Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Per minute... (Score 1) 293

What's your point? Considering all of my calculations were approximate, some rounded high and some low, they'll balance out reasonably well.
Regardless, GGP calculated an amount of travel per hour, and tried to pass it off as a per minute travel, making it seem much worse than it is. Whether it was an accident, or a "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIEEE!!!1111" alarmist statement, I have no idea, but it was flat out wrong. My calculations are much more accurate, regardless of my approximations.

Comment Re:Melting is normal (Score 1) 293

They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all.

Not according to any the historical temperature graphs that I've seen. The temperature rises rapidly at the end of the ice age and then levels off an eventually begins to fall again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
The graph in the page you linked to shows temperature doing exactly what I claimed it does.

Comment Re:Welcome to civilization (Score 1) 293

Except you're wrong: On the timescales of human civilization, climate is virtually static.

Bullshit. Human civilization has been through significant temperature changes with the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the Little Ice Age. Both these Warm Periods were at least as warm as we are now, and a lot of analyses show them to be even warmer. Even the pro-AGW Wikipedia articles on these two periods claim an ocean surface temperature as much as a degree warmer than today. The Little Ice Age is part of a pattern of 1-2 degree cooler periods that happen every 1500 years. Of course, warming from all the previous ones was entirely natural, but warming from the LIA, despite being basically the same as the warming from the previous cool periods, is marketed as AGW by the alarmists.

Comment Re:Welcome to a changing world (Score 1) 293

Really? What's different about this change? The fact that we're using direct temperature measurements for the last 145 years, rather than less accurate lower resolution proxies like ice cores, so we can more clearly see year to year changes in the time since 1870? Is that the difference you mean?

Comment Re:Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score 1, Insightful) 293

Gee, it's a good thing Anthropogenic Global Warming is just a Big Leftist Conspiracy, or imagine how bad things would be!

How much evidence is required before denialist clowns will be convinced that Global Warming is a thing, and it is almost certainly Our Fault?

See, this is why global warming is a religion, rather than science. If you don't agree with the entire GW dogmatic scripture, and you question anything at all, then you're straw manned as denying everything at all, being anti-science, etc.etc.etc.

There's the position that you hold, where "AGW IS REAL!!! WE'RE CAUSING EVERY BIT OF IT AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIIIIIEEE!!1!1!!"
Then there's the position you claim everyone who disagrees with you holds, where "AGW ISN'T HAPPENING! THERE IS NO WARMING! CLIMATE DOESN'T CHANGE AT ALL! YOU'RE ALL LIAAAARRRSSS!!!!11!!11"

Your statement makes it quite clear that you think no other position exists. Regardless of your black and white view, there is a whole scale of opinions in between your two extremes.
How about: "Yes, the earth is warming slightly. We're probably causing a little bit of it, but there have been continual climate fluctuations for millions of years, without any human cause, so it's entirely likely that this is at least somewhat natural, as well. As a natural process, it will reverse itself with time, just like it has every other time in the past."
Or maybe: "Yes, the earth has warmed marginally over the past 50 years. It seems to have paused at the moment, though, so maybe it's going to start cooling by itself within the next couple of decades, so maybe we're not causing it at all."
Or even: "Well, there is a bit of warming, but it's not anywhere near as quick as it was at the end of the ice age. We're probably causing most of it, but we're looking at a temperature that's still lower than it was 10,000 years ago, so we're certainly not at a point of no return yet, regardless of what the extremists are shouting."

Regardless of you being an extremist loon, that doesn't mean that everyone who questions you is an extremist loon in the opposite direction.

Comment Re:Melting is normal (Score 1, Interesting) 293

Interglacial temperatures don't follow a standard deviation normal curve type graph. They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all. At the beginning of the current interglacial, the global temperature spiked up by at least 4 degrees in just a few hundred years. That's a massively faster increase than the current warming trend that everybody seems to be so worried about. It's also cooler now than it was during that spike, but the alarmists never seem to publicize that fact.

Comment Re:Fight! (Score 0, Flamebait) 293

Quick, we need everyone to pile on for why this proves catastrophe is imminent and favored policy changes must be passed. Then the other half can pile in and explain why this means nothing and the next ice age is still coming...

Actually that's only two thirds of the choir, the remaining third are the right wing free market fundamentalists who think climate change is a hoax and even if it isn't it just represents a fresh influx of profitable business opportunities.

You missed an option. The ones who know that climate change happens, it's been happening for millions upon millions of years, it was happening well before man existed on earth, and it will continue regardless of what we do, because it's completely natural for it to happen. In other words, the realists.

The only constant with climate is the fact that it changes.

Comment Re:Fight! (Score 4, Insightful) 293

Are you really criticizing that scientists failed to accurately predict the demise of a 10,000 year old structure to a better precision than ~10 years? You're really that cynical over a change of like 0.1%? If I predicted that apple stock would double in a 2 year span, and in fact it only went up 99.9%, would you really not listen to my next stock prediction?

The age of the structure is irrelevant to the precision of when it will disappear. If they say it will disappear in 5 years, but it really takes 15, it's not inaccurate by .1% because the structure is 10,000 years old. It's inaccurate by 300%, because their 5 year prediction took 15 years to come true. Considering how many of these "sky is falling" predictions have been made over the past few decades, virtually none of which are even close to accurate when the end date of the prediction comes along, I'd say being cynical is quite appropriate.

Slashdot Top Deals

The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

Working...