Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

What the hell is an "official arena"?

This is a broad study, substantiating previous findings that have discovered correlations between increases in industry and other human factors and climate change. I know you have a case of institution-phobia, but the reason why the skeptics are treated pejoratively is because more often than not they cling to denial as a matter of preconditioned belief. Ever since the studies on climate change have begun emerging there have been convincing data and findings, but the reactionary push-back has made it impossible to actually see if there's any difference to be made.

 

[Dak]

There's a correlation between the rise of feudalism and a warming period, and no one is suggesting classic culture was keeping a lid on global temperature. We need to differentiate between the "skeptics" of climate change, and the skeptics of anthropocentric global climate change, and climate change deniers and global warming denial and global warming skepticism. Those are all very different things and get rolled into one big straw man topped by msm with dunce caps. It's right out of Rules for Radicals, but usage is not confined to anything smacking of "radicalism".

 

[Einherjar86]

There's a correlation between the rise of feudalism and a warming period, and no one is suggesting classic culture was keeping a lid on global temperature.

...what is your point here? Are you suggesting that feudal/classical culture could even conceptualize of global warming in the same way that we can today? I'm not following the comment.

We need to differentiate between the "skeptics" of climate change, and the skeptics of anthropocentric global climate change, and climate change deniers and global warming denial and global warming skepticism. Those are all very different things and get rolled into one big straw man topped by msm with dunce caps. It's right out of Rules for Radicals, but usage is not confined to anything smacking of "radicalism".

I just think you're making mountains out of molehills. Global warming is an aspect of climate change. It is, without doubt, true that climate change occurs regardless of human intervention. It is, however, also true that human behavior has a quantifiable effect on global climate change, specifically in the form of rising temperatures. The inconsistencies in the data make sense, considering that climate is effected by numerous other factors. The earth may very well go through periods of global warming without human intervention, but controlled experiments verify that carbon output has an effect on the environment.

If your denials are inspired by a distaste toward governmental measures to enforce regulations in order to attempt to slow global warming, then you're not really denying the scientific studies of global warming. You're resisting the political response.

 

[Dak]

What the hell is an "official arena"?

There's no IPDACC (disputing anthropocentric) for starters. The liklihood of a organization created to find ACC "proof" finding the opposite is almost nil. It's a conflict of interest. Since this is a political body made for political purposes, it's quite obvious what the official arena is: The political arena. There's no political power in "everything is ok without us doing anything". There must be dragons to fight.

This is a broad study, substantiating previous findings that have discovered correlations between increases in industry and other human factors and climate change. I know you have a case of institution-phobia, but the reason why the skeptics are treated pejoratively is because more often than not they cling to denial as a matter of preconditioned belief. Ever since the studies on climate change have begun emerging there have been convincing data and findings, but the reactionary push-back has made it impossible to actually see if there's any difference to be made.

...what is your point here? Are you suggesting that feudal/classical culture could even conceptualize of global warming in the same way that we can today? I'm not following the comment.

No one is going back past at the most, the 19th century, to look at temperature. So we have no real idea of what "warming" looks like.
Unfortunately the NOAA website is shutdown right now, or I would pull the chart I wanted from there showing relative warming compared to history. It's nothing alarming.

This is a broad study, substantiating previous findings that have discovered correlations between increases in industry and other human factors and climate change. I know you have a case of institution-phobia, but the reason why the skeptics are treated pejoratively is because more often than not they cling to denial as a matter of preconditioned belief. Ever since the studies on climate change have begun emerging there have been convincing data and findings, but the reactionary push-back has made it impossible to actually see if there's any difference to be made.

I just think you're making mountains out of molehills. Global warming is an aspect of climate change. It is, without doubt, true that climate change occurs regardless of human intervention. It is, however, also true that human behavior has a quantifiable effect on global climate change, specifically in the form of rising temperatures. The inconsistencies in the data make sense, considering that climate is effected by numerous other factors. The earth may very well go through periods of global warming without human intervention, but controlled experiments verify that carbon output has an effect on the environment.

If your denials are inspired by a distaste toward governmental measures to enforce regulations in order to attempt to slow global warming, then you're not really denying the scientific studies of global warming. You're resisting the political response.

I don't deny that climate changes. It's quite obvious that it does, and does so in different ways at different times in different areas of the planet, on different times scales.

