, I understand why Trump and his oil-loving buddies want to deny it, but why would you? Even if you’d believe the current scientific consensus is an exaggeration, why not shrug it off instead of posting large rants like the above? Do you like burning fossil fuels? Fuels we know we’ll be *out of* in a while? Even if man-made climate change is a hoax, do you hate wind and solar powered energy that much?
Here are a few reasons why a progressive should be concerned about fallacious alarm about human caused climate change:
a) Raising the energy supply for poor people in the form of access to cheap, abundant and reliable electricity supply is central to pulling a couple of billion people out of life shortening and cruel poverty. Once one clears away the nonsense written about wind and solar power generation, which even after hundreds of billions in direct subsidy, can only produce a tiny proportion of the worlds electricity needs and do so very erratically, it is clear that the only source for the required electricity will be fossil fuels. If the use of fossil fuels is restricted in order to deal with an over blown climate scare it will severely hamper global poverty reduction.
b) All schemes so far proposed to reduce CO2 emissions involve raising the costs of energy, this leads to energy poverty even in rich countries. Already in the UK there are poor people who cannot afford to properly heat their houses because electricity prices in the UK are artificially inflated by green levies and taxes.
c) Most of the actual interference in energy production methods derived from climate commitments are taking place in the developed democracies and this is adding to the economic stagnation in the developed countries which in turn is a major factor in the rise of reactionary populism. We really don’t need self imposed high cost energy right now if it is not necessary.
d) Progressive activists and parties now devote a vast amount of effort campaigning about climate change. In my opinion this means that a huge amount of campaigning energy which should be devoted to real issues (poverty, human rights etc) is instead spent on a non-existent problem about which humans can actually do nothing. Climate change alarm has got the left chasing unicorns.
Since the early part of the 19th century the earth climate has warmed gently. It is now about one degree higher than it was 150 years ago. During that period of warming climate change largely went unnoticed, and during that period human welfare has increased massively. The rise of one degree actually didn’t create any problems. The climate is currently warming by less than a tenth of a degree per decade and sea levels are rising at a constant rate of a few millimetres a year as they have been for as far back as records extend. If this a continues nothing much will happen. Climate change is not a problem and spending trillions of dollars to try to fix this non problem, on measures that almost certainly wont actually make any difference to the climate but will make poor people poorer, would be utterly criminal.
As opposed to doing nothing, which causes ever more extreme droughts and floods, which disproportionally hit poor and developing countries. Well done sir!
There are no global temperature records from the early 19th century. The only accurate measurements from this period are from western Europe and the USA.
The temperature rose ~10C in a single century at the end of the last ice age 11,500 years ago. Far from being unprecedented a 1C/century rise/fall is perfectly normal.
1.5C is only a 0.5% increase when measured on the absolute Kelvin Scale used by real physicists. Climate ‘scientists’ prefer to use Celsius or Fahrenheit because it gives scary results.
1) You are using scary quotes and the word “real” to imply that anyone acknolwedging global warming is somehow not a real scientist. That’s a true scotsman fallacy.
2) I have a car that goes 15.000 km *per second*. Don’t believe me, that’s too fast? Well, that’s only 0.5% of the speed of light, so that’s really nothing, right? *Shakes head for the amount of stupidity*
Real physicists aren’t bothered with what 273K does to an ecosystem that never seen less than 283K.
PS: 0.5% on a global scale is a lot! For example all of US is 1.93% of Earth’s surface.
Ideally, this should not be an either-or situation. And if the denier lobby wasn’t so powerful and people could accept what is happening then we could start thinking about how to solve it properly, without stupid compromises and the ill effects you are writing about. Too bad it is not to be.
