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301 Responses to "Forced Responses: May 2018"
jgnfldsays
@87
I find it interesting that the same types who rail against the perils of government overreach are sanguine and even supportive of the gigantic examples of government overreach involved in maintaining sufficient hegemony over areas like the Middle East and various trade routes which has involved many, many trillions of dollar, tens of thousands of US dead, millions of civilian dead around the world, and has increased militarization of the whole of US society.
Somehow none of this seems like govt intervention to them. I don’t understand.
Ray Ladburysays
Mr. KIA: ““Nailed it – we do not want big-government. Our free market system is the best in the world – that’s why we have a huge immigration problem. Big government rarely gets anything right.”
Cough, cough…moon landings…cough, cough…the electronics revolution…cough,cough…the Human Genome Project…cough, cough…
Damn, must have a tickle in my throat from laughing at the stupidity spewing from the Glibertarians that think Ayn Rand was anything but a hack writer who was wrong about absolutely everything.
To be fair to poor KIA (#87), it’s quite true that crime (as we usually understand it) is in plain fact ’caused’ by government: by definition, you can’t have crime without law or at least established custom, and you can’t have law and/or custom without some form of governance–be it monarchical, democratic, tribal, or radically cooperative.
(Philosophers might play the ‘necessary and sufficient’ card here, I suppose, in which case I’d be obliged to retreat to the position that ‘government is a necessary condition for crime to exist’.)
Still, that does not mean that most of us would feel happier if (for example) the intentional killing of human beings by other humans occurred, but weren’t defined as criminal. Undesirable actions pre-exist crime; governments (again, of whatever type) then ‘create’ crime by applying definitions to problematic actions. Somewhat paradoxically, their actions are then evaluated by subsequent changes in the frequencies of the now-criminal acts. In a word, government creates crime in order to suppress crime.
Does it follow that, the lighter the level of government, the less crime? Intuitively, the observed fact that everywhere (and for many millennia now) humans have created legal structures of varying levels of formality and elaboration would suggest that such structures are adaptive–that, on the whole, societies with laws do better than those without them.
And there’s at least some empirical support for the idea that governance can suppress homicide:
So the question becomes, which behaviors should be criminalized? Clearly, opinion on this changes over time. But there is certainly a rational argument to be made that carbon pollution should in some sense be criminalized.
KIA says, roughly, that ‘we’ don’t want to be ruled–meaning ‘we Americans.’ But opinion polls say that a clear majority of ‘we Americans’ do in fact want to see action on GHG emissions. Unfortunately, it’s ‘we oligarchs’ who are currently in charge of US policy. That will likely be the case to some degree unless and until we can also re-criminalize the wholesale buying of American elections.
Marcussays
Hello model people, a question: if you have a state of the art GCM and you torture it with some non RCP GHG scenario,with many percent of CO2 or CH4, is it possible to enforce a Venus like runaway scenario? Have people done this, or would the numerics diverge/go south before that happens?
“New technology could slash carbon emissions from aluminium production. Development could transform how one of the world’s most common materials is made…”
The process is economic as well to scaling up is a real possibility. Like KM’s link on steel production solutions are emerging for several industrial processes.
Or perhaps as various people suggest the current economic system is too resource intensive, inherently unsustainable, doomed and beyond repair. A slow motion train wreck in the making.
nigeljsays
America is a dictatorship run by lobby groups. You have Scott Pruitt and auto manufacturers wanting to cut Obama’s fuel economy standards, while 70% of Americans including many republicans want them kept.
Sure. There’s a source of electricity that does not produce pollution, but it is racist to deny it to those people in Nigeria and Bangladesh. They should have the pleasure of going through acute lung disease like in some of those cities in China.
It was probably racist back when the automobile came out to sell them to African Americans and Native Americans, who should have just used horses, because they weren’t “ready” for the new tech.
And cellphones– my goodness, all those people in Africa communicating, doing banking, and learning stuff– oh the tragedy of not experiencing the whole landline business before they caught up with those clever white folks.
On many fronts, including empowerment of women, this kind of claim is typical doublespeak that is racist in effect and/or intent itself.
Let’s give people the same choices we have and see what they decide to do.
Sue Moneypennysays
Central Europe is reporting drops of over 50% in insect populations over the last 2 decades.
Surely this will prove detrimental to many a species, probably including our own.
Are there any global figures on the drop of insect populations? Is this just a local phenomenon?
‘warm’ Regards,
-Sue
Sue Moneypennysays
The increase in global dimming per decade is estimated on this website to be between 1% and 2% since the 60’s.
How can something like that only amount to about 0.4 degrees C in the scheme of factors that constitute climate sensitivity?
6 X 1.5* = 10%
10% of the 36 degrees C the greenhouse effect bestows upon this planet in terms of warming, is 3,6 degrees.
Even considering all the cancelling factors at play when we regard the effects of soot, cloud reflectiveness and what have you, how can global dimming translate to only a meagre 0.4 degrees C?
Your point is a bit ambiguous–other than the vague decrying of racism. (Which certainly can stand all the decrying we give it.) Should national victims of discrimination and/or colonialism get a pass or not, according to you? I can’t tell what you are saying.
Nor can I tell what you mean by “Renewables are clearly a winning strategy now! So cheap!” The all-bold seems pretty sarcastic, but given that you don’t say anything else about renewables in your screed, who knows?
But I don’t think the Indian Energy Minister was being sarcastic when he made the same point:
2017 appears to have been the tipping point year for the direction of the Indian power sector: after years in which capacity additions were dominated by coal, in 2017 coal net additions accounted for just 4,004 megawatts (7,115 megawatts added, 3,111 retired). In the meantime, renewables added more than tripled than number, at 12,829 megawatts.
(Use search box to locate specific projects or statuses.)
Many of the others specified, curiously, do not appear in the database at all. Not sure what that means!
However, as the cost of new coal capacity–already above wind most of the time, and increasingly of solar, too–becomes increasingly uncompetitive with renewable energy, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that many more coal projects will be shelved or cancelled for that reason alone–and not just in India; this is happening around the world now, including the USA.
“Agree with you that some government is necessary. If we cut the number of regulations by 75% it would be getting to a reasonable level; and if we cut all government (local,state,fed) employment by 50% we would not even miss them.”
Well agreeing we need some government is a start. Your so called “big government” has delivered a vast range of benefits such as accessible education, clean water, a huge highway network, NASA, the internet was a government / military initiative, a strong military, microprocessors, the list is virtually endless. The problems are underfunding with too much money siphoned off by the financial sector and stupid tax cuts.
The rest of your comments about cutting regulations are fact free assertions with no proof of why those are reasonable levels. Reasonable levels could be more regulations. Several european countries like the nordic countries have more regulations and state sector agencies than the USA, and higher incomes, lower inequality, cleaner water etc. Shouldnt you be emulating them?
Regarding your comments on renewable energy and Germany etc. You miss the point. Your basic argument was that your claimed capitalist free market orientated America has more renewable energy that your claimed socialist leaning Germany. I simply showed you that is not the case on a percentage or per capita basis.
Solar and wind power are of course still small components of total generation, but growth in the last couple of years has been huge. Have a read of the following article.
“Free market means within the borders – has nothing to do with open borders. ”
Where do you get this from? Adam Smith defined the idea and he didn’t limit it to within borders. You dont have free markets within your own borders anyway. Theres no such thing as free markets in the sense you mean, because no community can function without laws and regulations so live with it!
“Don’t believe the 4% (unemployed) number.”
4% are unemployed as below. I dont make things up. Others may be on other assistance adding up to 35%.
You claim big government is responsible for this “problem” but I think such a claim is superficial. Countries with small government such as many poor countries have unemployed people, invalids etc, but they simply get little help and struggle to even survive or they beg in the streets. Is that what you prefer?
