What Happened To the Climate Refugees? 471
Attila Dimedici writes "In 2005 the UN said that by 2010 there would be 50 million climate refugees. They even provided a map of where they would come from. However since that original story was posted the UN has taken down that page. They apparently don't know about Google cache."
United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting. If the UN had released a report claiming 50 million global warming refugees by 2010, there would be dozens of news articles on it. The supposed incriminating evidence is a Google Cache page with this map [grida.no] that doesn't itself say anything about refugees, but does highlight areas most susceptible to sea level rise. The "50 million climate refugees by 2010 [googleusercontent.com]" statement is not referenced anywhere in any UN report, it's a six words on one defunct graphic that was part of a larger report on world agriculture [grida.no] by the UN University. This 50 million by 2010 figure comes from Dr. Bogardi at the UN University in Bonn [guardian.co.uk], NOT the United Nations.
The problem with this prediction being made by any scientist is that keeping track of how many refugees there are is difficult (current estimate by the UN is 1 million a year [unep.org], a figure that the Red Cross lends support to with the statement that environmental disasters are displacing more people than war now) and the causes are debatable. The epic flooding in Pakistan created 10 million refugees [reuters.com], Hurricane Katrina added a quarter of a million refugees [www.cbc.ca], and desertification in Africa is displacing millions. Can we blame these events on Global Warming? Hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world, but a warming world increases the chances of such disasters happening.
Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com]. People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia [wikipedia.org].
You can read all about the various estimates concerning environmental refugees on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. It took the author of this untruth less than an hour to post their nonsense and the deniers flooded the Internet with it quickly. It took me two hours to research and write this response, because I wanted to know what I was talking about, and I will only reach a very small audience in comparison. This is why I despair when considering how science could possibly stand a chance against the overwhelming confidence ignorance brings the unscientific masses.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com]."
What the quoted article actually says:
ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2009) — An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. In addition, this jump
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like you didn't read either.
"Furthermore, the acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet."
The article does state that NC's coast is creeping more quickly than at other points along the Atlantic coast.
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Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
"It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others."
Nothing illogical. 'Sea level' is an averaged value, which depends on currents and winds.
"And the primary sea level rise occurred well before the evil auto culture."
Coal was used in large quantities even before automobiles.
"But then I'm just an ignoramus according to the above post."
And here we both agree.
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Also not in the news is the fact that the sea level used to be a LOT higher than it is now and it used to be a LOT lower than it is now. Things change. That's life. None of it had anything to do with humans.
The planet has also been warmer and cooler in the past. When the planet was warmer there was more diversity of life, large swaths of land that are currently too cold for much bio-diversity were more useable by nature and man. When it got colder it was hell. Things change. Given my druthers I would take w
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Close. The right starting and ending letters...different middle, "pula".
po----tion
Cut po-pula-tion.
Nothing we do will matter if we don't stop incenting new babies and let the population naturally fall to 3 billion (even 2 billion- the planet would be a paradise with 2 billion).
If you don't take these measures now- you STILL have take them when we hit 9 billion (10 billion... 11 billion) and life will be a lot more miserable then with dead fisheries, high cellulose fruits and vegetables and no meat except for the wealthy.
We can fix most of these problems in one generation.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say you are an order of magnitude off of "paradise" - we need to get to around 250 million if we want "sustainable".
Even trying to cut the population in half (more than half, really) would require nearly preventing all births for 10-20 years. Sure, it is possible but it is entirely possible that you would wreck the motivation people have for having children completely. If you push too hard on this there is the possiblity that people will just give up.
This is a factor that some of the more radical environmentalists refuse to accept - that if you push hard enough the result will be that people will just give up entirely. All it takes is about 15 years of zero birthrate and you're not going to get it back, ever. Absolutely it is hard to disincent the drive to reproduce - but if you succeed the result could be catastrophic.
How hard would you have to push? Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative. Many people feel that it isn't fair to bring children into a world of declining expectations and looming destruction of the environment. Mostly this is among educated young people. In the US we are left with immigration as the only population growth factor there is and I suspect Western Europe is pretty much the same way. This portends some very drastic changes in the coming decades as the population shifts away from educated European-extracted peoples and towards Latin American folks that have been subsistance farming for generations and no goals higher than survival. In most inner cities today the idea of the straight-A student is a subject of ridicule, as is the idea of going to college - what, do you want to be seen as trying to prove yourself better than your peers?
