'Climate Panel Says Emissions Are Nearing Upper Limit'

Yeah? Which industries?

 

That sound you hear is 2 billion Indian and Chinese people laughing their ass off.

 

Just drop a giant ice cube in the ocean every few years. That'll work.

 

I realize it isn't very politically palatable. But the U.S., China, and India don't have an incentive to reduce emissions. Nations that see this as vital enough should subsidize the U.S., China, and India. They won't. But they should.

 

AP story addresses this.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20130927/EU-Climate-Change/

First off, 15 years is a blip -- "An old rule says that climate-relevant trends should not be calculated for periods less than around 30 years," said Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the group that wrote the report.

And in this specific case, 15 years was 1998, which had uniquely high temperatures. That was the El Nino year for those of us who lived on the West Coast, one that made for hella rain and warmer temperatures. Set the 15-year beginning in a different year and you'll get different results.

 

Oh hell, the more likely (and advisable) scenario goes something like this:

A given country (let's call it Lagoonia) is particularly susceptible to rising sea levels (i.e., most of its population lives near-subsistence lives at or near water's edge). Lagoonians allow themselves to be bought out by the U.S., China and India. Lagoonians' low-lying villages are washed away, but Lagoonians themselves live a helluva-lot better life as a result.

 

Stuff like this drives me crazy. I understand where the guy's coming from, but there's no scientific principle that says 15 is too short but 30 is OK. It's an agree-upon convention that may be workable ... but then again it might spell disaster.

 

Ah, what do you know about math and statistics, anyway?

 

Yeah, and La Niña-like conditions are partially responsible for the recent slow down in global warming: http://wapo.st/15h1trI

So, why would we change the way we live, when natural global occurrences have a greater effect than carbon emissions?

 

Holy extrapolations, Batman!

The people you're reading certainly haven't made that case. The natural occurrences are having an effect, sure, one that can serve to mask the full range of what we're dealing with. That's a huge leap, though, to say it's having more effect than carbon emissions.

I think this is why Popular Science editors turned off comments on their articles, because of people turning science on its head like that.

 

Haven't carbon emissions only risen over the last 15 years?

And, we haven't gotten warmer. So, doesn't mean that La Niña and/or other natural occurrences have had a greater effect?

 

This is terrible logic.

"Why should we research cancer/AIDS/polio/plague, when old age has a greater effect on death rates?"