“Our inequality is caused BY welfare. ”
No this is simply wrong and makes no sense as a claim. Inequality exists as wage inequality, being the gap in wage levels, and wealth inequality, being the difference in ownership of assets. Its caused by the meritocracy running away with a disproportionate ammount of the countires earnings, and wealth that is inherited and passed down through generations of families.
“Most of our crime is in inner-cities run for 6 decades by the D party. Has nothing to do with gun control – we have over 300,000,000 of them – if they were a problem you’d KNOW it. ;)”
Hilarious. Half your cities have been run by republicans. Your gun crime is among the highest in the developed world, literally ten times the rate in New Zealand.
“Clinton didn’t do anything to debt – Newt Gingrich, and the R congress did that ”
Hilarious. They voted for it, but Clinton supported it as well and deserves a degree of credit. Under his presidency crime also levelled off and the economy grew strongly.
The point is this was one of the few governments that reduced debt. Reagon and Bush Junior increased debt, and for no good reason. Obama increased debt, but he had to clean up a financial catastrophe by borrowing, so he is excused.
My country has a bigger government than you would like, and has had very low government debt for decades now. The point is it can be done if you are disciplined.
“Education used to be good here. Not really that great today. Values – going down hill at a rapid rate here – I’d place blame on schools and parents both.”
Yes some blame is on everyoine, but fix it by paying teachers a decent salary to get good, motivated staff, and good resources, rather than paying lawyers and bankers a fortune.
Mr. Know It Allsays
101 – jgnfld
Many who think our government is too intrusive also believe we should not be intervening in so many foreign wars. Not uncommon at all. However we do have allies there that we have obligations to protect and will continue to do that. I can see benefit to keeping the bad actors on the run there so they don’t come over here which is what they’d love to do.
102 – Ray
Ayn Rand had a point in Atlas Shrugs (only one of her books I’ve read). The book reminded me A LOT of modern America.
104 – Kevin
from the study “…..the current research
suggests that a dysfunctional and ineffective
government limits a nation’s ability to control social
disorder and violence.”
Makes my point, evident in every large city: rampant uncontrolled crime. That there’s a pile of evidence. :)
On GHGs we vote each day on that: should I bike, walk, take a bus or light rail, carpool, or drive my car. Most are taking their car. More evidence.
105 – Marcus
Kind of gets back to my question: HOW DO the climate models calculate temperature rise based on CO2 concentration. What equations do they use in the models? I’d like to know – I probably would not understand it – but would still like to see how it’s done.
106 – Hank
Developing countries want to be cool too. They’re totalitarian – who would dare tell on them?
107 and 108 – nigelj
The train wreck may not be as slow as we’d like.
On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it. The best FF car mpg to date was ~70 mpg in the 2-seater Honda Insight (late 90s), the CRX HF got ~60 mpg actual early 90s, the Rabbit Diesel got ~50-60 in the 80s. But for a fleet average, 54 is too big of a jump (despite claims that it wasn’t). Few cars today (25 years later) can match the Insight or CRX HF. Electrics don’t count – there are only 3 of them and they have flat tires. :)
Marcus @105,
If you’re talking a full-blown modern version of a GCM, the wheels would surely fall off if you tried to set going a run-away Venus-type atmosphere. The one GCM I’ve hear of being used for such analysis was by Ishiwatari et al (2002) who used a much simplified model. Of course, if any 3D model counts as a GCM, the likes of Wolf & Tone (2013) would also qualify. The usual approach is 1D modelling, such as Goldblatt et al (2013) and the usual objective of such analysis is to determine how much hotter the sun can get before a run-away atmosphere will result, an even that would naturally follow from the sun’s evolution. While the required increase in GHGs to achieve such run-away is not usually considered, Goldblatt et al do nod toward the relevance of the question and report that it would happen at 30,000ppm CO2 (or seven doublings of pre-industrial levels), although such a finding is not unchallenged (eg Ramirez et al (2014).
And this isn’t the end state of affairs–not yet, at least. November midterm elections will give us some indications, if legal developments don’t do so before that.
But yes, the auto thing is appalling, even if it is likely not to play out in a straightforward manner.
Ray Ladburysays
Mr. KIA,
Step away from the Faux News. Dude, more students have been killed in school shootings the US this year than servicemen on all the fronts where we are fighting. NO OTHER COUNTRY HAS THIS PROBLEM.
Gee, who was the Democratic President when the caca hit the fan in 2008. Oh, it was a Republican President. Well, he’s only just gotten into office…can’t expect him to fix everything over night…What? He’d been in office for 8 years? Oh. Never mind.
Do you realize how ridiculous you make yourself look spewing this crap?
As to regulations:
1) most studies show that they actually save money, but hey, if you knew how to deal with evidence, you wouldn’t be a rightwing nutjob.
2) just about every regulation out there was made necessary by some ingenious idiot–gaming the system, blowing up the power plant or otherwise screwing the pooch. Rather than getting rid of the regulations, let’s name them after the jerks who make them necessary.
There are two books that can have a profound effect on a fourteen-year-old’s outlook: Atlas Shrugged, and The Lord of the Rings. One is a silly fantasy with one-dimensional characters, wooden dialogue, and unbelievable events. The other concerns hobbits.
nigeljsays
Kevin McKinney @116, yes America has become an oligarchy. And perhaps also a distorted form of meritocracy, where people that benefited from the egalitarian policies of the 1960’s and 1970’s are now changing that system to guard their wealth, and power to an extraordinary degree.
Dansays
re: 114 =”On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it.”
The automobile manufacturers agreed to it but yet *you* knew it was unrealistic. Let’s see, professional automobile engineers or a shoot-from-the-hip commenter on a blog. Yeah, the world’s going to bank on the former, sport.
Furthermore, all of your mpg references are either past or present, not future. By that I mean each year car mpgs are improving with technology aimed at the CAFE standard. The glide scope is laid out (e.g. Honda Accord mpg 10 years ago versus now). To put it in a climate reference, you are essentially saying that because global temperatures 30-years ago were cooler than now, they must not be changing. In short, you are woefully stuck in the past. Technologically too.
Makes my point, evident in every large city: rampant uncontrolled crime.
No, it doesn’t. While it is entirely possible to pick a quotation out of context and use it because it ‘sounds like’ something you said, I’m afraid that’s a bit of logical malpractice called ‘cherry picking’.
While American large cities do have more violent crime than they should, compared with havens of ‘small government’ like Honduras or Guatemala their crime problem looks pretty unimpressive.
Contrariwise, compared with socialist metropoli like London, or Stockholm, or even Rome, they look, well, more like Tegucigalpa.
Big government is not the same thing as ineffective government. And in the US, attempts to shrink government based in ideologies such as the one you’re promoting are often highly counterproductive because they ‘shrink’ without reference to the functions required. That’s just bad design–or redesign.
A prime example was your assertion (in another comment, I think?) that cutting 75% of all regulation would be closer to ‘realistic’ levels. Says who? Based on what analysis of the actual results?
I’m quite certain that that is unsupported by anything other than emotion–in the (former) terminology of Stephen Colbert, ‘truthiness’. It feels right. But ‘fess up–you don’t actually have one concrete piece of analysis that supports that assertion, do you?
” It’s important to admit (to our collective selves) that if Rockefeller had printed OIL KILLS PLANETS in letters a foot high on every barrel and fuel pump, we would still have burned the stuff as fast as possible, and as much as we could get hold of.
we eat oil, without it we starve.
so lets cut out the handwringing over the mess in which we find ourselves right now
we are all culpable to a greater or lesser degree—those bringing the lawsuit are not prepared to return to a non-oil society—there is no ”alternative” society—we have locked ourselves into this one, and will remain so until the oil stops flowing, which probably won’t be very long now…”
What do you think might be wrong with that statement (I highlighted my personal favorite passages in bold letters)? :)
… btw, some say we are all culpable for the mess we’re in, that looks like a “fair” share in an “equal” society for some, right?… smile… but nevertheless some got a lot more to lose than others, that’s the real beauty of our equal sociey… :)… I always prefered to have little to lose, what’s your take?
nigeljsays
BPL @118
“There are two books that can have a profound effect on a fourteen-year-old’s outlook: Atlas Shrugged, and The Lord of the Rings. One is a silly fantasy with one-dimensional characters, wooden dialogue, and unbelievable events. The other concerns hobbits.”
