How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Sounder]

Knowledge is useful when it provides the bits that can be added up to produce greater understanding of reality. Still, the bits chosen as most relevant will become the parameters of understanding.

I happen to choose bits that others see as less important. For instance, Donald Trumps uncle was the executor for Tesla's papers.

When that is added that to other bits including my brother seeing a black triangle (early 90's) up close that he thought of as being our tech rather than being otherworldly, has led me to several conclusions, that are not at all a part of common dialogue or consideration.

If our govt., or really the deep state element within the govt., already has access to advanced tech, then this final frenzy to make 'oil' the center of everything is more (very profitable) kabuki theater.

I was advised by a most wise poster here at RI to not let yourself get caught fighting the moon. I am not intelligent enough to take the advice I guess. Maybe I like being called a moron.

At any rate I do not engage on the subject much IRL but a work mate talking at the company party put on the biggest puppy dog eyes while lamenting the demise of the polar bears. So I informed him that polar populations are growing and that a polar bear expert was just fired from Alaska university for saying so. It was a party so I ended the engagement, and now dear readers you get the brunt of my reaction.

The irony is I do not like oil reliance and I am not a 'climate denier', but I do think peoples lasers are painting the wrong object and climate alarmism serves to obscure and distract from other considerations.

If knowledge is restricting rather than expanding our range of considerations its usefulness must be questioned.

Happy New year to all.

[brainpanhandler]

How about instead of dreaming about post-scarcity and being pathologically dissatisfied, we remind ourselves how goddamned lucky spoiled we are, in terms of standard of living. Even poor Americans can live better than ancient royalty. That's part of what makes me suspect a climate change hoax, the chance that things might get good enough materially, too good, for even the poorest, to sustain the push for socialism, so the left might need an ultimate trump card.

That is some batshit crazy bullshit.

[brainpanhandler]

If knowledge is restricting rather than expanding our range of considerations its usefulness must be questioned.

Triage

[FourthBase]

How about instead of dreaming about post-scarcity and being pathologically dissatisfied, we remind ourselves how goddamned lucky spoiled we are, in terms of standard of living. Even poor Americans can live better than ancient royalty. That's part of what makes me suspect a climate change hoax, the chance that things might get good enough materially, too good, for even the poorest, to sustain the push for socialism, so the left might need an ultimate trump card.

That is some batshit crazy bullshit.

Gee, thanks, wanna specify which part?

Shall we make a side-by-side list and compare the standard of living for royalty in 5000 or 500 BC to the standard of living for contemporary Americans on welfare in public housing?

You think the argument for socialism is going to work as well on people whose basic needs are being met, just because the 1% is magnitudes better off? You expect the lumpenproles in the most dire straits to be enough of a support base? You gonna bank on continually redefining what a need is, upward and upward?

There's a reason the project of socialism didn't appeal to as many people once the socialists instigated a certain amount of labor reform. The reform worked too well. Things became too tolerable. For all the complaining about the 2008 crash, for all the millennials who face a grim outlook in terms of a steady career and middle class stability, for all the decades of leftist cultural hegemony and indoctrination...people would still be way too fucking content to revolt. If it weren't for the climate apocalypse. That's been pretty successful getting the gamers and navel-gazers off their asses, and the energy can even linger into their 30's and 40's when most youth grow to understand that the world is way more complicated than an idealistic caricature.

Face it, climate change is the best thing to ever happen to socialists. Couldn't possibly ask for a better tool, a better framework. Even if it's happening, you know damn well that the left would be extremely tempted to banish all doubts about the cause and exaggerate the danger, just to hasten the revolution. Try to deny that. I dare you.

[coffin_dodger]

Anyone that seriously considers global climate change a hoax is pretty much a fool, a moron, and a willing tool of the corporations[, military, and obscenely wealthy that just don't give a fuck about the planet nor humanity.

There is no longer any material benefit to be gained by engaging in day-to-day exchange with this mind-set. The self-aggrandisement and superiority-complex (compounded by the societal soup which they have absorbed, unchecked, for their lifetime) is such, that anyone that disagrees with them is genuinely considered to be subhuman and of severely limited intelligence - compared to their own - and that the opposing view is not valid, in any way. It sounds totally ridiculous to them.

This is a genuine and widespread phenomenon that will eventually have to be addressed, in the kindest and most tolerant way, absent an awakening, which is always a possibility.

The greatest lies are based on a truth; corrupted and warped to extremity.
They are the best lies for maximum and effective saturation.

