The Trump Presidency

Discussion in 'Politics' started by joepistole, Jan 17, 2017.

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  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You did, in fact, deny that any place on the planet with enough water and currently agricultural would be harmed - even made useless - for agriculture by becoming warmer. I posted that as a risk for some of the important places, and listed examples, and you referred to that established fact as a dubious and biased opinion. You gave as evidence your claim that the tropics were the warmest places and nevertheless thickly vegetated, proving that no place with water was too warm for agriculture, so warming elsewhere could do no harm of that kind.
    You think so right now. That's where the deflections about deserts and such are coming from.
    That's what agriculture, the subject, means - no misunderstanding by me involved. You were attempting deflection, I think, with your poorly considered and ignorant tropical forest evidence.
    And I was pointing out that the research so far, the realities established and likely consequences of current developments and trends, and so forth - the knowledge we have - say otherwise. You might hope that something unexpected will happen, but all your reasons for making that claim have been garbage you invented without information.
    I doubt you realize how comical it is for you to present - over and over again - your own ignorance as evidence of the validity of your claims, and reason for rejecting information handed you by others.
    1) What is your objection to all these negative media predictions - which the IPCC generally supports in its conservative, corporate biased, even timid, fashion - exactly? Journalists do bollix the scientific research they report on, often, but they generally just muddle things - how is this different?
    2) Why do you then assume the climate researchers and so forth are biased as you have decided the media must be?
    3) Why do you assume the IPCC is biased in the direction you describe?
    And even when presenting confirmation in the very same post, you insist on my descriptions being "lies".
    That bias is more or less completely illusory - it doesn't exist. Some bias toward sensationalist reporting exists, but in general there isn't much positive news to be had from the careful reports of the physical realities. What there is I run into frequently, in the media I consult - little of it is reassuring.

    You invent, in complete ignorance, imaginary omissions of substantial "positive news". Then you assign the bias you have invented to not only the media, but the IPCC and the research it compiles and climate researchers in general. Then you post a bunch of stuff I have run into almost verbatim on US wingnut media feeds acting in the interests of big oil companies and the like, including personal attacks on individual researchers and their supposed motives.

    Under the Trump presidency, btw, the Federal pressure on US climate researchers has become notably more severe. Even at the State level - such as Florida, where official reports on State environmental and economic issues have been bowdlerized, and may not include explicit AGW references even in matters, such as sea level increases, critical to the State.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2018
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    They aren't going to able to handle what's predicted. Not fast enough, anyway.
    This change, this warming and its consequences, is so very large and rapid that it's costs will be beyond the ability of most to pay and its changes too quick for most to adapt to. It is in fact not a single change, but an incoming period of continuous and substantial change, that will not reach stability in this century or probably the next.
    Nobody is arguing that warm is bad. What is bad - and potentially catastrophic - is this warming event. This one. The thing that is happening.

    And the US governmental response is going to be crickets. The Trump administration and Republican Congress are of course in denial, but even if they weren't they wouldn't have the ability to respond. They can't even get regular power to Puerto Rico, let alone an upgrade to solar as would make sense.
     
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  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    If you knew that the terminal wet bulb of 35 deg C has already been reached in 2003 (Saudi Arabia) for what appears to be the first time in human history, and also knew that wet bulb records have been recently exceeded in many places, your "I'm horrified" may actually be less sarcastic. Even the IPCC are playing down the issue of oceanic warming and how that increases global humidity. ( therefore Wet Bulb Temperatures)
    What is scary here, in Australia is that the wet bulb temp went up to 31.5deg C during the 2017 Western Australian Heat wave. This is incredibly disturbing when you consider the ramifications. (You will note that Wikipedia has deleted the page associated and info is scattered across the web - censored?) Western Australia is typically hot but never this humid. The combination of heat and humidity with out air-conditioning is, even at WB 31deg c, verging on terminal ( after 20 minutes or so)