The Ulitmate Resource (Score:3)
The Earth gets something like 10000X times more energy every day than we use that day in our civlization.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php [treehugger.com]
So what is the problem you are so worried about? There is room for quadrillions of people living in space habitats in the solar system, too. Why be such a doomster? Renewable energy is now close to the price of fossil fuels, but without the environmental costs (where fossil fuel
Re: (Score:3)
If it's warm AND MOIST, then the planet will indeed support more diversity. But that diversity takes time to evolve (not just centuries) and I don't think people would give it an opportunity.
For that matter, life over most of the globe was a lot more diverse before people invented archery and nets. This is true whether it was warm, cool, or cold. The only exception is the tropical rain forests, where the climate was so intense that most tools were quickly destroyed by it. Then diversity tended to hang o
Warm areas have no life at all (Score:3)
When the planet was warmer there was more diversity of life, large swaths of land that are currently too cold for much bio-diversity were more useable by nature and man. When it got colder it was hell. Things change. Given my druthers I would take warmer, please.
Are you aware that the warmest parts of the globe are deserts?
Ice ages might be bad for biodiversity in the Northern latitudes, but our main problem today is desertification and global warming only makes it worse.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop whining about me lighting your house on fire. Houses have burned before in this area and houses will burn again. None of it had anything to do with humans. Sure I poured gasoline on all the bushes around your house and threw a match into the mix... but it's not like "a burning bush" is a new phenomenon--we even have documentation of this in biblical times. Relax!
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Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
What you're saying is true in terms of the climate lag, but your understanding of what it means is miles off. The fact that warming cycles due to orbital changes are followed by changes in atmospheric CO2 does not invalidate or in any way call into question the fact that CO2 causes additional atmospheric warming, nor that anthropogenic emissions have caused substantial warming.
A good idea in the future would be to take anything you hear about climate change and search the Skeptical Science page for it. Read this for more information:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm [skepticalscience.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Well established.
Plausible, but please cite your sources (and make them worth reading - peer-reviewed journal articles or better).
I don't recall having heard this assertion before. Your evidence is?
[Hint : I am a geologist, and can understand complex arguments and data.)
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
The shape of the sea surface changes (Score:2)
It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others
Not illogical, only it takes some analysis to understand.
What happens is that the global warming is causing the ocean water to become less dense, both by dilution by melted ice and by thermal expansion from the increased temperature.
The surface of the ocean is approximately an ellipsoid whose exact shape depend on a number of factors. When the surface rises due to the increase in water volume this rise is slightly different from place to place. At the latitude of North Carolina this increase happens to be m
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
shhh being anti US is all the rage over here on /. you'll spoil our fun!
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe because its fallacious assertions are repeated on /., a U.S.-based website, possibly to be picked up by larger and larger U.S. "news" outlets.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
America has no science reporting. It has sciency reporting, in the Steven-Colbert "truthiness" sense. Now consider that the media is the main way that "climate change" gets communicated to the people of America. The media... and politicians. Is there any surprise that lots of people are insanely skeptical of it? I'd even say that with those inputs, calling it all a load of nonsense is a very rational response.
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Citing a report from the UN University, UNEP said that there were now more than 19 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern” – people who are likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. UNEP said that figure is expected to grow to about 50 million by the end of 2010.
That article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with the UN's science reporting. You can't have it both ways -- expect us to believe what the UN says about climate when we can't prove them wrong, and expect us to ignore their claims when they have been proven wrong. Making outrageous predictions like the above is political grandstanding at its worst, and has no pla
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps it escaped your attention, but the bit you're quoting says nothing about the amount of refugees, it is rather an assesment on the areas that are at risk of producing refugees for whatever reason, including rising sea levels
Which was exactly wat the OP was pointing out.
Another data point for the hypothesis that climate denialism correlates with stupidity, I guess.
Mart
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't say "at risk", it says "likely". And the reasons are for climate reasons, although not all due to rising sea levels.
This correlates with the story slashdot printed which is that 50M refugees were predicted due to climate reasons.
And the real numbers were much much lower.
The climate change issue has been so poorly represented on both sides. One side says nothing is happening at all. While the other makes overly dire predictions and draws unprovable conclusions (Katrina is due to global warming) in
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One side says nothing is happening at all.
