Still think climate change is a hoax?

[robkelk]

Nature is a peer-reviewed journal - any glaring flaws in the methodology should have been spotted, and would have blocked publication of any of the studies. The fact that all three were published should tell you something.

Nature and Science are the sensationalist media of the science publishing world.  I know it has so-called impact factor, but they've had some major retractions lately.  Appeal to authority doesn't work well in this case.

I didn't think I was appealing to authority there - I thought I was saying that the data was (supposed to be) double-checked, and thus it wasn't an appeal to authority. I'll need to phrase such statements better next time.

[Dartz]

It's a phone call I've had to answer before - "Help, my heating is running away, my house is saying it's 28 degrees inside"...

No, that's the sun. Your heating switches off automatically at 20.

It's actually become a real problem - even under normal conditions houses are incredibly warm to the point where some form of comfort-cooling might be required. There is often a central ventilation system to get to the airtightness required but warm air/cool air systems don't really exist. As a matter of fact, the building regs are written in a way that forces you down a very specific design path that is not always the right thing. But cooling also takes energy - and while it is possible to do some work with heat-driven absorbtion chillers, the real reason cooling is hideously expensive is the humidity. Once you get the air to 100% relative humidity you have to pull enough heat out of it to start condensing all that water and that takes a lot more energy than simple cooling.

[Inquisitive Raven]

So, have people tried painting their roofs white? It won't do anything about heat retention, but it can make a dramatic difference in heat absorption which is better nothing. Also, because of the differences in the angle at which sunlight comes in between summer and winter, the effect is greater in the summer when it matters.

[Black Aeronaut]

In my experience, painting things white in a high-humidity environment doesn't do much to help. In order to get the best results, you'd have to build a roof over your roof to keep the thermal energy from being transferred to your structure. That's really the only way to do it.

And even then you have to deal with heat radiating in from the outside air, at which point a central forced-air air conditioning system becomes vital because you not only need the cooling, but also to remove the excess humidity.

I imagine that someday soon someone is gonna make a killing selling whole-house sun screens that can be taken down once cooler weather sets in again.

[robkelk]

Scientists link Europe heat wave to human-caused global warming

CBC pop-sci article

Direct link to the study: Human contribution to the record-breaking July 2019 heat wave in Western Europe

Over France and the Netherlands, such temperatures would have had extremely little chance to occur without human influence on climate (return periods higher than ~1000 years).

In all locations an event like the observed would have been 1.5 to 3 ºC cooler in an unchanged climate.

It is noteworthy that every heatwave analysed so far in Europe in recent years (2003, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2018, June 2019 and this study) was found to be made much more likely and more intense due to human-induced climate change.

[robkelk]

(source)

[SilverFang01]

Meanwhile, Ms. Greta Thunberg continues to walk the walk on her journey to the climate summit in NY: https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/08...nt-vpx.cnn

Her latest update: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...c-crossing

[SilverFang01]

The Bahamas are taking a prolonged pounding from hurricane Dorian as Florida tensely waits for Dorian’s turn north.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/No-Res...utheast-US

My thoughts are with the Bahamas as Dorian is pulling a Harvey at this moment and people are losing their homes, possibly their lives to this meteorological event.

[Labster]

Bump.

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations.  Yes I know it's a New Yorker link so it is a little long, but it's written by Kim Stanley Robinson so it's actually good writing for once.

What's changed in the last two months is that we now know, know for a fact, that civilization as a whole can stop everything to tackle a global problem.  We know for a fact that people will listen to scientists.    We know that the only people telling us not to listen to scientists are those who think their own wealth is more important than survival.

[Rajvik]

and those that realize that stopping the global economy for anything will very quickly break us all. We are not in Roddenberry's post scarcity socialist utopia Labster, and until someone invents something to put us there, we cannot do this and survive, period, end of sentence

[robkelk]

You're a globalist now, Rajvik? I thought you were a protectionist.

Anyway...

The global economy has been stopped for over six weeks now, except for essentials. Nothing appears to be breaking yet... at least, not in countries that have decent safety nets.

[Rajvik]

facepalm

when people overseas can't buy stuff you make because you can't make or ship it, when you are pouring dairy products down the drain and euthanizing livestock because we can't put the people to work in the processing plants, when the ANNUAL FUCKING DEBT TRIPLES IN ONE YEAR just to keep various businesses afloat, (not to mention the rampant inflation that is likely to follow) thats a damn problem.

it isn't a matter of globalism Rob, we're stuck, currently, with a global economy which CANNOT be changed in six fucking months, let alone the three we've had since this started in earnest. You talk about safety nets, and i see the problem those safety nets create, the "refractory" housing in france, the section 8 housing in the US, basically places that are almost NO GO zones for police unless they are in damn riot gear because the sub-culture of the areas have taught them to hate the police but depend on the government for handouts. The creation of entitlements that have no end, and no impetus to get people off of them because it is easier for them to live on something that barely keeps them comfortable than take the chance of finding and then losing a job, or because they just don't want to FUCKING WORK.

In short, i am not happy with the way things have gone this last few months, but i am seeing a bright and shining light at the end of the tunnel, and the people in the US who think like you do are not going to like the results

[Dartz]

I have relatives who live in Social housing, and have done for their entire lives. I've done work in social houses "

So listen to me when I say this.

Stop drinking the fucking jungle juice and get with fucking reality. People aren't taught to depend on Government handouts. Most people in social housing work. The suggestion otherwise is insulting.

[Matrix Dragon]

Stop drinking the fucking jungle juice and get with fucking reality.

