Article: Climbate Change Irreversible - What to do now? - Page 2

Figment · 2012-07-10, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by Vreki

But there lies the problem. Those models are based on historical data, so of course the output of those models will match the historical data.

Not really true, is it? The historical data is the output ONLY if the model is correct. If the model is incorrect, the input will mess up the output and you'd get entirely different results.

So yes, the input is based on historical values, but that doesn't mean the model is historical accurate if the input values are poorly used. There's a big difference between just showing the historical data (which is what you claim it does) and computing and predicting the historical data.

In the latter case, you use historical data to verify if your model is correct, because that's what actually happened.

To be predictive, it will have to match future data, and there we again have the problem with the timeframe.

So you're saying weather models are completely inaccurate? I'm quite certain we're able to look some distance in the future.

Again, there's a degree of uncertainty, which increases as the future becomes more distant (as more variations in input could have happened). That doesn't mean you can't extrapolate your model.

What you typically get as outcome is a highly diverse range of options with a lower and upper level and it could be anywhere in between, in theory. However, based on data you have and likelier levels of input, certain trends become baselines.

Regardless of which trendline you pick, the trendlines aren't very positive under the existing models.

And the existing models have been right so far.

Vreki · 2012-07-10, 12:47 PM

My point being that the models are based on an analysis of the same data that they are tested with, so the only thing the test shows is that the model has been finetuned to match that dataset.
The real test is if he model can accurately predict the state of the world 10 years from now, and we wont know that for 10 years.

But regardless of that, if we presume the worst case is happening, what do you suggest we do about it?
Can we even do anything about it?

I looked at this map: http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/ and the sea levels can actually rise quite a bit before I start to care

Warborn · 2012-07-10, 01:09 PM

There is no topic in science that literally every scientist agrees with. Even something like evolution has a handful of people who hold biology degrees and pretend like evolution isn't a real phenomena. So the fact that there exists published material contesting anthropogenic climate change isn't a surprise.

Anyway, every major international body agrees that climate change is happening, is man-made, and is nearing or past a point of no return. What to do now? Not a thing. There is far too much money backing opposition to any kind of green reforms. And China, one of the major polluters, would never dream of curtailing its growth in order to prevent famine/flooding/etc in other parts of the world.

So just don't worry about it. No country is seriously willing to hurt their economy for the sake of the future of certain parts of the world. And any politician who ever proposed costing people jobs or money would be out of office the next election, as even average people would for the most part never accept the consequences of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

ItsTheSheppy · 2012-07-10, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Warborn

There is no topic in science that literally every scientist agrees with. Even something like evolution has a handful of people who hold biology degrees and pretend like evolution isn't a real phenomena. So the fact that there exists published material contesting anthropogenic climate change isn't a surprise.

Anyway, every major international body agrees that climate change is happening, is man-made, and is nearing or past a point of no return. What to do now? Not a thing. There is far too much money backing opposition to any kind of green reforms. And China, one of the major polluters, would never dream of curtailing its growth in order to prevent famine/flooding/etc in other parts of the world.

So just don't worry about it. No country is seriously willing to hurt their economy for the sake of the future of certain parts of the world. And any politician who ever proposed costing people jobs or money would be out of office the next election, as even average people would for the most part never accept the consequences of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Sadly, my personal attitude towards it is very similar. I never plan on having children, so the degree to which humans destroy this planet after I'm dead means nothing to me. Now, because I'm a moral person, I do what I can not to consume too much, or pollute too much, and I support green policies and green companies. But I don't stress it because if the human race dies out 100 years after I'm dead, I won't be here to notice it so... shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Figment · 2012-07-10, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by Vreki

But regardless of that, if we presume the worst case is happening, what do you suggest we do about it?
Can we even do anything about it?

I looked at this map: http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/ and the sea levels can actually rise quite a bit before I start to care

Let's see... 7m?

http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/netherlands.shtml

Oh yes, let's flood 50% of my country and with it all the major European food and goods distribution network as you flood the biggest harbours in northern Europe (Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bremen and Hamburg) and basically kill the Dutch, Belgian and German economies, leading to massive economic chain reaction (you know what happened when Greece and Spain fell flat? Think 100 times worse!). With the Rhine being the main distribution channel, not to mention a huge financial and cultural center and the massive internet hub located in Amsterdam and lose a large amount of cultural area of 20 centuries of history. Not to mention make about 12 million people in our country alone homeless.

I'm sure that won't make a dent on the world economy or in other ways be a loss to the world.

I mean, we're already 5 meters below sea level. Why should you care about other people you don't know and the world economy?

I've got some words for the selfish attitude you're displaying here, but they're not quite flattering.

Saifoda · 2012-07-10, 02:26 PM

Originally Posted by Warborn

There is no topic in science that literally every scientist agrees with. Even something like evolution has a handful of people who hold biology degrees and pretend like evolution isn't a real phenomena. So the fact that there exists published material contesting anthropogenic climate change isn't a surprise.