You know, I've never actually heard anyone saying this. The contention of the skeptical side is that the current warming trend is not anthropogenic.
For myself, my major problem is that the catastrophic positive temperature feedback predicted by the people who believe the warming is anthropogenic makes no sense and has little evidence historically to back it up. The very long term temperature cycles show that what we should be actually worried about is the ice-age that follows quickly after most temperature
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This is like the livestock's long shadow mess they did a while back. They claimed that raising meat is responsible for more global warming than transportation (e.g., cars). This became widely quoted and used as an excuse by the vegan crowd for trying to force every to stop eating meat. The problem was the report was full of errors and in general a fraud. It didn't include the full costs of transportation yet it over included the costs for livestock resulting in totally distorted numbers. More importantly it
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Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Interesting)
To really understand this, you have to look at the claim. Let's look at what the UN actually said:
there are now about 19.2 million people officially recognized as "persons of concern"-that is, people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. This figure is predicted to grow to about 50 million by the end of the year 2010.
Note that the number is not environmental refugees, but actually persons of concern. There is a huge difference between the two, and the second is probably not inaccurate.
Now, on the website in question, UNEP said this
Fifty million climate refugees by 2010
This is obviously not what the original researchers were claiming. Who knows why UNEP put that on their website, but it is most likely an error of their PR agency, not of their science. In short, the scientists were probably right, but the propagandaists were wrong.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, the scientists were probably right, but the propagandaists were wrong.
And yet it's the propogandists that influence the minds of Hollywood celebrities and other high-profile people who then spout off on the subject and encourage people to vote one way or another on politicians that want to involve trillions of dollars on the subject, or use it as a vehicle by which to tax one group and give it to another group. That's the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
from Wikipedia:
"The United Nations University (UNU) is an academic arm of the United Nations"
You are either a terrible researcher or a liar.
Right, just like California State University is an academic arm of the California state government, which should be held accountable for everything they put out...
You are either an idiot, or... no, you're just an idiot.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can already call into question any aspect of anything that's studied at any research institution. There's no need to acquire special justification. Questioning past results is an important part of science. Otherwise we'd have the Sun revolving around the Earth and supposed cold fusion.
That said, one should really have a logical argument based on all the relevant available facts when calling such things into question. Otherwise it's all just a waste of time for everyone involved...particularly the scient
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that we are now starting to get a long trail of predictions from the global warming advocates that have failed to come true. Another favourite of mine is that hurricanes were going to be rampaging across the Atlantic due to the warming. Catrina being just the start. That is why Al Gores book is covered with photoshopped hurricanes including one turning in the wrong direction. Only problem is that hurricane activity has dramatically dropped since Catrina. Yet we are expected to spent trillions with a T of dollars based on these predictions from computer models that can't be verified in any way, haven't had their code released for review or had their algorithms reviewed. This "Just take my word for it" mentality is what we are supposed to bankrupt our countries on. Just look at the disaster wind power has become for the UK and others to see what the problems are.
Link [wattsupwiththat.com]
The head of the UK power grid is saying that homes are going to have to get used to not always having power at home.
Link [wattsupwiththat.com]
Then there is the actual life expectancy of windmills. Is this really what we should be spending money on?
Link [wattsupwiththat.com]
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The problem is that we are now starting to get a long trail of predictions from the global warming advocates that have failed to come true. Another favourite of mine is that hurricanes were going to be rampaging across the Atlantic due to the warming. Catrina being just the start.
Thing is, climate experts never said that - only Al Gore did. As soon as his book came out I heard quite a few climatologists expressing concern over that statement, since there weren't any models that predicted hurricanes would increase in number, and the idea that they'd increase in magnitude was not widely accepted. But Al Gore is, first and foremost, a politician - and his thought process is fundamentally different than that of a scientist. It's like the Republican guy who recently lambasted Planned Par
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
I am a student living in Bonn. I had never heard of the "UN university" so I looked it up. Bonn is a tiny university town and
already has one big university, the aptly-named University of Bonn, so I was suprised to discover that
it had another university hiding somewhere. As it turn out the "UN university" consists of four levels of a UN office building in the middle of the UN compound. From the website "The offices of UNU-EHS are located on the 22nd and 26th-28th floor of the Langer Eugen building on the UN Campus." It is fully funded by the UN and has nothing to do with Germany or Bonn. You made it sound like its some kind of private institute using the UN name, but its not. To call it a part of the UN is completely accurate.
