US Government Climate Change Report says damage is intensifying across the country 12

[IRstuff]

Military spending isn't all bad; this very forum exists because the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the predecessor to DARPA, funded ARPANET, which morphed into the internet we know today.

Arguably, there are lots of bad actors and evildoers across the globe, and without a strong military, the US would certainly be hard pressed to protect its interests and citizens internationally.

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[DVWE]

Outstanding post, bones. Right up until the end. You definitely should have kept that part out of the discussion.

The devil is in the details; she also wears prada.

 

[IRstuff]

Even though there might be agreement on the general goals, the timescale and scope are what's at the crux of the discussion. We've had fuel efficiency standards that have made slow progress over the decades, so they fit into the overall "increasing energy efficiency" goal, but if we were to decide that we needed to get 50 mpge from every vehicle sold and on the road by 2029, that would be a different matter altogether, and any further discussion would grind to a halt. The same goal with 2079 timeframe would probably not create much fuss, but it wouldn't help that much with current pollution or conservation concerns.

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[bones206]

Even though there might be agreement on the general goals, the timescale and scope are what's at the crux of the discussion

I tend to think we make the most strides when the scope of the task is monumental and there is a great sense of urgency. How many innovations throughout history were made out of some urgent necessity? But I think that approach requires someone who’s in charge to set the agenda and force us to adapt and innovate and reallocate resources and energy. If not, we may end up getting to the same place eventually through the normal incremental process of change, but why risk it if there really does turn out to be a “point of no return” for habitability that is within our lifetimes?

 

[IDS]

If the only argument you can muster is that 97% of whatever support your position

That is not the only argument that can be mustered of course, as you are surely aware.

But even if it was, if the 97% turned out to be 3%, but those 3% were qualified in their field, and the consequences if they were right were severe, and the consequences of taking action were beneficial to neutral whether they were right or not, then it would be foolish to ignore them.

By the way, I really don't think it's helpful to divide people into "true believers" and "skeptics", or to divide people into two opposite camps at all, even if they did have less blatantly inaccurate titles.

In the context of a corrupt society looking to exploit a niche for its own agenda - TRUST NOBODY.

I completely agree.

Especially when what they say agrees with your preconceptions.

And especially when what they are saying is "our activities, from which we make huge profits, are harmless, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Just trust us"

Doug Jenkins
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[IRstuff]

" task is monumental and there is a great sense of urgency"

True, but in the past, when such things came up, there was not an organized and unrelenting opposition. Had the same energy existed during the Kennedy era, we would have never gotten to the moon. We currently have one major party completely subsumed with wiping out any chance of reducing the climate change, even as they secretly admit that the change is happening.

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[bones206]

If the threat is perceived to be real and imminent, like in the case of an attack on native soil, political differences tend to be put aside. Climate change doesn't have that effect on people because it's relatively invisible in our daily lives. It will be interesting to see what China does, because they don't really have much in the way of political opposition and most of the senior leaders were trained as engineers. Also, pollution is very much visible in people's daily lives there. I believe they are already investing 2 to 3 times as much as the US in renewables and nuclear.

 

[GregLocock]

It isn't just invisible. As I showed above, the trends in climate have some positives, so depending on your particular encounters with whichever facets of global warming related changes affect you, to date it is quite reasonable for some people to say it doesn't seem to be a problem to date, or for the foreseeable future, that is, what can be affected by their actions now. In fact this is the dominant position when people are asked what their priorities are. Action on global warming is way down the list.

http://data.myworld2015.org/

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[lacajun]

RVAmeche, this is always a touchy subject. Many use unreliable sources for their information. I stopped debating because it's too time consuming and it's useless.

I used to be on the far right but am there no longer. Growth, I suppose. About 4 years ago, I finally decided to listen to the scientists and engineers doing the research and publishing their research. YouTube is a great resource for this endeavor. I read reports, looked at some of the data, looked at the math they used, etc. It was quite a lesson and eye-opening, i.e., my opinions were changed. There are standards for climate scientists for education, doing climate research, and publishing, consistently, their climate research. If people putting forth their opinions about climate science don't meet the criteria, I don't bother with them. I'd prefer having a more informed opinion than an uninformed one. The only way to get informed is to listen to the people doing the research and consistently publishing it.