Ha ha so true. I read both around 17 years old, along with the Fountainhead. Im embarrassed to admit I found Rands novels entertaining and rather seductive philosophy, but fortunately older and wiser heads pointed out the unreal nature of them, and I decided atlas shrugged was just much too one sided an attack on trade unions. It’s sobering that adults actually take this objectivist crap seriously, and it totally ignores the tragedy of the commons problem, so is unable to deal effectively with environmental problems or other crises.
Rand is a product of her upbringing in the Soviet Union, and I think she reacted by going to the other extreme. She ended up on a sickness benefit which is somewhat ironic.
I love the LOTR trilogy. Imho a great character study about loyalty, and the nature of authoritarianism, autarchy and evil and of course good natured escapism. Far better than anything Rand ever wrote.
nigeljsays
KIA @114
“On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it. The best FF car mpg to date was ~70 mpg in the 2-seater Honda Insight (late 90s), the CRX HF got ~60 mpg actual early 90s,
It’s absurd of you to claim 54 mpg is unrealistic if you are quoting cars that already exceeded this decades ago. Granted the CRX was small but I think the point still stands. You aren’t making any sense.
Europe manages good fuel economy as well. Hondas are rather good cars, I have owned four of them.
Hank Robertssays
Nemesis, this may be informative, it’s a serious effort to address appropriate responses:
Nemesis @122, I think the statement in your grist.org link is convoluted stupid nonsense of the sort that seriously annoys me. About the time oil was first being drilled around 1900, the first cars were being built, and there was a competition between petrol and electric cars. Petrol cars won the battle because of better range at that time, but if we had known with clarity about the dangers of climate change, it may have tipped the balance in favour of electric cars. The comment also seeks to deflect blame and responsibility.
Thats not to say we are not all implicated in this climate thing or that suing a few oil companies will solve it all alone (it will help), or absolve us of the need for individual action, developing renewable electricity etc.
But the oil companies knew about the climate problem way back in the 1980’s, and basically bullshitted the public that there was no problem. It’s analogous to false advertising, and there have to be consequences for this, if for no other reason than to discourage such things.
None of this is a criticism of you. Interesting post.
Marcussays
#115 MA Rodger: thanks for the meaningful answer!
Sorry all this new category “forced responses” were not the right channel for my question.
#114 Mr Know it All GCMs are parameterised finite volume calculations, this pretty much explains the basics
113 – nigelj
No large US cities are run by Rs. The USA has very little gun crime IF you exclude suicides and gang crimes. We have had a mass shooting a few times per year in recent years and those get lots of attention, but the numbers are very small for our population, but we will reduce those by hardening our schools – we did it already for our airlines after 9/11. China has no guns, yet they have many times the number of mass killings as the USA – they use knives – and they usually go for kindergarten schools. Listen from 12:57 to 16:30 – this guy has lived in China for a decade or so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLK9I6V1BGY
117 – Ray
Barney Franks started it. Clinton pushed it harder, and so did Bush, but it was a Dem idea.
118 – BPL
Yes, Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps you read it when you were 14 and had no real world context to understand how it describes modern America in many respects.
120 – Dan
Auto engineers knew it was D magical thinking – like me, they knew it would not happen.
Nemesis,
The problem with the statement is that it doesn’t allow for the economy to be dynamic. Had he been writing in the 1890s, he’d have been making the same claims about whale oil and horse-drawn carriages.
What business do we have trying to power the 21st century with the energy sources of the 19th and 20th?
JRClarksays
112 Kevin McKinney says:
20 May 2018 at 5:36 PM
JR, #98–Your point is a bit ambiguous–
109 zebra says:
20 May 2018 at 10:20 AM
@JR #98 “racist”
My comments and information with references spread over both #97 and #98. There is a connection to the prior comments in the #50s and #60s. Despite your complaints, sidetracks and misunderstandings about my 97/98 posts I still believe that what was presented was reasonable and clear given the referenced info, the state of the world and it’s history.
the links about India were ok though barely relevant or groundbreaking.
The US had initiated this dispute in February 2013 because it considered that India’s domestic content requirements were inconsistent with WTO rules that prohibit discrimination against imported products.
Pretty much an open and shut case. The rules did discriminate, they’re not allowed to, book ’em. But here’s what makes it all such fun. Just this past week India filed suit against the US in that same WTO process. Over exactly the same thing in reverse, US local content rules on solar installations:
what doe sit all mean? I wonder.
think whatever you want.
I have nothing to add.
If so–metaphor is slippery, which indeed is one of its virtues–we have several promising keys for that lock. Now if we could only start trying them in earnest.
Nemesissays
@Sue Moneypenny, #110
There’s no global monitoring of insect population as far as I know, so it’s hard to do any global studies. But considering manyfold causes like profitoptimized agriculture, excessive use of pesticides, (global^^) rapid anthropogenic induced climate heating, widespread degradation of ecological landscape ect ect, the global insect situation is likely dire. The fact, that the causes are manyfold is dire in itself, because politics and the economic system haven’t solved even one cause so far. I live in Germany, I realized the massive insect decline with my very own eyes during the last couple of years before I even heard of any studies at all. And I tell you:
It’s very spooky and frightening, in fact, it’s exactly the picture I could easily imagine as some harbinger of the end of the world as we know it 8)
Nemesissays
@Kevin McKinney, #131
” Nemesis, #122–
“…we have locked ourselves into this [society]…”
If so–metaphor is slippery, which indeed is one of its virtues–we have several promising keys for that lock. Now if we could only start trying them in earnest.”
Just for clarification: I didn’t say “…we have locked ourselves into this [society]…” in my comment at #122, but you quoted from a comment at https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/ . Anyway, at some point we will find out who’s culpable, I remember the tobaco playbook and gazillion of other criminal cases (want details?). There are criminals and there are victims of crime, that’s a fact. Oil-Empire did a lot of crimes while telling the people “that’s good for you, you need it, we do this and that, period.”. To keep things simple:
Much will be taken away from those who own much, little will be taken away from those who own little and nothing can be taken away from those who own nothing. That’s a fact, no slippery metaphor.
… if “we” can’t start trying it earnest after more than 100 years of climate research, then we are in a bad, bad Nemesis indeed.
” There will, in particular, be no real ambition ratchet without real equity assessment… Moving forward with the equity debate, some heat is inevitable. “
Hehe, that’s the achilles heel of the rich folks/countries. You know, this point is in my head almost from the beginning when I started to study the global situation: No equity, no justice, no integrity, no fairplay, no real teamwork means no survival for Homo Sapiens, that simple. And I tell you a dirty little secret of mine:
I don’t think the rich folks like equity, real justice, integrity, fair play, real teamwork ect, but they like money and more money and more money and power and more power and more power instead :-> Bad luck for Homo Sapiens (rich Homo Sapiens included).
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #126
” But the oil companies knew about the climate problem way back in the 1980.”
They know it even since around the 1920s, if I remember right. Anyway, oil is a dirty business from beginning to end. But what’s crucial: The oil industry will go on arguing exactly along that line during the coming proceders in court:
“We just gave you what you wanted.”
Hahaha, I know the dirty history of Oil-Empire too well, too well. Sorry, Nope, that’s absolutely NOT what I ordered, return to sender :->
JRClarksays
126 nigelj says: “Thats not to say we are not all implicated in this climate thing or that suing a few oil companies will solve it all alone (it will help)”
Why not sue every fossil fuel user alive today for their lifetime use to date and then annually ongoing?