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Informative)
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone provide some links regarding those organizations? ... that is a complete nonsense claim. (Considering that we don't even know by what ice ages are caused ...)
I learned 1975 that we likely run into a global warming, and I never heard about anyone proclaiming an approaching ice age. After all the next ice age is due in 35k years and not in the next 100
angel'o'sphere
Re: (Score:3)
For certain spacings, yes.
In this case, putting a solar panel on every plot of 299ksq (so a 15 k square or hex grid) should do it.
To be fair-- you are including mountains (darn high installation expenses!), swamps, etc.
I'm sure there will be a subset. And there are multiple kinds of solar power.
And if the power isn't 100% sufficient, you apparently need to keep the gas/oil turbines spinning at a low rate so they can ramp up when the wind dies or the clouds block a section.
Still, most houses could be powere
Re:United Nations University, Not the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
If yo would read what he posted and compare it what you post, you would see: you are wrong.
Average all over the world as you calculate, might be 16.5cm but at that particular place it is 1.5m
Do you get it? At that particular place that was very clearly written in the orignal post.
angel'o'sphere
Should we be happy that it didn't happen? (Score:3)
Shouldn't we be happy that it didn't happen.. instead of gloating about it?
no. we gloat and marginalize them. (Score:2, Insightful)
these people are dangerous. we must be pointing this out at every opportunity and never forget that this whole Global Warming er i mean Climate Change is nothing more then a political movement. it seeks to control, regulate and enslave everyone... all under the premise that the world needs saving and their way is the only true way. convert or die.
what should be scaring the hell out of everyone is the very 1984, Winston Smith way they went about trying to edit their propaganda. what happens when they learn
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In The Middle Ages, We Called These Guys "Church" (Score:3, Insightful)
The world was always coming to an end, the Apocalypse was just around the corner, you were a sinner, you needed to change your ways, but buy some indulgences and we'll let you off the hook. Hurry, sign here, The End is Near.
Nowadays, The Roman Catholic Church is out of the Apocalypse & Indulgences business, so the Church of Global Warming has risen to fill the void. Same threats and labels (replace "heretic" with "denier"), same hucksterism (replace "indulgences" with "carbon credits"), same promotion
Interglacial Period (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, we're in an Ice Age [wikipedia.org], and in an interglacial period where we'd expect ice sheets to be retreating and temperatures warming, but give me money and power and I'll put a stop to it!
Someone needs to read his links (Score:3)
If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph [wikipedia.org] that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.
If we are in an interglacial period, climate should be cooling, not warming.
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Look at the right side of the graph. That's us, time 0, still in the upward swing. For whatever reason, this interglacial period looks most like one that's 61,000 years long, not the usual 12,000 year one.
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Er... RIGHT side of the graph?
Take another look. Particularly at the x axis.
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Both your and GP's comment have the serious problem that you don't quantify the rate of temperature change in the glacial cycle. Any temperature change can look "very quick" if you scale the time axis appropriately.
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If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.
The graph shows temperature rise takes between thousands and tens of thousands of years, and you have disingenuously declared that to be "very quickly"
Dishonest much?
Re:Someone needs to read his links (Score:4, Insightful)
If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph [wikipedia.org] that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.
If we are in an interglacial period, climate should be cooling, not warming.
I see about one degree per 10000 years on the upswing. Sustained over a century or more, one degree C per 25 years means it's 25/10025 = 0.25% caused by interglacial warming and 99.75% something else. Or, rounded to the nearest integer, 0% and 100% respectively. Clearly, finding out what this 'something else' is rather than pretend it doesn't exist would seem to be prudent.
Refugees don't come labeled (Score:2)
There are many refugees in the world. Some of them have moved because of economic conditions (which may be caused by climate change) or civil wars (which may be also influenced by weather - remember that one of the causes of the French revolution was the bad weather caused by an Icelandic volcano eruption (the year without a summer.
And nobody knows how many illegals there are in the USA...
Scientific American throws in the towel (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientific American (irony not intended)
Okay, We Give Up
We feel so ashamed
By The Editors | Friday, April 1, 2005 | 55
There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science either-so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.