Anyway, every major international body agrees that climate change is happening, is man-made, and is nearing or past a point of no return. What to do now? Not a thing. There is far too much money backing opposition to any kind of green reforms. And China, one of the major polluters, would never dream of curtailing its growth in order to prevent famine/flooding/etc in other parts of the world.

So just don't worry about it. No country is seriously willing to hurt their economy for the sake of the future of certain parts of the world. And any politician who ever proposed costing people jobs or money would be out of office the next election, as even average people would for the most part never accept the consequences of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Not to pick on you, as there are plenty of other things I could pick on in here, but yours is the most recent so here we go.

Check out all the "major institutions" which agree that climate change is real and man made (the whole carbon footprint thing). Where are these institutions? In Africa? In Southeast Asia? Certainly not China, Brazil, India....those countries sound familiar? Global Warming/Climate Change/Weather is more or less a red herring; what do all of the nations (US, UK, EU nations, etc...) want out of this whole thing? They want a carbon tax. A global carbon tax. What does a global tax imply? A global government; a new world order, if you will, and I'm not just wearin a tin hat -- ask the rothschilds or rockefellers (or rather, take a look at what they've said and it's pretty easy to find 4 from 2 and 2).

There have been plenty of times where scientists in the realm of the climate change (climatologists) have been proven wrong about predictions, or even conducted experiments proving themselves wrong (check out NASA's [a global-warming-believing institute] latest debacle with their satellites tracking carbon emissions). The most notable is James Hansen's testimony before congress in '98 I believe it was, where he listed three possible outcomes over the next two decades (if I recall -- I really need to look it up again). The first was "worst case scenario" in which the pattern of fossil fuel consumption and co2 emissions increased at a historically constant rate. The next best case was if they cut back by some relatively reasonable amount (if you believe in global warming) and the "best case" scenario was still a significant rise in global temperatures and included severe and drastic deviations from our modern lifestyle in order to cut back the temperature increase. Well low and behold, here we are some 14ish years later and we can look at what has happened. Needless to say, his advice was not heeded by Congress (else when Al Gore "came out" years later we would have said "join the club") and in fact fossil fuel consumption and co2 emissions have increased GREATER than historical rates (worse than his proposed worse case scenario) and temperatures have risen BELOW his best case scenario predictions.

I'm sorry, I said I was going to pick on you and not some guy who bit off more than he could chew

.

Also earlier somebody asserted that we should be able to predict things with decent accuracy; all I have to say is, do you ever check what the weather forecast is going to be? Cause if you do, you should know that when it says "sunny and 75º" you still bring that rain coat. That's all I gotta say on that.

For me I have no personal opinion on global warming/climate change/whatever you wanna call it. But I DO have an opinion on people that, in my opinion, essentially blindly believe it is man made. Climate change happens all the time. Not even, what, 400 years ago? Europe experienced their little mini cooling period or whatever it was called. The last ice age was some dozen odd thousand years ago, several have occurred prior to that, on and on and on. The thing that bugs me (plenty of my friends do this) is when people go out and buy a prius and think "there, I've done my part -- they can't blame me when it all goes to shit." Nobody is talking about the fact that the forests are disappearing and deserts are growing, and when they do, even the global warming climatologists call them nuts (I might be exaggerating that one, but it's more of a sentiment than a fact). The number one increasing landscape in the world is deserts. If people are truly so worried about co2 emissions they'd be out planting fucking forests and ecosystems, and not making themselves feel better by getting a hybrid or fluorescent lightbulbs (which, btw, have mercury in them).

Ok, sorry; /rant.

Feel free to tear this post apart, I always enjoy a good shellacking.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-10, 02:35 PM

Nothing like the suppression of proper research and discoveries for the sake of profit margins. Sure let's keep obliterating the environment to mine for meager amounts of resources, or dump waste, or clear-cut old growth to make room for cattle.

The world is not an infinite whore for capitalism to have it's way with. But that sure is how it has been treated. Producing a buncha shit people don't want or need, making shit that breaks instead of going for durability in all products, and trying to replace everything everyone has every few years even if what they had was good. And putting everyone in a car instead of making public mass-transit the standard, that has pretty much burned through most of the world's petrol in less than 100 years, putting all that shit in the atmosphere.

The world may never recover from the damage that has been done, and at this point the effort would be doing what we can to make sure life itself is not unsustainable in 20 years. But it starts with getting rid of individualized transportation, localization of manufacturing and distribution for all goods and services possible, cutting down international trade of physical goods as much as possible, and changing the paradigm of business and manufacture so a few high-quality products are released every year instead of thousands of shitty things that won't get used or kept for more than a couple years.

For the longest time I believed the planet Earth to be no better than a orange with mold on it. At first, the mold is almost imperceptible. It takes a good portion of it's existence just establishing itself, creating a colony, then after that it spreads across the entire surface. As it spreads, it eats away everything in its path, leaving it's signature fuzzy fragile architecture as a tell-tale sign of the resources being exhausted. There is no end in sight, there is no stopping, the mold don't know any better.