That’s householders, car owners, public transport users, holiday makers and airline travelers, and especially those using luxury resorts, high rise building owners estate developers and their tenants (like Trump & the UAE et al), internet computer users, banks, Walmart, schools, gun makers, washing machine users, chainsaw users, truck owner drivers, shipping companies and Caribbean cruise tourists, politicians, national defense depts., and …. and sue you too Nigelj?
It will help even more if every single carbon polluter on the planet since 1990 was sued for damages based on their individual use per KG of CO2e of their total consumption according to scale! Trump pays his share, Nigelj pays his share and Nemesis pays their share. Simple really. It’s basic math and a computer spreadsheet and an Invoice. Why stop at Exxon and BP?
nigeljsays
Mr. Know It All @128
“The USA has very little gun crime IF you exclude suicides and gang crimes.”
Show me proof, and how does that make it any better? America has almost the highest homicide rate in the developed world, a shockingly bad statistic. No other country I know of has these constant school shootings. My country has high gun ownership rates, and has never had a school shooting to my knowledge.
“we will reduce those (school shoorings) by hardening our schools – we did it already for our airlines after 9/11. ‘
Pure conjecture. Are you going to put everyone through metal detectors” What an insane thing if it has come to that! I suppose you have to do this, but do the sensible thing and ban teenagers owning guns, and ban semi automatics, nobody needs to own those.
I think the problem in America is partly cultural: a tendency to revere gun ownership and use, to shoot first and ask questions later, and to see the second amendment in a simplistic and childish way.
nigeljsays
Sue Moneypenny @110 regarding the insect die off, and adding to Nemesis comment, this article is interesting.
“We know that many insects are in rapid decline due to factors such as habitat loss and intensive farming methods,” said Prof Dave Goulson, at the University of Sussex, UK, and not part of the new analysis. “This new study shows that, in the future, these declines would be hugely accelerated by the impacts of climate change, under realistic climate projections. When we add in all the other adverse factors affecting wildlife, all likely to increase as the human population grows, the future for biodiversity on planet Earth looks bleak.”
So it seems reasonable to assume that the problems already detected in Europe will be global to some extent. I can tell you bee populations have declined steeply in New Zealand. Obviously it will have impliactions for bird populations, crop pollination etc.
jgnfldsays
@KIA typical FUD in 128
Think you missed the note at the top of your crime stats: “DEFINITION: Note: Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.”
You will note that ICELAND (!!!) is the crime capital of the world according to your “stats”. And, according to your source, there is virtually no crime at all in India!
Also, the world has changed since 2002.
nigeljsays
Mr Know it all, regarding the 2008 financial crash. Lets just tidy this issue up.
Firstly the facts are Clinton asked the private banks to try to lend more to poor people. He never passed legisalation forcing this, it was just a suggestion, and he never suggested to lend money to just any poor people. Bush had 6 years where he could have changed this, but he didn’t.
However loan defaults by poor people were actually very low in 2008 and were not the cause of the crash. The PROBLEM was the banks packaged the loans with other loans as a type of derivative that was inherently badly designed and unstable and this market collapsed when the property bubble burst, leading to a chain of company collapses, and the ultimate credit crunch and deep recession.
The reason the 2008 crash was severe was mostly due to a huge property bubble caused by excessively low interest rates, an unregulated derivatives market, extremely unethical banking pratices, predtatory lending, and lack of sufficient bank capital to withstand even a mild downturn.
I do not expect you to understand or accept this, but its all there in the written histories, financial data and legislation, and may be of general interest.
It is a lesson in what happens with excessively deregulated financial markets but so many Americans are so stupid they don’t grasp this. For the same reason they are not dealing with the climate problem.
JRClarksays
Those horrible chinese communists are actually doing things. Don’t they know they have no freedoms and are being used by an evil dictator?
Stoopid dumb people with no democracy and a fake capitalist economy! Right? Fancy that growing stuff in a desert and turning sand in soil. So stoopid to believe that cheap propaganda?
> KIA … no large cities are run by Republicans
Sez who? You seem to believe some notions that are worth checking, but posting them here and hoping for homework help is not the most effective way of getting facts.
Google would really like to be your friend. Clear the browser cache so you escape the search bubble
or add Google’s custom string to your search to avoid personalization showing you more of what you like https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-bubble-response-13591.html
and try again.
When you avoid the search filter, you’ll find evidence about what you believe.
Especially worth doing when you want to post flat statements like the above “no large cities”
(Of course you can quibble about what ‘large’ means).
For example, you’d find these (not an exhaustive list):
the city of San Diego has a Republican mayor by the name of Kevin Faulconer
Ft Worth: Betsy Price is a Republican
Just to clarify, when we were talking about homicide rates, and you come back with a stat about ‘total crime’, you do know you are changing the topic, right?
And you do know that when the very first words on the page you link are a warning that the statistical differences are probably more driven by reporting than by the phenomenon being reported, that’s not exactly the gold standard in convincing citations, right?
142 Kevin McKinney, my time is no less important than yours is. OK? I too have my limitations and my own areas of interest. So next time I contribute something and I get a response that’s unrelated or out of kilter I am now less likely to reply at all, or clarify anything or add something in kind like the india refs. If there’s a next time.
Mike Roddysays
Here’s a film of the climate solutions event that Linda Sills and I held in San Francisco in December 2016. We were honored by the quality of the people who came, and made suggestions:
Christianity stole the natural, anima- listic body and mind of man (and called it “devilish”), while modern, sheer materialistic/physicalistic science stole the soul of man. Not much left, eh?
“ I am looking forward enormously to getting back to the sea again, where the overstimulated psyche can recover in the presence of that infinite peace and spaciousness.”
C. G. Jung
JRClarksays
Looking at this thread page only the following posts all look completely Off-Topic to me
That’s 23/45 or 51% – also known as ill-disciplined and if not stopped will be ultimately destructive to genuine on-topic sharing and discussion. If it is not already the case. Which seems to me it is.
@87
I find it interesting that the same types who rail against the perils of government overreach are sanguine and even supportive of the gigantic examples of government overreach involved in maintaining sufficient hegemony over areas like the Middle East and various trade routes which has involved many, many trillions of dollar, tens of thousands of US dead, millions of civilian dead around the world, and has increased militarization of the whole of US society.
Somehow none of this seems like govt intervention to them. I don’t understand.
Mr. KIA: ““Nailed it – we do not want big-government. Our free market system is the best in the world – that’s why we have a huge immigration problem. Big government rarely gets anything right.”
Cough, cough…moon landings…cough, cough…the electronics revolution…cough,cough…the Human Genome Project…cough, cough…
Damn, must have a tickle in my throat from laughing at the stupidity spewing from the Glibertarians that think Ayn Rand was anything but a hack writer who was wrong about absolutely everything.
Hank, #91–
Golden.
In fact, lucky thing I did just that in writing my latest comment for ab, as I thereby corrected a misapprehension under which I had been laboring.
To be fair to poor KIA (#87), it’s quite true that crime (as we usually understand it) is in plain fact ’caused’ by government: by definition, you can’t have crime without law or at least established custom, and you can’t have law and/or custom without some form of governance–be it monarchical, democratic, tribal, or radically cooperative.
(Philosophers might play the ‘necessary and sufficient’ card here, I suppose, in which case I’d be obliged to retreat to the position that ‘government is a necessary condition for crime to exist’.)
Still, that does not mean that most of us would feel happier if (for example) the intentional killing of human beings by other humans occurred, but weren’t defined as criminal. Undesirable actions pre-exist crime; governments (again, of whatever type) then ‘create’ crime by applying definitions to problematic actions. Somewhat paradoxically, their actions are then evaluated by subsequent changes in the frequencies of the now-criminal acts. In a word, government creates crime in order to suppress crime.