Scientific American is a trademark of Scientific American, Inc., used with permission
© 2011 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Re:Scientific American throws in the towel (Score:5, Insightful)
By contrast, a subset of modern evolutionary theory states that "Dinosaurs became extinct roughly 65 million years before the first humans." This is falsifiable. Lets say an archeological team discovered a fossilized brontosaurus near a pyramid site in Egypt. Let's also say the brontosaurus had a block shaped like it was used in constructing the pyramids strapped to its head. Let's further say that the brontosaurus was found in the same soil layer that you'd expect other ancient Egyptian artifacts to be found in. And then lets say they found another brontosaurus near the Mayan pyramids. And one near the Great Wall of China. Eventually, science would come to the conclusion that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. (The fact that no one has been able to do this points to the strength of the original theory.)
The statements "Man is causing Global Warming" and "Man is not causing Global Warming," by contrast, are both falsifiable. A lot of the "Man is causing Global Warming" science is hard to falsify, but that's because the people doing that research are hiding their original numbers and only using massaged data to "hide the decline" in the amount of Global Warming taking place. For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." 2010 has come and gone, and there aren't 50 million climate refugees. Therefore, his falsifiable statement has been proven false.
The correct scientific thing to do is to discard his prediction and move on. Moving on means making changes to similar predictions that are based on the same data, or directly on his prediction. It means giving up whatever money was set aside to deal with the climate refugees. It means maybe next time, listening to the people who say that there won't be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years.
It doesn't mean mocking the people who disagreed with the original prediction for something that has nothing to do with what they said or did. A challenge to a theory isn't "an attack on science," but refusing to let go of an idea that has clearly been proven false is.
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Technically, that would be a hypothesis, not a theory.
Also, the quote from the GP: 'For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." ' is in line with TFA, but does not jibe with the report that TFA purports to refute.
April 1st (Score:2)
looks like that was an april fools joke
Re: (Score:3)
that doesn't make the article any less insightful. The first 4 paragraphs are not practical joke funny, they're irony and sarcasm. The last paragraph is the only traditional 'joke' part of the story, but the rest of it is definitely insightful, as the article itself clearly recognizes. There are lots of comedy shows that use comedy to be insightful about the political process after all.
Ironically the anti-ICBM stance from 6 years ago might have been wrong. Though obviously the success and failure of ant
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Woosh!
The clue is in the title... (Score:3)
The clue is in the title: "Scientific American"... it is a journal that believes the scientific method is the best method to use when trying to interpret information.
I guess if you prefer another methodology for resolving diverging points of view, interpreting data or explaining unknown phenomena you need to choose another journal? Something with a title like "Politics weekly" "Sociological review" "Religious opinions" or so forth?
Whether or not the scientific method is the best method to resolve al
Scary (Score:2)
Not scary that the predictions are wrong, but that populations in those locations are increasing. We'd better hope these climate change predictions continue being very, very wrong.
Interesting map. (Score:2)
Anyone know if the regions in China on the map that show droughts are the same places experiencing droughts now?
Didn't know about the UN prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)
... but here in Vietnam we DO hear quite a bit about the rapid encroachment (and salinization) by the ocean into the Mekong delta. It is clear that with the ocean coming in (I seem to remember an encroachment figure of 1.4km/yr.) and that hundreds of thousands have already been displaced because they can no longer farm there. (This has driven the growth of the big cities which is where I live). The government is constantly projecting that millions more will move in the next few decades (This is from their Thanh Nhien News which is a pretty widely read paper, there's an English website you can visit).
Of course matters will soon be made even worse as upstream countries start damming the Mekong. (They may be doing so because the freshwater source in the Himalayas is losing its snowpack cover. This may also be due to climate change.)
Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.
Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)
Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.
It is. National Geographic has a fascinating article [nationalgeographic.com] on how Bangladesh deals with things like rising oceans and other types of floods. Note that they also have one of the highest population densities in the world, which makes it even harder to deal with.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
... but here in Vietnam we DO hear quite a bit about the rapid encroachment (and salinization) by the ocean into the Mekong delta. It is clear that with the ocean coming in (I seem to remember an encroachment figure of 1.4km/yr.) and that hundreds of thousands have already been displaced because they can no longer farm there. (This has driven the growth of the big cities which is where I live). The government is constantly projecting that millions more will move in the next few decades (This is from their Thanh Nhien News which is a pretty widely read paper, there's an English website you can visit).