[DrEvil]

p.s. Jakarta is underwater because it's sinking. It'd also be flooded without climate change. Any other cities that'd make a better example?

Miami.

PS! The Culture isn't technically transhumanist, as there are no humans in it. Their contact/meddling division keeps Earth isolated as a control group.

[DrEvil]

About half of them are arson?

What in the hell...

HALF?

Okay, I'll bet one million partyhat emoticons that at least one of those arsonists is a desperate climate activist.

× 1,000,000

Half! And that probably goes for the fires in California, too? And in Hawaii, half? How about the Amazon? Must be significantly less than half there, right? But then again...who's investigating those?

Even if that number is right it isn't really relevant. Arsonists have always been around, but still the fires are so much worse now, so there must be something else going on.


https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01 ... e-weather/

What’s causing Australia’s devastating fire weather?

From climate trends to Indian Ocean temperature patterns.
Scott K. Johnson - 1/4/2020, 6:00 PM

An absolutely astonishing set of bushfires is burning around Australia currently, producing surreal images like those of evacuees fleeing to beaches—or boats—for safety. The situation has been particularly dangerous in Victoria and New South Wales, where fires have surrounded Sydney, choking the air with smoke. So much smoke, in fact, that even New Zealand has been significantly impacted by it over 2,000 kilometers away.

So far, almost 15 million acres of land have burned. For comparison, California's nightmare 2018 fire season burned around 2 million acres.

Unfortunately, the weather has yet to turn helpful, although there are some encouraging signs for the near future. Saturday, specifically, saw worsening conditions, and Victoria activated emergency powers for the first time amidst ongoing evacuations.


Most recent map of active fires in Australia.

So what has been driving these fires to such extremes? Obviously, it's the trio of hot, dry, and windy, but these conditions are occurring due to a combination of long-term trends and short-term weather patterns.

First the long-term context. Last year was both the hottest and driest on record for Australia, extending a drought. Like the rest of the world, Australia's temperatures are climbing to ever-higher records as the climate warms, which boosts evaporation and strengthens droughts in situations like this. Rainfall trends are less clear, but declines have been partly attributed to climate change for at least some regions.

On December 18, Australia saw the nation's hottest day on record, hitting an average of nearly 42°C (over 107°F). That eclipsed the previous record, set just one day earlier.

Besides the long-term warming trend, a couple of factors have been responsible. Although Australia's climate is closely linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the Pacific Ocean, that particular seesaw has been in a neutral state. There is another, similar oscillation in the Indian Ocean, however, called the Indian Ocean Dipole, which has been in a strongly positive phase recently. That means that waters in the western Indian Ocean have been warmer than average, with cooler temperatures to the east. This has the effect of pushing rainy weather away from Australia.


Indian Ocean surface temperatures above and below average in November 2019.

And in the last few months, an unusual pattern in the Antarctic stratosphere has weakened the pole-circling winds. That has also helped produce clear skies in Australia as well as strong westerly winds blowing dry air seaward over Victoria and New South Wales—stoking the fires.

On Saturday, a cold front passed through southeastern Australia and reached the Sydney area in the evening. That may sound like a welcome reprieve, but it came with strong winds at the end of a very hot day—temperatures outside Sydney went as high as 48.9°C (120°F). The winds also shifted from westerly to southerly, pushing the fires in a different direction.

The good news is that the Indian Ocean Dipole has relaxed into a neutral state in the past week, which is clearing the way for Australia's monsoon season to begin in the northern part of the country. Some areas in the south are set to see a little bit of rain soon, as well. That may help, but there's no end to the fire conditions in the forecast yet.

[FourthBase]

Are there maps like this for bushfire season from last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and two decades ago, and two decades before that, etc.?

The majority of people who see that map are going to think the normal thing for a map this time of year would be zero fire icons. They'll compare a fire-free map in their imagination with that thing lit up with red, and they might think it's a sign of the apocalypse. I'm thinking specifically of ignorant American teenagers who think we have 18 months left to live.

Not that I'm not alarmed. It's pretty fucking alarming.

Arson isn't irrelevant, though. Again, all it would take is one righteous false-flagger with a car to set an even more alarming number of extra fires.

Also, I want to know how long arson has been responsible for a huge chunk (even if it's only, say, a third) of "natural" wildfires. Always, for millennia? The last couple of centuries? The last 40 years?