We can do slightly better than mold on an orange, but efforts need to start pretty damn soon.

ziegler · 2012-07-10, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

I never plan on having children.

Thank you....no seriously...thank you.

Vreki · 2012-07-10, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Let's see... 7m?

http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/netherlands.shtml

Oh yes, let's flood 50% of my country and with it all the major European food and goods distribution network as you flood the biggest harbours in northern Europe (Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bremen and Hamburg) and basically kill the Dutch, Belgian and German economies, leading to massive economic chain reaction (you know what happened when Greece and Spain fell flat? Think 100 times worse!). With the Rhine being the main distribution channel, not to mention a huge financial and cultural center and the massive internet hub located in Amsterdam and lose a large amount of cultural area of 20 centuries of history. Not to mention make about 12 million people in our country alone homeless.

I'm sure that won't make a dent on the world economy or in other ways be a loss to the world.

I mean, we're already 5 meters below sea level. Why should you care about other people you don't know and the world economy?

I've got some words for the selfish attitude you're displaying here, but they're not quite flattering.

A shame about the Dutch, but they chose to live on the sea floor. It is bound to happen sooner or later.
As for the rest of EU, up to 10m the loss in percentage of land mass seems minor. Yes, we will lose som major harbours, but they can be rebuilt. We are not talking an overnight rise of the sea, this will happen relatively slowly (if at all)

ItsTheSheppy · 2012-07-10, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Vreki

A shame about the Dutch, but they chose to live on the sea floor.

Is it alright if I choose to imagine you saying this as you sit in a plush leather chair, from the top of your tower, sipping a $500 glass of wine and stroking your purebred white Persian cat?

"Hm. Shame about the dutch. Number 2, please cancel my dinner in Amsterdam, I think they are expecting... wet weather."

And then you giggle softly to yourself before James Bond rappels through the ceiling.

Vreki · 2012-07-10, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

Is it alright if I choose to imagine you saying this as you sit in a plush leather chair, from the top of your tower, sipping a $500 glass of wine and stroking your purebred white Persian cat?

"Hm. Shame about the dutch. Number 2, please cancel my dinner in Amsterdam, I think they are expecting... wet weather."

And then you giggle softly to yourself before James Bond rappels through the ceiling.

No, Mr. Sheppy. I expect you to drown.

Seriously, Denmark has one of the longest coastlines per km2 in the world, we are going to notice it a lot more than say germany.
But Europe lost a lot of major cities and most of Eastern Europe during WWII, and yet we survived. I am sure EU will get along just fine without the Dutch and the Danes if it came to that. Most Danes would emmigrate to Norway or Sweden.

Warborn · 2012-07-10, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by Saifoda

Not to pick on you, as there are plenty of other things I could pick on in here, but yours is the most recent so here we go.

Sorry, but I can't take NWO conspiracy stuff seriously. What do you think the odds of there being a vast, global conspiracy to dominate the world, and Internet Forums Poster "Saifoda" just happens to have exposed it for the world to see?

People are less capable and disinclined to keep secrets than you might imagine. The bigger a conspiracy is the harder it is to keep a secret, and once you go beyond a handful of people you're essentially guaranteed to have leaks.

The reason climate research primarily comes from wealthy first world nations is that first world nations tend to have the best universities and money to blow on scientific research.

Figment · 2012-07-10, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Vreki

Seriously, Denmark has one of the longest coastlines per km2 in the world, we are going to notice it a lot more than say germany.
But Europe lost a lot of major cities and most of Eastern Europe during WWII, and yet we survived. I am sure EU will get along just fine without the Dutch and the Danes if it came to that. Most Danes would emmigrate to Norway or Sweden.

I'm sure the Swedes will be happy with you lot reclaiming the bottom tip of Sweden. I'm also sure they'll be thrilled to provide for millions of homeless & jobless Danes.

Vreki · 2012-07-10, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

I'm sure the Swedes will be happy with you lot reclaiming the bottom tip of Sweden. I'm also sure they'll be thrilled to provide for millions of homeless & jobless Danes.

You seem to have a picture in your mind of the whole of Europe suddenly doing a New Orleans, with millions of refuges fleeing the coastline.
The numbers I can find suggest a max of 2 metres during the next century, with an estimate around 1cm a year.

So we are talking generations where people will slowly migrate. Presumably educated and skilled people that will create new jobs where they arrive.

CutterJohn · 2012-07-10, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by Vreki

You seem to have a picture in your mind of the whole of Europe suddenly doing a New Orleans, with millions of refuges fleeing the coastline.
The numbers I can find suggest a max of 2 metres during the next century, with an estimate around 1cm a year.

So we are talking generations where people will slowly migrate. Presumably educated and skilled people that will create new jobs where they arrive.

It still means many billions, if not trillions, of infrastructure ruined and lost, and equivalent amounts as people waste time rebuilding.