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So apparently we won't have a North Pole in 20 years...

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    EnigEnig a.k.a. Ansatz Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Mr_Rose wrote:
    No, he asked for a graph of temp/time and you gave him a graph of "temperature anomaly"/time, then he asked what that actually meant and so far your response has been "I dunno" and "I guess." That is not good science. Especially when thirty seconds of reading could have told you that the graph you quoted represents data from multiple sources with multiple different base-periods normalised to a base period of 1980-2010.
    That is fair enough, but nobody actually needs to provide evidence in this thread. Climate change is a fact for all practical purposes.

    Peer review will find the bad evidence. Unless you are a specialist in one of these fields, it is a wasted effort to look for flaws. People just need to accept the consensus of people who know more than them about this topic.

    The only interesting thing to discuss is the range of conservative to alarmist predictions for how the 21st century will go down.

    Enig on
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    Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
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    Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    Thanks Eniq. If I got something wrong on a small technical point than I'm sorry, but it seems strange to attack me over that. If someone wants to know the nitty gritty details then they should go read climate science papers, but be aware that it's a complicated science and they probably won't be able to understand them.

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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Part of the problem (in the US, at least) is that for some reason a lot of people who don't believe global warming is happening think that they, a layman, know as much about the subject as a dedicated climatologist.

    Interestingly, this is the same thing that deniers of evolution do.

    Hexmage-PA on
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    DemerdarDemerdar Registered User regular
    I think both ends of the argument are a little too quick to pick sides based on the laymen data I've seen presented to the public on the subject.

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    MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    I tend to lean toward preventing the worst possible consequence. Worst case scenario if global warming ends up not being a problem? Cleaner, more sustainable technology. Horrifying. Businesses might eat a small loss in profit, but not more than they account for in any other risk they take.

    And what happens if it's for real and we do nothing? The stuff we're pretty sure is being made worse by it gets even worse.

    MKR on
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    acidlacedpenguinacidlacedpenguin Institutionalized Safe in jail.Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote:
    Part of the problem (in the US, at least) is that for some reason a lot of people who don't believe global warming is happening think that they, a layman, know as much about the subject as a dedicated climatologist.

    Interestingly, this is the same thing that deniers of evolution do.

    I think part of the problem is the insistence that the layman's day-to-day activities contribute to the problem more than insignificantly compared to the contributions by industry.

    GT: Acidboogie PSNid: AcidLacedPenguiN
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    electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote:
    Part of the problem (in the US, at least) is that for some reason a lot of people who don't believe global warming is happening think that they, a layman, know as much about the subject as a dedicated climatologist.

    Interestingly, this is the same thing that deniers of evolution do.

    I think part of the problem is the insistence that the layman's day-to-day activities contribute to the problem more than insignificantly compared to the contributions by industry.

    Also the proliferance (and media time) batshit crazy "we are going to have to consume less!" environmentalists, who have basically nothing to do with the issue. And, lately Malthusian crisis enthusiasts who seem to insist that it can't be fixed because the problem is clearly population growth (ignoring that all the major contributors have basically zero or negative population growth).

    The latter I get the distinct impression are basically racists.

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    SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    Consuming less will have to be part of the picture though, if you truely want to stop AGW dead. Because the solution for that isn't in a 10 or 20% reduction in emissions, all that does is slightly shave off the top of the peak, and slightly delay it. (Which would help, since you'd have more response time, but ultimately you'd still be mostly responding to the bad effects, not stopping them). This is in fact an often used critisism of the kyoto protocols, that even if implemented it does very little on it's own. Of course they were designed as a stepping stone to further reform, but since we can't even take the first step globally, the actually required steps are little more than dreams at the moment.

    You could rephrase it as 'radically changing the products we consume' but ultimately that's more or less the same thing. And because the emission of greenhouse gasses is fairly well spread out over different sectors (power stations, transportation, residential heating, industrial production and agriculture all take a share roughly between 10 and 20%) you are looking at mandated reform of just about every sector of our society.

    The US is still by and far the biggest per capita emittor of greenhouse gasses, (2,5x that of a EU citizen, 5x of China), but China has just passed it on absolute terms, and in 4 years the 'combined developed nations' will no longer be the majority. So a worry about their growth is warranted.

    For the numbers, i'll refere to wiki on the subject, where you can be pretty sure it's sourced and referenced to the nth degree because no doubt they have had to deal with every critique the internet can throw at them a thousand times over.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
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