Arctic is warmest it's been in 10,000 years

[robkelk]

Arctic is warmest it's been in 10,000 years, study suggests

Also, Climate change now a fact of life in Atlantic Canada fishery

So don't try to tell me there's no such thing, or that it's a communist plot. Do the math yourself. Climate change exists.

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah, c'mon, Rob. You know the kind of people who buy into the anti-climate-change propaganda are generally the same people who think balancing their checkbook is higher math.

[Dartz]

I've just sort of accepted the fact that the whole lot's fucked.

I can do nothing which will affect it.

Even all these carbon taxes and shit are proving to be nothing more than a way of making the people who can't afford to make the 'energy efficient' upgrades, pay for those who can

[Rajvik]

And yet the Greenland Glacier is growing again

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...kR0TRc0dhm

[hazard]

And yet the Greenland Glacier is growing again

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...kR0TRc0dhm

Are any of the others? Is the Antarctic icecap? The glaciers on the Himalaya, or the Alps, or the Rockies, or the Andes, or any other major mountain range?

What is happening to the various tundras of the world? The average ocean temperature?

I would not be surprised if the Greenland glaciers will, next year, shrink again.

[Dartz]

Is that Land Area? Drop a blop of icecream on the ground in the sun and watch how it spreads out.

Edit:

Actually reading the article suggests something more complex is going on. The rate of loss is related to the local sea water temperature. If it's warm, the ice flows. If it's colder, the ice slows. On average - if the water's going to be warmer that ice is going to start shifting.

Which means if my calculations are correct, we're still all doomed.... Hah!....oh....

[Matrix Dragon]

And this is why we keep annoying our politicians to enforce some decent behavior from big business. Not that it ever seems to go anywhere. CEOs gonna CEO, and who cares if the world burns? They die with trillions of dollars, so fuck the rest of us!

[classicdrogn]

The one who dies with the most toys wins!

[robkelk]

Ah, c'mon, Rob. You know the kind of people who buy into the anti-climate-change propaganda are generally the same people who think balancing their checkbook is higher math.

Then their grade-school teachers did them no favours. This is not an excuse.

And this is why we keep annoying our politicians to enforce some decent behavior from big business. Not that it ever seems to go anywhere. CEOs gonna CEO, and who cares if the world burns? They die with trillions of dollars, so fuck the rest of us!

He who dies with the most toys is still dead. This is not an excuse either.

[hazard]

Ah but Rob, the one with the toys dies last. Surely that is a victory.

[robkelk]

Not while I'm still alive, it isn't.

[Black Aeronaut]

Relevant...

Granted, I don't think he means completely overthrowing capitalism. I think he means it more like a regime change.

[robkelk]

Relevant...

Granted, I don't think he means completely overthrowing capitalism.  I think he means it more like a regime change.

I think what's needed is more than just a regime change.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets.

It's that "capital accumulation" part that I think is the issue - as long as capitalism is about things instead of about social structures, it's going to have that "most toys wins" flaw that drives people to make things that we don't need and the planet can't support.

[Matrix Dragon]

He who dies with the most toys is still dead. This is not an excuse either

Oh, I know. I'm just feeling bitter and tired towards the assholes that'll happily ignore the truth and actively burn the world down.

[Epsilon]

And yet the Greenland Glacier is growing again

Oh, hey, you're back in the debate again. Recovered that stamina, I guess. Let's pick up where we left off:

Do you acknowledge that an object which absorbs more energy than it radiates will increase in temperature, yes or no?

[Rajvik]

Smirks and shakes his head

Thank you, thank you for admitting your communist beliefs,
Thank you for admitting your problem is with the economics and has nothing to do with the environment

Epsilon, I posted an article that directly refuted robs, I wasn't speaking to you and your slow and frustrating walk of indoctrination

[Dartz]

The market operates in a positive feedback cycle. Money makes Money. No money makes less money.

Like a diesel engine running on its own oil, or a nuclear reactor that some mong took the control rods out of.