I also know some of the climate scientists and have a good deal of respect for them and their work. They're trying to put together projects on shoe string budgets. For those that think climate scientists are all about money and the power money brings, that isn't true from my observations. They also understand the importance of being right and wrong. They get it in ways we do not.

I also used to believe the Bible but I don't any longer. I learned too much about microbiology because of Lyme disease to believe the Bible. And, there are flat earthers in pockets of the country you wouldn't expect due to education and affluence. There seems to be something about the Bible and unquestionably believing it that leads to flat earthism. A fellow engineer said gullibility is a problem peculiar to the USA and has roots in the early settlers, who came here for religious freedom. Does that mean it's genetic? I don't know and don't remember if he read that in his travels or not.

The Central Chapter of NSPE-CO is having a program tonight on climate science modeling. Colorado used to have plenty of permafrost for Kevin Schaefer to study. He now has to study it in Alaska because we don't have it now. I thought more would be interested but they are not. Last year, we had a Ph.D. chemist present on the chemistry of climate science, which was also not well attended. I don't have any feel for why but there is no interest. I guess things will have to get really bad for anyone to really understand the changes coming and the significance of those changes and to become curious enough to start listening to the people doing the research. It may well be the same principle at work here as it is with flat earthism and we "didn't put man on the moon" thinking.

When people start talking conspiracy theory stuff, with climate science, politics, money, etc., I just walk away, if I can. If I can't, I listen without engaging. I have childhood friends, and others, that believe outrageous stuff but it seems perfectly normal to them. They don't bother to fact check and it's really easy to do with history dating back to the Civil War. Laziness, lack of interest, belief that they're right, etc. could all be possibilities for not checking their sources. But they do not see themselves as part of the problems we have. They see themselves as part of the solution even though they believe lies. They can dig up more false information to refute than I have time or interest to deal with. They either get curious about truth on their own and listen to the people doing the work or they don't. I'm not in charge of anything including what they think, consume, decide, etc. I can barely do those things in my own life. ;-)

An educator I consider a friend wrote that she's glad she wasn't trained on the math the climate scientists use. That was in response to my statement that I recognize the math because I was trained in it. I've used it but for controls problems not climate science. I thought her response was ignorant and petty. But, she's welcome to her thoughts. But this is the attitude some have that are educating our youngsters.

As an EE, I am not trained to do climate research and my experience doesn't lend itself to doing it either. If I want them to trust me, I need to trust them. Trust is a fundamental aspect of human relationships. Sadly, we have too little of that these days. We're all "experts" even though we really are not.

I was taught in HS to vet my sources. The teachers didn't want to read reports based upon charlatans or unreliable sources. They taught us how to vet sources. That requirement continued in college. Sadly we do too little of that today and the internet makes it easy to find false information.

Keep up the good work!


Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
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[IceBreakerSours]

There was a cigarette smoker who used to believe cigarette smoking and cancer were simply correlated. He spent years arguing against attempts of drawing causal relationships. His arguments were sharp; they had to be: He was Ronald Fischer - a towering figure in statistics in the last century. But, no surprise to us, he was wrong. Funding from tobacco companies did not help his crusade. He let his bias prevent him from seeing the big picture.

I see some parallels of this story playing out in the climate change debate. Politicization of the debate has just made matters a lot worse.

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[lacajun]

IceBreakerSours, Ronald Fisher was an interesting man. Thanks for bringing him up. Makes one think that ideology shouldn't be too cemented as to not be able to change, when needed.

“Fisher was a political conservative and an elitist,” writes Paul Stolley. “Fisher was upset by the public health response to the dangers of smoking not only because he felt that the supporting data were weak, but also due to his holding certain ideological objections to mass public health campaigns.” from Priceonomics, Why the Father of Modern Statistics Didn't Believe Smoking Caused Cancer

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

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[IRstuff]

"He let his bias prevent him from seeing the big picture."

That seems to be a common theme; there has always been a distrust of science and scientists by conservatives, particularly when the science is against them.

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