I realize the worst case scenarios he was mentioning were in reference to storm surges, the problem is the lack of reality in the suggestions to stop climate change. Its already happening and sea levels will likely go up 2 feet by 2100. Here's where it gets tricky: amortize the cost of mitigating disaster in these areas to those 84 years. Its called levees, its not that hard, its expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the alternative.

The alternative is to turn back time, because we dont have the technology or global consensus to stop climate change. Imagining anything else is living in fantasy land. There are countries who have a vested interest in economic growth for stability (china, brazil), countries who would actually benefit from climate change (russia), countries whose very livelihood is tied up in the current demands (OPEC). nothing that will prevent the sea level from rising till 2100 will succeed unless all parties involved cooperate.

So, next option: we lead by example and exert pressure. Doing so requires the countries that do so to sacrifice their economic growth without guarantee that it will slow down the change because developing countries are ramping up their economies on dirty coal and oil. if anything, it stagnates co2 at the cost of the world economic growth.

why is economic growth so important? Because the best way to deal with climate change is to outcompete fossil fuels. development in fusion, fission, solar, wind, and geothermal are a must. We can't get rid of a significant portion of fuel use anyway until we get compact baseload level power for freighters, so advances in power production or storage are vital to stemming fuel usage. overly punitive approaches to mitigating climate change only result in less ability to react should our predictions be wrong. it is also worth noting that one of the first things to go in tough times is R&D, so implementing onerous restrictions on ourselves could cause damage as well.

look at how far we've come in 100 years in terms of tech and as a society. some of the things we can do today like large building projects take fractions of manpower, time, and effort to acheive. hell, we were barely just flying and driving 100 years ago. where will we be in 50 years? Probably in a better position to manage the issue than we are now. Even if we arent? We can still build those damn levees for far less than the cost of implementing heavy restrictions now. I have confidence in human ability to adapt and engineer out of our problems.

now, 'worst case' predictions might happen so we should prepare? This is what i have a problem with. You sound like a doomsday prepper. I doubt you build bunkers and several year stockpiles because there might be a global war in the future, do you? Thats what the alarmist argument sounds to anyone with a decent grasp on the time scales involved. Im not saying we shouldnt implement reachable goals to help slow things down, but the drastic requests of many proponents are just assinine and ruin good potential results. you have to factor in the lack of control countries have on a global scale, the momentum already behind things as they are, and the damage that mitigation efforts will have to the current and future economy. it only serves to distract from real efforts that can be done.

Closed cabs are great in theory, but sometimes in practice they don't work out too well for many applications. I commonly see open bed trucks used in rural/dirty jobs such as landscaping, construction, and farming/ranching. It usally doesn't make economic sense for a person in those professions to own two vehicles, and they need easy open access to materials in the bed or small machinery (in the case of four-wheelers or specific landscaping machines). Some jobs, like the Cable Guy or Electrician or HVAC dude, yeah, they can't use an open bed, but that's what the Sprinter is for. Also of note, you're playing like 30% more up front for that closed bed.

Disclaimer, I don't and probably never will own a truck, but my Mother does for her small landscaping business. Mulch, pine needles, stone, the aerator, and so on sound like a miserable existence in a Sprinter for her line of work.

Its a microcosm of tribalism, and reminds me of small feudal lords protecting their fiefdom in the middle ages. I think it has a lot to do with how authority was used by adults in their lives in childhood. Blame Game and Authoritiarian cultures seem to be at the root of these problems.

Just goes to show, good leadership is hard to come by.

When predictions are used to come to scientific results from said data used to make a prediction, its a prediction.

When a prediction is used to push policy without above verification at least giving credence to the model used for said prediction, it becomes a lie.

I fully understand that climate change is occuring, but find some of the alarmism surrounding it appaling.

Well said. I might add that as time has pressed onward, so has the the compression of war. Put simply, we're really good at killing people and really good at killing them quickly. What would have taken months in 1940 took us a week in Iraq. Technology tightens the screws on first strike advantage, to the point where you now don't have time to ramp up production.

Is this what you really beleive is going to happen? An immediate evacuation of major cities over a short period of time?

