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Counter to the old Slashdot adage, let's actually read the fucking article. Remember, the headline trumpets: How Accurate Were Their Predictions? 1. Estimate

Counter to the old Slashdot adage, let's actually read the fucking article. Remember, the headline trumpets: How Accurate Were Their Predictions? 1. Estimate seems to be alright. 2. "On target if a little high"? or you could read it as off by about 50 years. 3. Glad that this has been pointed out. 4. Whatever my opinion is on geoengineering, this is not a prediction, this is a statement of theory, there is no prediction or verdict to be had here. 5. This is also not a prediction. 6. I agree with the author re the link being proven out, but I disagree with their attribution of lack of action to climate changer denialism. Or is this the standard "Let's not call out India and China" dancing around the issue? Poor form, either way. 7. Is not a prediction. Verdict, saner than most articles regarding this, but still extremely poor. Out of seven points, three are not predictions, one has numbers that are so twisted that it can be spun any which way, two are valid points and one seems to be written specifically to deflect blame from the majority polluting nations. Not really quality journalism here, which is kinda sad. For an article that sets out to measure the accuracy of certain predictions it's sorely lacking in both predictions, as well as accuracy. Bring on the downvotes!

myrmidon 3y ago
I think you're being unfairly harsh calling the article "extremely poor" just because it goes off on a few tangents-- it's an article after all, not a homework assignment. > "Let's not call out India and China" You do realize that the US is doing way worse in Co2/capita/year right now than both of those (~15tons compared to ~9 and ~2, respectively)? And thats not even talking cumulative emissions. > Bring on the downvotes! "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. " -- guidelines
- xscott 3y ago
  >> "Let's not call out India and China" > You do realize that the US is doing way worse in Co2/capita/year > right now than both of those (~15tons compared to ~9 and ~2, respectively)? If you call out "per country", China is double the US. If you call out "per capita per country", there are 14 countries worse than the US, including Canada and Australia. Not saying the US is blameless, but you're playing games with the stats. Why aren't you criticizing individuals in Qatar? They're emitting more than double the CO2 per person than the US. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
- slackfan 3y ago
  You do realize that the US is also down from its' peak of CO2/Capita production, whereas china is getting there per-captia. (13 US, ~9 China), and the trend doesn't seem to be stopping? Per capita becomes kind of a bad comparitor when the trend is towards parity, and the overall output isn't slowing. I've been around long enough to see that the climate change stuff really only ratchets up in the US when going into an election year, and if the correct candidate makes it in, it immediately stops, regardless of their actual climate change policy. (Sure, let's ignore the drilling that's going on under the current administration. Or the oil permits being given out. Or the lessenings of tarrifs on import goods leading to an increase of fantastic microplastics in your drinking water and additional CO2 emissions overseas). There really is no room to not be harsh on articles like this. The only thing articles like this are doing is proving the denlialists right. (Grabbing my data from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location... here)
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    It's great that the US emissions are improving, but I'm very sceptical about them reaching Chinese levels even within a decade, and arguing for improvements elsewhere while doing really badly appears very hypocritical to me (expecially with the cumulative emissions in mind when talking about nations like India). I believe the main problem with climate change policy in the west is simply that voters in general don't really want to sacrifice anything for climate change mitigations, and without significant sacrifices government is very limited in what can be achieved...

myrmidon 3y ago

I think you're being unfairly harsh calling the article "extremely poor" just because it goes off on a few tangents-- it's an article after all, not a homework assignment. > "Let's not call out India and China" You do realize that the US is doing way worse in Co2/capita/year right now than both of those (~15tons compared to ~9 and ~2, respectively)? And thats not even talking cumulative emissions. > Bring on the downvotes! "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. " -- guidelines

xscott 3y ago
>> "Let's not call out India and China" > You do realize that the US is doing way worse in Co2/capita/year > right now than both of those (~15tons compared to ~9 and ~2, respectively)? If you call out "per country", China is double the US. If you call out "per capita per country", there are 14 countries worse than the US, including Canada and Australia. Not saying the US is blameless, but you're playing games with the stats. Why aren't you criticizing individuals in Qatar? They're emitting more than double the CO2 per person than the US. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
slackfan 3y ago
You do realize that the US is also down from its' peak of CO2/Capita production, whereas china is getting there per-captia. (13 US, ~9 China), and the trend doesn't seem to be stopping? Per capita becomes kind of a bad comparitor when the trend is towards parity, and the overall output isn't slowing. I've been around long enough to see that the climate change stuff really only ratchets up in the US when going into an election year, and if the correct candidate makes it in, it immediately stops, regardless of their actual climate change policy. (Sure, let's ignore the drilling that's going on under the current administration. Or the oil permits being given out. Or the lessenings of tarrifs on import goods leading to an increase of fantastic microplastics in your drinking water and additional CO2 emissions overseas). There really is no room to not be harsh on articles like this. The only thing articles like this are doing is proving the denlialists right. (Grabbing my data from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location... here)
- myrmidon 3y ago
  It's great that the US emissions are improving, but I'm very sceptical about them reaching Chinese levels even within a decade, and arguing for improvements elsewhere while doing really badly appears very hypocritical to me (expecially with the cumulative emissions in mind when talking about nations like India). I believe the main problem with climate change policy in the west is simply that voters in general don't really want to sacrifice anything for climate change mitigations, and without significant sacrifices government is very limited in what can be achieved...