    So yes,

    just from the perspective of wet bulb temp there is every reason to be horrified. The chances of a major wet bulb event ( potentially millions dead) especially in Northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan across the Middle East are quite high during the Northern hemisphere's summer this year. ( of which we are yet to see the peak of)
    it wasn't an attack. It was friendly suggestion on how to improve your credibility.
    When dealing with a lack of water, maybe, however what about an excess of water as being observed in so many places globally? How do you plant a crop every year and have a high risk of having it destroyed by flooding or destroyed by destructive wind, hail or midsummer snow fall or frost?
    When I mentioned rainfall certainty for the investment in crops, I didn't just mean lack of but also excess of. Why did you only think of lack of?
    This is what I meant by looking deeper at the issue and not presuming that it is trivial and that literally 10's of thousands of scientists/farmers are plain stupid and politically motivated.
    Now you are starting to get the picture.... wasn't that hard was it?

    There are many things local, State and Federal Governments can do once they accept that climate change is a real and imminent danger to their communities. However if they continue to deny the reality of what hotter oceans mean to weather dynamics especially with regards to wet bulb temperatures an awful lot of people are most likely going to die of hyperthermia (over heating) unnecessarily before they do start to accept the reality.
    Here in Melbourne the local city CBD council have at least taken steps to establish a list of air-conditioned heat wave emergency shelters which is mostly token given the sheer numbers of people involved. The have done this due to concerns about peak heat. ( including wb 35deg+).
    At least they are trying to do something even if most fail to recognize the threat and consider the precautions as over reacting.
     
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  7. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    All that are simply wrong claims about what I think or have written, without any evidence disposed of.
    These were mainly claims. And there is the quite obvious counterargument: If we ignore the costs of adaptation (which I do not deny, and which always appear if there is change) either a small warming or a small cooling would have, in the average, a positive outcome. So, all we have to think about is what would be better, less harmful: A certain amount of warming or an equal one of cooling. Essentially everything points to warming being preferable.
    To meet this argument, all you can do is to maximize the other dangers - the amount would be too large, too fast, and the costs of adaptation too big.
    You really seem to think that if you say something, everybody else has to accept this as fact.
    1.) The objection is that the presentation is clearly biased toward the negative. Given that a warming is something which has positive consequences, and, given the comparison, even much more than a similar cooling, there should be at least some positive news. Such a one-sided presentation is possible only if one intentionally hides the good news, which is typical for media campaigns.
    2.)
    a.) This is a general prediction - scientists are nothing but human beings, and they also see the media, and are influenced by media campaigns too.
    b.) Then, there is the quite general problem that scientists have today an extreme insecure job situation, almost nobody has permanent positions, most live on grants, thus, they have to follow the mainstream. In fundamental physics, the result is a concentration of maybe 90% or so of the job market in two speculative research directions (strings, LQG), both with not a single bit of empirical justification, but nonetheless unquestionable leaders. So, scientists have to follow the mainstream, even if they believe otherwise. The time when a large majority of scientists supporting one direction was good evidence that this direction has scientific evidence behind it is over. It was so in the past when most theoretical scientists were university teachers with safe permanent positions as teachers.
    c.) Once all the media lie consistently, there has to be somebody who is interested in the distribution of this lie, and this somebody has to be strong enough. It would be strange if this strong enough somebody would not try to influence science too, especially in a situation where the campaign itself depends on "the scientists say".
    3.) Same as point 2 c. Add that a particular bureaucratic organization like the IPCC is a much easier target of influence in comparison with science in general.

