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    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

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20 hours ago, Scotty said:

Expecting between 15-25 cm of snow oversnight, feels like -15C outside right now with wind chill and by Wednesday night it'll be -38C with the wind chill.

Fucking polar vortex. And those anti-science morons claim that this is proof there is no global warming.

On a related note, I just ate, so world hunger is over.

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42 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

And those anti-science morons claim that this is proof there is no global warming.

And I wish people would shut up about those idiots, and instead sincerely address the scientists who point out that this bout of global warming looks rather similar to the bout that ended a thousand years ago, and the bout that ended a thousand years before that or the prior dozen or so at thousand-year intervals (with a slowly-declining trend in just how warm things get), and that the evidence that humans EITHER contribute significantly to the cause OR can do anything to slow it is really weak...

... and that if the climate continues to repeat its past pattern, this warming is about over anyway...

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40 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Fucking polar vortex. And those anti-science morons claim that this is proof there is no global warming.

Current weather trend for my area has Thursday  at -17C feeling like -28C, Friday at -12 feeling like -14, Saturday -4/-10, Sunday at +3/-1, Monday at +5/+1, Tuesday at +3/-2.

I dunno about you, but I don't remember these roller coaster weather patterns 25+ years ago.

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12 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

And I wish people would shut up about those idiots, and instead sincerely address the scientists who point out that this bout of global warming looks rather similar to the bout that ended a thousand years ago, and the bout that ended a thousand years before that or the prior dozen or so at thousand-year intervals (with a slowly-declining trend in just how warm things get), and that the evidence that humans EITHER contribute significantly to the cause OR can do anything to slow it is really weak...

... and that if the climate continues to repeat its past pattern, this warming is about over anyway...

Let's say that your side is right and mine is wrong, and we address my concerns anyway. We have developed new industries that may not have been extremely necessary but we still have an unharmed planet.

Now let's say that my side is right and yours is wrong. DO THE MATH.

As to those 'scientists' of yours, here is an idiot-simple diagram that explains precisely why they are a bunch of morons paid to obfuscate actual science much like the ones that all but advocated lead as promoting health in the human body. The reading you want to look at is at the bottom. It doesn't look that much like the ice age a thousand years ago to me.

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Because the vast majority of scientists think nothing of the kind.  The current warming is much faster than normal cycles.  TOH already linked to the image I was going to suggest, perhaps more politely, that you look at to see what sort of difference we're talking about.

If you look at the really long-term patterns, we should actually have started entering another ice age by now, so maybe it's not all bad that human activity put that off for a bit, but if we overshoot the mark and get too warm, then changes in ocean currents are actually likely to tip us into that ice age.  We're on a knife's edge, trying to balance in the narrow band that will keep us in a livable climate.

If you look at all of the changes humanity has made to things like the albedo (how reflective the surface of the planet is), by turning vast areas into farmland, redirecting the flow of most of the water on or near the surface, and paving over huge areas with buildings and roads, as well as altering the makeup of the very atmosphere, it would be pretty silly to think we wouldn't be having some sort of impact on climate.

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40 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

If you look at all of the changes humanity has made to things like the albedo (how reflective the surface of the planet is)

One fellow made what I admit is a rather fascinating suggestion: that a cheap and low hanging fruit might be to paint every roof in the world white, increasing the world's albedo and thus slowing down the temperature increase. I have no idea of whether this might possibly work, does anyone know if this has been looked into?

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20 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

… paint every roof in the world white, increasing the world's albedo and thus slowing down the temperature increase. I have no idea of whether this might possibly work, does anyone know if this has been looked into?

3++Ask+SW+++How+To+Paint+A+Geometric+Pat

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3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Because the vast majority of scientists think nothing of the kind.  The current warming is much faster than normal cycles.

But see, THIS is the kind of discussion I want to see happening - and I don't. Or, very rarely.

What I see far more often is one side saying "yes, there has been global warming, but there's nothing abnormal about it, and here's the science behind that"  and the other side replying "yes there is too global warming, why won't you anti-science idiots admit it?"

Which makes the latter side look like they are both anti-science and anti-constructive-discourse.

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4 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

But see, THIS is the kind of discussion I want to see happening - and I don't. Or, very rarely.

You are not very likely to see it, I am afraid. Tempers rise too hot. I am particularly angry these days and no longer feel like showing any patience towards climate change denialists because the arguments THEY deploy are usually along the lines of, "There is no global warming and you libtards are stupid for believing in it."

10 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

What I see far more often is one side saying "yes, there has been global warming, but there's nothing abnormal about it, and here's the science behind that"  and the other side replying "yes there is too global warming, why won't you anti-science idiots admit it?"