No need to worry about us. I live below sea level (about 2m or so), but our defences against the water are of such incredible size and technological prowess that we can easily handle even several meters in sea level rise. I’m not joking – when our engineers devised the Delta Works after the last truly major flood (1953), they employed a margin that’s kind of insane, and is working out in our favour today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works
I’d be A LOT more worried about the southern US states, Miami, and New York (let’s not even get started about other developing countries!). New York has effectively zero water defences, and even a small rise in sea level will have disastrous consequences for Manhattan. As a Dutchman, it blows my mind that cities with millions and millions of inhabitants, like Miami and New York, are completely exposed to the water like they are. I am protected by humblingly complex system of dunes, dikes, pumps, and god knows what else – yet New York City, the largest city in the US and its financial centre, has no defences?
Amazing. A disaster waiting to happen.
Edited 2016-12-14 14:30 UTC
I don’t think anybody is going to change their mind on much so just a few quick points.
The current warming is less rapid than similar warming periods in the recent past.
The early holocene (i.e. around the time the first cities were being founded and farming was starting) was warmer than today – in fact it is named the ‘Holocene Optimum’, a name given back in the days not so long ago when it was recognised that warming was better than cooling.
Given that the temperature during the ‘Holocene Optimum’ was considerable warmer than now it is quite likely that the artic ice sheet vanished for a while. The world did not end and polar bears did not go extinct.
As global glaciers have retreated in some places they have revealed the remains of old forests long buried under the glacial ice, similarly in the norther tundra zones which are now tree free there are remains of old trees that grew there when the norther tree line extended right up to the northern edge of Eurasia. Both the trees uncovered by the retreating glaciers and the old trees in the tundra zones can be reliably carbon dated and both give dates during the medieval warm period ( AD 950 to 1250 approx). This means back then it was warm enough, and warm long enough, for forests to grow where now there are retreating glaciers and frozen tundra. The world did not end and polar bears did not go extinct.
The 20th century warming coincided with the most intense period of solar activity for thousands of years, similarly the Little Ice Age (AD1300 to about 1850 and the coldest period since the last real ice age ended) coincided with a period of significantly reduced solar activity. There are many scientists who think that the role of solar activity in driving climate change has been obscured by the CO2 theory. The sun is currently sinking into a deep solar minimum with much reduced activity, it will take a while for the effect of that to change the climate system but if the effect of solar activity has been overlooked then we are in for a rude awakening in the next few decades.
Even the large IPPC study on extreme weather events concluded that there were no discernible trends in unusual or extreme weather patterns.
A 150 years of warming up until now has not had any serious deleterious effects that I can discern. The world is warming, it may continue to warm, human activity may have contributed to that, but it seems a truly trivial issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/five-pacific-isl…
But okay, who cares about some islands in the Pacific, right? Those people are probably poor, and probably not white to boot, so who gives a shit, right?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-…
Oh shit, that’s closer to home! The coastal regions of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and so on, are literally flooding as we speak due to climate change.
But still, that’s far away down south where only idiots, Trump voters, and black people live, right? Who cares?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/9/13898546/sea-level-rise-climate-c…
New York City? Whatever man. It’s just the most important financial centre of the United States without any form of flood protection whatsoever, home to millions and millions of people all packed onto a small island. I’m sure they’ll be fine in their high-rise buildings.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/regional_information/ca-and-we…
Wait, you mean to tell me the home of Apple is literally drying up and burning to the ground? THAT IS WHERE MY FUCKING MACBOOK PRO AND IPHONE ARE DESIGNED.
FUCK.
SEND IN THE FUCKING MARINES.
Funny you mention that. In 1999, then Commandant James Jones released a publication on the 21st Century role of the Marines.
The basic outline was that 53% of all people lived within 200 miles of a coast, and that number was expected to rise to 75% by 2050. The expected sea level rise combined with this population explosion would create imbalances in food supply chains, which would lead to food shortages and political instability in major urban areas.
His goal was that the Marine Corps would return to an amphibious global 9-1-1 force, ready to provide assistance when necessary in these situations. Unfortunately, this vision was trumped by the next administration who wanted a second standing Army to spearhead invasions of landlocked (or almost landlocked) countries.
