Agree with all of what you say.

Trump's election is a symptom of the bigger problem, was my point. Whether his administration takes our collective velocity towards the cliff edge from 75 mph to 77 mph doesn't matter a whole lot in the long term. Kamala Harris might have enacted policies to take the velocity from 75 mph to 72 mph. So what? Same issue.

The electric car outside my house and the 10kW/h solar system on my roof both help reduce emissions in the absolute sense, but not in a meaningful sense. I understand that.

This socio-economic world order is simply going to grind on until it flies apart. When crop failures and water shortages start to seriously threaten the US, do you think it more likely everyone will confront their unsustainable consumption patterns in terms of energy and resources, or decide that the giant, sparsely-populated country to the north, with lots of land and even more fresh water, should actually be a part of the US? Solve the problem for now by kicking the can a little further down the road. The wealthy and the powerful will easily convince everyone else that short-term relief is preferable to significant hardship into the future.

I have been reading /. for quite a long time, and I can't remember when the anti-science wackadoos weren't everywhere. Climate change denialism is at least as old as the PC vs Mac wars, from my (admittedly failing) memory.

I'm not sceptical about climate change, just a denialist about the potential of the human population to make hard choices to repair the damage caused so far by the Anthropocene. The ten hottest years on record, globally, have all been since 2015, and in response the US elected someone who hates renewable energy and wants to restart the coal industry. But he promised to lower taxes! (This is just one datapoint in a vast sea of evidence that there's zero genuine interest in grappling with the problem of a warming world beyond the occasional and pointless sideshow or window dressing.)

So we're fucked, if not as a species then definitely as a civilization. Is this really a surprise? Realistically is there any organism on earth that *voluntarily* limits its reproductive rate to maintain a sustainable environment? Why would us clever monkeys be any different, collectively? Yeasts reproduce enthusiastically right up until they poison their own environment to the point where they all die. Read Ronald Wright's _A Short History of Progress_ and then tell me Homo Sapiens is any different.

We're going to lurch along this track with our unsustainable technologies until our systems collapse. The feedback loops are all baked in (pun intended) at this point. Climate change skeptics will jeer when the anticipated calamities fail to happen in the next five years, as if being off by a decade or two means anything when you're talking about shifts in weather and ocean patterns on a global scale. All glaciers everywhere are in retreat, so we should take the logical step and stop collecting data on climate change.

So can I take advantage of the Tesla supercharger network to replenish my Chevy Bolt, or is Musk a bloviating hypocrite?

Never mind. I already know the answer.

I was under the impression that US Presidents should be held accountable for their actions. It seems like that might be important.

"I take no responsibility at all." - Donald J Trump

In a sane world that statement, to a room full of reporters, would be the end of any politician's career, let alone the President of the US, but the world is not sane. He keeps giving the GOP senators tax cuts and ultra-conservative judicial appointments, and that serves their interests. So we'll go on. And when he's reelected in November I will be disgusted and depressed, but not surprised.

I think if you were on the twentieth floor or a skyscraper and the first five floors were ablaze, you'd lean back and say, "what's the big deal?" Buckle up, sunshine. This shitshow is just getting started and it won't end for at least a month. Maryland just reported the cases are doubling every 48 hours. That's going to be true for the country as a whole, unless there is some reason Maryland is exceptional? And keep in mind the US has yet to be able to test for coronavirus on any scale even though it's obvious the disease has been in the population for WEEKS. "Only" 40 deaths reported with "only" 2000 reported cases equals a mortality rate of "only" 2%. If 50 million Americans get infected with COVID-19 then that's "only" 1 million people dead. If 150 million are infected, "only" 3 million deaths, many of which could have been prevented if the Trump administration had taken this threat as seriously as, say, South Korea. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well, particularly anyone you know over 70 and/or with a compromised immune system and/or respiratory issues.

Or maybe Steve Jobs was prone to exaggeration sometimes? I can't think that he was a tech visionary unless I also insist he could never be wrong? Oh, okay. Simple little world you live in. Mostly regular shapes and primary colours, I'm guessing. Have fun in there, and try not to bump your head.

Since supporting your religion of choice is "charitable giving" in the US, nothing you wrote is surprising. Subtract "charitable giving" to religious causes and -- surprise! -- secular and non-secular giving rates are about the same. Now...where do the majority of religious people live, as a percent of a state's total population? In which states do the majority of non-religious people live, as a percentage of total population? Argument skewing with statistics. Fun for everyone!

"I like A. Anyone who likes B is a drooling moron." - I think that's closer to the average post.

"The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire. We finished our lunches in silence." -- Don DeLillo, _White Noise_.

That's almost exactly my experience too. I was in the market for a watch to replace an aging Garmin, so figured I could justify the cost of the entry-level Apple watch. I really like the fitness feature, and taptic notifications are very helpful if you spend a lot of time in meetings. The only non-Apple watch app I use is by Calvetica. It's not as important to my daily life as an iPhone, but I appreciate all the little benefits it adds. It's a useful (though expensive) complement to my phone. Worth it to me, though I can certainly imagine others deciding it's not for them.

I recall shopping for party supplies in a Hypermarché on the outskirts of Paris (southside, coincidentally) back in '92, and realizing that the "muzak" playing over the PA was Prince's "Sexy Muthafucka". This has never happened to me in North America.

And the millennial generation are the ones who are doing it by far the most.

Can't argue with that. No, I mean you literally can't argue with that, as it's a fact-free generalization so vapid it defies refutation. Plus you have decided you can define "idiot" to mean anyone who does something you personally disagree with. Nice move, Orwell.

But at least you've figured out how to spell the word "millennial."

Gerald the pink-furred cat only exists in your imagination.

Ah. About that. Actually Gerald is the result of a science experiment gone horribly wrong. I'm really sorry. I learned a valuable lesson and it won't happen again.

>Then the city should step in there also. We want full service

If you think fellatio is "full service", you probably have Comcast as your ISP.

It gets better.(tm)

Visit the woman's site. Check her publication history. She's a shill. Hint: "polarbearscience" isn't hard to type into a Wordpress template.

That site is one of the most depressing and dishonest things I've seen in a while. She should be ashamed of herself.

Her opinion on walrus ecology is as valid as yours and mine. Except hers is paid for by a "think tank" that does everything it can to undermine science if it gets in the way of corporate profits.

We are so fucked.