6 ms·

Let's see: Event A will cause event B. Event B will will be really bad. So, let's go on and on about how bad event B will be, all the direct effects and all

by graycat 11y ago

Let's see: Event A will cause event B. Event B will will be really bad. So, let's go on and on about how bad event B will be, all the direct effects and all the indirect effects. On and on. So, get people all up on their hind legs based on how bad event B will be. But event A, what about event A? How do we know that event A will happen? When do we get solid information about the chances of event A? Event B: Gigantic flocks of pigs flying over our largest cities and dropping huge piles of pig poop. Let's talk about all the really horrible problems all those flying pigs will cause. Let's get the EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. working really hard on the problem. Let's pass a lot of new laws restricting and taxing pigs. Let's have the NIH doing genetic studies on how to do genetic engineering to throttle the flying pigs. We need a UN effort to constrain all those flying pigs with some treaties with some severe sanctions to protect the world, including the poorest people who will be hurt the worst, from all those flying pigs. In all of this, what is the chance of event A, the chances of the gigantic flocks of flying pigs? So, since event B with those pigs would be so bad, we get to neglect talking about event A that the pigs will fly at all? I smell the faint whiff of propaganda pig poop.

witty_username 11y ago
I think you are saying that climate change may not necessarily occur? Why do you think so? (Just curious)
- graycat 11y ago
  We have a lot of really solid evidence of significant climate change going back at least 110 million years. There is also evidence back 65 million years, 600,000 years, and 500 years. For the last 2000 years there is Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council, 'Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years', ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006. still available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
  - DennisP 11y ago
    The fact that climate has gone through major changes before is the reason people are worried. If it had been stable for a billion years, we could be confident that powerful negative feedbacks keep it that way. Instead, we see minor initial changes kicking off positive feedbacks that take things much further. Hansen's book goes into this in detail.
selimthegrim 11y ago
Look, I respect you greatly, but this is not something to be cavalier about just because the environmentalists act like it's the Great Revival and throw up too many hosannas for our liking. Ocean acidification is real, greenhouse and ocean thermal effects can't be explained away by sunspots and yes Virginia, there is such a thing as phenomenology in science, despite what people like Koonin might say.
- graycat 11y ago
  Sure, significant and massively destructive "ocean acidification" would be really bad.
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    Not would be, is. It's happening now. http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought-worlds-oceans-may-be-irrevocable-256962.html http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought-wor...
    - graycat 11y ago
      Newsweek? Gee, I remember Newsweek, 1975 and their prediction of horrible, destructive, massive, life killing, earth ruining, devastating, hideous, humongous, drum roll, please, "global cooling", with a scan of their cover story in http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf Right, Newsweek, that is, newsies looking to grab people, by the heart, the gut, below the belt, always below the shoulders, never between the ears, to get eyeballs for ads and ad revenue. They are in the ad business. Their content is just smelly bait to catch eyeballs for their ad business. Their stuff is garbage, as low as it can go, no higher than necessary, for their ad revenue, in the short term. Their reputation? They assume their target audience doesn't care and, thus, they don't care. Their content is really from the literary fiction tradition of drama and art as in communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion. So, they want to concentrate on the drama of the human experiences, the horrible things that will happen to humans. They like to play on fears, the threats of both nature and society, as in E. Fromm, The Art of Loving, the main sources of human anxiety. The newsies won't do any better as long as people keep reading them and they keep getting ad revenue. You should not have taken the newsies seriously in 1975, and you should not today. Again, emphasize all the horrible things that would happen with massive global cooling. Like emphasizing all the horrible things that would happen with gigantic flocks of flying pigs over our cities dropping thousands of tons of pig poop a day. It would be really bad. There would be disease, death, gigantic economic losses. What are going to do about this gigantic pig poop problem? To see more of how this goes, watch the now classic movie The Music Man talking about the terrible threat of a pool table in town and, thus, the need for a boy's band -- that will be $19.95 import fee. For more, review some of how the old English morality plays went and how much of Christian religion went in those days and nearly to the present -- terrible threats from sin and the Devil, now we will pass the offering plate, sing the Doxology, and see the 10%. Got some spectacular stuff that way -- look up the Bishop's Residence in Munich. Build something like that for yourself and it would really set you back. The good thing about the movie was Shirley Jones -- we're talking drop dead gorgeous, just what you want next to you under piles of blankets on those long, cold nights from the "global cooling". It wasn't just Western Civilization; parts of the New World did much the same: Indeed the ancient Mayans had some such thoughts and responded by killing people and pouring their blood on a rock as at http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=Mayan+blood+sun+moving+sacrifice&source=web&ots=Do6njWN5M9&sig=FxTeclIiqggqIH5Ws_oENCek1uI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA76,M1 http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA... from page 76 of Susan Milbrath, 'Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)', ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000. They didn't have enough solid science to know that (A) their blood would have no effect on the sun and (B) there was no danger that the sun would stop moving across the sky. Ah, where can we get some of that massive, hideous, life-ending global cooling? I was counting on it, getting under the covers with Shirley Jones! That global cooling scare was never about science, the earth, or temperature -- those were all just misdirections, as in a magic show, to hide what was really going on. E.g., standard advice: "Always look for the hidden agenda.". What was really going on? Sure, just obvious, just from common sense and People 101, the usual suspects: A flim-flam, fraud, scam to get money and power. Right, the two, usual biggies -- money and power.