Someone denying climate change would have to be a believer in "climate stasis", which is obviously absurd. Yet this is exactly what is being assumed by the climate change alarmists. Climate change occurs, and OMG WE MUST DO SOMETHING TO REACHIEVE STASIS! The oceans must not rise or recede one iota! The same plants must always grow in the same place as they always have (always being relative to the last 100 years). Rainfall must always occur when and where it always has. And so on.

I do not doubt there is some effect on the climate from human action. It's just not obvious why this is A. a problem B. Why it must be assumed it's the primary affector rather than an outlier. The earth has drastically heated and cooled with no humans on the planet, and less drastically heated and cooled with no industrialization. A degree increase in temp wouldn't even register in total statistics of earth's climate history.

Then we have the "inconvenient truth" that the warming has abated roughly since the first alarms were sounded. Of course since now it's "climate change" rather than "global warming", there will never be a lack of dragons. Climate will never cooperate itself into a stasis, and so no expense must be spared, and the IPCC will be finding that climate is changing for eternity.

Back to the labels, I listed all those different belief options on purpose. Words mean things, and just because one doesn't believe that Jetsetter hypocrites like Al Gore are having the impact they claim to have, doesn't mean they ignore the "raw data". In fact it an be quite the opposite.

 

[Einherjar86]

The climate change alarmists (a good word, I like it) aren't interested in achieving climate stasis; they are, however, interested in assuming a severe degree of human control over the natural world, which is worth critiquing in and of itself. But you've asserted that humans should try and do this elsewhere; otherwise science, technology, discovery itself would become - as you say - unactionable. We must assume that we can influence some change upon the world.

In an earlier conversation you noted something along the lines of an anomaly concerning urban centers located near the oceans; the fact that they are continuing to grow and attract more people despite the clear danger of rising waterlines. If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to be simply resisting any reaction to climate change based on the notion that humans cannot do anything to stop it (i.e. "The climate is warming, water levels will rise, and we shouldn't become obsessed with changing it; we should just move inland").

On the one hand I sympathize with your view that there's nothing we can do. On the other hand I believe that there are things we can do, and that the alarmists are there for a good reason: to force us to consider alternative options and the possibility that we have some degree of control over what the climate does.

 

[Dak]

The climate change alarmists (a good word, I like it) aren't interested in achieving climate stasis; they are, however, interested in assuming a severe degree of human control over the natural world, which is worth critiquing in and of itself. But you've asserted that humans should try and do this elsewhere; otherwise science, technology, discovery itself would become - as you say - unactionable. We must assume that we can influence some change upon the world.

In an earlier conversation you noted something along the lines of an anomaly concerning urban centers located near the oceans; the fact that they are continuing to grow and attract more people despite the clear danger of rising waterlines. If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to be simply resisting any reaction to climate change based on the notion that humans cannot do anything to stop it (i.e. "The climate is warming, water levels will rise, and we shouldn't become obsessed with changing it; we should just move inland").

On the one hand I sympathize with your view that there's nothing we can do. On the other hand I believe that there are things we can do, and that the alarmists are there for a good reason: to force us to consider alternative options and the possibility that we have some degree of control over what the climate does.

But is temperature where the effort and scrutiny needs to go? How do we know rising temps and water levels aren't good for us and the planet (current coastal urbanization effects aside)? Something like "climate" is far too complex for us to generalize, or already be making assertions of what it needs to do, much less making cause-effect statements about carbon levels and temperature.

I'd rather focus on what is relatively indisputable, and what has a directly negative impact on life on the planet in general, and that is pollution (and that does not include carbon, aka plant food).

Edit: Of course I don't see any focus via government in any way productive in a real sense. Quite the opposite.

 

[Einherjar86]

First: what you've just said reveals my problem with the free market capitalist mentality perfectly. There's no thinking ahead to possibilities, potentialities, or virtualities; there's a concern merely for what's in front of you that you can see and touch.

And second: "How do we know that rising temps and water levels aren't good for us or the planet?"

How do we know that temperatures remaining the same and water levels staying the same aren't good for the planet? It's only logical that rising water levels would cause significant uprooting. Temperatures would have effects on ecosystems that would have effects on organisms that would have effects on us, indirectly and directly. Claiming our ignorance on the matter doesn't achieve anything because it works both ways, and we know that in at least one of the ways we're in for some shitty conditions!

You always talk about humans and their right to persist in their own survival; but you seem to only care about surviving threats that you can see in front of you, like a burglar or a sex partner with an STD. Why are you so resistant toward thinking on a level beyond your subjectivity? Or is the objective world actually nonexistent now?