Of course matters will soon be made even worse as upstream countries start damming the Mekong. (They may be doing so because the freshwater source in the Himalayas is losing its snowpack cover. This may also be due to climate change.)
Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.
surely you can come up with some legitimate report of these 1.4km/year losses of property??? no???
you know I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the sky is actually orange
Oh goody. (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost as good as the 'FBI confirms aliens' post (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot now reposts Daily Caller propaganda? It's almost the quality of the 'FBI confirms aliens' post recently. I like this comment in the Daily Caller article; I'm glad /. helps drive their page views, and can follow instructions:
Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.
The article is a bit absurd. It looks for the 50 million refugees in the Bahamas, St. Lucia, Seychelles, and Solomon Islands. Safe to say, if you look for 50 million carbon-based humans there, you won't find them.
What is a 'climate refugee' and how many are there? Does this disprove AGW or point to some evil conspiracy? It's surprising to see /. wasting space and its reputation on this nonsense.
Maybe /. will become News of the World [wikimedia.org] for geeks: Sensation for nerds but stuff that doesn't matter.
Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ? (Score:2)
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/cuba-is-dealing-with-the-worst-drought-in-50-years/ [adorraeli.com]
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/17/hailstorms-damage-crops-across-states-in-india/ [adorraeli.com]
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/dozens-tornadoes-rip-through-u-s-southwest/ [adorraeli.com]
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/cuba-is-dealing-with-the-worst-drought-in-50-years/ [adorraeli.com]
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/201 [adorraeli.com]
What happened to the climate refugees? (Score:3)
Don't overlook the economic factors (Score:2)
unless you live under a rock, or are just stupid, (Score:3)
You'd know that there *are* millions of climate refugees.
Start here [wikipedia.org] or here [www.cbc.ca] or here ("12 out of 13 'flash' appeals in 2007 related to weather"). [guardian.co.uk] Here's 3/4 of a million [bbc.co.uk] soon to be refugees in just ONE island nation (now go add up the rest).
Pretty nice writing that snide and ignorant summary from your comfortable suburban basement, wasn't it?
Re:So, where is the google cache link? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did Slashdot become Fox News?
Deniers on my Slashdot?
Are facts that you don't like suddenly "Fox News"?
Let me see if I got the formula right:
Facts I don't like = Fox News
Fox News = Fake
Facts I don't like = Fake
Nice!
Re: (Score:3)
Here's a fact you might or might not like.
Science changes.
In fact the ability for science to change is one of the most basic requirements for something to be science. Scientific fact is ALWAYS based on the data and knowledge we have available at the time and can change if new data and knowledge come available.
Just because the exact nature of the theory and its associated hypothesis have changed doesn't mean that the basic theory itself has necessarily been invalidated.
An example would be Newton's laws with
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No, but I read the title of the summary. "What happened to the climate refugees?" And, I can answer that. They've all taken refuge, hiding in all the alrmist's cavernous asses. I suspect that Al Gore is hosting an entire clan in his fat ass! And, if it weren't filled with vacuum (HA! "filled" and "vacuum" in the same sentence!) they could host another clan, or even an entire tribe in his fat head.
Re: (Score:3)
No, but I read the title of the summary. "What happened to the climate refugees?" And, I can answer that. They've all taken refuge, hiding in all the alrmist's cavernous asses.
It's terribly sad that the majority of comments on the linked article are vastly more informed and actually relevant than the rather childish posts appearing on this article in /.
The actual projection was not even about global warming and yet here all people can talk about is the utterly irrelevant bickering of reds v blues from a continent making up less than 5% of the worlds population.
Re: (Score:3)
The actual projection was not even about global warming
What was it about, then? Regular political/religious refugees?
Re: (Score:3)
What was it about, then? Regular political/religious refugees?
Environmental refugees. Drought, Earthquake, Mudslide etc. At the time of the report in 1995 there were 24 million refugee's and climbing. Using the growth rate there were some speculation on the map that the figure could reach as high as 50 million by 2010 but this estimated figure was not even mentioned in the report.
Anthony Watts is a known shill (Score:4, Informative)
The author of that propaganda piece is a known shill of whatever industry pays him.