Does it follow that, the lighter the level of government, the less crime? Intuitively, the observed fact that everywhere (and for many millennia now) humans have created legal structures of varying levels of formality and elaboration would suggest that such structures are adaptive–that, on the whole, societies with laws do better than those without them.
And there’s at least some empirical support for the idea that governance can suppress homicide:
https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume13/3-Governance-Deterrence-and-National.pdf
So the question becomes, which behaviors should be criminalized? Clearly, opinion on this changes over time. But there is certainly a rational argument to be made that carbon pollution should in some sense be criminalized.
KIA says, roughly, that ‘we’ don’t want to be ruled–meaning ‘we Americans.’ But opinion polls say that a clear majority of ‘we Americans’ do in fact want to see action on GHG emissions. Unfortunately, it’s ‘we oligarchs’ who are currently in charge of US policy. That will likely be the case to some degree unless and until we can also re-criminalize the wholesale buying of American elections.
Hello model people, a question: if you have a state of the art GCM and you torture it with some non RCP GHG scenario,with many percent of CO2 or CH4, is it possible to enforce a Venus like runaway scenario? Have people done this, or would the numerics diverge/go south before that happens?
Cheers
Marcus
Apropos international agreements, some SOB is screwing up the stratosphere.
CFC emissions are rising again and scientists believe they are coming from an unidentified source in East Asia, according to a study published in Nature on May 16.
“New technology could slash carbon emissions from aluminium production. Development could transform how one of the world’s most common materials is made…”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/10/new-technology-slash-aluminium-production-carbon-emissions
The process is economic as well to scaling up is a real possibility. Like KM’s link on steel production solutions are emerging for several industrial processes.
Or perhaps as various people suggest the current economic system is too resource intensive, inherently unsustainable, doomed and beyond repair. A slow motion train wreck in the making.
America is a dictatorship run by lobby groups. You have Scott Pruitt and auto manufacturers wanting to cut Obama’s fuel economy standards, while 70% of Americans including many republicans want them kept.
“The Stunning Hypocrisy of U.S. Automakers”
https://nexusmedianews.com/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-u-s-automakers-9024d5a52698
@JR #98
“racist”
Sure. There’s a source of electricity that does not produce pollution, but it is racist to deny it to those people in Nigeria and Bangladesh. They should have the pleasure of going through acute lung disease like in some of those cities in China.
It was probably racist back when the automobile came out to sell them to African Americans and Native Americans, who should have just used horses, because they weren’t “ready” for the new tech.
And cellphones– my goodness, all those people in Africa communicating, doing banking, and learning stuff– oh the tragedy of not experiencing the whole landline business before they caught up with those clever white folks.
On many fronts, including empowerment of women, this kind of claim is typical doublespeak that is racist in effect and/or intent itself.
Let’s give people the same choices we have and see what they decide to do.
Central Europe is reporting drops of over 50% in insect populations over the last 2 decades.
Surely this will prove detrimental to many a species, probably including our own.
Are there any global figures on the drop of insect populations? Is this just a local phenomenon?
‘warm’ Regards,
-Sue
The increase in global dimming per decade is estimated on this website to be between 1% and 2% since the 60’s.
How can something like that only amount to about 0.4 degrees C in the scheme of factors that constitute climate sensitivity?
6 X 1.5* = 10%
10% of the 36 degrees C the greenhouse effect bestows upon this planet in terms of warming, is 3,6 degrees.
Even considering all the cancelling factors at play when we regard the effects of soot, cloud reflectiveness and what have you, how can global dimming translate to only a meagre 0.4 degrees C?
‘Warm’ regards,
-Sue
JR, #98–
Your point is a bit ambiguous–other than the vague decrying of racism. (Which certainly can stand all the decrying we give it.) Should national victims of discrimination and/or colonialism get a pass or not, according to you? I can’t tell what you are saying.
Nor can I tell what you mean by “Renewables are clearly a winning strategy now! So cheap!” The all-bold seems pretty sarcastic, but given that you don’t say anything else about renewables in your screed, who knows?
But I don’t think the Indian Energy Minister was being sarcastic when he made the same point:
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/18/solar-is-now-cheaper-than-coal-says-india-energy-minister/
2017 appears to have been the tipping point year for the direction of the Indian power sector: after years in which capacity additions were dominated by coal, in 2017 coal net additions accounted for just 4,004 megawatts (7,115 megawatts added, 3,111 retired). In the meantime, renewables added more than tripled than number, at 12,829 megawatts.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/17/india-had-coal-free-power-capacity-addition-during-8-months-in-2017/
Finally, note that ‘proposed’ power plants necessarily get built. In fact, many projects fall through for one reason or another. As an example, coaltracker shows the Ackaringa and Coolimba projects are cancelled, and the Bluewater project shelved.
https://endcoal.org/tracker/
(Use search box to locate specific projects or statuses.)
Many of the others specified, curiously, do not appear in the database at all. Not sure what that means!
However, as the cost of new coal capacity–already above wind most of the time, and increasingly of solar, too–becomes increasingly uncompetitive with renewable energy, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that many more coal projects will be shelved or cancelled for that reason alone–and not just in India; this is happening around the world now, including the USA.
https://progrss.com/sustainability/20170601/solar-prices-convince-india-cancel-coal/
https://qz.com/988271/donald-trumps-coal-promise-us-coal-fired-plants-forced-to-announce-closures-in-2017-alone-could-power-all-of-qatar/
Heck, it’s happening in Australia–since we were talking about Down Under:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/sa/2015/06/11/coal-way-sa/
(And that was back in 2015.)
Mr. Know It All @99
“Agree with you that some government is necessary. If we cut the number of regulations by 75% it would be getting to a reasonable level; and if we cut all government (local,state,fed) employment by 50% we would not even miss them.”
Well agreeing we need some government is a start. Your so called “big government” has delivered a vast range of benefits such as accessible education, clean water, a huge highway network, NASA, the internet was a government / military initiative, a strong military, microprocessors, the list is virtually endless. The problems are underfunding with too much money siphoned off by the financial sector and stupid tax cuts.
The rest of your comments about cutting regulations are fact free assertions with no proof of why those are reasonable levels. Reasonable levels could be more regulations. Several european countries like the nordic countries have more regulations and state sector agencies than the USA, and higher incomes, lower inequality, cleaner water etc. Shouldnt you be emulating them?
Regarding your comments on renewable energy and Germany etc. You miss the point. Your basic argument was that your claimed capitalist free market orientated America has more renewable energy that your claimed socialist leaning Germany. I simply showed you that is not the case on a percentage or per capita basis.
Solar and wind power are of course still small components of total generation, but growth in the last couple of years has been huge. Have a read of the following article.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-solar-capacity-grew-faster-than-fossil-fuels-2017-report
“Free market means within the borders – has nothing to do with open borders. ”
Where do you get this from? Adam Smith defined the idea and he didn’t limit it to within borders. You dont have free markets within your own borders anyway. Theres no such thing as free markets in the sense you mean, because no community can function without laws and regulations so live with it!
“Don’t believe the 4% (unemployed) number.”
4% are unemployed as below. I dont make things up. Others may be on other assistance adding up to 35%.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
You claim big government is responsible for this “problem” but I think such a claim is superficial. Countries with small government such as many poor countries have unemployed people, invalids etc, but they simply get little help and struggle to even survive or they beg in the streets. Is that what you prefer?
“Our inequality is caused BY welfare. ”
No this is simply wrong and makes no sense as a claim. Inequality exists as wage inequality, being the gap in wage levels, and wealth inequality, being the difference in ownership of assets. Its caused by the meritocracy running away with a disproportionate ammount of the countires earnings, and wealth that is inherited and passed down through generations of families.