[PufPuf93]

Anyone that seriously considers global climate change a hoax is pretty much a fool, a moron, and a willing tool of the corporations[, military, and obscenely wealthy that just don't give a fuck about the planet nor humanity.

There is no longer any material benefit to be gained by engaging in day-to-day exchange with this mind-set. The self-aggrandisement and superiority-complex (compounded by the societal soup which they have absorbed, unchecked, for their lifetime) is such, that anyone that disagrees with them is genuinely considered to be subhuman and of severely limited intelligence - compared to their own - and that the opposing view is not valid, in any way. It sounds totally ridiculous to them.

This is a genuine and widespread phenomenon that will eventually have to be addressed, in the kindest and most tolerant way, absent an awakening, which is always a possibility.

The greatest lies are based on a truth; corrupted and warped to extremity.
They are the best lies for maximum and effective saturation.

What is bolded is not true in my case, I am a humbled, old, and dying man. But I will make this simple.

Over millions of years, deposits of so called fossil fuels developed in the planet's geology (coal, oil, natural gas) as well as deposits of frozen methane from photosynthesis. For about the last 250 years, these deposits have been exploited by human technology to fuel a great human bloom where we dominate the Earth releasing CO2 and other green house gases into the atmosphere from geological storage. CO2 and other green house gases insulate the Earth holding in heat and the planet temperature gradually warms. Atmospheric CO2 is about 60% higher than 250 years ago and on a gradual increase that is accelerating as the polar regions melt and release methane, a green house gas on steroids until it is just CO2 again. There have been periods in the Earth's history where atmospheric CO2 was higher but that Planet Earth was not the planet favorable to human life as we know it. In geologic time the rise of atmospheric CO2 levels has been fast and is probably at the point where global warming is starting to cascade and past any tipping point so it is time to think of human adjustment. We probably don't have the technology to stop nor repair the impact. Many of the suggested technologies are not enough, will prove ineffective, or are outright scams. To expect human cooperation is unrealistic, we are far from that type of beast as yet.

So one might say we will just shift to lands higher in elevation and latitude. The problem is that there is a mass extinction event also in progress associated with the global climate change and other ways the human bloom feeds off natural resources. There have been other mass extinction events in geologic history that has served as pinch points in a simplified genetic base and a reset as such. The extinctions are not necessarily that visually evident as we focus what we see not the vast microscopic web of life.

One thing that is apparent to me is that there will a reduction in human population, just how is uncertain be in pandemic or war or ? but likely a combination of many events. Seems our path should be how to experience this as a species with the minimum amount of trauma. The Earth could probably be a human paradise even with global warming with a significant reduction in population and our current technology. Deliberate overt action may be effective but it is also horrifying and given human nature unfair.

Denying anthropomorphic climate change (and associated extinction event which IMO is more serious) gets in the way of moving forward. We might as well accept anthropomorphic climate change as it is certainly more real than Jesus and other magical thinking. I don't know the answers and am kind of a pessimist regards humanity.

[PufPuf93]

Are there maps like this for bushfire season from last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and two decades ago, and two decades before that, etc.? One would assume so there are for the USA (just don't ask me to find them at the moment).

The majority of people who see that map are going to think the normal thing for a map this time of year would be zero fire icons. They'll compare a fire-free map in their imagination with that thing lit up with red, and they might think it's a sign of the apocalypse. I'm thinking specifically of ignorant American teenagers who think we have 18 months left to live. Many folks are not that ignorant American teens plus some American or any teens are perceptive about things. Someone describes many of your (FB's) opinions as Manichean, black or white, and they are. I think very few people would think that it is a question of all those fires or none, particularly as in Oz and other areas subject to wildfire, the endemic vegetation ecology has fire as part of the renewal cycle.

Not that I'm not alarmed. It's pretty fucking alarming. I read the other day that about 15 million acres have burned this year so far in Australia. As a comparison scale, the entire State of California from Oregon to Mexico is about 100 million acres. In 2018, 1.895 million acres burned in wildfire, by far the highest recorded total in human history. In 2019, 0.26 million acres burned, still high for most years.

Arson isn't irrelevant, though. Again, all it would take is one righteous false-flagger with a car to set an even more alarming number of extra fires. When fires get very large and extreme, they create their own weather and spread embers far and wide, hastening the fire's march across the landscape. I have thought myself that an determined and smart arsonist could cause a major fire season. The Japanese used balloons and a few suicide bombers in a failed attempt to burn the forests of the PNW and California.

