Stay safe, everybody, and for gawd's sake, stay away from those douchebags!

epic, destructive unprecedented hurricane, and now this one. Nah, global warming is fallacy cooked up by tree huggers, baby seal lovers.

create by some to make money and spread fear.

Global Climate change is real, and very complicated.

Calling it Global Warming dumbs it down to a point where idiots can understand, or at least that was the goal and it backfired.

Nothing complicated about the fact that carbon based units are destroying my planet. It's fucking simple. Start a car, ram 150, airplane, with it's concurrent exhaust and do this over and over again for decades. Destroyed planet. Period.

If you're trying to say that anthropogenic climate change isn't real.....well, the science just happens to say otherwise, friend.

However, though, I can admit that the media is guilty of spreading fear and misinformation with BOTH extremes; "Climategate" type stuff on the denier side, and various hardcore doom-and-gloom nuttiness on the "doomer" side. The latter extreme is highly unproductive and usually full of B.S., and the former actually goes a step further by purposefully misinterpreting the science in an even more dishonest fashion.

Last edited Sat Feb 9, 2013, 01:43 PM - Edit history (1)

I googled it. great descriptive word for carbon based units destroying my planet. thank you.

patterns have emerged... Like scientists have been stating for years, dry areas and deserts would emerge, hurricanes would become stronger, flooding more prone, and winter weather more intense.

I don't really have the time to go over the basics of what normally occurs with our rotation, coriolis effect, wind patterns, jet streams on a normal basis and how that the oceans temperature rising and losing glacial ice sheets is changing these effects. The polar cold air mass split this year. Australia I burning. The Mississippi nearly dried up to the point of not allowing shipping from the heartland.

So, it is global warming... These more intense changes in storms and air masses and ocean currents are a global issue. The wealthy oil asses say we can just adjust as these more wild destructive storms and conditions increase, but knowing how our world works and who is screwed the most, it is people who are poorer that will suffer the most.

going to go with this explanation. Simple and true.

Calling it Global Warming simplifies all those complicated systematic characteristics and effects into a simple sound bite. That simple sound bite creates the impression that the global is warming, and only warming. This makes it really easy for the detractors to say "There is no need to pay attention to this Global Warming crap, because it's colder this year where I live".

The simplicity of the term made it easy to sell initially, and easy to use as a weapon of fear. The simplicity of the term has now lead to a break down in its credibility. The legitimate scientific papers I have read do not call it Global Warming, only the press, media, and attention seekers do.

Once you understand that human civilization has a significant impact on the environment at all levels, locally, regionally, "hemispheric-ally", and globally, you can start to appreciate HOW human civilization effects the system. Arguing that a system is failing without a more granular look at the causes and effects and interrelations of the causes and effects just takes attention away from a real understanding of the problem.

People in this country argue about cars, carbon, pollution, etc. All of this are definate effects, but very few people that buy into the Global Warming propaganda have any understanding of the localized and global effect that GIGANTIC lake that China has made has.

It's all important. Yelling about Global Warming, oil, and cars prevents you from seeing how complicated this topic is, and will prevent you from see real solution, preferably real solutions that won't make things worse.

I was raised to always be mindful of my impact to the world around me, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Global Warming is insulting to the fundamentals that I know. Accepting that Global Climate change is happening, and is NOT a simple concept fits well withing the fundamentals that I know, and lets me see the world around me for what it is and what is happening.

Science. Simply put, the average temperature of the earth is warming. The results of the warming, especially in the ocean and in the arctic regions are creating differing global weather patterns. The 100yr storms are coming at a much faster rate as to be "normalized". The currents in our oceans, the wind patterns, the deep water arctic current... All of these things are changing at a fast rate. The coral reef systems and marsh systems aren't getting enough time to naturally change. The krill in the arctic oceans are being effected, benthic organisms are being effected... It's not that the globe hasn't changed, it's the rate of change that is occurring. The last time a major atmospheric change occurred, the dinosaurs died off in a mass extinction.

So, yes, the earth is warming. The results from the warming are what has been predicted to occur. I know from studying these sciences from years back. Al Gore would have been a good direction to have had in 2000, instead of oil Barron's Bush and Cheney at the helm of destruction.

And saying, well we are F&$@ed, so why bother doing anything now, isn't something that I think we should say. I think we should progress and move into sustainable living and make sure people who are in the paths of the most destruction have the ability to survive.

and we have had some of the worst most bitter cold winters on record the last few years.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to do more to address global warming.

