Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic To Lead EPA Transition (cbsnews.com) 1066
Billly Gates writes: Trump's transition team is steamrolling ahead to transition the government. Trump chose Myron Ebell to oversee environmental policies. Myron Ebell is chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of climate change denialists and alarmists. Scientific American provides some background information about Ebell in a report from earlier this year: "In a biography submitted when he testified before Congress, he listed among his recognitions that he had been featured in a Greenpeace 'Field Guide to Climate Criminals,' dubbed a 'misleader' on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom's chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming. More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty 'is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate's authority.' He told Vanity Fair in 2007, 'There has been a little bit of warming ... but it's been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it's caused by human beings or not, it's nothing to worry about.' Ebell's views appear to square with Trump's when it comes to EPA's agenda. Trump has called global warming 'bullshit' and he has said he would 'cancel' the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama's executive actions on climate change."
And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well the white baby boomers have now solved the problem of leaving a shitty planet to the next generation ... they are going to help end it themselves.by electing trump and his clown show. They don't give a crap they won't be around in 10-15 years anyway. They just want to go out on top, even if noone is left to see it.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Funny)
Probably they are betting on the chance, climate change won't affect them.. :D
1. If climate change doesn't happen, they won.
2. If climate change happens, it will destroy the liberals living on the coasts
Win-win situation.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you realize what the difference in magnitude between 100,000 and 100 is?
It's about the same as the difference between a walking pace and a hypersonic aircraft.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This is America. We don't do things at walking pace.
Make Climate Change Great Again.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sincerely interested in knowing what your point is.
His point is that between 100,000 years ago (last ice age) and 100 years ago, the planet warmed by about 3 degrees. In the last 100 years, the planet has warmed by another 3 degrees. So, when Mr Ebell claims that 3 degrees is well within historical ranges, he's looking only at the delta and not the velocity.
Waffle Iron is exaggerating a bit, though - it really only took 10,000 years of warming to end the ice age, and the temperature division between pre- and post-industrial revolution is probably more lik
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tree rings, ice core samples, sediment layers, etc. We have lots of ways to estimate temperatures based on observable biological and geological histories. And several of those can be measured independently and so far agree with each other to a pretty good degree.
I mean you can always stick your head in the sand and claim that everything you don't want to believe is bullshit and that's your prerogative, but unfortunately the planet and the environment operate with or without your personal consent, and the rest of us would prefer to leave a habitable planet for our grandchildren.
And if nothing else, there's always the simple safe bet approach: If science is somehow wrong but we clean up our act anyway, Shell and Exxon lose 1% off their quarterly reports for a few years while cleaner technology is invented.
On the other hand, if science is right and we do nothing, we all lose the only planet we know can support human life. Which gamble are you willing to take?
Not to mention the fact that unless you're heavily invested in an oil company, you probably won't be personally affected much either way so in addition to gambling the future of humanity, you're doing so for no real material benefit.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Interesting)
As xenophobic as people might want to accuse America of being now, imagine what it would be like if millions flooded into the country to escape some hell wrought in their own lands due to prolonged weather effects such as drought, flooding, etc. Even the bleeding hearts who might normally feel obligated to help out in such matters will hoist the black flag if it gets bad enough.
I'm not fearful of the times ahead, but I don't think they'll be easy either. There's been all kinds of doom, whether from religious demagogues or scholars, preached in the past and yet humanity has endured and I suspect we will in the future. However, I didn't expect either the Brexit vote or Trump to succeed, but I think both show a level of dissatisfaction in the populace that's only going to grow further as time goes on. This feels like the beginning of transitional period for humanity where the old systems break down and give way to something new and different.
Re: (Score:3)
Temperatures are going up, you moron.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit.
The governments want them to find that global warming does not exist.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, apparently a science budget that has been set by republicans for 6 years has been funding only the scientists who keep finding what the republicans really didn't want to hear. Hell the last several chairmen of the senate science committee were all very vocal deniers and the majority of them were creationists (Apparently knowing anything about, or even LIKING, science actually DISQUALIFIES you for the job of overseeing the government's science funding).
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is something we can do about climate within the scale of a century or two, and we do that by stopping the vomiting of large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. What you're doing is the last redoubt of the AGW deniner, to accept, but insist that short term goals should override long term goals.
If that's the case, why don't you light your house on fire and say "Well, at least I'll be warm tonight."
Beyond that, the costs to the US and global economies over the next few decades is go to mount and mount, and unless you're in your 70s or 80s, it's likely you'll be paying just like the rest of us for it, so in other words, being selfish and short sighted is fucking yourself over. And for what? It's not like the universe doesn't have plenty of other ways to produce energy. Are you really so fucking moronic that you want to sacrifice even your own well being so some rich fucking assholes can make a decade or two more profits?
