It's true that it doesn't follow, but an entity that does not in any way interact with reality may as well not exist for all I care. If on the other hand it does interact with reality, that interaction should be observable - and hence part of scientific inquiry. So while it's strictly speaking true that non-existence does not follow from non-observability, you seem to be attacking a strawman argument by shifting from practical non-existence (i.e. having the same effect as not existing at all) to actual non-existence (i.e. the claimed "cannot exist").

By your logic we cannot rule out the existence of magic either. It may simply have effects outside of our natural world.

That graph only lists carbon emissions for energy demand though, not total greenhouse gas emissions. But it's something at least. And I do accept that gas is better than coal (wrt CO2 emissions). What I don't accept is that growing your economy should have any influence on the assessment of this development - I doubt the climate cares that the US only increased it's emissions slightly (before the recent downturn) while growing its economy. The total emissions matter in this context, the economy does not.

Even with that graph it's still quite a different story to what the AC suggested: "reducing carbon emissions year over year".

Thanks for the extra data.

Citation please? As far as I know there's no reason to believe that the US reduces its carbon emissions at all. The only reduction seems to be from the economic problems in 2008 - which should hardly count as successful energy policy.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/07/the-myth-of-u-s-carbon-dioxide-emissions-reductions/picture-41/

Yes, China and others are increasing their emissions a lot faster, but their excuse for not joining any climate treaties right now is that the US doesn't reduce its emissions either.

I don't see any requirement to actually install the OS in the post. I'd suggest grabbing the latest ubuntu (install) cd and using it as livecd.

- Looking at graphs doesn't tell you anything. You need to do a proper analysis. (Case in point: what I got from looking at the same graph was that the warming in the last 40 or so years was incredibly huge compared to anything we've seen in the last 2000 years or so. Same graph, different interpretation. This is why scientists don't just look at their graphs but employ proper statistical analysis.)


- Are you aware that the temperature proxies are calibrated with the instrumental data? If those two weren't closely correlated, the proxies would be completely useless. So I don't get the point in stating that the last decade was purely instrumental data. That's the most reliable data after all.


- Even if all you take from the paper is that there has been a time in the last 2000 years when the NH was as warm as it was 30 years ago, this does not mean that climate change is not happening ("[...] temperatures were [...] below the levels of the past decade"


- This is only data for the northern hemisphere. Have you checked that the SH wasn't colder during that same period referenced in your quote? Taking one data point from one paper and saying that all other papers don't matter is kind of silly. Especially if the conclusion of the paper directly contradicts your view.


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I provided direct scientific evidence that warming since 1850 is NOT anomalous within the last 2,000 years of history.

No you did not. What you provided was scientific evidence that the temperatures in the NH were not higher than anything measured during the last two millenia. That does not mean that the warming wasn't anomalous. This paper does not support that conclusion. (Temperature and change in temperature are not the same thing.)


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I am NOT misquoting Mann's paper what so ever. He reanalyzed his data with a different and by his own words more accurate statistical method, and his graphs of the results clearly show that the warming since 1850 has been exceeded multiple times before.

If you still insist the graphs support this, please show where in the graph you can see a warming of 1K within 100 years (1900-2000 from -0.4K to 0.6K). Or even a warming of 0.4K within 100 years without a corresponding drop in temperatures immediately before that increase.


What it comes down to is this: Mann's paper does not support your conclusion. It may show a weakness in one of his earlier papers, but that's all.

What the heck are you talking about? Quoted from the conclusions of the paper you linked:
"We find that the hemispheric-scale warmth of the past decade for the NH is likely anomalous in the context of not just the past 1,000 years, as suggested in previous work, but longer."

How can you possibly take that to mean that "warming since 1850 is NOT anomalous"? There is not a single mention in the conclusions about anything but the warming in the last decade.

Let me guess, your methology was something like this: "This paper doesn't state anything at all about warming before the last decade, therefor I can make up whatever I want!"

This doesn't address (or even acknowledge) my argument at all.

If you have one line of evidence, it may be flawed the way you suggest. But if you have several independent lines of evidence, and they all show the same trend, that's not something you can account for with inaccurate data collection methods (i.e. what you described).

Just by having lots of independently run weather stations, your made up data would be averaged out unless the majority of operators just happen to make up the same trend in their measurements.

You're talking about data submitted to the scientists by tree rings, right? Or by drilling cores? Or satellites? I'm sure those lazy satellites are just making stuff up instead of measuring it! Just like those evil weather stations all over the world!

If there was only one line of evidence that climate science was based on, you might have a point. But it's not.

It's not quite that simple. See ring species for one example where that categorization breaks down.

There was no consensus in the scientific community that global cooling would happen. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU_AtHkB4Ms for a thorough debunking of that claim. Actual facts with sources you can check yourself included.

I'm sorry if I didn't state my question clearly. The claim in the article is about the currently running reactors.

I don't think any majority can be gained in Germany in the near future for building new reactors - even if they would be safer, more economic or more flexible than the current ones. So while gen 4 reactors might be a solution, they're not feasible in the current political climate and hence not a viable solution to the problem stated in the article.

Can you give any insights relevant to the current situation?

While personally I would prefer a nuclear over a fossil fuel plant, I read that nuclear reactors are too slow to react to the highly variable energy production by wind turbines and photo-voltaic installations which make up an increasingly large percentage of the energy production in Germany.

If this is true, keeping the existing reactors running for an extended period would not be beneficial towards the goal of migrating to renewable energy sources.

The only source I can find for this at the moment is http://www.taz.de/1/zukunft/umwelt/artikel/1/so-bleiben-sie-atomkraftgegner/ (in german) - I would love to hear someone with a better understanding of the subject matter than me address this (and maybe to the other claims in the article).

The observer effect is not something specific to self-aware observers. It can simply be interaction with other matter - which has then "observed" the item in question.

Now with that out of the way, what you want to happen has no influence on what does happen. That's simply not what the observer effect is about.

> No, but you'll pay somebody for a new warranty since the original is probably non-transferable.
If that's the case where you live, you should try to get that fixed instead of using it as an argument for disencouraging sales of used goods.

> Hate to break it to you cowboy, but out of over 60 keyboard layouts the only ones with a and y anywhere near each other are the Bulgarian and Ukrainian.

Nice try, but there is an entire category with keyboards where the Y and Z keys are swapped in the article you linked:

4.2 QWERTZ