Hell, I might not be too surprised if, during one of these winters, Texas ends up being on the receiving end of a cold spell similar to the one in '85 or '94; TBH, we might actually be overdue for one of those, I suspect.

(P.S. where are you in South Korea? )

Most of the time they don't hit us directly because they'd have to come up between South Korea and China, which geographically is not a large area. The last couple of years that has happened and the typhoons have come up toward Seoul and North Korea. Our summers are hot and humid like in the Southern US.

I'm just west of Seoul in a suburb.

I'm inclined to believe you without equivocation. You've got excellent credentials. Thanks for information gained.

and a handful* of climate scientists! I know because Senator Inhofe says so. And he's a Senator! From Oklahoma! So he must be really, really smart**.






*handful, in this case, means thousands.
**smart, in this case, means profoundly stupid.

are more concerned with making a buck and building their power base than saving the environment for their grand children or great grand children. Then again, the attitude of the rich is "I got mine... so screw the rest of you". I suppose they figure that their money will save them and the rest of the world can go to hell.

What gets me is that when we see massive storms like this, the nay sayers to global climate change don't seem to realize that when you melt TONS of ice, you are releasing energy and that energy has to go somewhere. We are in a closed system, so someone will feel the impact. What really scares the crap out of me is when we STOP having storms like this.

There is so much attention given to legislation and summits, in the end there is a LOT of low hanging fruit that every day people can pluck and make a significant difference. Like I posted, living your life mindful of you impact is the first step, and is really not that hard. If everyone made small positive changes in how they impact the world it would all add up to massive change.

Fundamentally this is my biggest problem with the whole "Global Warming". It's become more of a religion that people blindly follow without truly understanding what is going on. All a politician has to do is say something is to stop Global Warming, and they get huge support. All a celebrity has to do is say something is about Global Warming and masses of people pay attention or buy a ticket to their movie. All an organization has to do is commit to Global Warming and they get lots of money and support.

If you want to pay attention to someone who gets it and minds his impact because it is the right thing to do, not because it is popular or will make him money, pay attention to Ed Begley Jr. Unlike Al Gore, who is an enormously wealthy hypocrite, Ed is passionate about his impact and lives his life accordingly.

If the people paid less attention and sent less money to the celebrities and politicians about Global Warming they would have more time and resources to put towards their own personal impact, and THAT would bring about positive change.

n/t

A Blizzard of douchebags?

While we're at it, I wonder what we would call the other ridiculous extreme, the "We are all inevitably doomed to collapse/extinction/etc." people? A flock, maybe? Or perhaps a coven?

Maybe just call 'em a flock of dodo birds in waiting. Can you tell how much I detest those idjits?

(with the exception of a slight few and one of them's been PPR'd.), it's more of a case of people who just happen to be misguided and gullible enough to believe in every flashy "World Doomed, Humanity At Risk Of Extinction" headline that pops up, regardless of its validity, and that such is inevitable, etc., and who may or may not be forceful in showing off their dogma to others.

to be extremely concerned about the ice cap melt data, and the latest methane release data. We could very well be on the verge of runaway positive feedback, leading to jet stream collapse and global desertification, perhaps even a loss of the oxygen supply. Currently the US winter wheat crop is failing due to extended drought. We may be facing global famine *this year*. There are easily affordable ways to get us through this dire emergency, but they require more widespread cognition than seems currently available.

I suggest you read the work of the British Royal Society on the subject, or the eminent scientists at MIT, Harvard and Stanford who are working feverishly to save this uncomprehending world.

By the bye, I'm not female but I did note your pejoratives are implicitly gender-specific. You probably shouldn't do that if you don't want to be considered conservative.

....and quite another to be way over-the-top. And, I hate to say this, but this:

We could very well be on the verge of runaway positive feedback, leading to jet stream collapse and global desertification, perhaps even a loss of the oxygen supply.

, and this:

We may be facing global famine *this year*.

, are quite good examples of the latter.

I'm not discounting the possibility of widespread long-term food security problems in the future, but no, we aren't going to see "runaway" anything(this would have happened a long time ago if that was even possible, btw.), and I seriously doubt we'll see global famine this year; there's no real evidence to support this assertion, either.

This kind of thing is problematic because, frankly, the truth is, it makes EVERYBODY who understands global warming is a reality look wacky; just look what happens every time a major prediction fails to come to pass, btw: the deniers jump all over it and then try to use that as an excuse to pedal their "AGW is a hoax" B.S.....In fact, hell, they do this is in general, really.(Steven Goddard is one particularly notorious example that I can think of, though I'd rather not link to his site.).