    Don't forget the cui bono. Who is the winner? To meet a human-made catastrophic climate change, one needs regulation of the dangerous human behavior. This has to be done worldwide to give the necessary effect. So, one needs a world government strong enough to control a lot of things human beings are doing. So, the globalists like it. And they are a sufficiently strong player.
    Which is what one has to expect from somebody who thinks that the IPCC is biased against AGW.
    As one can see, even you think that there is some pressure on climate researchers. The very idea that the media bias will be in the same direction as the political pressure on scientists is also not foreign for you, except that you see the direction being different. So, some of my main points are part of your presentation too, except for the direction.
    Which presupposes the fast catastrophic scenario. Which is quite implausible, given your number 500 years. Remember, you have made a big point that 500 is a something quite short range. It is, for climate science. But it is an extremely long range for human technology and very long range for the human ability to build such elementary constructions. Note also that such constructions, which allow transforming irregular precipitations into a regular water supply, are in any way useful and create no harm. Dams even generate electricity without the evil CO2.
    Similar point: If you fear there will be more and heavier storms, there are also existing known techniques to handle such problems quite efficiently. Namely, stable buildings. This will also, in any way, imrove the quality, even if the fear is unjustified, it does no harm to have more stable buildings.
    You present it in this way. In fact, you have a hard job here. Once the whole game depends on the actual human technology being the cause and requires even increase of human use of these technologies, you are bound to a quite short range where you can with some plausibility predict that an already well-known new technology - nuclear fusion - remains without success. To predict with some plausibility that there will be no fusion reactors really producing energy in 100 years would be quite pessimistic. Remember that 100 years ago we did not even know that it exists. One may speculate that it may appear that humans remain unable to use it, say with higher and higher temperatures the instability of all this exponentially increases, thus, becomes uncontrollable technically. But actually it already can give some energy - much less than you need for the whole device to work, but at the temperatures which we are able to control today, there already is some fusion. I would think in 50-100 years fusion is what gives humanity energy. Cars working on electricity we have already today. So, predictably the human-made cause will work not more than 100 years. Your 500-year prediction is therefore completely useless. One can, of course, invent some instability mechanism where the warming, once started by evil humans, will not stop even if the cause no longer acts. I bet you already have such a scenario and will sell this here like an established fact, not?

    Last but not least, we have already today a simple technology to cool the climate. There is, at least, the prediction that the nuclear potential which exists, if used, would produce a nuclear winter simply as a side effect. So, assume the warming becomes really catastrophic - then one could simply do some nuclear explosions which maximize the cooling. Nuke, say, a big enough sleeping volcano, such single eruptions have already known to have had observable cooling effects. This sounds horrible and foolish, but we are talking about something to be done when the heating becomes really harmful. In this case, even with existing today technology, there would be a solution.
     
  8. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    5,003
    It is this combination of all such things, everything very bad combines, which makes such horror scenarios implausible. We talk about the horrors of global warming and you start to introduce as one such horror midsummer snow falls. Of course, I know the point that if it is hot there is also more turbulence and the weather will become more volatile. But, sorry, I do not see that more volatility would be a catastrophe for mankind. One would need some investments, yes. But investments against such volatility are anyway useful

    Because too much water is usually easy to handle.
    It is, in a democracy, always quite clever to present oneself as the poor victim of whatever, it is a certain way to get government money. Nobody who tries to get in such ways some government support is stupid.
    It was indeed not that hard, I simply had to preserve my previous position, which I have expressed here already many times. It is quite frustrating to repeat all the same many times and read nonetheless all the same Iceaura fantasies about what I have said.
    And these many things are quite useful for certain groups.
    I have lived some time in India and some Arabic states without air condition and survived this without even recognizing that my life was in such heavy danger. So I would probably react in a similar way as your "most". But such cautionary measures, if they really become necessary for survival, will be affordable even for the poor. How? Very simple, for air condition in mosques and churches there will be enough money, and there are enough of them for all. Another simple thing is houses with better heat isolation. Which is quite simple, a thicker wall. And, similarly, it is a useful investment anyway.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Which brings us right back to your lazy equivocation↑, which, as I noted, suggests you are somehow unable↑ to discern certain glaring differences 'twixt social contracts posturing government of and for people, to the one, and social contracts subjecting people to government, to the other. We keep↑ coming↑ back↑ to it↑, over and over again, and you keep↑ ducking↑ out↑.

    And here we are, ten days later, and you still can't tell the difference.