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because deniers are overwhelmingly conservative and the position that short-term goals must have an absolute override over long-term outcomes is quintessential to all their thinking. It's the same reason they reject things like UBI, free college or universal healthcare - they see the immedate price (a short term goal) and ignore that the cost of all these things is actually NEGATIVE. They don't think far enough ahead to see that the return on investment is bigger than the price.
The same applies with climate change. The investments we need to make to change course are all cost-negative, but all they see is the short-term price-positive. And they are even LESS inclined to want to make the investments since the majority of them sincerely do not believe they'll live to get the ROI. Since there is nothing in it for them, and they don't actually LIKE their kids... well fuck everybody. But saying "fuck everybody" tends to have limited political clout (the new president-elect being an interesting exception) - so in order to actually fuck everybody else, their best course of action is to deny there is any reason to invest. That these denials fly in the face of overwhelming evidence, science itself, rational thought, critical thinking and indeed requires you to stick your head so far up your own rectum that if they ever needed brain surgery they would have to go to a proctologist clearly has never dissuaded them from the course.
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Yeah that's the crux of the problem... while some of the zero-footprint hippy types are doing some good in exploring the feasibility of options/technology, the actual impact economically of personal usage reduction is just to make fossil fuels cheaper for the group of idiots who do not care.
On national levels, the impact is better as it promotes markets for sustainable technologies, but in a competitive trade environment unilateral action can incur economic penalties versus idiot nations that don't care, wh
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
IF global warming is anthropogenic - WE ARE FUCKED. Sticking a carbon tax is like putting a toll on a toilet at a bar and expecting that people will stop peeing.
Under capitalism, taxing something is basically the best way we have to encourage people not to do it, especially if the money is spent cleaning up after the people who do the thing anyway. We have alternatives to carbon release (even if the alternative is just to fix as much as we emit) and if we don't take them, we're gonna have a bad time. It may not even be necessary for industry to have net zero carbon emissions; it may be that if we ratchet back substantially we'll find a stasis point at which we can reasonably operate.
There are alternatives to carbon release, and the free market will find them if you make carbon release expensive. You know what doesn't work, though? Cap and trade schemes. Carbon caps are helpful, but if you let people trade you miss the point entirely. If you tax, then alternatives will be found.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an economist. There is really very little difference between a tax and cap and trade. The tax is great if you know the cost of remediation or are pretty sure you know the price of the externality. But if you know your target quantity, then cap (at that target) and trade makes the most sense. The main difference is that in cap and trade you might issue permits instead of charging for them. Simple fix, cap and sell. You could even make it revenue neutral by using the revenue to cut the income tax.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am an economist. There is really very little difference between a tax and cap and trade.
It's too bad that you're not an ecologist. There is a massive difference, and that difference is that trading schemes rubberstamp pollution, and taxes do not. Under a trading scheme, someone gets paid to permit someone else to pollute excessively. That never happens under a tax-only scheme. Then you only need to ratchet up the taxes until they are meaningful.
The main difference is that in cap and trade you might issue permits instead of charging for them. Simple fix, cap and sell.
That is not a fix to the primary problem of trading schemes, which is that they actually make enabling pollution profitable! It means that someone who is already doing a good job can sell their allotment to someone else who isn't, and reduce their incentive to change.
What we need is cap and tax, not cap and trade. Anyone who says the two are the same is selling something.
You could even make it revenue neutral by using the revenue to cut the income tax./quote
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Interesting)
IF global warming is anthropogenic - WE ARE FUCKED. Sticking a carbon tax is like putting a toll on a toilet at a bar and expecting that people will stop peeing.
Under capitalism, taxing something is basically the best way we have to encourage people not to do it, especially if the money is spent cleaning up after the people who do the thing anyway...
BINGO! Regulations only work if the taxpayers are willing to fund a significant number of inspectors to enforce the regulations.have to fall in line. Those that don't will get surprise visits from inspectors, who will generally demand the unpaid tax at triple damages. That prevents, or at least reduces, transgressions.
I have heard some manufacturers quite literally say that they would prefer to use a "less poisonous" solvent in their process (for example). But if they did, its slightly higher cost would destroy their competitive advantage, and bankrupt them.
Really. There are plant-owners in industries that would much rather use a less toxic process solvent, but are prevented by free-market forces from doing so without losing any competitive advantage. They really do exist, but can do nothing unless the regulators or tax-men impose the same requirement on everyone in a market sector simultaneously and equally.
The EPA's SuperFund is a good example of this force for environmental clean-up in action.
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This is actually an economist thing. Pretty much every economists (the lefties and the righties) agree that we would be better off taxing things that we want less of (e.g. pollution) rather than things we want more of (e.g. work). If the tax money has to come from somewhere, changing behavior makes the most sense.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Is that why you leftists love to tax people's work?