Its this kind of alarmism that is ruining the good discussions and actions that can be had on climate change. "Stop the press and focus everything on stopping climate change or the apocalypse is going to happen" is garbage and results in nothing getting done. Do you seriously beleive human ingenuity isn't going to be able to account and plan for a small sea level change over the span of decades or centuries to prevent a major city from becoming uninhabitable? We've had cities below sea level for several hundred years, a small and SLOW change in sea level isn't going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I think they've done a good job with some of the recent miniseries they produced. On History, they made the Mankind: The History of all of us, The Men who Built America, one about the Bible that I didn't watch, and a few others.

For the most part though, its reality tv and profession following TV. They only ones of those that I've found to be really enjoyable and well done in the past were Dirty Jobs and River Monsters.

The channel that dissapoints me the most is definitely National Geographic. They used to have so many good shows, lots of stuff on engineering and architecture, Taboo, the mind shows (which are still there) and for course the nature shows. Now Nat Geo is just the State Tropper channel.

Copied directly from TFS:

C'mon man. How can you screw up the summary that badly? There are only 3 damn sentences and we still can't avoid a dupe.

Slashdot: The only place you can have a dupe in a single summary.

Maybe you can help me out since you seem knowledgeable on this stuff.

I've always wondered if there's a possibility that quantum mechanics is simply our system for making sense of things we don't have the ability to measure, and that it might not actually reflect the micro-scale actions going on. As an analogy, 200 years ago we didn't know about the atom because of insufficient tools to develop and test the hypothesis. Now we a fairly decent ability to resolve tiny particles but are severly limited in this endeavor when it comes to measuring tiny durations of time.

I guess, how can we be certain that our electron cloud interpretation is correct and that the position of the electron in that cloud, outside orbitals/valences, isn't important? If we had the ability to measure things at that fine of detail, how would that effect quantum mechanics?

A better area of investigation for sufficient materials engineering would be the underside of our supertankers and container ships. The suckers are single prop, can commonly handle over 100,000hp, and can drive that big ass ship at 20-30 knots. Just put that prop down under, reverse, build a sufficient containment vessel for the shaft termination and generators, and you've got yourself a winner.

The problem I have with the party system is that it encourages following an ideal or a doctrine rather than critical thinking about what will best help deal with the problem. Once people start to self-identify as a party, that's when the laziness starts. Party line idealism is just an excuse not to think hard about a problem and the possible solutions, weighing their benefits and downsides.

I'm like you in favor of reduction of government, fiscally conservative, and socially liberal. However, my views on limited government don't get in the way of seeing how stupid the US last mile internet oligopoly is in its current state, nor does it make me want to remove all the safety nets that exist at a local and national level.

A tangent, but I see political idealism and party hard-liners the same way I see biblical literalists. Damned the results, the process has to be the One True Way! Its a cop-out, avoiding intelligent thought and effort.

That Chick Fila dude died last month btw.

Its a shame, the fast food there is good stuff and the service is excellent, but knowing that underneath that face is a overbearing religious stench that permeates the organization from head to toe is quite dissapointing. I've spoken to people who worked there when younger, and they said there was definitely a lot of religious posturing within the stores. The people who were successful tended to be the ones who tooted their own horns about missionary trips and youth camp and whatnot. A lot of the whole 'I'm more holy than you' nonsense.

I honestly think the only way these things will take off is with the whole charging pad system that has kept popping up in the news lately. Most people take off their watch when they go to bed, but plugging it in along with other devices is inconvenient and obnoxious, esp if you're fumbling around late at night. A pad to put it on would make it feel less inconvenient.

Every single government form and department has a record retention policy of some kind. This is a labor certification record held by the department of labor. This doesn't tell you anything except that the person had the H1B and was OK to work at their original hire date, its a work verification not a visa data repository. The actual visa application and so-on would be with US CIS or US CBP. I'm honestly surprised they held it for even 5 years, since most forms of this nature have a retention of only 2-4 years.

I think the point is that Religious text literalism, regardless of religion, is dangerous, and ALWAYS has roots in devout religious beleif. ISIS is the result of literalism of the holy text, just as creationism is the result of literalism of the holy text. Did you know that circa 200 AD, virgins who were raped were considered sinners among the leaders of Christianity? Why? Biblical literalism.

The severity of the acts committed doesn't change the fact that they have the same roots which remain unquestionable and absolute to those who follow them. The practice of this literalism is the cause, creationism conferences and beheadings are only the symtopms of that cause.