Here's a video [youtube.com] that he tried to take down unsuccessfully.
Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill (Score:4, Insightful)
Ad hominem is not useful in evaluating the article, and does nothing to address the veracity of it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Science and religion aren't held to the same standard on /.
Religion is dismissed because "science is repeatable". Global warming can't stand up to the criticism they give other kinds of faith, but is regarded as not only science but the holy grail of science.
Original paper is NOT about global warming (Score:5, Informative)
With so many people posting their own version of facts, it helps knowing the past history of such people, so that you can disregard their claims. What made me google for this Anthony Watts was the claims he made that the UN had predicted 50 million refugees coming from Bahamas (population 330000), St. Lucia (population 173765), and Seychelles (population 84000).
With numbers like these, something looks wrong. So I googled for the original study [osce.org] to find out what it said. it was no surprise that neither Bahamas, Seychelles, or St. Lucia were mentioned there.
What it says is that there are million of refugees coming from regions affected by desertification and that number is increasing [thenewamerican.com].
And you know what's the funny thing about all this? If you take the trouble to actually read the paper Dr. Norman Myers wrote, you will notice that he does not mention global warming at all. What he calls "environmental refugees" are, in his own words, "people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt."
In their haste to deny global warming, people like Anthony Watts do not even try to find out who they should write against...
Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
A reasonable percentage of Africa's ghastly little bush wars, for instance, are proximately about some goofy ethnic struggle or an ego clash between two psychotic strongmen; but the punchline generally boils down to the fact that the local subsistence agriculture/pastoralism hasn't actually been providing subsistence of late, which really stirs people up.
The assorted uprisings that a number of arab states are currently seeing are in the same boat. It isn't as though the populace just noticed that their leaders are brutal kleptocrats. A spike in food prices, though, has pushed them from feeling poor and downtrodden to feeling desperate and downtrodden.
Even if one wishes to leave macro-level climate out of the picture entirely, it isn't at all difficult to identify regions where high-intensity agriculture, and often shoddy practices, are converting farmland to desert or marginal scrub at a fair clip.
Re: (Score:3)
Other points to note are:
1) Some wars are fought over resources - like the Kenya-Ethiopia conflicts. So are those war refugees also environmental refugees? Its not very clear who you count.
2) The UN article started with a total of 25 million environmental refugees in 1995 and predicted it could double by 2010. That's where the 50 million number comes from. I don't see anyone providing the actual number now. How far off are they?
Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill (Score:4, Insightful)
It's sampling bias.
The same poppycock that results in people believing things like "deaths come in threes" or that there are a massively larger number of earthquakes worldwide versus how many there were before we had the ability to measure and detect them like we do today.
Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the news says it is the worst weather (and the highest count of tornados) since 50 years.
If it bleeds it leads. This is sensationalist news, nothing more, nothing less. And highest count in 50 years? Well in the US they only have about 50 years worth of tornado tracking that's considered reliable in most places, and some of those are only reliable to 1970, but tornado numbers have been far higher. Hell where I live the 'accurate temperature and tornado count' is only goes back to about 1973.
Re: (Score:2)
the UN had an agenda
To its initial goals of safeguarding peace, protecting human rights, establishing the framework for international justice and promoting economic and social progress, in the six and a half decades since its creation the United Nations has added on new challenges, such as climate change, international terrorism and AIDS. While conflict resolution and peacekeeping continue to be among its most visible efforts, the UN, along with its specialized agencies, is also engaged in a wide array of activities to improv [un.org]
DID the UN claim that? (Score:5, Informative)
I would like to know why the UN said this in the first place
Is there any evidence that the UN made this prediction at all?
From TFA to the original paper [osce.org] there is a huge difference. For instance, TFA cites population growth in islands like Bahamas, St. Lucia, and Seychelles, which were never mentioned in the paper.
What Dr. Myers actually said is that there were 25 million refugees in 1995 fleeing disasters caused by desertification and global warming and that number could double in ten years. This seems a perfectly reasonable claim, if one wants to discuss it the best way would be to get hold of Dr. Myers method for counting refugees and defining which ones are "environmental" and see if that prediction became true.
Now, instead of doing this, TFA says the UN has "removed" a page that they, so much smarter than the UN that they are, recovered from Google cache. Then they invent a lot of false data, but they never realized that the actual paper is readily found by googling so their lies are easily debunked.