Very well. Where is the science you are relying on? I have already demonstrated my reasoning and I would be glad to elucidate on it.

If you wish to know why I do not trust the scientists that argue against climate change, it is because they are doing so in a manner that gives the impression that they are guarding the interests of very wealthy people who do not wish to adapt their methods of doing business to safer practices because this might cost them some of their earnings. Examples:

When lead was proven to be hazardous to human health, certain scientists tried as hard as possible to discredit the men and women who warned against its use.

When tobacco was determined to greatly increase the risk of lung cancer as well as having many other deleterious effects on human health, again one group of scientists attacked those new ideas.

In both these cases there were special interests determined not to see their profit margin threatened.

Today we have a HUGE number of scientists warn against the dangers of global warning. Yet again we see a group of scientists attack the notion and say that this is a nonproblem that can simply be ignored.

There is a military aphorism that states that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is enemy action. I am no longer willing to extend the benefit of doubt to the scientists arguing the case of big business. Our planet is engaged in a struggle for survival and they are doing their best to argue that we do not need to do anything at all about it. Even if I were willing to grant the possibility that both sides have an equally large chance of being right, the climate denialists are STILL acting akin to a reckless driver that flattens the gas pedal because he is probably not heading across a cliff and because he is going to show those idiots in the bus he is driving that he is damn well not going to drive more carefully just because visibility is low and the road is starting to show signs of being slippery.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

One fellow made what I admit is a rather fascinating suggestion: that a cheap and low hanging fruit might be to paint every roof in the world white, increasing the world's albedo and thus slowing down the temperature increase. I have no idea of whether this might possibly work, does anyone know if this has been looked into?

Here's The Straight Dope on that idea....

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On 1/29/2019 at 8:45 PM, The Old Hack said:

You are not very likely to see it, I am afraid. Tempers rise too hot. I am particularly angry these days and no longer feel like showing any patience towards climate change denialists because the arguments THEY deploy are usually along the lines of, "There is no global warming and you libtards are stupid for believing in it."

I've never seen that argument offered, except for from some extreme religious fundamentalists who deny a bunch of other science as well.

On 1/29/2019 at 8:45 PM, The Old Hack said:

Very well. Where is the science you are relying on? I have already demonstrated my reasoning and I would be glad to elucidate on it.

Well, over the past 600 million years, global temperature has dropped dramatically during periods of high CO2 level, and risen dramatically during periods of low CO2 level. Also, we're currently in a period of low CO2 level - and the rise that we're assured will mean the destruction of everything is far less than sufficient to get it up to its average over that period. http://jeremyshiers.com/blog/global-temperature-and-co2-levels-for-last-600-million-years/

But how about a shorter term? Well, for one thing, the atmospheric CO2 level began rising about 7,000 years ago, when global temperature was rather warmer than it is today; in contrast, for the first half of that period the overall temperature trend was downward - then it spiked up for some unknown reason, after which it returned to a descending pattern. And before those 7,000 years? About a 4,000 year trend of generally rising temperature and declining CO2. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/ (Scroll down to the second graph for that time scale.)

Closer looks at some longer time periods reveal that rising temperatures can cause the CO2 level to rise, with a lag of several hundred years - which lag is too short to be visible if you're looking at really long time scales and not at sufficiently fine detail. However, other longer time periods don't necessarily support that correlation.

On 1/29/2019 at 8:45 PM, The Old Hack said:

If you wish to know why I do not trust the scientists that argue against climate change, it is because they are doing so in a manner that gives the impression that they are guarding the interests of very wealthy people who do not wish to adapt their methods of doing business to safer practices because this might cost them some of their earnings.

I won't argue against that because it's a valid concern.

Now let me tell you why I do not trust the scientists that argue for climate change: it is because they are doing so in a manner that gives the impression that they are guarding the interests of very powerful people who want to be even more powerful.

And I note that a very large share of them are funded by the main seats of power: governments.

What do they propose we do to fight this climate change? Grant more power to governments to more heavily regulate - if not take over - more and more of the economy. Reduce prosperity overall, increasing the advantage of those who control the reins of government spending (or have friends or allies who do, or work for them) over those who do not. Restrict innovation outside their preferred channels, which would reduce risk of unexpected challenges to their power.