I don't mind being skeptical of global warming, but claiming that it might be good for us and for the planet in general is just ridiculous. Not because that might be true, but because it does nothing to solve the problem. The same can be said of the slowing of rising temps and water levels, and we know that this would benefit us.

This is my impression of your view, and I'm not trying to be funny or pejorative. This is just how I conceptualize your outlook:

I want to be left alone to do my own work and engage in transactions voluntarily and protect myself and my family all in the ways that I see fit. I don't care much about anything taking place in the broader world since it can't be definitively proven to concern me directly. I appreciate what I can see and touch, what my senses can tell me, and I believe that this is sufficient for knowing the world around me.

 

[Dak]

Well that characterization of myself and free marketeers is as backwards as possible. Bastiat specifically struck this down in "seen vs unseen". What is unseen must also be taken into account. As far as capitalists, or maybe more specifically anyone operating in even a nominally capitalist or mixed economy, only seeing what's right in front of you is a recipe for disaster. One must make projections of the future and take action/invest/etc accordingly.

I don't see where I've suggested otherwise. However, I will reject attempts at inducing panic over potentialities which I find either impossible, unlikely, or possible/probable but not alarming. Particularly when said panic is packaged with institutional coercion. "Manufacturing consent".

In this case, I doubt carbon is having a notable (particularly direct) impact on temperature, much less "severe" or "unpredictable weather" (whatever that means). However, even if it were, I don't find this alarming. On the other hand, the biodegradibility or lack thereof of plastics is both a present and future concern. There are many other environmental concerns, and yet none of them offer a situation where institutional coercion can be proven to create a net benefit in the face of mass rejection. In fact, we can usually count on net damage, or complete misguidance from institutions, like the paper vs plastic boondoggle.
That one rejects alarmism, or one rejects institutional coercion as a solution to potential actual alarms, doesn't mean one is "only concerned with the present". This is, again, a recycling of the argument characterized most often by -Not supporting public schools = being anti-education -.

 

[Einherjar86]

Institutional coercion might be necessary when market coercion attempts to put the lid on certain scientific discoveries. And yes, there is such a thing as market coercion.

 

[Dak]

Institutional coercion might be necessary when market coercion attempts to put the lid on certain scientific discoveries. And yes, there is such a thing as market coercion.

There is business coercion. Not market coercion. I'm well aware of business tricks. A major source of this is patent law. Which requires? The government.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yes, government... the root of all evil...

By the way, you have a murderous psychopath as your avatar. But then I suppose that's just good business.

 

[Dak]

Context. Within the world of Breaking Bad, he's a "good guy". Really I just like the expression. I don't know why you're resorting to bashing avatars.

Government is not the "root" of evil. People are. But government is currently the pinnacle of systemic evil. The most powerful technology if you will.

BTW, going back to climate change:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9750923/tmq-examines-nfl-five-remaining-undefeateds-final-five

Star Power: In 2006, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research predicted "the next sunspot cycle will be 30-50 percent stronger ... according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics ... scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98 percent accuracy." In 2009, researchers dialed back the prediction somewhat to a new solar cycle that would peak around now and would be milder than previously forecast, but still capable of generating a solar storm causing "$1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure" and requiring "four to ten years for complete recovery."

The sun on Sept. 30, 2013. Where is the predicted maze of sunspots?
Well, about that new solar cycle -- it's a dud. Now is the peak of the current cycle, and the sun's surface is all but clear of spots. That 98 percent accurate model? Back to the drawing board.

After Earth, the sun is the most important object in the solar system, yet NASA and other space agencies spend comparatively little on solar telescopes and probes. A debonair writer noted two years ago that solar study should be a higher priority than study of Mars. Better understanding of Sol could contribute to the global warming debate, to design of electronics -- and to estimation of the human prospect.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

hahaha. You two are so adorable.

 

[Einherjar86]

Context. Within the world of Breaking Bad, he's a "good guy". Really I just like the expression. I don't know why you're resorting to bashing avatars.

He's a "good guy." That's hilarious. "Context"; as though that tells me something...

I'm not bashing your avatar. I find it ironic.

Government is not the "root" of evil. People are. But government is currently the pinnacle of systemic evil. The most powerful technology if you will.

This is such a fundamentalist, essentialist claim. I just cannot see things from your perspective. This is so much more complicated than you're making it.

BTW, going back to climate change:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9750923/tmq-examines-nfl-five-remaining-undefeateds-final-five

So, ESPN says that NASA should study the sun more, and that they spend relatively little on it...

Do they know that NASA was studying the sun and spending more money on that long before they were planning missions to Mars?

