Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Well, Eastern Canada has just been hit by the biggest ice storm in decades. Freezing rain, huge blackouts, the works. It's a weather pattern that usually hits out West, less severely, but it's way over from where it should be.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Meanwhile, it was over 65 degrees Fahrenheit near Washington DC.
Wavy jetstream is wavy.
edited 22nd Dec '13 1:20:56 PM by GlennMagusHarvey
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Oh, wow. Freezing rain in Toronto, and over 18 Celsius in DC. (We use the Metric system because it makes sense)note There tends to be temperature differences, but not that extreme.
edited 22nd Dec '13 1:25:19 PM by Zendervai
Not Three Laws compliant.
http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/
Basically, a sociologist does a comprehensive study of funding sources for climate change denial (or anti-climate-policy) movements/information/etc..
Highlights:
- Koch and Exxon Mobil have recently pulled back from publicly visible funding. From 2003 to 2007, the Koch Affiliated Foundations and the Exxon Mobil Foundation were heavily involved in funding climate-change denial organizations. But since 2008, they are no longer making publicly traceable contributions.
- Funding has shifted to pass through untraceable sources. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to denial organizations by the Donors Trust has risen dramatically. Donors Trust is a donor-directed foundation whose funders cannot be traced. This one foundation now provides about 25% of all traceable foundation funding used by organizations engaged in promoting systematic denial of climate change.
- Most funding for denial efforts is untraceable. Despite extensive data compilation and analyses, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in contributions to climate change denying organizations can be specifically accounted for from public records. Approximately 75% of the income of these organizations comes from unidentifiable sources.
edited 23rd Dec '13 9:13:17 PM by GlennMagusHarvey
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Hmmm... Call me silly, but... that's the equivalent of a Doctor-sized hole in the records: about as clear as if they just did it the old fashioned way and declared. <_<
edited 23rd Dec '13 10:12:49 PM by Euodiachloris
They must be ashamed of something.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Professional Forum Ninja
And the U.S. is going to have one of it's coldest storms in a generation. A lot of deniers are going to use this as "evidence," aren't they?
They would be foolish not to, given that they long since stopped debating in good faith.
Gunpla is amazing!
They already are.
But of course they'll ignore Australia had one of its hottest seasons ever.
Dammit why can't we shift the phrase to "Climate Change." instead?
Actual Wrestling Legend
Because the climate is always changing, it's necessary for life, and in fact a more temperate planet is the reason human civilization exists in present form.
In fact, the heel-draggers aren't even denying that the planet's warming up; it's a question of whether it's warming by itself, and whether we have the power to stop it. Michael Crichton was always ranting about this in his novels, and it holds enough grain of truth to really pulverize our side.
This is the point where the argument then shifts to, "and even if we can do something, at what cost?" and talk of death camps ensues, etc.
This view is double-edged. On the one hand, most people are passive about it anyway, so they'll readily accept that it's out of our hands. Maybe the planet is warming by itself. Maybe we're just speeding up a natural occurrence. On the other hand, the WSJ and Forbes used to be fairly open about climate change; these guys aren't fools, they don't ingest the same propaganda as the proles. But lately they've gotten more conspiratorial. In the greatest swindle since Carmen Sandiego's theft of the moon, the liberals have weaved this gigantic hoax to convince people that they're sun gods and can control the weather, hot or cold. That's the current thinking.
I'm a skeptical squirrel
Let's call it what it is: Industrial heating.
Indiana Solo
because they can't rfute that by joking about how cold it is in the winter.
I have to wonder, would global cooling be as much a problem as global warming is?
Yup. Snowball Earth is no more of a picnic than the Greenhouse Effect is. <_<
See, if it's not carbon dioxide (and the rest, including good old methane), it's oxygen causing problems. 
edited 7th Jan '14 9:50:08 AM by Euodiachloris
Lost in Space
I'm going to change the thread title to be more accurate.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Thank you!
edited 8th Jan '14 5:09:05 AM by Xopher001
I think treating environmental damage as something that can be solved just by "green consumerism" hurts the situation.
Not to say lifestyle changes aren't necessary, but sustainability requires big changes in how we make and distribute products and deal with waste.