We can't just tax property due to too many rich assholes complaining, and we need to get shit done nobody wants to pay for.
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They do that in Belgium.
Re: No (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to save people, work out a plan to deal with a Carrington event (look it up) or the super volcano under Yellowstone. Those actually matter more, because they would be sudden catastrophes with immediate widespread consequences, not something that happens gradually so there is time to mitigate. Plus if Yellowstone happens, all your climate science and anti global warming measures go right out the window, because the ash in the air overrides it. Plan for those, THEN talk to me about global warmi
Re: No (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't bother looking when you're crossing the road because an an aeroplane might crash on your head. So develop a man portable air warning radar THEN think about getting new glasses.
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We might be able to adapt to climate change itself, but the biomes do not have that capability, and we cannot adapt to a failed biome... well we might be able to pull off a small populaion, but your descendents' odds of being in that population are pretty small, and that small population's ability to make technological progress will be rather limited.
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Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by
this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten
future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is
ours, chew and eat our fill.
-- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
"The Ethics of Greed"
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Informative)
Less funny longer time scale:
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx... [phys.org]
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Informative)
Consider the scaling, on the scaling to the left our current trend would make for an almost vertical ascent.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Informative)
Google is your friend. There are many ways to infer the past thermal record, some are mentioned in the article.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Interesting)
As unfalsifiable as any inference from a geological or planetary or fossil record. Odd how this never seems to factor in unless we are dealing with climate science.
It's almost as if you don't want to know how the inference is made. Now why would that be?
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The crazies are out in force there too... 6000 y.o. earth etc.
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Yep. Post-factual world view all around.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because modern humans didn't exist 200 million years ago and didn't leave Africa until 20-thousand years ago so global temperatures prior to that are utterly irrelevant since we've NEVER had to survive (let alone to try thrive) in them.
Science (Score:5, Informative)
What is the speculation based on?
Science.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
You, coward, are a fool and an ass.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ice core samples have a typical resolution of hundred of years, sometimes a bit higher, combining with sediment analysis can narrow it down further. The data is plenty precise enough to reconstruct the thermal record.
But let's drop the pretence that this about the science.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"hundred of years" -- really? we're talking about global warming since 1880 or so, surely hundred(s) of years is still too vague?
the real dilemma is, there are many ways the science could be wrong, but we trump that by saying, we cannot afford to wait. but i think that's a bad strategy, because the real issue is about risk. the more people try to insist the science is certain for all practical purposes, the less convincing it actually becomes, because world+dog know it cannot be that certain, because you're making scenarios about the future. i realise the PR is to insist it is certain for all practical purposes, but that strategy is about to blow up in people's faces, just like identity politics blew up in the face of the democrats.
two things everyone should be talking about: risk, where "doing nothing" is also on the table, because doing something is also a risk (unintended consequences, for starters). second, we need to own up our own values and attitudes and put them on the table and say, "i believe the world should devalue growth for its own sake" or "i believe humanity is needlessly greedy" or "i believe we have to develop as fast as we can, that that's the challenge, to explore new horizons" and so on. put the values on the table, and argue over those values as ethical questions worthy of their own inquiry. for example, should climate change plans trump human rights? well, that's an ethical question.
too often, people say "science" or "anti-science" when they really mean, my values versus your values.
science doesn't prove any particular values or ethical outlook. dictators often use natural resources, or their lack, as a weapon -- we should start with the values in any case. if climate change wasn't a known problem, wouldn't people still hold the values as the thing of most concern, to be what really matters for humanity?
mixing science and values leads directly to the kind of mind-fuckery where religious zealots have to invent their own "science" in order to "prove" that their own values -- no abortions -- are the "correct" values. and the story goes that margaret thatcher, one of the UK's most right-wing politicians, actually started championing global warming as the reason why the UK had to shut down its coal mines and so destroy the coal unions and cut off the miners' strikes.
which only goes to show that science and values are not the same game, not by a long shot. so yes, it isn't about science. that's really the point.
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Where the fuck have you been since 2003? This place has been going down the shitter for so long all that's left are the skid marks.
Nostalgia? (Score:3)
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no logic to the reasoning. It is the reasoning of sociopaths and morons.
Didn't you get the memo? That is all the reasoning that is required to win an election for the control of a first world country these days. The sad part is the more I think about it, I don't blame Russia's hacking, Assange, Clinton's mediocre candidacy, stupid email issues blown insanely out of proportion, infinite fake stories, lies so thick they are impossible to keep up with or an of it, insane amounts of free press for trump, or any of the other ways the election was made far too easy for Trump.
I blame the people. It is not republican ideas or democrat ideas that are destroying the country. Both have good points at times and take things too far at times. No the true issues is the culture of anti-intellectualism. A great many people are actually proud of being fairly uninformed and easily duped.