By the bye, I'm not female but I did note your pejoratives are implicitly gender-specific. You probably shouldn't do that if you don't want to be considered conservative.

Well, looking back on it, I guess "coven" wasn't the best adjective to think of, but the only reason I did, is because the other word I thought of seemed far more offensive to me at the time, and might have been too over the top(hint: it rhymes with bolt.)

especially from the last big clathrate meltdown 55 million years ago? The evidence for positive feedback is very strong. They can detect the presence of methane based on carbon isotope ratios. What we see is a series of three spikes interrupted by brief stable periods. This can be explained by a burst of shallow ocean and permafrost methane, then massive global warming heating the ocean, reaching methane at greater depths, and then again. There were hundreds of years between the pulses to be sure, but even the first one was catastrophic.

In the similar event 250 million years ago there's evidence the oxygen supply disappeared as the plants and oceans died.

As for the jet streams, let me try to spell it out for you. The atmospheric banding between the equator and the poles (similar to the more obvious banding on Jupiter) is governed by the temperature differential between the poles and the equator. As the pole warms up, much more than the global average, we are seeing increasing "blocking highs" in which the usual west-to-east Rossby waves stop moving (that's why Hurricane Sandy took that hard left turn for instance) and even break through to the stratosphere, and the "Arctic dipole", in which blobs of warm air move north and split the cold air capping the pole, pushing it anomalously south, and causing wider jet stream meanders and the droughts we're experiencing. The real danger though is that the three bands could soon collapse into one, playing utter havoc with the world's agriculture. I'm not saying it will necessarily happen this year, but a complete melt of the arctic icecap in summer is within the margin of error *this year*, and with the higher heat absorbing capacity of liquid water over ice, even faster warming. More likely it will happen in 2015, but who's counting.

I've just stopped caring what the actual deniers think or say. If we worry about them we'll be as conservative as the IPCC, and that's no service to the world. They've been proven wrong. The big conferences don't work either. Time to move on.

The real problem is getting those who accept climate change is happening, but somehow think we still don't need to worry for a few decades and driving a Prius in the meantime is enough (I drive one, don't get me wrong, and yes I know the environmental impact of manufacture far outweighs any slight saving from its efficiencies) to realize the emergency is upon us *now*. If you still think it's enough to work on carbon emission reduction alone, by all means do it but do it with a lot more vigor. If you think carbon sequestration will save us despite its impossibly long time scales, go for it, we do need to get that done eventually.

But the battle front, I'm afraid, is in figuring out how to stabilize the planet very quickly and as safely and affordably as possible, while also not starting a war. If we don't do it, China will, and if China does it, it will probably cause drought in India, and then there will be hell to pay. So we can't just act like making compost heaps (which actually release carbon) or other minor lifestyle changes are going to make a whit of difference. Fine a hundred years from now. Now though, we have to survive the harm already done, which will be with us for a very long time as it is, and it will certainly get worse before it gets better.

The only thing more pressing that preparing to cool the planet by force is figuring out how to feed all those starving people. Remember too, the Arab Spring was driven by food prices much more than by facebook and twitter.

Plenty of books on the subject, if you care to read. I can recommend David Victor's "Global Warming Gridlock" which has a good section on geoengineering and its various ramifications, as well as strategies for adaptation, if it happens slowly enough.

I do understand your attack was on those who say we've already lost and obviously I'm not one of them, so I apologize for getting prickly on that front -- but I'll say it again, this should be at the top of every human's agenda, let alone our government's. It's the tsunami and it's not on the horizon, it's coming up the shore. It dwarfs all other concerns.

TBH, though, on that front, I assumed you meant something along the lines of complete runaway warming(which is what it usually implies from my experience, though if I was wrong in your case, I hope you will forgive the mistake.)

I've just stopped caring what the actual deniers think or say.

I've tried myself. But they do still have a fair share of ill-gotten influence.

If we worry about them we'll be as conservative as the IPCC, and that's no service to the world. They've been proven wrong. The big conferences don't work either. Time to move on.

Yes, but I should also point out that the supposed "conservatism" of the IPCC, while perhaps largely true 10-20 years ago, has largely been exaggerated in recent years; while it is true that Arctic sea ice did in fact melt down far faster than originally predicted, along with a few other things, the IPCC has largely been on track with most things, especially where temp rises are concerned.

If you still think it's enough to work on carbon emission reduction alone, by all means do it but do it with a lot more vigor.

TBH, I'm not convinced that may be quite enough, either.

Remember too, the Arab Spring was driven by food prices much more than by facebook and twitter.