    Yeah, I know, what a waste of time.
     
  10. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Just think... if you had experienced Wet Bulb 35degC you would have survived around 10 minutes which may be less than the time it takes to get to a Mosque or Temple that currently isn't air-conditioned. As global humidity increases due to constant increases in oceanic evaporation the possibility of heat stress increases dramatically even if much lower than wb35degC temps are evident. Even at wb30degC the elderly , poor or sick are extremely vulnerable.

    The heat it self is not so much the problem it is the humidity that is...indoors or out...( evaporative coolers fail to function)

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2018
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You mean biased against reports of alarming AGW possibilities, not "AGW".
    Anybody following the actual research and findings the IPCC summarizes - the reality involved - knows that.
    That's a lie. You were specifically corrected, above, the first time you tried that.
    That's my posted timeline, above: 50 - 100 years. I described that as "near term".
    Of course. AGW is a consequence of boosting the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and its effects will continue until long after these levels have decreased. Several may well be permanent, at least on human civilization scales - methane release feedback, for example, or ocean warming.
    If all the human sources of CO2 were replaced with magic fusion batteries tomorrow, AGW itself would continue - the current warming trend would continue, gradually diminishing rather than building as it is now - for at least a century. The melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice cover, for example, would not even slow down for several decades.
    If you ignore the costs of adaptation - most of which you do deny, btw - the warming we are probably facing will have a negative outcome.
    On average. Overall. Not marginal - solidly negative.
    That's the conservative, downplayed, IPCC backed, standard scientific, non-alarmist, established reality at the 5% likelihood level.
    Yep. And that is how that argument was met, decades ago.
    Those aren't "other dangers" any more. Those are the dangers we currently face from AGW. That's what AGW is - a warming that is too rapid, too large, and too costly, to permit adaptation by humans, by most animals and plants, by the features and aspects of the world we hold to be valuable to us.
    But it isn't, particularly.
    And if it were, that's still just the media - not the reality.
    The "prediction" you made in that fashion was wrong, just as several others you made like that have been.
    Your argument's fine, your assumptions of reality are wrong.
    You got the direction of pressure backwards. You were wrong about the "mainstream".
    One way you could have spotted that is by noticing that the majority of the alarmists, the most radical emphasizers of the dangers of AGW, were very secure scientists - among the ones least vulnerable and insecure, the hardest to pressure.
    Another way you could have spotted that is by looking at the actual sources of funding and jobs and so forth of the insecure scientists, and realizing what the preferences of the corporate rich and politically powerful were.
    A third way you could have spotted that is by looking at who was funding and supporting and publicizing the critics of climate alarmism - the same people (funding sources, grant money sources, State powers, corporate lobbies, etc) you were assuming had pressured them.
    And I provided you with names, agencies, events, examples, and so forth, of all of that, long ago. You reject information, by reflex.
    - - - -
    Again you repeat this basic mistake.
    No, it clearly and explicitly and by name presupposes the conservative, downplayed, IPCC estimated probabilities. The ones you said you accepted, remember?
    The "fast catastrophic" scenarios exist. They are much worse than the IPCC likely scenario estimates, and have much higher probabilities than the IPCC is willing to publicize.
    Like I said - all your pretense of accepting even the conservative, downplayed, falsely reassuring IPCC findings, when you are specifically cornered, is bullshit. You don't.
    If you actually compare the IPCC reports with the science, you will quickly discover that the IPCC reports are conservative, downplaying, non-alarmist, and under-reporting the risks indicated by the field research and scientific discoveries involved. So that's another clue for you as to the direction of the pressure involved in all this.
    Exxon, for one. Hundreds of billions of dollars in winnings. And every other big oil and gas corporation - Gazprom, say.
    The Republican Party of the US, for another.
    Putin's Russian regime, for a third.
    The game depends on CO2 boosting having certain effects. No specific technology is necessary.
    None of the currently predicted likely near term disasters have anything to do with nuclear fusion, and none of them can be prevented by any success of current fusion research.