How do you fix that? Seriously, how do you fix that? We tend to downplay the importance of liberal arts and history. Hell when I was in high school I thought I'd never need that.
We have to do better. The arc of history can hardly continuing to bend towards justice when the driver is incompetant.
Re: And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:4, Insightful)
You couldn't be wronger than that. People are way more open to rational arguments than is commonly thought, and they are certainly not natural killers. There is also no reason to believe that mankind cannot change to the better, just take a look at how societies have changed to the better during the past 200 years. Death penalty and slavery used to be normal, not they are prohibited almost everywhere, women ethnic minorities could not vote, now they can vote almost everywhere.
The list could go on and on how societies have changed for the better. The situation has also dramatically improved regarding armed conflicts and wars, mainly because of international human rights and contracts that entangle former enemy nations with each other. It only appears otherwise, because there were more deaths in the 20th century than ever before, but these occurred thanks to advances in weapon's technology. There used to be a time were it was normal and accepted to wage a war against a neighboring country just to gain some territory. This is no longer accepted anywhere in the world.
So don't be such a cynic.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess if you get all your science "knowledge" from crappy magazines you are going to believe in a lot of things that. Did you invest in housing real estate in 2005 since Time said it was going to be awesome (http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,1101050613,00.html)?
Scientific papers were a tad different than your interpretation of them it would seem: http://aerosol.ucsd.edu/classe... [ucsd.edu] there are some charts 9 pages in if you prefer pictures to words.
Re:And the hits keep on coming ... (Score:5, Informative)
The Community Reinvestment Act has never FORCED a bank to loan anyone money. Ever. It merely required that the banks stop discriminating by having different loan terms based on neighborhood.
That doesn't mean they were required to loan anyone money, only that they had to treat everyone the same.
And there was nothing in the law - any law - that required the banks to over-leverage, or lie about the ratings of their investment instruments, or to hide the poisonous mortgages in bundled-tiered-re-bundled packages.
> Conservative economists were warning about the bubble but were ignored.
Cite one.
=Smidge=
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Nope, sorry. The Greatest Generation lived through The Great Depression and fought WWII. Then, with the world returned to peace and the country returned to prosperity, they spawned the Baby Boom.
And somehow managed to completely fuck up their upbringing.
The only time I've ever heard of the boomers being called "The Greatest Generation" is indirectly, like when TLP calls Millennials "the second greatest generation of narcissists ever".
And so it begins--down the drain (Score:3, Insightful)
The article is so non-newsworthy that I have NO reaction except "Of course." Alt-Right has the Trump card and they are going to play it hard until the rest of us drown.
I'm only reminded of a prediction webpage I wrote when Dubya staggered into the White House. My predictions were kind of broad, divided into the categories of education, federal courts, economy, environment, military, war, Internet, and public trust in government. No details, but just probabilities and some wild estimates of recovery times. Back then I though I was just being a gloomy Gus, but looking over the predictions after 15 years, it now makes me look like a Pollyanna with rose-colored glasses. Is it worth making such an effort for the Donald?
Right now a question of some interest to me is how long it will take the angry losers to learn they are still losers. Might make them angrier, but of course no one really cares about losers, especially losers who were stupid enough to believe silly promises for a vote. Even more obviously, no one cares about the mindless always-R (or always-D) voters. It's the cold-blooded haters who worry me.
Re:And so it begins--down the drain (Score:5, Funny)
The article is so non-newsworthy
Apparently it is newsworthy because apparently a lot of voters had no clue what they were doing.
Breaking News (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, I wonder Trump thinks he can cancel the Paris Climate Accord? WIll he take take some white out to cover over the names of the other signatories?
Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Informative)
Of course Trump can cancel the Paris Climate Accord, at least for the US. The Senate never ratified it. It, in spite of being a treaty, was declared in force for the US on Obama's word alone. Trump's word alone can therefore repeal it.
Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Informative)
Of course Trump can cancel the Paris Climate Accord, at least for the US. The Senate never ratified it. It, in spite of being a treaty, was declared in force for the US on Obama's word alone. Trump's word alone can therefore repeal it.
A nit: The Senate basically never ratifies treaties that the US enters. We almost never use the treaty process defined in the Constitution.
What we do instead is what's called a "congressional-executive treaty", where the executive branch (usually the State Department, though sometimes the president personally) negotiates the terms and signs them. This signature does not obligate the country, unless everything being committed to is within the executive branch's authority (those are called sole executive treaties). Normally that's not the case, so the signature on its own is really nothing more than a commitment to go back to Congress and try to get enabling legislation passed which enacts the terms of the treaty as federal law. This is done through the normal legislative process, getting both houses to pass the legislation with a simple majority vote and then having the president sign it.
