OT - Send the Kids to School
If you are in the same boat as me, your kids are home for an eight time since January 1. 8 "snow days" in a little over a month. This is now completely ridiculous. I don't care if there is ice on "back roads." I don't care if frostbite can occur on "exposed skin." I don't care if there are "boil problems." I really don't even care if there is electricity.
Is the standard for closing school "the existence of winter condition somewhere at some point, kind of" now? Is that what we are rolling with?
I here you XM, I need to sit with my family in front of the fire place and read, and read, and read, until everybody falls into a peaceful slumber after a round of "I love yous." I get it. And I do love them. But I have two kids who complained this morning about another snow day. The kids complained about not having school.
Send these kids back to school. Enough already.
/End rant
/Until the next "snow day"
February 7th, 2019 at 11:54 AM ^
No one is concerned that life will have ended within ten years. What's not the exact opposite of science is asking and answering the questions about why climate is changing and what methods would be plausible and/or effective in controlling that change.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
https://news.yahoo.com/ocasio-cortez-world-going-end-150517060.html
12 years. And it appears she is misunderstanding the UN CC report that in 12 years we'll hit that "tipping point" to Armageddon we were supposed to hit a while back, but apparently didn't.
This really is religious, not science.
We're still asking questions. We don't need to make up scary stories and shut down discussions by invoking religious end-of-world imagery to figure out how best to deal with the inevitable transition to renewable energy sources.
But it took tens of thousands of years to get from figuring out that burning the waste product of past life on Earth could sustain future life to realizing that we'll run out of that waste product at some point. It's going to take some time to get to the next stage. Let's let our scientists solve that problem properly, without religious interference.
February 7th, 2019 at 1:11 PM ^
The "religious end of world imagery" comes from the scientists, who don't have the political or economic clout to "solve the problem properly." Scientists do not control public policy and economic trends.
February 7th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
Sadly, it seems to be coming from career politicians more than anyplace else.
I know he meant well, but when Al Gore became Reverend Al, we lost perspective as a scientific community.
When the lines between science and religion become blurred, we lose the ability to solve problems.
February 7th, 2019 at 2:39 PM ^
Politicians make policies. Of course policies to address climate change come from politicians. Regarding it not coming from anyplace else, that's just because scientists aren't afforded large microphones. They're doing everything they can within their means to raise awareness.
February 7th, 2019 at 1:25 PM ^
That's the problem. Science isn't providing practical, plausible and effective methods in controlling the change. Science benefits a lot more from saying there is a problem rather than working on fixing the problem. And yes, I do think there is a problem.
February 7th, 2019 at 3:21 PM ^
Science has offered plenty of solutions. We need to switch to green energy sources yesterday. The solutions are just expensive at the moment and we aren't willing to invest in implementing them or changing our lifestyles in any meaningful ways. We also have an uphill battle to face because fossil fuels are so entrenched in everything and have so much financial influence on the political process. Companies like Lockheed Martin research power production now, so if we're going to give those companies a bazillion dollars a year, maybe it should be to fund their fusion and deep sea tidal power projects instead of more missiles and planes. Climate change is a much greater threat than war with another global superpower, which will result in armageddon if it ever happens anyway.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:22 PM ^
Maybe I was wrong about the extreme cold temperatures being more frequent due to climate change, but that still doesn't change the fact that anthropogenic climate change is 100% real. You don't get to cite one bad argument by a message board poster and use it to negate near consensus from climate scientists throughout the world. The climate has always changed, but not like this. There is plenty of evidence of climate change leading to extreme weather, but the extreme events aren't even the main point. The planet becoming inhospitable to humans is the point, and that is something that scientists and most of the developed world agree upon. Even Exxon and Shell secretly acknowledged in the 70s and 80s. How someone can call it "their theory of Armageddon" and "the exact opposite of science" in 2019 is unbelievable.
February 7th, 2019 at 12:02 PM ^
To be a little semantic, there is a difference between the frequency of extremes and the frequency of extremes filtered by an amplitude threshold. -40 C is an arbitrary cutoff and a cutoff that is meaningful may not even be constant through history.
February 7th, 2019 at 10:13 AM ^
And we know that how? They didn't exactly record every cold day back in 1300 AD.
February 7th, 2019 at 10:27 AM ^
There actually are several ways to measure approximate temperature from many, many years ago. Ice sheets, tree rings, pollen grains, fossil leaves, marine sediments, etc. I know science is taboo these days but we actually have figured out ways to measure certain things other than arguing about it on the internet.
February 7th, 2019 at 10:36 AM ^
Yes, we can measure approximate temperature, but that's different from a claim that extreme events are more common now. Nobody was counting the number of below-zero days in Michigan in 1300 AD.
Nonsense statements like "science is taboo these days" don't help. What seems to be taboo, if anything, is the notion that we should ever question "science", as if questions aren't the very core of science. When people make unfalsifiable statements and speak of "settled science" that rests on models and assumptions, that doesn't mean that being skeptical of that kind of thing means "science is taboo." For example, we are always told that climate change will mean more and stronger hurricanes, yet the accumulated cyclone energy of Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons since the 1800s shows no historical trend whatsoever.
I have no doubt the climate is different from how it was in 1900, 1800, 1700, 1600, and so on; I don't, however, swallow without skepticism every claim made about the future of the climate.
February 7th, 2019 at 11:52 AM ^
Scientists question everything, all the time. That is their job. Those are the people who should be the skeptics. It’s the people who can’t understand the answers (or the questions) that should stop being skeptics. A cohort of people that almost never agree have statistically agreed that the climate is changing. Couple that with a species producing carbon emissions unlike any other in the earth’s history and I’m just not sure how you can conclude that the decisions humans are making in this area are ok and sustainable.
In addition, fossil fuel will run out, period. Even if climate change wasn’t a big deal, why the heck would we not want to transition to fuel sources that won’t run out?? Question for another thread I guess...
February 7th, 2019 at 12:41 PM ^
"I’m just not sure how you can conclude that the decisions humans are making in this area are ok and sustainable."
I didn't say that. Nor did I say we shouldn't ever transition away from oil.
This is why these political discussions are stupid. If you disagree with me, you must necessarily agree with every position taken by everyone else who disagrees with me, so let me just go charging at straw men.
I'd be happy to tell you my actual opinions without you assuming what they are.
February 7th, 2019 at 2:36 PM ^
So if I gave a scientist those measurements you listed (tree rings, CO2 levels, pollen grains, etc) he could tell to within 1 degree what the temperature was that year in history in that location?
Ummmmm, yeah.
February 7th, 2019 at 8:46 AM ^
Let the man yell at the cloud. It's his God given right.
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