    This is, instead, a classic political or governmental problem - like deforestation, water supply alterations, soil degradation, population increases beyond carrying capacity, floods and fires, overhunting, overfishing, and the rest.

    Which brings us to the Republican takeover of the US government. If it can, it will prevent any adequate handling of the realities of climate change by Americans, including those within the national borders. The question is what to do about that.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2018
  12. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    It greatly amuses me that Schmelzer didn't even have the cajones to address the unwelcome facts put forth in my post. I'm not surprised - just amused.
     
  13. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I think most people realize that the human race is in deep shit. The only question is how deep and how quick.
    If the IPCC was aware that the timing is less than a few years would they admit it?
    Probably not as global panic would do the job that climate change would have done any how.
    So the dilemma is : How to get preventative action happening globally with out causing mass panic and hysteria? The sheer scale of what is involved is beyond most peoples imagination...

    10 years ago climate scientists were telling the Australian government that a 50 year window existed before severe outcomes including population morbidity. You could tell watching their presentation that they were indeed lying about the 50 year window but not because they were conflating the issue but quite the opposite. We are now into that window by 10 years with only 40 remaining and all indicators suggest that their estimation was understated by about 30 years.

    One think tank estimates a whopping 75% global morbidity with in 10 years. Alarmist? Definitely! Reality based most likely.
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Well, this is all just a sidetrack, y'know. A diversion. Watch the birdie, and all that.
     
  15. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    )
    Indeed, a loss of time, I'm unable to make sense of what you write.
    Water is what is necessary. Everything else, fertilizer and so on, can be added if necessary.
    There is no reason for all to switch to rice. And if the price for rice is low, what's the problem? It means, no hunger because to buy something to eat is cheap.
    So, during some time (the first two days after sowing) a heavy rain causes some problems. A big problem, which will make millions starve to death.
    Learn to read, don't simply forget the "in the average" simply because you don't understand what this means.
    Ok, this is already at a level where it makes no sense for me to argue. If you are right, I will be probably dead within 10 years anyway, but I don't care.
    Indeed.
    Thanks for telling me that "anybody" means a small group of alarmists.
    Ups, indeed. I was confused by your speculation after this that I could have read it like 5000 or so. In the first posting I have simply misread the fifty-hundred as five hundred.
    An additional source of error was that what you wrote, the 50-100, is simply completely irrational. One can imagine that over a larger timescale, with a much larger temperature difference, one could reach regions where some non-linearities would matter. But for the near term, the temperature difference is too small for this.

    My statement was "Don't tell me fairy tales about more warm, more rain, and more CO2 in the average will not be good for plant growth."
    No. A given CO2 level gives a certain average temperature. If the CO2 is doubled, this gives 1 degree more (the CO2 effect alone), say 3 with all boost effects. It does not mean that after this there will be a further increase in temperature. It will remain 3 degrees more forever. So, if 3 degree more is fine for us, we should care about leaving the CO2 on that level.
    Ok, let's forget the usual lie (I don't deny them), but it is this claim I disagree with. And the point is quite clear. If the costs of adaptation are ignored, then the effects will be approximately linear, and then either a warming or a cooling will be positive. That a cooling is positive is extremely implausible.