The reason the congressional-executive process is used rather than the constitutional process is that it's usually easier to get majority approval of both houses than a 2/3 majority of one, especially since it leaves room for negotiation. Not generally on the agreed-on terms of the treaty, but on domestic side issues (i.e. pork).
So no one read the fucking article? (Score:5, Informative)
This is one of the scare pieces the media ran to frighten liberals into destroying trump.
The article was written BEFORE Tuesday.
And judging from the cesspool responses in this thread, I'm also going to be exiting from reading and commenting here.
Beau, you should be ashamed of yourself. Either you aren't doing your job and being an editor, or you are abusing your job and being a jackass.
Re: (Score:3)
Beau, you should be ashamed of yourself. Either you aren't doing your job and being an editor, or you are abusing your job and being a jackass.
See how many comments and clicks this piece generated? That's /. editor doing his job.
Disingenuous all around (Score:5, Informative)
1. The SA article is dated September 26, but the submitter carefully worded the opening sentence to make it sound like a post-election event ("Trump's transition team is steamrolling ahead to transition the government"). Those people we call "editors" either didn't check it or didn't care.
2. The SA article presents this as an absolute fact, but then essentially says "a little birdie told me so." Other sources (including one written today [heavy.com]) are honest enough to call it what it is: a rumor.
Check out this guy's science background. (Score:5, Informative)
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] he's got a BA in philosophy and a M.Sc in politics. Between getting out of school and setting himself as a climate expert he worked as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.
He has never done anything STEM related or worked in any other field but politics.
Re: (Score:3)
The qualifications for presenting the scientific consensus and contradicting the scientific consensus are different.
Just in time ... (Score:5, Informative)
... when now even biologists can detect the impact of global warming on the biosphere. [phys.org]
I am sure if we just keep ignoring the problem, it will go away.
It gets worse (Score:3, Informative)
Trump is also floating the name "Ben Carson" as Sec'y of Health and Human Services. Ben Carson is a creationist who hawks vitamins to cure cancer.
Re:It gets worse (Score:5, Informative)
Ben Carson one of the best pediatric neurosurgeons in the country. Was Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins, that happens to be a Christian. Yep he screwed up a bit on the vitamins crap. Much better than the two previous Obummer sec'y who were both politicians, neither of the two had any education in medical field.
Trump will get us to Mars faster (Score:5, Funny)
Now that Tesla's fucked all Elon's got left is his Mars project.
If you'd asked me last week if I'd go to Mars I'd have said "no way".
Where do I sign up?
actually, go ahead. This will not matter (Score:3)
It was 2 things which was the Mercury regs ( while we are already way below Europe, Asia, but this will bring our mercury down to near zero) being moved to end of 2016, along with W's push for drilling and fracking. That fracking provided CHEAP CHEAP nat gas at a time when coal plants had to decide on shutting down or putting on scrubbers. As such, we went from ~60% coal (and 15% nat gas) to 27% coal and 33% nat gas at end of this year. So, our fossil fuel has converted to clean fossil, but also dropped.
So, what will happen over the next couple of years? Trump and GOP want to push both COAL AND DRILLING. If both are done, then nat gas will remain low costs, and no American utility will want coal plant. OTOH, China, japan, and south korea might pick up more, but I doubt that it will be too much. Australia is now heavily automated on their coal. So, cheap coal is going NO WHERE in America.
UN-Subsidized Wind is already cheaper than coal. Solar is more expensive, but that is the average. Solar City has the lowest installed costs and with their new plant should be cheap than coal. So, America's electricity will continue to move towards being cleaned up over time.
That leaves vehicles. Tesla's M3 will be cheaper and superior compared to its ICE competitors. Who will want to buy a BMW 300 series when they can buy a Tesla M3? Few. The fastest competitor will compete with the slowest version of the M3. That will no doubt cause buyers of some of the most polluting cars (luxury cars such as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Caddy, Porsche, Lexus, Infiniti, etc) to continue losing shares. As it is, Tesla MS already sells 1/3 of the full size luxury market and should move up to about 50% by summer 2017. Tesla MX is expected to hit 33% of is market by summer 2017. Basically, Tesla will force car makers to move to DECENT EVs or die. And by decent EVs, we are not talking the leaf, bolt, I3, i5 type garbage. All of those have been gutted so that they will not compete against ICE vehicles. Tesla will force them to produce cars that compete against tesla and will destroy their own ICE.
So, for those of you concerned with where America is going, do not fret. While we will likely drop paris, we will continue to clean up regardless of what trump and his ilk do.
Brawndo (Score:4, Informative)
Brawndo.
Because plants crave electrolytes.
Re: (Score:3)
So. Trump & Ebell? Whatever. Let them think themselves important.They are not.
Unfortunately, we have made them important
(assuming you are in US, that is).