Well, somewhat so, yes.

If you think carbon sequestration will save us despite its impossibly long time scales, go for it, we do need to get that done eventually.

Natural sequestration may take a while, yes. Artificial sequestration, though, can already be done with enough political willpower.

It dwarfs all other concerns.

That may very well be true; if we want role models, I highly suggest we look to the anti-nuclear movement in the '70s & '80s. Global Thermonuclear war, though extremely unlikely now, was a very real danger in those days, and, arguably, potentially far more dangerous than climate change; even a somewhat limited(like, say, ~4000 MT or so) nuclear war would have done greater damage to our biosphere overall than all but the worst case scenarios of AGW with only a very few exceptions(ice caps, ocean acidification). And luckily for us, things eventually got done about it.

I'm personally inclined to believe that we're at the same stage with climate change now, as we were with nukes in the early-mid '70s: People do recognize the dangers, but the government isn't doing quite as much as it could yet.

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/14/australian-scientist-warns-of-looming-global-famine/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CD0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whatdoesitmean.com%2Findexfamine.htm&ei=k2wVUfLTII_RqAGkh4H4Ag&usg=AFQjCNEuyFwmIUZ4fOMYk-HxKulgc8vhUw

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CFUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.globalresearch.ca%2Fglobal-famine%2F8877&ei=wmwVUfPAD5SrqQHBhIGABw&usg=AFQjCNF-MCgyd7IjGLgaRmeGgznCQq0-lw

BTW, take a good look at the sources I've listed: 2 out of these 3 non-YT sources are FRINGE sites. Yes, this IS typically where this kind of stuff comes from. I should know.....

(P.S. mods: I'll remove the links if asked to, but I just put them up there to illustrate my point).

but here's a question:

consider a lily pond that fills with lilies after 30 days, and every day the lilies double in number.

On what day is the pond half full of lilies?

The 29th day.

Don't get me wrong, personally I'm very hopeful with the spread of women's rights and access to contraception E.O. Wilson is right to predict the human population will peak and start to drop again after reaching 9 billion or so, even without other factors in play. The population explosion has always been a symptom of industrialization, and there just aren't that many countries left to industrialize.

Yes, also, peak oil or peak-oil-affordable-for-agriculture could cause a famine too, although with the rape of Canada that seems to have been postponed.

What I'm saying is what happens when the jet stream stops moving, the rains don't stop or never come, or it just totally reorganizes itself in a given year, as models suggest might occur? Don't we at least need to try to be ready to minimize the damage?

What if the northern hemisphere just turns into a giant one way wind storm? (OK that was a bit shrill, even for me, because I haven't actually seen the predictions on what happens *after* the atmospheric bands dissolve. Hopefully we never have to find out).

I'm also very hopeful if we can just get through this, we could be at the dawn of a golden solar age -- solar grid parity is already upon us in many sectors and places, and only the sluggish ignorance of the American body politic has prevented us from preparing for the event as Germany so brilliantly has. When that comes, and energy production becomes much more decentralized, that will break the death grip of the Kochs and their ilk on our government and cultural discourse. We will see massive positive changes at every level, hopefully including a final recognition energy was never the solution to begin with, nor gluttonous consumption of material goods, and without the centralized advertising culture telling us how to behave we'll start to act a bit like humans again, at long last.

But we can't get there unless we make sure we have oxygen to breathe first, is all I'm saying.

Well, let's see what happens to the sea ice the next few years (new PIOMAS ice volume numbers are out today by the way), and meanwhile, I'll keep trying to find ways to help save this poor old planet, whatever anyone else thinks.

but here's a question:

consider a lily pond that fills with lilies after 30 days, and every day the lilies double in number.

On what day is the pond half full of lilies?

The 29th day.

Yeah, overpopulation is a problem: and part of it, btw, is the fact that we are not really quite as efficient as we could be. I mean, we're still burning coal for chrissakes.

What I'm saying is what happens when the jet stream stops moving, the rains don't stop or never come, or it just totally reorganizes itself in a given year, as models suggest might occur? Don't we at least need to try to be ready to minimize the damage?

What if the northern hemisphere just turns into a giant one way wind storm? (OK that was a bit shrill, even for me, because I haven't actually seen the predictions on what happens *after* the atmospheric bands dissolve. Hopefully we never have to find out).

Most of this isn't actually going to happen, though(at least not by global warming!), that's the problem.....well, except the re-alignment of the jet stream I suppose, but everything else is sci-fi: none of that other stuff is even indicated in paleoclimate records that we know of, at least not caused by climate change.