    The usual "you are stupid" bs disposed of.
    But if there is no longer a need to burn something to gain energy, there will not much CO2 boosting. And if electro cars are cheaper than there will be none for driving too. What else will create so large amounts of CO2 problematic for climate?
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    And then you argued from your misreading, including basing insult on it, after I corrected you.
    Agriculture, remember?
    And I pointed out that they weren't fairy tales, but standard research findings. The extra rain and warmth from AGW is predicted to be bad for agriculture, on average (there will be some exceptions), and nobody is sure about the CO2 effects - C3 crops seem to be harmed, long term, by the nutrient demands; C4 crops seem to benefit - not enough to cover the hit from the heat and erratic deluge rainfall, but some. I linked, earlier.
    The group of people who have been following this is quite large.
    At equilibrium, sure. After all the water vapor and methane boosting has leveled off, the ocean has equilibriated, the ice sheets that are going to melt have completed their melting, the permafrost has completed its indicated melt, the weather and cloud cover has stabilized, and so forth. We're a hundred years from equilibrium, at least, if we shut down now. And we are nowhere near shutting down now.
    No, nothing like that is supported by physical reality or scientific research. Very few of the effects will be "linear", and the warming is not predicted to be positive (it's too rapid and too large).
    You are making shit up in near total ignorance, and getting it all wrong.
    It's already boosted. It's 410 ppm right now, and rising faster than before. Not even your magic fusion batteries can stop that from taking effect over the next few decades. And since your magic fusion batteries are not happening any time soon (if the breakthrough is announced tomorrow, we're twenty years from deployment in the First World alone), it's going to get boosted yet higher, and the effects are going to accelerate (according to the science involved).

    The thread relevance is as follows: The Republican Party - including Trump - is incapable of handling this matter. The question then becomes: what will it do when the bad stuff gets a foothold? And the historical record of what fascist governments do in these kinds of situations is pretty ugly.
     
  17. Bells Staff Member

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    Understatement of the year.

    A few years ago, my home state experienced a "rain event". Frankly, it was like something we had never seen before. We knew there would be rain and some showers. But what came down in a matter of hours resulted in countless of deaths and a city shut down due to the flood within a few days. The amount of rain we ended up getting over the next few days was unprecedented:

    It's estimated that up to 7.5 billion tonnes of water - 15 Sydney Harbours, if that can be imagined - crashed on to southeast Queensland during this week's superstorm. How that water, sucked from the ocean perhaps a week ago, found its way back to the sea - killing up to 30 people and destroying countless lives along the way - is the story of this week's disaster. It will also be the subject of a royal commission almost certain to be called as the state begins the process of rebuilding.

    The final death toll was over 30. A wall of water that was up to 8m in some areas, smashed into towns, after only a few hours of rain.

    The weather we endured that summer was caused by an overly extensive La Nina event.

    So no, it is not easy to handle too much water.

    In fact, people are having to evacuate because or rising sea levels, caused by climate change.

    I guess they did not get the memo...

    The irony is that the Sahara Desert became what it is because of climate change throughout the ages.

    It won't be.

    That much is known.

    And you seem to have it all wrong. For example:

    As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns change. Increased heat also leads to greater evaporation and surface drying, which further intensifies and prolongs droughts.

    A warmer atmosphere can also hold more water — about 7 per cent more water vapour for every 1C increase in temperature.

    This ultimately results in storms with more intense rainfall. A review of rainfall patterns shows changes in the amount of rainfall everywhere.


    Too warm and humid, crops can rot. Literally. Too hot, the crops die. Too wet, crops basically die. Too much heavy rainfall, washing nutrients from the soil and essentially result in yep, crops dying. And don't even get me started on the severity of the weather caused by climate change causing extensive damage to crops.

    Global food shortages because of climate change and caused by climate change, is a major concern over the coming years.
     
    Quantum Quack likes this.
  18. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, sure - it'd be a simple task to re-purpose arid shrubland into fertile farmland. Wouldn't be cost prohibitive at all...

    [/sarcasm]

    You apparently also lack a basic understanding of economics. Lovely.

    Haha, classic

    Oh, I understand what it means - the question is, do you?

    I think you've made it pretty obvious that, no, you don't. You think you do... but then again, so does Drumpf.
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Unsurprising.

    Just think of it this way: You said something stupid eleven days ago, and here we are all this time later, and we're discussing global warming and flooding in order that you might avoid facing up to your lazy equivocation.

    You've managed to embarrass yourself, annoy everyone else, and discredit whatever principles you pretend to have. No, seriously, all of this to avoid having to justify your problematic argument.

    So, yeah, look, we get it: Every discussion has to be about you and your fantasies.