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I doubt that this will be the end of humanity, as we've lived through the ice age as well. But certainly parts of the planet that were inhabitable before will become uninhabitable in the future, and this will create wars and maybe our whole civilisation will collapse. Maybe we will lose everything industrialisation has brought us, and likely it will be harder in the future to get a similar industrialisation going due to the energy resources of the planet being depleted. But at least those coal miners could
Anti-vaxers (Score:3)
I doubt that this will be the end of humanity...
Just wait until he appoints an anti-vaxer as head of the CDC. Life was so much simpler when the only anti-vaxers were those who hated VMS.
Re: (Score:3)
It is too late. There is no going back. Now we ride it out to the end. The end of us.
Just because we're already in the rapids doesn't mean we shouldn't try to avoid the waterfall. Things can always get worse.
Oh, and in no way will this be the end for humanity, almost certainly not even for civilization. "Too hot to grow tropical crops in Antarctica" is way beyond any of the current predictions, and with wind and solar and batteries improving and cheapening by the year, we'll eventually drastically cut CO2 emissions if only out of greed.
Re:The truth is that it does not matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't stop breeding,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Actually, between education, economics, and so forth, yeah they do. Several countries already have negative or neutral birthrates and are only net positive due to immigration.
There is no reason to beleive humans could not acheive equilibrium.
Re:The truth is that it does not matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
IF global warming is anthropogenic then it is a direct function of population size.
Nonsense. We could build things to last and keep them longer. We could use more insulation so that we use less heating oil. We could make hay while the sun shines not just literally but also in manufacturing so that we can use more wind power and the like which goes through production cycles. It's affected by population size, but there's a whole lot of other factors. Right now the primary driver is greed.
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We could build things to last and keep them longer.
That fixes a problem with GARBAGE. How will you magically build these durable things without producing CO2? You still need to build the factories that build these durable things, and build the things themselves. Plus entropy works against you - there's no such thing as a product that will last forever.
We could use more insulation so that we use less heating oil.
That insulation has to be manufactured. It has to be shipped to where you need it. It has to be installed.
While you are suggesting techniques that would "stretch" our resources if they were even possible, this merely postpones the problem. As long as the population growth rate remains POSITIVE, we are inevitably going to hit the wall one way or another. Since killing millions or even billions of people is not an acceptable solution to our morality (unless their invisible sky wizard says something offensive about our invisible sky wizard), this problem is one we are irreversibly stuck with no matter what we do - especially IF we have already crossed this mysterious threshold that sends our planet into an irreversible plunge into greenhouse mode.
Right now the primary driver is greed.
Assuming you are not living in a hippy commune in the woods somewhere (and you're not, because you're using a computer and connected to the internet) you are guilty of that very same greed. Greed for the convenience of modern life. It's easy to blame it all on "the corporations" or "the 1%", but in reality we are to blame. You. Me. Each and every one of us. After all, if no one bought the products, no one would waste time selling them...
Your arguments boil down to, "you can't completely eliminate it so there's no point in doing anything", "we're all to blame so everything is pointless", and "delaying the problem is as bad as speeding it up". Are those really the ones you intended to make?
Re:The truth is that it does not matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's a direct function of the aggregate amount of heat-trapping gasses put into the atmosphere by all of the people on earth. If you could magically lower the rate of population growth to zero or below tomorrow, yet at the same time more and more of the developing world adopts more carbon energy demanding western lifestyles, you still won't have fixed the problem. Conversely, if we could magically make it so that we could have an equivalent lifestyle on a small fraction of the carbon-producing energy we use now, we could still maintain population growth with greatly reduced carbon output.
I'm not arguing in favor of continued population growth, anything but. But population alone is not the driving factor.
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IF global warming is anthropogenic then it is a direct function of population size. ... which has an extremely small population and Kuwait which has a mini population.
No it is not. Most CO2 per capita is produced in the USA
CO2 production is tied to energy usage, industries, house heating, car travel etc.
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specially in the poorer countries
This is a cultural result of lingering agrarian traditions, though poverty itself can be a contributing factor, in that these traditions still make sense if kids are the best way to ensure food security and health care into old age, or a source of free labor in mid-life. Providing social services could help make those traditions look sillier faster.
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Here we go...
Indeed - all those people complaining about elites and insiders are in for a shock when such "think-tank" losers who have done nothing in their lives other than circle Washington like files end up suddenly getting put into positions where they are in charge of thousands despite zero useful experience.
Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Interesting)
all those people complaining about elites and insiders are in for a shock
That's the problem with voting for "change." You are going to get it.