And have we seen these proposals before? YES! In fact, they are the proposed response to pretty much every crisis, real or imagined, local or national or global, since Herbert Hoover became President, including the Coming Ice Age scare of the early 1970s. Sometimes even in detail - we (I was there for the Coming Ice Age) were supposed to fight the global cooling trend, or help prepare for it, I forget which, by reducing oil consumption for transportation and home heating. Which would have had all the effects described in the previous paragraph. But, if the CO2-causes-global-warming theory is right to a functional degree (in simple theory, it is, but real planets aren't simple, real planets with atmospheres are less simple, adding oceans and/or clouds removes simplicity, and biospheres, hoo boy!), would have been just the wrong thing to do about an actual Coming Ice Age.

(About the same time, we were also Running Out Of Oil, and obviously needed to have the government ration it.)

And then we get to data adjustment. There are legitimate reasons to adjust data... but it's strange that practically every adjustment of the data in government-sponsored databases is in the direction that supports the global-warming thesis.

In fact, an interesting correlation has been discovered in some databases: the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more they have to add to instrument temperature readings in order to get the "official, adjusted" temperature. In a linear relationship. This was found in both USHCN data and, somewhat less strongly, in some Australian data gotten from NASA: https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/adjustments-vs-co2/

This seriously smacks of "we know what the answer is, fix the data to match."

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2 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I've never seen that argument offered, except for from some extreme religious fundamentalists who deny a bunch of other science as well.

I am not a statistical universe. It is indeed possible that what I have encountered largely consists of aggressive outliers. Unfortunately this is mostly what I have encountered and I fear it has had a fraying effect on my temper.

5 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Well, over the past 600 million years, global temperature has dropped dramatically during periods of high CO2 level, and risen dramatically during periods of low CO2 level. Also, we're currently in a period of low CO2 level - and the rise that we're assured will mean the destruction of everything is far less than sufficient to get it up to its average over that period. http://jeremyshiers.com/blog/global-temperature-and-co2-levels-for-last-600-million-years/

But how about a shorter term? Well, for one thing, the atmospheric CO2 level began rising about 7,000 years ago, when global temperature was rather warmer than it is today; in contrast, for the first half of that period the overall temperature trend was downward - then it spiked up for some unknown reason, after which it returned to a descending pattern. And before those 7,000 years? About a 4,000 year trend of generally rising temperature and declining CO2. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/ (Scroll down to the second graph for that time scale.)

Thank you. It is rather late for me so I will look this over and address it later.

5 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I won't argue against that because it's a valid concern.

Now let me tell you why I do not trust the scientists that argue for climate change: it is because they are doing so in a manner that gives the impression that they are guarding the interests of very powerful people who want to be even more powerful.

And I note that a very large share of them are funded by the main seats of power: governments.

What do they propose we do to fight this climate change? Grant more power to governments to more heavily regulate - if not take over - more and more of the economy. Reduce prosperity overall, increasing the advantage of those who control the reins of government spending (or have friends or allies who do, or work for them) over those who do not. Restrict innovation outside their preferred channels, which would reduce risk of unexpected challenges to their power.

I understand. And I similarly will not argue against your reasoning here; it is an equally valid concern even if I do not share it.

6 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

And have we seen these proposals before? YES! In fact, they are the proposed response to pretty much every crisis, real or imagined, local or national or global, since Herbert Hoover became President, including the Coming Ice Age scare of the early 1970s. Sometimes even in detail - we (I was there for the Coming Ice Age) were supposed to fight the global cooling trend, or help prepare for it, I forget which, by reducing oil consumption for transportation and home heating. Which would have had all the effects described in the previous paragraph. But, if the CO2-causes-global-warming theory is right to a functional degree (in simple theory, it is, but real planets aren't simple, real planets with atmospheres are less simple, adding oceans and/or clouds removes simplicity, and biospheres, hoo boy!), would have been just the wrong thing to do about an actual Coming Ice Age.

Once again I am not going to argue this. I well remember the argument about the rainforests being the 'lungs of the world' and that their destruction might mean us all choking to death as oxygen levels dropped. This argument was proven false because the rainforests neither added to nor subtracted from global oxygen in any meaningful way. I still consider the loss of rainforests and the many species dwelling in them to be tragic but that does not justify making up bad science in order to protect them.

Similarly, the anti-nuclear movement. It was well intended but its success meant continued reliance on coal and other fossil fuels, power sources known to create vast pollution problems of their own. Nuclear waste is still a problem but it would be less of one if one built the safer and more reliable MSR reactors using thorium as fuel. Such reactors existed even in the 60s but were rejected by various governments because they did not yield the weaponizable forms of uranium and plutonium needed for nuclear devices.

I suspect we will have to agree to disagree. We clearly see this from very different angles. I do however apologise for allowing my anger and frustration to spill into my original post on this topic; I am honestly sorry about that.