    Which makes sense. It means people are talking more about you and less about your sleazy idols.

    You know, like this thread. Ostensibly it's about "The Trump Presidency", not "Schmelzer's Nonsensical Make-Believe".
     
  20. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Nonsense. I answer if I'm attacked, that's all. As long as I can make sense of the argumentation. In your case, I cannot.
    The question was about too much water. If something is too arid, it is of course waste. (A few insults disposed of.)
    We are talking about climate changes, that means, about averages. If the climate becomes more volatile, there may be more extremal events, but the people will react and be prepared.
    The point being? Is climate change always bad? I can tell you that the region I live was under ice before some climate change happened.
    A question about which crops are optimal for which climate. There are a few climates where no crop is good: Too cold (Antartica) or too dry (Sahara). Everything else can be used in one way or another.
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    When I point that out, you accuse me of calling you stupid.
    And where and when it falls as rain, melts into the ocean, etc.
    It's where you claim agriculture will be happening, no problem, when the river delta wet rice farmers are driven off their land.
    Nope. This one is, though.
    They will be harmed - their agriculture will be less productive, their lives made harder. On average.
    Too hot, too rainy, too wet, too rocky, too sandy, too acidic, too salty, too subject to flooding or drought, too rugged, - - - no sense in cutting your list short. People can make do, of course - but agriculture is harmed, made more difficult, made less productive.
    - - - - -
    But this is where Trump comes in:
    No, it means about variance and distribution. Variance and distribution define climate. In particular, the variance and distribution changes from AGW are the major effects of AGW - the most important aspects, the central matters at hand, the consequences all the informed people are worried about.
    And that is where politics comes in, including Trump's "Presidency".
    For a recent and minor suggestive example:
    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1072
    https://opensky.ucar.edu/islandora/object/articles:21686
    Notice the framing: no headline about the alarming prediction of the research - that with high probability most of the extra precipitation from AGW will fall as deluge rather than frequent marginal increases in volume - but the burial of that alarm, and the ethical dimension, in a "neutral" focus on the importance of defining one's terms.
    It's possible to report the incoming changes as either a disproportionate increase in extreme events, or a more reassuring proportionate increase in averages. It rests on the reporter's choice of cutoff for "extreme". It's a judgment call, resting on an estimation of the use and significance of the findings being reported. And in the current political climate, the safer personal choice is obvious. A small step - but all the small steps are in the same direction.

    Fascists are incapable of good governance. The Republican Party cannot govern the country. Trump will not fulfill his duties and oath of office, because he is incapable by nature and prevented by inescapable self-created circumstance. This illustrates one aspect of Republican (his) influence.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  22. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    It is not about too much or too little water for a region like the Sahara. It is about the cost and ability to get water to the region that is used for planting. Don't get me wrong, there are food production areas popping up near the coastlines in the region, where desalination plants are or have been built to see how well these areas can produce food (vegetable and meat and dairy products). Thus far, the yield has been low, but the way forward is to develop large swathes of the desert closer to the coast line for food production. The problem they must now overcome is how to transport it out of the region.

    http://www.sahara-developpement.com/Western-Sahara/AgricultureEtElevage--117.aspx
    https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/16/africa/sahara-forest-project-tunisia-feat/index.html
    http://www.takepart.com/feature/2016/01/08/desert-farming-egypt
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/inno...transforming-deserts-into-farmland-180954486/

    Unfortunately, environmental costs do not seem to be factored in to these developments.

    The Sahara is a delicate ecosystem. Unfortunately, due to human intervention, the desert itself is spreading. We created the damn place, now we may end up destroying it in the process.

    Be prepared?

    I don't know where you live, but the extreme weather conditions being experienced by communities around the world due to climate change.. We cannot prepare for that. In Queensland, for example, the weather events were are experiencing are now so severe, that people are literally dying. Crops are destroyed (through extreme hail, floods, drought, rain events). There is no preparing for that.

    Towns and villages are having to be relocated. Farmland destroyed.