I'm also very hopeful if we can just get through this, we could be at the dawn of a golden solar age -- solar grid parity is already upon us in many sectors and places, and only the sluggish ignorance of the American body politic has prevented us from preparing for the event as Germany so brilliantly has. When that comes, and energy production becomes much more decentralized, that will break the death grip of the Kochs and their ilk on our government and cultural discourse. We will see massive positive changes at every level, hopefully including a final recognition energy was never the solution to begin with, nor gluttonous consumption of material goods, and without the centralized advertising culture telling us how to behave we'll start to act a bit like humans again, at long last.

Here's hoping it happens sooner rather than later.....

But we can't get there unless we make sure we have oxygen to breathe first, is all I'm saying.

I don't think we'll need to worry about that particular thing, though, at least.

Well, let's see what happens to the sea ice the next few years (new PIOMAS ice volume numbers are out today by the way), and meanwhile, I'll keep trying to find ways to help save this poor old planet, whatever anyone else thinks.

That's the spirit!

am so glad that INFORMED people like you and glow are around to dissipate head in sand bullshit spewed around here.

on a semi-regular basis? If stuff like "We will all go extinct by mid-century via methane&quot you may remember hearing about this schtick last summer from the guys at PMEG), and other extreme "doomsday" B.S. like this, doesn't make people, particularly those who would normally promote action in this case, stick their heads in the sand, then what else really does?

Perhaps "The Douche of Blizzard"?

All I got.

Like douchezilla but quantity rather than quality.

No kidding, nail on the head and all that

And pay no heed to climate deniers(or doomers either, for that matter), my friends. They are only shouting at the wind.

that should cut down on the totals. Changing to snow overnight. Still the winds to contend with, especially near the shores. Hope the places on the water don't get hit with the surges besides.

Two feet seems like an awful lot unless you live right next to the Great Lakes(Erie and Ontario in particular.).

I think it was in 1965 we had over three feet over night and that did shut the city down but it was accompanied by a freezing rain the next day. I plowed snow there in the mid 1970's and two feet over night was hardly reason for hysteria. The 24 hour news cycle these days requires constant hyperbole.

My son's band was on tour and their VERY NEXT destinations were in the Northeast - New York near Syracuse, and tomorrow - YIKES - coastal Connecticut! THEN, they were to wind up back in New York State - in the Albany/Schenectady area. Just great, 'eh?

SOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo glad I called a halt to it while they were still in Cleveland (where the tour played on Wednesday night).

PLEEEEEZE EVERYBODY - TAKE CARE! Close down and stay inside if you can. And listen to those goll-durn gummnt people who are giving you emergency advice rather than taking all your guns away in their black "New World Order" helicopters!!!

Every time I think about the science deniers and birthers and teabaggers and all the rest of the idiots holding the rest of US hostage with their Pre-Cambrian-Age mentality I just want to SCREAM!!! They're the ones who keep blowing their own cover whenever they say "we want to take America back(wards)!" They drive me nuts!

with the Storm Warning!

hurt by the blizzard. Other Republicans will complain that "We just gave those people aid for Hurricane Sandy. They don't deserve any more."

Not me, of course. But the rest of NE is.

like no brains. warmer temps always bring more snow. Higher humidity levels duh. So when it's colder remind them when their feet crack. kinda hard to snow when the air is dry..

Hoping that everyone stays safe out there!

That I have heard from people I respect that there's a possibility of extinction of all life on the planet in thirty years if global climate changed is not lessened or even reversed.

Well, gee wizzzz, that is one humdinger of a worst case scenario, isn't it?

For those that profess to do Gods Work on Wall Street, perhaps they should begin a renewed career DOING GOD'S WORK TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE.

Because an Act of God seems about the only possibility that gives any chance of hope.

I'm fine with it all because I know if I further enrich the already wealthy, my time in the afterlife will be almost as good as a middle class American in 1967.

-90% Jimmy

I don't know who exactly you got this "extinction of all life in thirty years" stuff from(Malcolm P.R. Light, maybe? He made a similar ridiculous claim last summer), but in all reality, that particular scenario isn't going to happen; it's not even possible, in fact.

Seriously, who are these people you are referring to? Whoever is making extreme and unsubstantiatable claims like this has no business talking about climate change. We need to focus on REAL problems related to this issue, and not the ramblings of some fringe kook looking for recognition.

Sorry if it seemed I was going off on you, btw. I really wasn't trying to. Caution should be exercised with complex issues like this, though, especially, in this case, for people who may have an inclination towards pessimism.