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38 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I suspect we will have to agree to disagree.

That is a perfectly acceptable outcome.

And frankly I'd like to see us using less fossil fuels, particularly coal because it's so polluting. Oil and gas, my concern there is that they are also quite valuable for a variety of other uses, such as lubricants and chemical feedstocks; on the other hand I think we'll eventually find ways to efficiently synthesize them from air and water, possibly but not necessarily with the assistance of plants - and gasoline and diesel oil still have several rather large advantages over electricity for transportation, at least one of which I expect will continue indefinitely (because it's about the human-interface side of the technology).

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

And frankly I'd like to see us using less fossil fuels, particularly coal because it's so polluting.

This may actually happen to coal before too long. Solar power has reached the point where it is significantly cheaper than power from coal plants, for example. The demand for coal is dropping and it may at some point simply no longer be financially feasible to mine and use at which point it will die out on its own.

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Solar power may be cheaper than coal during the day, but coal is cheaper at night. It's expensive getting the whole planet out of the way, and I do NOT want the job of writing the environmental impact statement!

Battery technology is not yet ready to do what would be needed to make solar or wind power a viable base-load power source. Maybe in a few more years...

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Solar power may be cheaper than coal during the day, but coal is cheaper at night. It's expensive getting the whole planet out of the way, and I do NOT want the job of writing the environmental impact statement!

Battery technology is not yet ready to do what would be needed to make solar or wind power a viable base-load power source. Maybe in a few more years...

I did say 'may at some point.' :) I do not propose closing down coal just yet! Though I would certainly not be unhappy to see coal replaced with nuclear power plants, ideally molten salt reactors based on thorium. Or possibly fusion power once they finally manage to achieve ignition.

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26 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Or possibly fusion power once they finally manage to achieve ignition

I thought they did achieve ignition, they just need to work out how to get it to produce more power than it need to maintain the process.

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9 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I thought they did achieve ignition, they just need to work out how to get it to produce more power than it need to maintain the process.

Yeah, achieving ignition is pretty easy. Everything you need to know has been public information, and assembled in a neat package, since 1998 http://www.fusor.net/newbie/files/Ligon-QED-IE.pdf (follow-up article http://www.fusor.net/files/EMC2_FusionToPost.pdf ) and is now available as a web page https://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/

Reaping more electrical energy from it than you have to put into it, that's a bit more of a challenge.

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Just now, Don Edwards said:

Yeah, achieving ignition is pretty easy. Everything you need to know has been public information, and assembled in a neat package, since 1998 http://www.fusor.net/files/EMC2_FusionToPost.pdf and is now available as a web page https://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/

Reaping more electrical energy from it than you have to put into it, that's a bit more of a challenge.

A little search found this article that states MIT could have a 50-100MW fusion reactor as soon as 2025. it's not a lot of power when compared to a type II nuclear reactor like the CANDU reactors, but it's something.

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Why has there only been slow and incremental improvements in electrical storage and distribution since the battles between Edison and Westinghouse with Tesla?

How we can use electricity has advanced and changed dramatically over the last century.

How we transmit and store electricity is almost the same as it was when the Model T was the fastest car on the road.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

How we transmit and store electricity is almost the same as it was when the Model T was the fastest car on the road.

Big talk from the Pharaoh who hasn't presided over an improvement in mummification for the last two thousand years.

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17 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Why has there only been slow and incremental improvements in electrical storage and distribution since the battles between Edison and Westinghouse with Tesla?

How we can use electricity has advanced and changed dramatically over the last century.

How we transmit and store electricity is almost the same as it was when the Model T was the fastest car on the road.

At present we have only three reasonable methods of energy storage that are dense enough to compete against chemical fuels while being safe enough for consumer use in a motor vehicle or portable device:

1: Electrochemical batteries--current "gold standard" is lithium-ion/lithium-polymer, but lithium-carbon-nanotube or lithium-air seem to be a promising near-future development to at least triple energy density over the current stuff.

2: Kinetic energy storage--flywheels spinning at hypersonic speed inside a protected compartment on magnetic bearings. The self-discharge rate is higher than lithium-based batteries, so you won't be able to let your car sit idle for weeks on end without the flywheels spinning down.

3: Capacative energy storage--ultracapacitors or near-future high-temperature superconductors ("high-temperature meaning "can achieve with onboard refrigeration", not necessarily "room temperature or above").

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2 hours ago, ijuin said:

while being safe enough for consumer use in a motor vehicle or portable device:

For a given value of 'safe'. You still have to be careful with how you store the damn things or you might get your fingers burnt. I'm looking at you, Samsung.

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