Come on Dartz, you should know by now that Rav will never stop hating poor people for being poor.

[robkelk]

facepalm

when people overseas can't buy stuff you make because you can't make or ship it, when you are pouring dairy products down the drain and euthanizing livestock because we can't put the people to work in the processing plants,

Which is not what is happening in the real world. Agricultural products are going to waste because people aren't buying them, not because nobody's available to process them.

There are plenty of well-run processing plants that can and do take what's made available to them while still treating their employees with respect.

when the ANNUAL FUCKING DEBT TRIPLES IN ONE YEAR just to keep various businesses afloat, (not to mention the rampant inflation that is likely to follow) thats a damn problem.

Letting your debt get so far out of hand during the good times, despite how many warnings the rest of the world gave you about it, is your own problem. If you had managed your finances better, you wouldn't be in this mess now.

As for the aid, every other country in the world is giving the money to people, not to corporations. But history shows that that's what happens when you elect a GOP government: corporations are allowed to belly up to the trough while individuals suffer.

You folks really need to get rid of the rot in the GOP - and, considering how many decades that rot's been there, the only way to do that is to dismantle the entire party (and the Dems, too) and start over.

it isn't a matter of globalism Rob, we're stuck, currently, with a global economy which CANNOT be changed in six fucking months, let alone the three we've had since this started in earnest.

What do you mean, "six months"? Trump's been working on it for three years, now.

You talk about safety nets, and i see the problem those safety nets create, the "refractory" housing in france, the section 8 housing in the US, basically places that are almost NO GO zones for police unless they are in damn riot gear because the sub-culture of the areas have taught them to hate the police but depend on the government for handouts. The creation of entitlements that have no end, and no impetus to get people off of them because it is easier for them to live on something that barely keeps them comfortable than take the chance of finding and then losing a job, or because they just don't want to FUCKING WORK.

If that's really what you see, then either you're looking in the wrong place or you're blind.

Social safety nets exist to prevent everything that you listed. And all the evidence out of Alberta - the most conservative province in Canada - shows that they do prevent everything that you listed when they're put into place while saving money for the government in the process.

[Matrix Dragon]

Also, I'm still marveling at 'the sub-culture of the areas have taught them to hate the police'. I mean, we're talking about the USA police, who are famous worldwide for their racism, large percentage of white supremacist members, and so many minorities 'shot while resisting arrest'. But no, it's the local 'sub-culture' to blame.

[SilverFang01]

It remains staggering how many people, both intentionally & unintentionally, propagate this idea that the reason some people live in poverty is simply because they don't work hard enough.

Having millions of people living in poverty is not an inevitability, it's a choice this country has made. People aren't poor because they don't work hard, it's in large part because we live in a society with policies that often exacerbate the harsh realities of poverty rather than alleviate them. The fact that we live in a society in which a single person--literally just 1--can have a net worth of $140 billion while 13 million children go to bed hungry every night is a moral indictment of our society and the political and economic system within which it operates.

I have read how countries with strong social safety nets are helping their citizens get through this time while in the US the GOP and its allies keep trying to convince everyone that helping people is a bad idea, keeping taxes low for the rich is better and how ungrateful we are for expecting more.

A 1.5 trillion dollar corporate giveaway does not mean squat if you don't protect your people from diseases, and this whole COVID-19 debacle has shone a light on how broken our way of doing things is.

[Labster]

it isn't a matter of globalism Rob, we're stuck, currently, with a global economy which CANNOT be changed in six fucking months, let alone the three we've had since this started in earnest. You talk about safety nets, and i see the problem those safety nets create, the "refractory" housing in france, the section 8 housing in the US, basically places that are almost NO GO zones for police unless they are in damn riot gear because the sub-culture of the areas have taught them to hate the police but depend on the government for handouts. The creation of entitlements that have no end, and no impetus to get people off of them because it is easier for them to live on something that barely keeps them comfortable than take the chance of finding and then losing a job, or because they just don't want to FUCKING WORK.

Actually, from what I hear from US officials, the NO GO zones are much worse in the Netherlands because of the strong social safety net. Care to comment, hazard?

[hazard]

Yes. Pete Hoekstra and his fellows are liars.

NO GO zones don't exist, and the strong social safety net does a pretty good job, especially in the face of crisis. There is no bailout program for the public being rushed through because the bailout program already exists and has existed for decades, running smoothly as it goes.

While it's true that there are people who don't want to find a job, most often that's not because they are unwilling to work but because being gainfully employed is a net loss to them due to increased costs for things like transportation that are not covered by the higher income as the social safety net payments drop almost as much. It's a known perverse situation that it's possible to have an on paper net gain of 50 euros per month in income be eaten by the cost of running the car or public transportation and turned into a net loss at least that large.

Most people are willing to work. Most people who benefit from the social safety net work, but even working full time at the minimum wage it's not unusual to not make enough money to make ends meet, especially when you have a family. Most people who benefit from the social safety net also can't work full time for many different reasons, and many jobs that they work are temporary or seasonal in nature, which means that they can go months without a job simply because there are no jobs for them to work.

And that's before we get into disability issues, which both restrict the ability to be gainfully employed and increase the cost of living due to further assistance being required.

[Matrix Dragon]

Funny thing I've found over the years. The stereotypical 'dole bludgers' that live to scam the system are incredibly rare, less than 0.01% of those on welfare. The major majority are those with valid reasons for being unable to work, or those actively looking for work. And frankly, giving other people a helping hand in getting on their feet should be a major function of any government.