Positive feedback is bad. It either very quickly runs into a physical limit of the system where it pegs. Or ir just sort of explodes. Either one results in a system not doing what it's supposed to.

Admitting that the market and raw capital needs some form of governance does not make one a communist. It's simple reality. Negative feedback from some form or another is required to stabilise the system and keep it under control and working. Otherwise it breaks down.

Anyway, it seems that the difference between capitalist and 'communist' systems is academic at this point.
One shoots you in the back of the neck for the good of the people. One just sort of stands there and allows you to die, reassuring you it's your own fault for not being able to afford healthcare/food etc. The net result is the same.

In one system, things are the worst people can possibly tolerate. In the other, it's the same. Either are based on painting the rust and hoping nobody notices.

[Epsilon]

I wasn't speaking to you and your slow and frustrating walk of indoctrination

Ah, so all scientific education is indoctrination to you?

Because I'm not indoctrinating anyone. I'm asking you questions. All I want to do is pin down the part where your understanding of physics and that of the vast majority of trained physicists and climatalogists disagree. How are we supposed to resolve who is correct until we know precisely where we disagree?

I'm perfectly willing to be convinced to your side of the argument, Rajvik. Unlike you, I start this conversation saying that I am open to dialogue rather than merely interested in spreading my factions propaganda. But unless we can work out where that fundamental disagreement occurs, how will we work out which of us is correct?

[RMH999]

The Jacobshavn glacier (the Greenland glacier article) is growing because of normal climate variation. The North Atlantic Oscillation switches back and forth from warmer to cooler temperatures much like the Pacific El Nino/La Nina. Guess what, it's shifted colder. That will last maybe a few years, then it'll switch back to warming/melting. This is a temporary speedbump.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshe...6319872179

[robkelk]

Did somebody mentioned the Jacobshavn glacier without understanding the North Atlantic Oscillation? <sigh> The NAO's 5-to-20 year cycle doesn't explain this particular 10,000 year peak.

Also, regional variation. Citing Jacobshavn as a counterexample is like saying Hurricane Katrina didn't exist because Pensacola was never hit by it. People in New Orleans could point out the logical fallacy there.


EDIT: Ref this article at Forbes about Jacobshavn. Note that, while there are occasional dips, the tendency is to rise.

[Black Aeronaut]

You know, it should be telling that the editorial staff at Forbes magazine, the magazine that is presumably for the plutocrat by the plutocrat, believes that climate change is real.

[Mamorien]

In one system, things are the worst people can possibly tolerate. In the other, it's the same.

Or, as some comedian or other put it, under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around.

[Black Aeronaut]

One thing that legitimately bugs me is how people are of Rajvik's mindset; that even putting solar panels on their house is a non-starter. Nevermind that even if you don't accept the subsidies for doing that, the money you save from not having to pay an electric bill pays for them within a few years.

[Labster]

"A few years" is more like 15 years for repayment, but costs are going down down down. The real tipping point is when they start making solar roof tiles. Meanwhile coal keeps getting more expensive, and will do so more as the market for it contracts. Even if you ignore carbon taxes, business incentives, etc, it turns out that solar and wind energy are cheaper to produce. And in less than 5 years, chemical batteries will be cheaper than nat gas peaker plants. Everything is coming up Milhouse.

Well, except for the people who have already lost their lives or homes from climate change. Or the fact that we're kinda too late. I got to see my city's coastal retreat plan today, about how we plan to lose a few meters of beach to the ocean in an orderly manner. It would have helped the beach if the Matilija Dam had been demolished by now. But just because everyone agrees that removing it is a good idea, doesn't mean we have the funding to remove it.

[Rajvik]

BA, you are incorrect there, at least where I am concerned. The only reason I don't have solar panels right now is because we will be replacing this house within a few years and we are saving the money for doing that with the new house. That said, supposed global warming is not why we will do it but the redundancy of a solar backup for when a hurricane knocks out our power again and the reduction in our power bills.