 

[Dak]

I'll willingly admit businesses do bad things. But how often are they in response to or through government? Patent law? Through. Mike, Gus Fring, and Walter White? In response. The drug war, IP laws, and tax/tariff regulations are systemic damage that a psychopath here and there with a fly by night operation couldn't hope to incur. Would we be looking at a Goldman Sachs without The Federal Reserve? Etc.

Edit: The ESPN article is written by Gregg Easterbrook. He's not "just a sports writer". He does write a weekly column during football season, in which he covers other things besides football. What my simple copy paste didn't include was 4 imbedded links within that snippet backing it up.

Given that there is no heat at all on earth without the sun, it only makes sense to start with the source of all heat for questions about temperature changes. Unless you actually don't want solutions of course.

Edit 2: I find no irony in Mike. Breaking Bad is a snapshot of the world created by the Drug War. Of course, there are no "good guys" compared to any sort of good ideal. Relative to each other, Mike is operating under a different set of guiding principles than someone like Walt or Gus or Hank or Mrs White, etc. Any irony would probably be found in selecting Gus or Walt. Consummate businessmen in your estimation, right? (Not the same thing as a "consummate" market actor(s))

However, there are some market lessons here. One being that the only person NOT shafted by Walt is his customer.

 

[Einherjar86]

There is heat on earth without the sun. It comes from fossil fuels and methane gas. If all the methane gas was released in one moment from under the sea it would raise global temperatures by about twelve degrees.

Also, from what I read, sun spot cycles seem to be suggesting a decrease...

 

[Dak]

There is heat on earth without the sun. It comes from fossil fuels and methane gas. If all the methane gas was released in one moment from under the sea it would raise global temperatures by about twelve degrees.

Also, from what I read, sun spot cycles seem to be suggesting a decrease...

Like blowing a load (releasing of methane). Obviously temps aren't infinitely negative without the sun, but it is the primary factor of temperature in our area of the galaxy.

Sun spots are down atm, and global "warming" has been stalled. Sun spots are expected to influence "severe" weather on earth, among other things. Not mere temps fluctuations. It's been a quiet hurricane season, if nothing else.

I recognize it is a complex phenomenon, and believe that study of the primary factor rather than marginal contingencies makes more sense to start with than "CARBON!!!!".

The fact that major governmental nominally scientific institutions can't get models about either the climate or the sun right is telling.

 

[Einherjar86]

Sure. It means they're trying different avenues and being proven wrong. You could stop being a typical denier and try understanding that science takes years of experimentation and trial and error before getting it "right," sometimes.

Methane is not like "blowing a load." Nothing you say "smacks" (to use your favorite word) of anything remotely like scientific understanding. Sure, the sun is the primary source of heat; without it, we'd be pretty damn cold. But how can you seriously deny that carbon tetrachloride and methane don't cause ozone erosion? It's been watched and measured.

Your accusations that science hasn't provided any sufficient data is just false.

 

[Dak]

Sure. It means they're trying different avenues and being proven wrong. You could stop being a typical denier and try understanding that science takes years of experimentation and trial and error before getting it "right," sometimes.

Right, it does take trial and error. But starting with ridiculous hypotheses chosen for their grant continuance chances/political favor is grounds for contempt.

Methane is not like "blowing a load." Nothing you say "smacks" (to use your favorite word) of anything remotely like scientific understanding. Sure, the sun is the primary source of heat; without it, we'd be pretty damn cold. But how can you seriously deny that carbon tetrachloride and methane don't cause ozone erosion? It's been watched and measured.

Your accusations that science hasn't provided any sufficient data is just false.

If all the methane under the ocean were released at once that is "blowing a load". Not going to happen, and the temperature increase wouldn't remain, since the methane would disperse/be re-absorbed.

I'm not talking about carbon tetrachloride when talking about carbon, and methane is produced in such vast quantities by normal biological earth processes that humane production is still tantamount to a rounding error.

As far as carbon tetrachloride goes, it has real immediate health affects as well, not just impact on the ozone, and isn't plant food. Carbon dioxide is. I should have been more specific.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yes, the scenario of simultaneous methane release is unlikely; but the consequences of it are not fictional. Twelve degrees (or thereabouts) is a huge change in global temperature, and would have long-lasting and quantifiable effects. You make it sound like nothing would come of it. That's false and misleading.

Human output combined with natural gases creates the conditions for potentially drastic global warming. It may be true that we can't know the scale at which it's actually happening; but we can ascertain the effects that it would have.