Still, the legacy of General Jones’ vision was evident after Fukishima and Typhoon Haiyan; Marines were already on the ground providing assistance in both cases just hours after the devastation hit.
I think the 21st Century will be defined by our response to the sea level rise. Marines and equivalent response forces, while undoubtedly helpful, are just band-aids on a situation that must be addressed on a global societal scale. Unfortunately, it looks like the United States has temporarily decided not to play a part in that solution.
As an anecdote: my North Carolina beach house was built in the 1960’s, when it was five blocks away from the ocean. Today, it is two blocks away from the ocean. There is only one house left standing on the street closest to the ocean, and it is now surrounded on the left and right by a sand dune. The ocean is just a few hundred feet away. Hurricanes destroy houses, but they are temporary, and do not account for the fact that the ocean is so close now. The evidence is right in front of us.
Finally, I don’t mind these stories on OSNews. We are down to two operating systems for smartphones, and three or four operating systems for personal computers. What else will we talk about? Don’t participate if you don’t like an article. This discussion is much larger than the recent Commodore 64 article.
But still, that’s far away down south where only idiots, Trump voters, and black people live, right? Who cares?
Look, all that stupid dinosaurs died because of climate change. If only they voted for HRC…
Instead of sinking $125 billion in bureaucratic waste, Obama could make a giant ice mega-factory to compensate all that melting ice in Arctic 🙂
Another opportunity is a nuclear world war. In a post-nuclear winter all ice will be cool and dandy.
Edited 2016-12-15 09:15 UTC
Thats interesting and I have no doubt your account of history is true, however:
If memory servers, the very first cities were founded around 10’000 years ago when estimated world population was around 1-10 million people. We are now almost at 7.5 billion, well armed people, mostly living on coastal areas, and absolutely depended on farm land. People aren’t going to just disappear when their farm lands get too hot/cold/dry/toxic to grow crops or their home is left under rising sea level. Those people will move elsewhere and fight for their right to do so if necessary. I bet most of Osnews readership is young enough to live to see that poo really hit the fan.
Warmer or colder, on the long run, the earth will keep spinning and the human kind as a species will survive (in greatly smaller numbers).
If a progressive does not want to be called a “pompous ass with an inflated sense of intelligence”, that progressive should not make conclusions on anecdotal evidence. Your claim that it is in fact a “fallacy” are no better than the snowball in the hands of Inhofe on the floor of US congress.
Even though I disagree with your conclusions, I appreciate the detailed story you shared about your own journey. Thank you.
Just want to make sure I get this right:
You agree that rapid climate change is happening?
But you don’t believe it’s primarily anthropogenic?
Do you agree that the current rate of change will lead to massive disruption in the coming decades? Disappearing islands and coastlines? Mass migration, and likely war and famine?
If yes to the above, shouldn’t we be looking at engineering solutions?
Do you believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Even if not the primary cause of warming, wouldn’t you want to do those things in our power to slow the rise?
(As a side note, in northern Europe the industrial age kicked off in the late 18th century, albeit slowly. The fact that the glacial measurements showed retraction from the late 19th century doesn’t necessarily mean industrial production wasn’t in some way involved – coal particulates changing the color of the ice and increasing sun absorbtion, for instance)
For all the posts i read on this topic, this one is the most useful because it sums most of the questions that we need to make to ourselves to decide what our position is. Congratulations to nicholasj.
Edited 2016-12-14 21:41 UTC
The whole point is what the effect is of the ANTHROPOGENIC component.
If it is 0.00001% then it doesn’t matter if we destroy western civilization – actually it does as we won’t be able to respond to actual natural climate change with heating and/or air-conditioning to prevent death.
There are more inconvenient truths than Al Gore has revealed. Thanks for adding to the list.
But just think, we can nuke China, and the Nuclear winter, combined with the reduction in greenhouse gases will fix everything! But is that what you want?
If I remember correctly, economics courses do tend to skip a lot of physics… Specifically you discount the constructive interference.