“Most of our crime is in inner-cities run for 6 decades by the D party. Has nothing to do with gun control – we have over 300,000,000 of them – if they were a problem you’d KNOW it. ;)”
Hilarious. Half your cities have been run by republicans. Your gun crime is among the highest in the developed world, literally ten times the rate in New Zealand.
“Clinton didn’t do anything to debt – Newt Gingrich, and the R congress did that ”
Hilarious. They voted for it, but Clinton supported it as well and deserves a degree of credit. Under his presidency crime also levelled off and the economy grew strongly.
https://newrepublic.com/article/76709/who-created-the-1990s-surplus-clinton-or-the-gop
The point is this was one of the few governments that reduced debt. Reagon and Bush Junior increased debt, and for no good reason. Obama increased debt, but he had to clean up a financial catastrophe by borrowing, so he is excused.
My country has a bigger government than you would like, and has had very low government debt for decades now. The point is it can be done if you are disciplined.
“Education used to be good here. Not really that great today. Values – going down hill at a rapid rate here – I’d place blame on schools and parents both.”
Yes some blame is on everyoine, but fix it by paying teachers a decent salary to get good, motivated staff, and good resources, rather than paying lawyers and bankers a fortune.
101 – jgnfld
Many who think our government is too intrusive also believe we should not be intervening in so many foreign wars. Not uncommon at all. However we do have allies there that we have obligations to protect and will continue to do that. I can see benefit to keeping the bad actors on the run there so they don’t come over here which is what they’d love to do.
102 – Ray
Ayn Rand had a point in Atlas Shrugs (only one of her books I’ve read). The book reminded me A LOT of modern America.
104 – Kevin
from the study “…..the current research
suggests that a dysfunctional and ineffective
government limits a nation’s ability to control social
disorder and violence.”
Makes my point, evident in every large city: rampant uncontrolled crime. That there’s a pile of evidence. :)
On GHGs we vote each day on that: should I bike, walk, take a bus or light rail, carpool, or drive my car. Most are taking their car. More evidence.
105 – Marcus
Kind of gets back to my question: HOW DO the climate models calculate temperature rise based on CO2 concentration. What equations do they use in the models? I’d like to know – I probably would not understand it – but would still like to see how it’s done.
106 – Hank
Developing countries want to be cool too. They’re totalitarian – who would dare tell on them?
107 and 108 – nigelj
The train wreck may not be as slow as we’d like.
On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it. The best FF car mpg to date was ~70 mpg in the 2-seater Honda Insight (late 90s), the CRX HF got ~60 mpg actual early 90s, the Rabbit Diesel got ~50-60 in the 80s. But for a fleet average, 54 is too big of a jump (despite claims that it wasn’t). Few cars today (25 years later) can match the Insight or CRX HF. Electrics don’t count – there are only 3 of them and they have flat tires. :)
Marcus @105,
If you’re talking a full-blown modern version of a GCM, the wheels would surely fall off if you tried to set going a run-away Venus-type atmosphere. The one GCM I’ve hear of being used for such analysis was by Ishiwatari et al (2002) who used a much simplified model. Of course, if any 3D model counts as a GCM, the likes of Wolf & Tone (2013) would also qualify. The usual approach is 1D modelling, such as Goldblatt et al (2013) and the usual objective of such analysis is to determine how much hotter the sun can get before a run-away atmosphere will result, an even that would naturally follow from the sun’s evolution. While the required increase in GHGs to achieve such run-away is not usually considered, Goldblatt et al do nod toward the relevance of the question and report that it would happen at 30,000ppm CO2 (or seven doublings of pre-industrial levels), although such a finding is not unchallenged (eg Ramirez et al (2014).
#108, nigel–
Not a dictatorship, an oligarchy.
And this isn’t the end state of affairs–not yet, at least. November midterm elections will give us some indications, if legal developments don’t do so before that.
But yes, the auto thing is appalling, even if it is likely not to play out in a straightforward manner.
Mr. KIA,
Step away from the Faux News. Dude, more students have been killed in school shootings the US this year than servicemen on all the fronts where we are fighting. NO OTHER COUNTRY HAS THIS PROBLEM.
Gee, who was the Democratic President when the caca hit the fan in 2008. Oh, it was a Republican President. Well, he’s only just gotten into office…can’t expect him to fix everything over night…What? He’d been in office for 8 years? Oh. Never mind.
Do you realize how ridiculous you make yourself look spewing this crap?
As to regulations:
1) most studies show that they actually save money, but hey, if you knew how to deal with evidence, you wouldn’t be a rightwing nutjob.
2) just about every regulation out there was made necessary by some ingenious idiot–gaming the system, blowing up the power plant or otherwise screwing the pooch. Rather than getting rid of the regulations, let’s name them after the jerks who make them necessary.
KIA 114: Ayn Rand had a point in Atlas Shrugs
BPL: “Atlas Shrugged.”
There are two books that can have a profound effect on a fourteen-year-old’s outlook: Atlas Shrugged, and The Lord of the Rings. One is a silly fantasy with one-dimensional characters, wooden dialogue, and unbelievable events. The other concerns hobbits.
Kevin McKinney @116, yes America has become an oligarchy. And perhaps also a distorted form of meritocracy, where people that benefited from the egalitarian policies of the 1960’s and 1970’s are now changing that system to guard their wealth, and power to an extraordinary degree.
re: 114 =”On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it.”
The automobile manufacturers agreed to it but yet *you* knew it was unrealistic. Let’s see, professional automobile engineers or a shoot-from-the-hip commenter on a blog. Yeah, the world’s going to bank on the former, sport.
Furthermore, all of your mpg references are either past or present, not future. By that I mean each year car mpgs are improving with technology aimed at the CAFE standard. The glide scope is laid out (e.g. Honda Accord mpg 10 years ago versus now). To put it in a climate reference, you are essentially saying that because global temperatures 30-years ago were cooler than now, they must not be changing. In short, you are woefully stuck in the past. Technologically too.
KIA, #114–
No, it doesn’t. While it is entirely possible to pick a quotation out of context and use it because it ‘sounds like’ something you said, I’m afraid that’s a bit of logical malpractice called ‘cherry picking’.
While American large cities do have more violent crime than they should, compared with havens of ‘small government’ like Honduras or Guatemala their crime problem looks pretty unimpressive.
Contrariwise, compared with socialist metropoli like London, or Stockholm, or even Rome, they look, well, more like Tegucigalpa.
Big government is not the same thing as ineffective government. And in the US, attempts to shrink government based in ideologies such as the one you’re promoting are often highly counterproductive because they ‘shrink’ without reference to the functions required. That’s just bad design–or redesign.
A prime example was your assertion (in another comment, I think?) that cutting 75% of all regulation would be closer to ‘realistic’ levels. Says who? Based on what analysis of the actual results?
I’m quite certain that that is unsupported by anything other than emotion–in the (former) terminology of Stephen Colbert, ‘truthiness’. It feels right. But ‘fess up–you don’t actually have one concrete piece of analysis that supports that assertion, do you?
Who is responsible?
I found this very interesting statement in the comments below at https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/ recently:
” It’s important to admit (to our collective selves) that if Rockefeller had printed OIL KILLS PLANETS in letters a foot high on every barrel and fuel pump, we would still have burned the stuff as fast as possible, and as much as we could get hold of.
we eat oil, without it we starve.
so lets cut out the handwringing over the mess in which we find ourselves right now
we are all culpable to a greater or lesser degree—those bringing the lawsuit are not prepared to return to a non-oil society—there is no ”alternative” society—we have locked ourselves into this one, and will remain so until the oil stops flowing, which probably won’t be very long now…”
https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/#comment-3818517488
What do you think might be wrong with that statement (I highlighted my personal favorite passages in bold letters)? :)
… btw, some say we are all culpable for the mess we’re in, that looks like a “fair” share in an “equal” society for some, right?… smile… but nevertheless some got a lot more to lose than others, that’s the real beauty of our equal sociey… :)… I always prefered to have little to lose, what’s your take?