I was very surprised, just based off reading comments on this site over the past few days, how many ardent Trump supporters are here. I say surprised not because I am assessing a value judgement but because US presidential voting in recent years has become much more strongly correlated with education level, and I presumed that a tech site would reflect certain patterns as a result. (Full disclosure: I did not like any of the available ballot options and wrote in my presidential vote for Alexander Hamilton. I live in a solidly colored state on the West Coast and knew that my little exercise in protest would not have any meaningful effect on my state's electoral college votes, otherwise I would have voted seriously.)
At any rate, it turned out that many many more people than pollsters and the media expected cast their votes in the cause of upsetting the status quo. There's nothing wrong with being unsatisfied with the way things are and wanting to lob a big water balloon full of "f--k you" at the powers that be in this country.
When you vote for the loser, you enter a world of "coulda woulda shoulda" and you can just theorize how things would have been better. But when you vote for the winner, you have to own that vote because you're getting what you said you wanted. That's the price of winning. And it will be fascinating to see whether the people who cast a ballot to shake up the system like what they get when the system actually gets shaken up...
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all those people complaining about elites and insiders are in for a shock
That's the problem with voting for "change." You are going to get it.
I was very surprised, just based off reading comments on this site over the past few days, how many ardent Trump supporters are here. I say surprised not because I am assessing a value judgement but because US presidential voting in recent years has become much more strongly correlated with education level, and I presumed that a tech site would reflect certain patterns as a result. (Full disclosure: I did not like any of the available ballot options and wrote in my presidential vote for Alexander Hamilton. I live in a solidly colored state on the West Coast and knew that my little exercise in protest would not have any meaningful effect on my state's electoral college votes, otherwise I would have voted seriously.)
At any rate, it turned out that many many more people than pollsters and the media expected cast their votes in the cause of upsetting the status quo. There's nothing wrong with being unsatisfied with the way things are and wanting to lob a big water balloon full of "f--k you" at the powers that be in this country.
When you vote for the loser, you enter a world of "coulda woulda shoulda" and you can just theorize how things would have been better. But when you vote for the winner, you have to own that vote because you're getting what you said you wanted. That's the price of winning. And it will be fascinating to see whether the people who cast a ballot to shake up the system like what they get when the system actually gets shaken up...
Education helps, but it doesn't do you much good if you're not voting rationally. I mean, picking a candidate who's primary selling point is "I'm different, in a way that you have no idea or even a guarantee that I am, but I'm different, believe it" isn't rational at all. On top of that, Slashdot has a pretty quirky crowd, and while we tend to be well educated and accomplished, we also tend to entertain things that are a little less... normal. Sometimes this is healthy, such as our general standards on civ
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Oh, god damn it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or we could just move to alternative energy sources? Why in the fuck should we spend untold trillions on engineering the climate just so we can keep burning oil, when we could, you know, stop burning fucking oil.
Re: Oh, god damn it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, fuck you. The richest nation on the planet, with 4% of the population, produces a quarter of the world's pollution directly. And even the Indian and Chinese pollution you whine about is to power factories, producing your electronics and cheap shit for Wal-Mart for you to buy.
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Boy, you sure bought it hook line and sinker. Prepare for an extremely disappointing 4 years.
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Re: Oh, god damn it. (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight. If you lived on a street where several of your neighbors were murderers, your solution wouldn't be to try to get them put away, your solution would be to grab an ax and join them in the frenzy?
Re: (Score:3)
Are you going to bomb the EU into buying American goods?
Fuck yeah, why do you think Putin got Trump elected? So they can requite their undying love for each other by divvying up Europe and "plundering the booty", so to speak.
I dunno, as a broke white male, I kinda like the sound of "The American Empire". It rolls off the tongue. Empire... Emperor Trump. Emperor Donald J Trump I of the Great American Empire. How's that for Making America Great Again, eh?
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:4, Informative)
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We destroyed the must successful nation in Africa and turned it into a failed state. "as required"?
Neither Assad nor Qaddafi should have been removed (Score:3)
They both held a lid on the islamists in their countries, and the West had no business destabilizing them. The results of Western meddling in those shitholes is clear: they've become much, much worse shitholes.
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:5, Funny)
So you get to decide which countries around the world have improper leaders, eh? What other countries should we invade on your suggestion?
Belgium. I vote for invading Belgium. I don't like their leader.
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:5, Interesting)
She exported fracking the world as Secretary of State. She waged war on Libya and Syria to keep the supply of energy moving. She was going to continue in the fine tradition of Obama - who was a bigger oil man than Bush and Cheney combined.
That's the problem with all the whining and bitching from Dems and the media, before the election, now, and after Trump takes the oath of office - every criticism you can make of Trump applies to Hillary Clinton, as much if not more so. The only "difference" here is that Hillary would utter the occasional platitude that we need to do something about climate change, while continuing to drill for more and more oil, and mine for more and more coal.
Excuse me, but the story isn't about Hillary. She has NOTHING to do with this decision. You should stop trying to avoid the issues.
