60 Leading Scientists: Kyoto is Pointless, human impact impossible to distinguish

[Agathon]

Originally posted by TCO

He's published in GRL and presented to NAS. He can bring it on the stats stuff. Runs R like a pro. Has spent years working on this stuff. Was the top math student in Canada as an u/g.

Shhh... everyone on Apolyton is supposed to know that the University of Toronto is no good at anything...

[TCO]

Originally posted by Agathon


Shhh... everyone on Apolyton is supposed to know that the University of Toronto is no good at anything...

His family is there. I told him that he should move to the US, but he has family there. Anyway...we got the disloyal half-breed. He wanted to go to the big leagues. US unis.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by TCO


His family is there. I told him that he should move to the US, but he has family there. Anyway...we got the disloyal half-breed. He wanted to go to the big leagues. US unis.

He should have gone to Oxford.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Agathon


He should have gone to Oxford.

Too far from sugah momah. And do they do anything in 'zoics? And did he get in?

[TCO]

Wait, I'm getting confused. Are we talking about Kitty or about Steve McIntyre?

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by Agathon
No there's not.

There's a minority of scientists, who, motivated by various reasons, choose to deny what's actually happening.

How did you count them?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Temperatures are still within historical parameters yes, but the rise, the acceleration in temperature change if you like, itself is like nothing in the geological or environmental record.



A lot of land that needs more heat? Are you talking about that land becoming more economically viable for humans, because that's a shockingly short-sighted thing to suggest.



By most accounts, Northern Europe will become tundra, most of the USA will be burned to a crisp and a great deal of pressure will be put on the world's population through problems with food supply, and most of all water supply. I can't see how civilisation in its current form, or at least the concept of the nation state, could possibly survive such a change.

You're trying to explain why climate change will benefit mankind but the examples you've given are short sighted and ill-thought out. The fact is that you and I do not know what climate change will bring. What we do know is that we, today, are already in a precarious position. There are 6 and a half billion people on this planet, we're ridiculously overpopulated and there aren't enough resources to cope. If you tip that balance it is almost guaranteed that there will be immense suffering, and if, in centuries to come, the changes benefit mankind, it wont be in ways that you predict, or could account for in any argument proposing climate change, since your way of thinking will have died out along with millions.

Don't bother arguing with Berz, him and I have had this discussion several times and he just doesn't get it.

[Odin]

Anyway, It looks and feels like mid-May not mid-April around here. The snow melted so fast the Red River got closr to '97 levels (thank God we got those dikes).

[Drake Tungsten]

It looks and feels like mid-March, not mid-April here. Still have to wear a winter coat to work and the cherries bloomed weeks over two weeks later than usual...

Anecdotes

[Berzerker]

doesn't get what? Seems so logical, a world with no fresh water locked up in ice sheets is better than a world with lots of ice. Especially a world where most of the land stretches across higher latitudes.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
doesn't get what? Seems so logical, a world with no fresh water locked up in ice sheets is better than a world with lots of ice. Especially a world where most of the land stretches across higher latitudes.

I can't believe you said that. Do you live on a boat?

[TCO]

Originally posted by Agathon


I can't believe you said that. Do you live on a boat?

Look, meester logical-guy. Try analyzing the issue. I'll show you a formula, but don't get wierded out. The important part is the issue analysis (p.s. a Greek would side with me, not with you).

decrease in useful land = current useful land - useful world land(t)= flooded land(t) - warmed, formerly uninhabitably cold land(t).

You are blathering about the first factor. Berz is blathering about the second. Really what you ought to do is look at the value of each and then make a comparison. Also, the two functions may not be linear with temp. So there may be a maximum (most useful land). Take the derivative and set it equal to zero!


But seriously, you're both talking past each other like nitwits by concentrating on one half of the equation, when what matters is the difference. Oh...and the comments about extreme flooding or about ice ages may be tendentious in that they implicitly fail to account for the nonlinearity issue discussed above.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by TCO

So there may be a maximum (most useful land). Take the derivative and set it equal to zero!

Considering who you are addressing this to you may also want to specify that it would be wise to make sure it is a maximum and not a minimum.

[Elok]

Okay, I can see how you might wind up with a greater/lesser amount of useful land thanks to global warming, but, uh....YOU'D HAVE TO DRASTICALLY RELOCATE THE WHOLE WORLD'S POPULATION TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT!!! WTF?

I mean, if you're going to think on that scale, it's easy to achieve peace in the Middle East--just carpet the entire area with nukes. No humans will be fighting over that land for centuries, that's pretty much guaranteed. It might not actually be land anymore, if we were thorough enough about bombardment. Let's think workable solutions here, people.

[Drake Tungsten]

How hard is it to move people around? How many millions of people have emigrated to the Americas since their discovery?