BPL @118
“There are two books that can have a profound effect on a fourteen-year-old’s outlook: Atlas Shrugged, and The Lord of the Rings. One is a silly fantasy with one-dimensional characters, wooden dialogue, and unbelievable events. The other concerns hobbits.”
Ha ha so true. I read both around 17 years old, along with the Fountainhead. Im embarrassed to admit I found Rands novels entertaining and rather seductive philosophy, but fortunately older and wiser heads pointed out the unreal nature of them, and I decided atlas shrugged was just much too one sided an attack on trade unions. It’s sobering that adults actually take this objectivist crap seriously, and it totally ignores the tragedy of the commons problem, so is unable to deal effectively with environmental problems or other crises.
Rand is a product of her upbringing in the Soviet Union, and I think she reacted by going to the other extreme. She ended up on a sickness benefit which is somewhat ironic.
I love the LOTR trilogy. Imho a great character study about loyalty, and the nature of authoritarianism, autarchy and evil and of course good natured escapism. Far better than anything Rand ever wrote.
KIA @114
“On CAFE mpg standards, 54 average was unrealistic – I knew it when they first announced it. The best FF car mpg to date was ~70 mpg in the 2-seater Honda Insight (late 90s), the CRX HF got ~60 mpg actual early 90s,
It’s absurd of you to claim 54 mpg is unrealistic if you are quoting cars that already exceeded this decades ago. Granted the CRX was small but I think the point still stands. You aren’t making any sense.
Europe manages good fuel economy as well. Hondas are rather good cars, I have owned four of them.
Nemesis, this may be informative, it’s a serious effort to address appropriate responses:
http://www.ecoequity.org/
Nemesis @122, I think the statement in your grist.org link is convoluted stupid nonsense of the sort that seriously annoys me. About the time oil was first being drilled around 1900, the first cars were being built, and there was a competition between petrol and electric cars. Petrol cars won the battle because of better range at that time, but if we had known with clarity about the dangers of climate change, it may have tipped the balance in favour of electric cars. The comment also seeks to deflect blame and responsibility.
Thats not to say we are not all implicated in this climate thing or that suing a few oil companies will solve it all alone (it will help), or absolve us of the need for individual action, developing renewable electricity etc.
But the oil companies knew about the climate problem way back in the 1980’s, and basically bullshitted the public that there was no problem. It’s analogous to false advertising, and there have to be consequences for this, if for no other reason than to discourage such things.
None of this is a criticism of you. Interesting post.
#115 MA Rodger: thanks for the meaningful answer!
Sorry all this new category “forced responses” were not the right channel for my question.
#114 Mr Know it All GCMs are parameterised finite volume calculations, this pretty much explains the basics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_circulation_model
Cheers
113 – nigelj
No large US cities are run by Rs. The USA has very little gun crime IF you exclude suicides and gang crimes. We have had a mass shooting a few times per year in recent years and those get lots of attention, but the numbers are very small for our population, but we will reduce those by hardening our schools – we did it already for our airlines after 9/11. China has no guns, yet they have many times the number of mass killings as the USA – they use knives – and they usually go for kindergarten schools. Listen from 12:57 to 16:30 – this guy has lived in China for a decade or so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLK9I6V1BGY
And on the suicides, people use the tools available – US rates much lower than many with no guns. USA number 48 – Sweden, Finland, Japan, South Korea much higher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Hope that helps.
117 – Ray
Barney Franks started it. Clinton pushed it harder, and so did Bush, but it was a Dem idea.
118 – BPL
Yes, Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps you read it when you were 14 and had no real world context to understand how it describes modern America in many respects.
120 – Dan
Auto engineers knew it was D magical thinking – like me, they knew it would not happen.
121 – Kevin
Crime rate in England: 2.5 times that of the USA.
Crime rate in Sweden: 3.5 times that of the USA.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000
Hope that helps.
Nemesis,
The problem with the statement is that it doesn’t allow for the economy to be dynamic. Had he been writing in the 1890s, he’d have been making the same claims about whale oil and horse-drawn carriages.
What business do we have trying to power the 21st century with the energy sources of the 19th and 20th?
112 Kevin McKinney says:
20 May 2018 at 5:36 PM
JR, #98–Your point is a bit ambiguous–
109 zebra says:
20 May 2018 at 10:20 AM
@JR #98 “racist”
My comments and information with references spread over both #97 and #98. There is a connection to the prior comments in the #50s and #60s. Despite your complaints, sidetracks and misunderstandings about my 97/98 posts I still believe that what was presented was reasonable and clear given the referenced info, the state of the world and it’s history.
the links about India were ok though barely relevant or groundbreaking.
try these too.
https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/wto-sets-up-panel-to-resolve-india-us-renewables-case-hearing-soon/64127294
http://www.thehindu.com/business/us-takes-india-back-to-wto-in-solar-power-dispute/article22059123.ece
https://solarlove.org/india-issues-guidelines-states-wto-solar-equipment-compliance/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/09/17/india-loses-wto-solar-appeal-against-us-as-it-should-next-indias-wto-solar-case-against-us/
The US had initiated this dispute in February 2013 because it considered that India’s domestic content requirements were inconsistent with WTO rules that prohibit discrimination against imported products.
Pretty much an open and shut case. The rules did discriminate, they’re not allowed to, book ’em. But here’s what makes it all such fun. Just this past week India filed suit against the US in that same WTO process. Over exactly the same thing in reverse, US local content rules on solar installations:
what doe sit all mean? I wonder.
think whatever you want.
I have nothing to add.
Nemesis, #122–
If so–metaphor is slippery, which indeed is one of its virtues–we have several promising keys for that lock. Now if we could only start trying them in earnest.
@Sue Moneypenny, #110
There’s no global monitoring of insect population as far as I know, so it’s hard to do any global studies. But considering manyfold causes like profitoptimized agriculture, excessive use of pesticides, (global^^) rapid anthropogenic induced climate heating, widespread degradation of ecological landscape ect ect, the global insect situation is likely dire. The fact, that the causes are manyfold is dire in itself, because politics and the economic system haven’t solved even one cause so far. I live in Germany, I realized the massive insect decline with my very own eyes during the last couple of years before I even heard of any studies at all. And I tell you:
It’s very spooky and frightening, in fact, it’s exactly the picture I could easily imagine as some harbinger of the end of the world as we know it 8)
@Kevin McKinney, #131
” Nemesis, #122–
“…we have locked ourselves into this [society]…”
If so–metaphor is slippery, which indeed is one of its virtues–we have several promising keys for that lock. Now if we could only start trying them in earnest.”
Just for clarification: I didn’t say “…we have locked ourselves into this [society]…” in my comment at #122, but you quoted from a comment at https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/ . Anyway, at some point we will find out who’s culpable, I remember the tobaco playbook and gazillion of other criminal cases (want details?). There are criminals and there are victims of crime, that’s a fact. Oil-Empire did a lot of crimes while telling the people “that’s good for you, you need it, we do this and that, period.”. To keep things simple:
Much will be taken away from those who own much, little will be taken away from those who own little and nothing can be taken away from those who own nothing. That’s a fact, no slippery metaphor.
… if “we” can’t start trying it earnest after more than 100 years of climate research, then we are in a bad, bad Nemesis indeed.
@Hank Roberts, #125
Thanks for the link! Quote from http://www.ecoequity.org :
” There will, in particular, be no real ambition ratchet without real equity assessment… Moving forward with the equity debate, some heat is inevitable. “
Hehe, that’s the achilles heel of the rich folks/countries. You know, this point is in my head almost from the beginning when I started to study the global situation: No equity, no justice, no integrity, no fairplay, no real teamwork means no survival for Homo Sapiens, that simple. And I tell you a dirty little secret of mine:
I don’t think the rich folks like equity, real justice, integrity, fair play, real teamwork ect, but they like money and more money and more money and power and more power and more power instead :-> Bad luck for Homo Sapiens (rich Homo Sapiens included).