by graycat 11y ago

witty_username 11y ago

I think you are saying that climate change may not necessarily occur? Why do you think so? (Just curious)

graycat 11y ago
We have a lot of really solid evidence of significant climate change going back at least 110 million years. There is also evidence back 65 million years, 600,000 years, and 500 years. For the last 2000 years there is Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council, 'Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years', ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006. still available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
- DennisP 11y ago
  The fact that climate has gone through major changes before is the reason people are worried. If it had been stable for a billion years, we could be confident that powerful negative feedbacks keep it that way. Instead, we see minor initial changes kicking off positive feedbacks that take things much further. Hansen's book goes into this in detail.

selimthegrim 11y ago

Look, I respect you greatly, but this is not something to be cavalier about just because the environmentalists act like it's the Great Revival and throw up too many hosannas for our liking. Ocean acidification is real, greenhouse and ocean thermal effects can't be explained away by sunspots and yes Virginia, there is such a thing as phenomenology in science, despite what people like Koonin might say.

graycat 11y ago
Sure, significant and massively destructive "ocean acidification" would be really bad.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  Not would be, is. It's happening now. http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought-worlds-oceans-may-be-irrevocable-256962.html http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought-wor...
  - graycat 11y ago
    Newsweek? Gee, I remember Newsweek, 1975 and their prediction of horrible, destructive, massive, life killing, earth ruining, devastating, hideous, humongous, drum roll, please, "global cooling", with a scan of their cover story in http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf Right, Newsweek, that is, newsies looking to grab people, by the heart, the gut, below the belt, always below the shoulders, never between the ears, to get eyeballs for ads and ad revenue. They are in the ad business. Their content is just smelly bait to catch eyeballs for their ad business. Their stuff is garbage, as low as it can go, no higher than necessary, for their ad revenue, in the short term. Their reputation? They assume their target audience doesn't care and, thus, they don't care. Their content is really from the literary fiction tradition of drama and art as in communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion. So, they want to concentrate on the drama of the human experiences, the horrible things that will happen to humans. They like to play on fears, the threats of both nature and society, as in E. Fromm, The Art of Loving, the main sources of human anxiety. The newsies won't do any better as long as people keep reading them and they keep getting ad revenue. You should not have taken the newsies seriously in 1975, and you should not today. Again, emphasize all the horrible things that would happen with massive global cooling. Like emphasizing all the horrible things that would happen with gigantic flocks of flying pigs over our cities dropping thousands of tons of pig poop a day. It would be really bad. There would be disease, death, gigantic economic losses. What are going to do about this gigantic pig poop problem? To see more of how this goes, watch the now classic movie The Music Man talking about the terrible threat of a pool table in town and, thus, the need for a boy's band -- that will be $19.95 import fee. For more, review some of how the old English morality plays went and how much of Christian religion went in those days and nearly to the present -- terrible threats from sin and the Devil, now we will pass the offering plate, sing the Doxology, and see the 10%. Got some spectacular stuff that way -- look up the Bishop's Residence in Munich. Build something like that for yourself and it would really set you back. The good thing about the movie was Shirley Jones -- we're talking drop dead gorgeous, just what you want next to you under piles of blankets on those long, cold nights from the "global cooling". It wasn't just Western Civilization; parts of the New World did much the same: Indeed the ancient Mayans had some such thoughts and responded by killing people and pouring their blood on a rock as at http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=Mayan+blood+sun+moving+sacrifice&source=web&ots=Do6njWN5M9&sig=FxTeclIiqggqIH5Ws_oENCek1uI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA76,M1 http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA... from page 76 of Susan Milbrath, 'Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)', ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000. They didn't have enough solid science to know that (A) their blood would have no effect on the sun and (B) there was no danger that the sun would stop moving across the sky. Ah, where can we get some of that massive, hideous, life-ending global cooling? I was counting on it, getting under the covers with Shirley Jones! That global cooling scare was never about science, the earth, or temperature -- those were all just misdirections, as in a magic show, to hide what was really going on. E.g., standard advice: "Always look for the hidden agenda.". What was really going on? Sure, just obvious, just from common sense and People 101, the usual suspects: A flim-flam, fraud, scam to get money and power. Right, the two, usual biggies -- money and power.