Lost in Space
It's a start, though. It helps teach corporations that they can successfully market environmentally friendly products and packaging.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Karkadinn
Even if it ends up being expressed in a consumerist fashion, I can't help but feel that placing value on the environment is an inherently anti-consumerist idea that helps to bend the narrative back in the right direction. What the world is struggling with right now is keeping the idea of 'greed is good' in check. Being willing to pay a little more for a product that's healthier for the environment, or taking time out of your day to recycle, etc, are just baby steps, but they're definitely working away from that quintessentially destructive form of capitalism wherein every man is for himself. Modifying your shopping habits to be more environmentally friendly is like recycling, a minor inconvenience primarily important for getting people into the right mindset of thinking of others instead of thinking of yourself.
Once the narrative is actually on your side, then it becomes a lot easier to pressure businesses and governments to make the kinds of really sweeping changes that are necessary in the long term.
edited 8th Jan '14 10:28:52 AM by Karkadinn
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.
Lost in Space
Fundamentally, you can't just overhaul entire economic mechanisms for environmental friendliness without causing a massive disruption and consumer backlash. You have to train consumers to accept green solutions at the same time as you train businesses to produce them. It's a feedback system.
The slow but inexorable movement from incandescent light bulbs to CFL and LED bulbs is an example of this. Introduce the new product, tout its advantages, while gradually restricting availability of the old product and using sales of the new one to drive improvements in the price and technology.
Frankly, though, the big changes need to come at the production end; consumers only have so much flexibility to choose alternatives, especially when those alternatives are often much more expensive and/or difficult to obtain. There's a substantial up-front cost to many green solutions that makes the sticker price out of reach or at least so much of a shock that it overrides any desire to do good.
For example, how many people can afford the up-front cost of getting their homes converted to solar power? How many even live in a place where it's practical? If my home is cloud-covered or tree-shaded 90% of the year, those panels are just pretty decorations. If I have to spend thousands every year to repair them because of the guaranteed hailstorms, their return on investment is dubious.
edited 8th Jan '14 11:38:38 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
During his weekly questions in the Commons, the prime minister said he suspected global warming could be responsible for an increase in extreme weather events, including recent storms that have left seven dead and hundreds of homes inundated.
Warning of more stormy weather to come he urged people to remain on alert in regions due for more heavy rain this Wednesday and Thursday.
Experts, including Sir David King, the government's climate change representative, have warned that spending on flood defences needs to double by 2020 as global warming could be increasing the risk of extreme weather.
To a backdrop of groans from Conservative M Ps, Cameron told the Commons he did believe Britain was getting "more abnormal weather events", which could be linked to climate change.
A number of Tories are sceptical about the science of climate change or the effectiveness of measures to tackle it. They include the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, who has suggested that global warming could be beneficial to the UK.
The prime minister said: "Colleagues across the house can argue about whether that is linked to climate change or not. I very much suspect that it is. The point is that whatever one's view it makes sense to invest in flood defences … it makes sense to get information out better, and we should do all of those things."
Cameron was pressed on the subject by Ed Miliband. The Labour leader demanded a full report on flooding, climate change and the UK's weather defences.
Miliband said: "Given the scale of risk exposed by these floods and the expected impact of climate change, can you commit to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs providing a report to this house by the end of this month giving a full assessment of the future capability of our flood defences and flood response agencies, and whether the investment plans in place are equal to the need for events of this kind?"
Cameron said he was happy for Paterson to provide a report on all those issues. "Whenever there is flooding it then makes sense to look again at the proposals that are in the programme for flood defence work to see what more can be done."
Labour also questioned the government's claim that a record amount would be spent on flood defences in the period between 2011 and 2015. Official figures show government spending on flood defences has fallen during this period.
However, Cameron, while claiming that more money than ever will be spent on the defences, has been including the cash likely to come from the private sector.
"As well as the government money we are keen to lever in more private-sector and local authority money, which is now possible under the arrangements, but I am happy to commit for the environment secretary to come back and report to the house about the level of expenditure in the years going ahead," he said.
Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change, is meanwhile preparing to meet the directors of power companies, following criticism about their slow response to electricity blackouts caused by storms.
Cameron told the Commons that the network companies could have been better prepared.
"On the positive side the Environment Agency warning service worked better than it has in the past. The flood defences did protect up to a million homes over the December and Christmas period," Cameron said.
"But there are some negatives there and we need to learn lessons. Particularly, some of the energy companies did not have enough people over the holiday period for emergency response. I saw that for myself in Kent. So we need to learn those lessons."
Lost in Space
The thing is that the people who actually run stuff are unavoidably put into the position of not being able to ignore climate change, because they're the ones who have to preside over fixing and/or preventing the damage.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Wandering Jew
This man is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
That reminds me of something
.