@nigelj, #126
” But the oil companies knew about the climate problem way back in the 1980.”
They know it even since around the 1920s, if I remember right. Anyway, oil is a dirty business from beginning to end. But what’s crucial: The oil industry will go on arguing exactly along that line during the coming proceders in court:
“We just gave you what you wanted.”
Hahaha, I know the dirty history of Oil-Empire too well, too well. Sorry, Nope, that’s absolutely NOT what I ordered, return to sender :->
126 nigelj says: “Thats not to say we are not all implicated in this climate thing or that suing a few oil companies will solve it all alone (it will help)”
Why not sue every fossil fuel user alive today for their lifetime use to date and then annually ongoing?
That’s householders, car owners, public transport users, holiday makers and airline travelers, and especially those using luxury resorts, high rise building owners estate developers and their tenants (like Trump & the UAE et al), internet computer users, banks, Walmart, schools, gun makers, washing machine users, chainsaw users, truck owner drivers, shipping companies and Caribbean cruise tourists, politicians, national defense depts., and …. and sue you too Nigelj?
It will help even more if every single carbon polluter on the planet since 1990 was sued for damages based on their individual use per KG of CO2e of their total consumption according to scale! Trump pays his share, Nigelj pays his share and Nemesis pays their share. Simple really. It’s basic math and a computer spreadsheet and an Invoice. Why stop at Exxon and BP?
Mr. Know It All @128
“The USA has very little gun crime IF you exclude suicides and gang crimes.”
Show me proof, and how does that make it any better? America has almost the highest homicide rate in the developed world, a shockingly bad statistic. No other country I know of has these constant school shootings. My country has high gun ownership rates, and has never had a school shooting to my knowledge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
“we will reduce those (school shoorings) by hardening our schools – we did it already for our airlines after 9/11. ‘
Pure conjecture. Are you going to put everyone through metal detectors” What an insane thing if it has come to that! I suppose you have to do this, but do the sensible thing and ban teenagers owning guns, and ban semi automatics, nobody needs to own those.
I think the problem in America is partly cultural: a tendency to revere gun ownership and use, to shoot first and ask questions later, and to see the second amendment in a simplistic and childish way.
Sue Moneypenny @110 regarding the insect die off, and adding to Nemesis comment, this article is interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/17/climate-change-on-track-to-cause-major-insect-wipeout-scientists-warn
“We know that many insects are in rapid decline due to factors such as habitat loss and intensive farming methods,” said Prof Dave Goulson, at the University of Sussex, UK, and not part of the new analysis. “This new study shows that, in the future, these declines would be hugely accelerated by the impacts of climate change, under realistic climate projections. When we add in all the other adverse factors affecting wildlife, all likely to increase as the human population grows, the future for biodiversity on planet Earth looks bleak.”
So it seems reasonable to assume that the problems already detected in Europe will be global to some extent. I can tell you bee populations have declined steeply in New Zealand. Obviously it will have impliactions for bird populations, crop pollination etc.
@KIA typical FUD in 128
Think you missed the note at the top of your crime stats: “DEFINITION: Note: Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.”
You will note that ICELAND (!!!) is the crime capital of the world according to your “stats”. And, according to your source, there is virtually no crime at all in India!
Also, the world has changed since 2002.
Mr Know it all, regarding the 2008 financial crash. Lets just tidy this issue up.
Firstly the facts are Clinton asked the private banks to try to lend more to poor people. He never passed legisalation forcing this, it was just a suggestion, and he never suggested to lend money to just any poor people. Bush had 6 years where he could have changed this, but he didn’t.
However loan defaults by poor people were actually very low in 2008 and were not the cause of the crash. The PROBLEM was the banks packaged the loans with other loans as a type of derivative that was inherently badly designed and unstable and this market collapsed when the property bubble burst, leading to a chain of company collapses, and the ultimate credit crunch and deep recession.
The reason the 2008 crash was severe was mostly due to a huge property bubble caused by excessively low interest rates, an unregulated derivatives market, extremely unethical banking pratices, predtatory lending, and lack of sufficient bank capital to withstand even a mild downturn.
I do not expect you to understand or accept this, but its all there in the written histories, financial data and legislation, and may be of general interest.
It is a lesson in what happens with excessively deregulated financial markets but so many Americans are so stupid they don’t grasp this. For the same reason they are not dealing with the climate problem.
Those horrible chinese communists are actually doing things. Don’t they know they have no freedoms and are being used by an evil dictator?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_Hnmty4vY
Stoopid dumb people with no democracy and a fake capitalist economy! Right? Fancy that growing stuff in a desert and turning sand in soil. So stoopid to believe that cheap propaganda?
JR, #130–
Well, if you believe it was clear, it must be clear, then.
To you.
To me, not so much. But whatever–I foresee more exercise for my scrolling muscles.
> KIA … no large cities are run by Republicans
Sez who? You seem to believe some notions that are worth checking, but posting them here and hoping for homework help is not the most effective way of getting facts.
Google would really like to be your friend. Clear the browser cache so you escape the search bubble
or add Google’s custom string to your search to avoid personalization showing you more of what you like
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-bubble-response-13591.html
and try again.
When you avoid the search filter, you’ll find evidence about what you believe.
Especially worth doing when you want to post flat statements like the above “no large cities”
(Of course you can quibble about what ‘large’ means).
For example, you’d find these (not an exhaustive list):
the city of San Diego has a Republican mayor by the name of Kevin Faulconer
Ft Worth: Betsy Price is a Republican
KIA, #128–
Just to clarify, when we were talking about homicide rates, and you come back with a stat about ‘total crime’, you do know you are changing the topic, right?
And you do know that when the very first words on the page you link are a warning that the statistical differences are probably more driven by reporting than by the phenomenon being reported, that’s not exactly the gold standard in convincing citations, right?
KIA, #128–
Yes, there are large cities headed by Republican mayors–the largest is San Diego, which is the 8th largest in the US.
Of the top 50 largest US cities, 14 are in fact led by GOP mayors. In descending order of population, they are:
San Diego
Jacksonville, FL
Ft. Worth
El Paso
Oklahoma City
Fresno
Mesa, AZ
Colorado Springs
Virginia Beach
Omaha
Miami
Tulsa
Wichita
Arlington, TX
In addition to the 14 Rs, there are a couple of independent mayors, too, including San Antonio, TX, 7th-largest in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_the_50_largest_cities_in_the_United_States
142 Kevin McKinney, my time is no less important than yours is. OK? I too have my limitations and my own areas of interest. So next time I contribute something and I get a response that’s unrelated or out of kilter I am now less likely to reply at all, or clarify anything or add something in kind like the india refs. If there’s a next time.
Here’s a film of the climate solutions event that Linda Sills and I held in San Francisco in December 2016. We were honored by the quality of the people who came, and made suggestions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMQ3iSQIu2Y&feature=youtu.be
“Of the top 50 largest US cities, 14 are in fact led by GOP mayors.”
Plenty of crime in those cities too, some very high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Here’s a forced response of mine:
Christianity stole the natural, anima- listic body and mind of man (and called it “devilish”), while modern, sheer materialistic/physicalistic science stole the soul of man. Not much left, eh?
“ I am looking forward enormously to getting back to the sea again, where the overstimulated psyche can recover in the presence of that infinite peace and spaciousness.”
C. G. Jung
Looking at this thread page only the following posts all look completely Off-Topic to me
#101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 128, 129, 137, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145.
That’s 23/45 or 51% – also known as ill-disciplined and if not stopped will be ultimately destructive to genuine on-topic sharing and discussion. If it is not already the case. Which seems to me it is.