    Take Fiji as a prime example:

    • Rising sea levels coupled with warmer temperatures and stronger El Niño patterns increase the island’s susceptibility to deadly food- and water-borne diseases. Across Fiji’s two main islands, the number of cool nights has decreased and warmer days has increased since 1942. Tropical cyclones are predicted to decrease in frequency and increase in intensity. These changing weather patterns have worsened Fiji’s susceptibility to viral disease outbreaks. Fiji recorded a drought-induced outbreak of diarrheal disease in 2011, combatted a post-flood leptospirosis outbreak in 2012 and quelled a Dengue outbreak in 2013.
    • Changing weather extremes threaten the livelihoods of the Fijian people—implicating the island’s ecosystems, on land and at sea. Saltwater intrusion from coastal flooding destroys farmland, disrupting the supply of staples in the Fijian economy and forcing communities to migrate to safer ground. The damages sustained to Viti Levu, Fiji’s most populous island, total some $52 million per year, or 4 per cent of Fiji’s GDP. In 2012, residents of Vunidogoloa became the first to begin relocating due to the impact of rising tides, eroding agricultural lands and intensifying floods.
    • Ocean acidification—or carbon pollution that increases the ocean’s acidity—will continue in Fiji, impacting the health of the island’s coral reef systems.

    Fiji has a population of around 1 million. Some communities have already had to relocate due to rising sea water destroying what was once fertile land that was used to grow their crops.

    Other countries in the Pacific are facing and dealing with the same issues.

    Tonga:
    https://www.pacificclimatechangescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/13_PCCSP_Poster_Tonga.pdf
    http://www.parliament.gov.to/media-...f-climate-felt-in-tonga-says-meidecc-minister
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34738408

    Vanuatu:
    https://www.pacificclimatechangescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/15_PCCSP_Vanuatu_8pp.pdf
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4776772/
    https://cop23.com.fj/vanuatu/
    https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/t...ate-change-take-a-trip-to-vanuatu_a_23007424/

    The Cook Islands:
    https://www.pacificclimatechangescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/9_PCCSP_Cook_Islands_8pp.pdf
    https://cop23.com.fj/cookislands/


    It is affecting their health and livelihood.

    So no, it's not about average.

    How nice for you...

    Too bad about everyone else today and in the future, huh?

    You truly do not understand the scope of what is happening around the world, do you? Do you live in a European bubble?

    In the Pacific, for example, climate change is causing the sea to rise. That rise in sea levels is inundating the fields used to grow crops, with salt water, which destroys the soil so that nothing can grow there again. That then has the added impact of washing the soil and fertilisers back into the ocean, destroying the reefs and fishing grounds these people use to fish from. That's just from rising sea water. That isn't even touching on the fact that a region that would usually see a category 5 cyclone every dozen or so years, is now having to cope with category 5 cyclones multiple times per year, further destroying crops, homes and people. Rising temperatures has the bonus of dryer conditions and evaporation, leaving them with less water to live with and grow their crops, and harsher rain events that floods and destroys their crops and livelihood. These are small island nations that are now having to face the prospect of relocating their entire population in a couple of generations because of climate change.

    It's not about finding which crops are optimal for the climate. It's about the soil being destroyed so that no crop can grow because of climate change. Not to mention also destroying fertile fishing in the process. Not to mention the fact that climate change is resulting in the issue of diseases affecting millions of people in the region.

    I'll put it this way. The entire nation of Kiribati is looking to relocate because of the effects of climate change. And they only have a few years left to do it, because rising sea levels and changing weather patterns are destroying them. They simply will not survive if they do not relocate.

    If only they knew that they just needed to plant crops that suit the climate.

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    Oh wait, that's right. The rising sea levels have destroyed the land and seeped into their fresh water table, so they cannot grow any crops.
     
    Quantum Quack likes this.
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    23,328
    Siberia perhaps?
    You are as naive and sociopathic as Putin is!
     
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