Re: (Score:2)
Here is a link to the map, whuch the UN took down but was still to be found in Google's cache.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/un_50million_11kap9climat.png [wordpress.com]
The cache of the original page:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5OWrvQs5P5YJ:maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010+http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com [googleusercontent.com]
That map is from 2007 (Score:2)
If you take a look at the map in your link, you'll find it signed "Emanuelle Bournay - Oktober 2007".
The allegation is that UN predicted in 2005 that there would be 50 million climate refugees. Nowhere in that map one sees mention of how many refugees there would be, it just shows the regions more likely to be affected by global warming.
Re: (Score:3)
The map sited this [google.com](PDF) paper as a source. That paper was written in 2005. Emanuelle Bournay was the cartographer who drew the map.
From the paper:
As far back as 1995 (latest date for a comprehensive assessment), these
environmental refugees totalled at least 25 million people, compared with 27 million
traditional refugees (people fleeing political oppression, religious persecution and
ethnic troubles). The environmental refugees total could well double between 1995
and 2010. Moreover, it could increase steadily for a good while thereafter as growing
numbers of impoverished people press ever harder on over-loaded environments.
When global warming takes hold, there could be as many as 200 million people
overtaken by disruptions of monsoon systems and other rainfall regimes, by droughts
of unprecedented severity and duration, and by sea-level rise and coastal flooding.
Re:So, where is the google cache link? (Score:4, Funny)
The facts aren't contrary. This was a completely valid prediction. The election of Barack Obama prevented this.
"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Barack Obama, 3 June 2008, upon winning his party nomination.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
What happened to them was that they were rebranded as "economic refugees" or "fortune seekers" and left to starve. The lucky ones are called "illegal aliens" (wouldn't want to make them sound human now would we) and work shitty jobs for slave wages.
World wide food prices have doubled. Changing climate is one factor contributing to that. Revolutions are always economic in nature, and North Africa is all revolutions these days. It is happening right now but if you refuse to look then you won't see anything. O
Re:What it really comes down is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please stop bashing the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hope you're joking... otherwise, this is basically evil. It's okay to lie to the people, as long as it's supposedly in service of what you think is a greater good? This is exactly why so many smart people don't believe in AGW. People see that you're lying about this, and they start to wonder what else you're lying about.
Add up the lies and ridiculous hyperbole about what global warming is going to do, the blatant money-making schemes (see carbon credits), the political power-grabs by the same people who have been trying to grab more and more power for decades, the ad-homium attacks against the opposition, and the ineffective things that we're supposed to do to stop it, and it's no wonder that so many people think that it's all a giant scam.
+Infinity (Score:3)
People need to understand what a problem these kind of tactics are. The reason is that many of the "Ok for use with GW because it is so important," tactics are that of con men. For example requiring complete acceptance of the claims and shouting down anyone who questions it as a denier or an idiot, that's a favourite of con men. That's how they distract from their lack of evidence, it to attack anyone who dares question their claims.
Another favourite is claiming consensus. This one is used by the most commo
Re: (Score:3)
I think you're being too harsh on the actual AGW proponents. In my experience the scientists actually make fairly conservative claims, "the lies and ridiculous hyperbole about what global warming is going to do" mostly come from the AGW-deniers. They either blow out of proportion some isolated statement from a scientist, or in this case heavily distort the original report to make it sound ridiculous.
As to why so many smart people believe in AGW, I think this article is a great illustration. If you just read
Just wondering (Score:3)
If we can disregard any research or claims that are funded by the coal and oil industry, because their backers have a stake in things, can that go the other way? Can we disregard any research funded by a green group, or someone with carbon credit stakes? Both stand to gain from pushing anthropomorphic global warming (yes green groups stand to gain, more money, more influence, more of their agendas get implemented). How about stuff financed by the UN? They have a stake in it too as it would give them more co
No this is why (Score:3)
It's because many people's minds can't even grasp an issue that has 200 year-scale inertia.
"Oh, it didn't happen this year. See. They're lying." Comments like that just show the profound total
misunderstanding about the scale in space and time of these phenomena.
Read "Climate Wars" by Gwynne Dyer. He has a sobering discussion of the planning that conservative
organizations like the Pentagon are doing for global warming's effects. He also discusses how the real recent
data is worse than the worst-case projectio