Basically you’re wrong because you think that you’re smart enough. Just like you’d be wrong is you said you understand quantum theory.
Also based on my anecdotal experience and reading of a pitifully small number of medical papers – I can say that vaccines are a major cause of autism… also vaccines is a major cause for the rise of piracy.
This article has no place on this website.
It has nothing to do with operating systems… or even technical aspects of technology.
Don’t you know this is Thom’s personal platform to promote The Gilmore Girl’s, Fiona Apple and various Left Wing views?
If you believe that, why are you here?
Burger King sells more than burgers (fries, obesity, milk shakes, reduced life expectancy, etc.)
I actually prefer the non-tech stories on this site, and would love for more, or for Thom to start a more general blog.
“Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that Trump has appointed a “band of climate conspiracy theorists†to run transition efforts at various agencies, along with nominees to lead them who share similar views.”
The Union of concerned Scientists is a loony activist group that has virtually no working scientists as members. Anybody willing to pay a fee can join.
Thom you should seriously delete this entire post. You have no idea how nuts this argument is in United States. Taking such a strong and open stance will doom OSNews to chaos and fighting. I’m not saying we should hide from these issues but this is a tech website and one that I’ve enjoyed over the years!
First, we are on a tech website. The tech crowd have a pro science bias, because engineering crowds are mostly science people or science-related, by education and personal taste. So sure, we could get some guys from the other side, but that is not necessarily bad.
Second, Thom has some strong opinions, and that is good. He is pro science, anti-discrimination, and that is perfectly fine that on his blog he should be able to display his opinions.
Third, this is no slashdot or another huge website. Do not expect a massive backlash. Even science-skeptics have a life.
+1!
I agree that the packaging around this article has a lot of of political issue discussion to it. However, I find the data within (the ongoing work of archiving data sets) to be quite interesting and tech relevant. Whether or not you agree with the motivations of the people doing the work doesn’t detract from the mechanics, technical issues, problems, etc. of doing this backup and distribution. Unfortunately, this aspect has received very little discussion in the comments.
Not willing to confront a lot of people on many issues and seclude yourself into the happy zones of NYC and LA has resulted in Trump being elected.
I’d rather have a fight and learn the grievances, than be ignorant of peoples thoughts and plights.
I’m not a climatologist, and although I don’t consider myself ill informed or stupid, I do know, that I don’t know enough, to decide what extent human activity has on global warming. However, there are experts and the consensus of experts is that we have problem. The climate is warming and that human activity is a significant factor. As a biologist I do know enough to know that changes in climate can have profound effects on life on earth and this is often a painful experience for life on earth.
I am concerned with the attacks on science from both the right (creationism, climate change denial, religious fundamentalism and conspiracy theory scepticism.) and from the left (post modernism, radical scepticism, post modernist feminism etc.) I acknowledge that the scientific project for all its faults and human fallibilities has given us more insight into the way reality works in the last 400 years than the previous 150,000 years.
It seems a shame at a time we really need to understand the world, we are turning to autocrats and buffoons, Farage, Trump, Putin and I guess Marie Le Pen shortly.
Shame
Edited 2016-12-14 11:54 UTC
polution is bad, mkay?
we should really try to minimize it.
see how easy that was?
Climate – Schimate.
There are only two problems in this world. Too many people, too much greed.
If you want to reduce the human impact, reduce the the human population by education.
Those people that want more and more children are just as greedy as those that want dominion
over there fellow humans.
I disagree with every sentence in your comment, which made me log in to OS news. It has been quite a while. Congratulations.
I don’t know quite where to start describing how I think you’re wrong, and I am quite lazy, so I will just say that I think this talk is good: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth .
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/14/fake-news-alert-clim…
I remember when this site was about tech and Operating Systems, not political division and climate bullshit.
I used to like this site, long time ago.
Admittedly I’m from a country where the literacy is high, religion unimportant and most people are quite well off, so you could say I don’t understand the American situation, but how is global warming denial still a thing?