If things keep going this way, I'm all for the UN coming in and setting up a new provisional government. This insanity has to come to an end some way.
She was pretty anti-coal (Score:5, Informative)
The thing about Hilary is she wasn't going to make things better but she also wasn't going to make them worse. Trump will accelerate all the bad stuff while his running mate + supreme court picks take away women's reproductive rights. If you have a wife, girlfriend or daughter and no anything about the terror that is child birth left up to God's whim you know this is terrifying...
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And if you believe that, I have some oceanfront property in Ohio I'd love to sell you at a cheap rate.
No. It's because she was the candidate of NAFTA and the TPP, which have been (and will be) devastating to Ohio. Don't cast about for arcane excuses when the truth is right in front of you.
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Typical batshit insane, cuckoo cocoa puffs inversion of reality from an American Excpetionalist. It was the United States that spent billions subverting the democratically elected government of Ukraine, not Russia. It was Russia that offered Ukraine cheap natural gas and a low interest loan - it was the United States that wanted to herd the country into an economy-crus
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:5, Informative)
You first, moran:
Hillary Clinton Tried to Push Fracking on Other Nations When She Was Secretary of State, New Emails Reveal [alternet.org].
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are the perfect example of the intolerant left, you claim to be all accepting, but you're really not.
Tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance. It's accepting abuse.
In my experience, the left is FAR more xenophobic and intolerant than the right is,
Get back to me when the left goes back to lynching people, or dragging them behind pick-em-up trucks. The right never stopped.
Re:And you think Hillary would be any different? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you were really tolerant, then you'd be understanding and accepting of someone who DOESN'T believe in gay people.
You're happy to accept people who think like you do, but you can't imagine it is acceptable to think otherwise. That is your great flaw.
That is why Trump won. Until you understand that, you will continue to have problems on the right.
Trump didn't win by getting 10% or 20% of the country to vote for him, he got 48%, which is more or less half. And yet you dismiss half the country as "deplorables" and wonder why you lost...
That's such a rich post I don't even know where to start. For starters, we have a pretty strict separation of church and state - you cannot cite religion as a reason for influence in any decision. Saying marriage should be strictly between a man and a woman because you're a Christian is acceptable if a Muslim can require you to read the Quaran, because it's against his beliefs for people not to read it. To build on this, you can do whatever the hell you want with your life - if you are gay and chose not to act on it or accept it, that's entirely your choice, and I support your right to make it. In exchange, you have no right to fuck with someone else's life, and if somebody else's freedom of expression bother you so much that you took the time in your life to write not one but two rants on a website, immigrate to Iran or Saudi Arabia. They're more in line with your values than the United States of America is.
Secondly, that is a completely bullshit pivot from my point. I asked you for proof of your statement, and you dodge by trying an ad hominem on me. You either give me the evidence I require, or you look like an idiot spouting bullshit, which increasingly I suspect you are. Now, which is it?
Re:MAD - and some of you will be (Score:5, Insightful)
The US needs energy independence. Renewables are now providing some of the cheapest electricity (recent bids for offshore wind power in Europe are at levels below electricity from coal). Renewables employs more people than fossil fuels in the USA. Renewables don't rely on a politically unstable region of the world, where the US has had to spend huge resources to ensure continued supplies.
We need oil today, but our investment should be in renewables. Focusing on fossil fuels is not an economically sound decision, even if you discount global climate change.
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That's true, but the latest bids for European offshore wind power are at rates that are comparable to US prices for electricity from coal (less than .05 euro per kWh). Prices for solar and wind power are dropping very quickly, whether residential or utility-scale projects.
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Pollution and deforestation is a bigger problem than CO2 emissions, yet the same groups wanting to take your cash for carbon put forth no projects or proposals to deal with those issues.
From which orifice did you pull that "fact"?
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Pollution and deforestation is a bigger problem than CO2 emissions, yet the same groups wanting to take your cash for carbon put forth no projects or proposals to deal with those issues.
From which orifice did you pull that "fact"?
Why? Is he wrong? Or are you just another one of those idiots like Trump who sit there with their hands over their eyes and their thumbs in their ears singing: LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA I CAN'T SEE YOU.!!
Deforestation is proceeding all over the world at alarming speed and pollution isn't helping either. To take just one example you cannot get any marine seafood anymore that isn't full of microscopic plastic particles and has chemical traces that are not normally found in nature. The result has been a
Re:Godspeed you Mr. President. (Score:5, Funny)
Teach them scientists with their fancy book-learnin' a less, once and for all. Who's with me?
If ignorance was good enough for my daddy and my grandaddy before me, then by gum, it's good enough for me. Godspeed you Mr President.
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Which is not a license to act like a fool.
Here's the thing about democracy: it doesn't guarantee you good government. It only gives you the ability to kick a bad one out.