Also, I want to know how long arson has been responsible for a huge chunk (even if it's only, say, a third) of "natural" wildfires. Always, for millennia? The last couple of centuries? The last 40 years? Many indigenous peoples (USA Native Americans) regularly lit fires to improve the availability of food and game and create a more open nature of vegetation. Now there are far more people and their improvements that encroach within the zones where fire is endemic

[FourthBase]

I think you're underestimating how ignorant most people are. It's not me being black-and-white, though, it's a refusal to get lost in the excessively grey weeds. I'm open to dialing back and refining judgments if nuance is useful. Not just for nuance's sake, though. Nuance isn't always useful.

[coffin_dodger]

PufPuf93 stated:

Anyone that seriously considers global climate change a hoax is pretty much a fool, a moron, and a willing tool of the corporations[, military, and obscenely wealthy that just don't give a fuck about the planet nor humanity.

I said:

The self-aggrandisement and superiority-complex (compounded by the societal soup which they have absorbed, unchecked, for their lifetime) is such, that anyone that disagrees with them is genuinely considered to be subhuman and of severely limited intelligence - compared to their own - and that the opposing view is not valid, in any way. It sounds totally ridiculous to them.

PufPuf93 stated:

What is bolded is not true in my case, I am a humbled, old, and dying man

You make an indelible personal statement, publish it for all to see, then in the next breath, deny that it's content in any way reflects who you are - and throw in a sympathy justifier at the end.

How can this be reasoned with?

The conceit contained within that thought process is staggering.

But, of course:
I can say one thing, then deny it - and the morons won't notice.

[PufPuf93]

PufPuf93 stated:

Anyone that seriously considers global climate change a hoax is pretty much a fool, a moron, and a willing tool of the corporations[, military, and obscenely wealthy that just don't give a fuck about the planet nor humanity.

I said:

The self-aggrandisement and superiority-complex (compounded by the societal soup which they have absorbed, unchecked, for their lifetime) is such, that anyone that disagrees with them is genuinely considered to be subhuman and of severely limited intelligence - compared to their own - and that the opposing view is not valid, in any way. It sounds totally ridiculous to them.

PufPuf93 stated:

What is bolded is not true in my case, I am a humbled, old, and dying man

You make an indelible personal statement, publish it for all to see, then in the next breath, deny that it's content in any way reflects who you are - and throw in a sympathy justifier at the end.

How can this be reasoned with?

The conceit contained within that thought process is staggering.

But, of course:
I can say one thing, then deny it - and the morons won't notice.

Perhaps speak of context rather than content?

I have been hiding out in the mountains of my birth for the past 15 plus years deliberately being a dropout in a beautiful landscape of National Forest, few people but Native Americans are the dominant percentage of extremely sparse population plus back to the landers (many pot growers as this is Humboldt), a few European gold mining family "pioneer" remnants (me), some remnant logging industry left behinds, and some retirees.

Once I had the intellect and drive to be effectively narcistic and was, needed the boost to do my jobs. My brain comes and goes now, severe at times; forget about drive and endurance.

I am looking at the acceptance of global anthropomorphic climate change as a Pascal's wager; the thought that one should accept Christ because there is nothing to lose and eternal life in heaven to accept. So maybe it boils down to one should accept anthropomorphic climate change as one accepts Jesus. But personally it is not in me to accept Jesus so maybe I should not be so judgmental on those that aren't inclined to accept anthropomorphic climate change.

I'll apologize for the insult but not the thought, perhaps again having it both ways.

What is on my mind most today and recent days is that I have been dealing with a serious cancer for last two plus years. In about an hour I am driving 5 hours to a friends and we will drive two more hours to Sacramento where I will enter surgery tomorrow AM at 9 AM, the surgery will be 4 to 8 hours and I will go back to my friends home for some recuperation before heading home. There can be a very good outcome for my circumstance or maybe not. The illness has forced me out of mountain fortress of mostly solitude. I once flew 40,000 miles per year for work as a management consultant. This will be my longest trip from home since 2003. Looks like I will spend part of today driving in fresh snow. Great. I am fond of just about all the folks at RI and the one's that bother me is over style rather than content.

[FourthBase]

Good luck, Puf.

[PufPuf93]

Good luck, Puf.

Thank you FourthBase. Just need to make some motel reservations for tonight in Sacramento, hit the shower, load the Jeep and on the road expecting snow on two mountain passes.. Whew.