Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Climate change after all

The Y2K problem didn't happen in the end because thousands of man-years were spent solving the problem before it happened and/or minimising the disruption that errors could cause.

It probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but it was a global effort that ranged from people spending a few minutes debugging a minor program to huge financial software houses rewriting and checking every line of code that they had ever produced to make sure that it wasn't going to cause problems, recompiling it, fixing the new problems, repeat and mix over months or years. I know several retired programmers, about half of them were called in to help with old software that they'd worked on going back to the 1970s, in languages that time has almost forgotten. And it worked - because people took it seriously, and devoted the resources to the problem that were needed to solve it. There were problems, nevertheless, but most of them were relatively obvious and easy to fix. We don't really know that every last one was fixed successfully, though by now it's pretty likely that everything was, or at least that the effects of any remaining errors are small enough to go unnoticed.

Hopefully work on the next problem of this sort to come along - the Binary Millennium bug due to hit in 2049 - is already well in hand. But if people bury their heads in the sand and say it'll never happen, and refuse to devote resources to solving it, then they are in for a VERY nasty shock.

To Labby: I understand your feelings, and your compassion does you credit. Yes, we should remember that climate change affects not only our pocketbooks, but the very way of life for many. I feel for those people. The way they have lived may be coming to an end.

On the other side of the coin, though, isn't that what's been happening for millenia? The Romans invaded Gaul (now France) and forever changed the way those tribes had been living. The Romans invaded Britain and forever changed the way those tribes had been living. The Vandals and Visigoths pressed Rome from the east and changed the course of European history. Islam exploded out of the Middle East in the seventh and eighth centuries and changed the way of living for hundreds of thousands and redirected the fate of nations.

In April of 1815, a South Seas volcano exploded (Mt. Tambora) and the resulting ash cloud in the upper atmosphere helped bring on the Year Without a Summer in 1816. In the young nation of the United States, crops were frozen by June and July snowstorms, and river ice clogged Northern waterways all through the normal summer months. Hundreds of farms failed, and the resulting upheaval pushed tens of thousands of farmers, ranchers, merchants, and opportunists westward. This, in turn displaced the Native American tribes who had occupied those lands (after taking them from their previous tenants, of course).

A side note: That was also the year Mary Shelley began writing her prototypical horror novel "Frankenstein." She had accompanied her husband and a number of friends to Lake Geneva to swim and boat and play outside as they had done in years past, but it was far too cold, so her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley challenged the members of the group to create a ghost story. Mary won with her story about a giant creature with no soul which held only hate in its mind. Tellingly, the story begins and ends on ice, typical of the Year Without a Summer.

In Europe that same year, food riots brought on by shortages caused by the killing cold changed the way France, Germany, Britain, and most other northern European nations dealt with the poor. That was the start of the modern "social services" network to keep people from dying in the streets or rioting for food and shelter.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Ireland suffered the spread of a potato-killing fungus which, according to some estimates, took 1.5 million lives in Ireland and pushed another million out of her borders to other countries, most to America. New York and Boston employers soon learned to spell "No Irish Need Apply" in their sleep, and the immigrant Irish spent generations working out from under that prejudice and exploitation.

My point is that change happens. We either react to the change or end up crushed by it. It isn't fair, it isn't nice, and it isn't proper. But that's the way life is. While those suffering due to climate change deserve our compassion and our assistance, the continuance of their traditional lifestyle cannot be the reason we make world-changing decisions.

Ann wrote:
I could not agree more. I have no faith in anything Nostradamus allegedly "prophesied," especially since his "predictions" only make sense when looking back on events and forcing them into one or more of his writings. I, too, am far more likely to listen to the scientific community than to Nostradamus.

However, I would like to point out that "the opinions of today's scientific community" are not unanimous on the subject of global warming. They're not even close. There are thousands of scientists who deny that humans are either causing or materially contributing to global warming, so we can play the dueling PhD game all day and neither of us would win. My point is that you (and many others in our world) have accepted global warming as the fault of humans without solid proof or even a solid majority consensus.

We can debate whether or not climate change is primarily our fault, and I have no problem with presenting facts on either side of the debate. What I have a problem with is those who make a statement based on the "certain knowledge" that human activity is responsible for destroying our planet when that "certain knowledge" is only an act of belief in something that is unproven. I can't emphasize this enough, apparently, because so many on the other side of the debate seem to put their hands over their ears and shout "La-la-la-la-la" at the top of their lungs when someone brings up a logical or factual objection to the assertion.

I believe Marcus made a good point when he noted that many of the things which might cause global warming are things that cost us money anyway, so we can and should do something about them. I'm all for that. I'm all for not wasting our resources. For example, I'm all for alternative energy sources for transportation if it makes sense from the economic, ecological, and resource management perspectives.

But I'm not in favor of making huge changes willy-nilly because a new climate report has been published which touts the virtues of action A over actions B, C, L, and X. There are too many reputable scientists who insist that we humans are not a significant contributor to global warming to ignore their voices. This isn't decided, not by a long shot, and refusing to admit that there are two sides to the debate only makes one look dogmatic and inflexible, no matter which side of the debate one is on.

This is where you are wrong, Tara. There is scientific reasoning and and scientific research behind the warnings about climate change. That means that scientists look at such things as mean annual temperature of the Earth, the measurable emission of various greenhouse gases and pollutants made by human activity, the activity of the Sun, the climate variations in the Earth's past etcetera etcetera. The scientists gather as much data about the present and the past as they can, and from them, they try to predict the future. It is very complicated to predict the future climate, because there are so many factors that are incompletely known, which is why scientists disagree about climate change. However, the majority of the scientists believe that human activity is affecting the climate, and they have used science - that is, actual measurements of factors like temperature and greenhouse gas emission, plus mathematical models - to arrive at their conclusion.

A prophecy by Nostradamus is not built on science. Nostradamus made no measurements of anything that he could observe in the world around him. He didn't use a thermometer to measure the temperature. He had no way of measuring the level of pollutants in the air. He had no way of knowing about the climate in all the rest of the world, since parts of the world were unknown to Europeans in his time, the sixteenth century.

What Nostradamus did to make his prophecies was, if I have understood things correctly, study the Bible as well as read occult literature of his time. That is not science. If, for example, you claim that you can learn about the future from reading the Bible, particularly if you claim that you can learn that some momentous event is going to happen in the year 2012, then you must carefully explain what passages there are in the Bible that contain this information. I have read the Bible, and I'm quite sure that the Bible doesn't discuss the year 2012. If you want to claim that such passages exist, then you must clearly identify them and explain how you can know that they refer to the year 2012. If you can't do that, then you can't claim that the Bible predicts the end of the world in 2012, and then you can't use the Bible to claim that you know that the world will come to an end in a specific year.

Nostradamus is known for couching his prophecies in very vague and ambiguous words. Because of that, no one has managed to use Nostradamus to accurately predict an actual major event in the world. After a major event has happened, people have scoured Nostradamus' writings for anything that can be construed as a prediction of these things. Because Nostradamus was so good at speaking in riddles, it has often been possible to find a passage that seems to predict an actual event after it has happened. However, if the actual event had unfolded differently, it would have been possible to use the same passage by Nostradamus to predict that alternative event. To put it differently, Nostradamus is useless for actual predictions of the future, and he is only good for confirming what you already know.

The crucial thing to remember is that Nostradmus' prophecies are not science, because he didn't use scientific methods to arrive at them. Because what makes science into science is not the answers you get, but the methods you use. Science requires that you use observations, measurements and mathematical models, and that you can clearly explain how your observations, measurements and calculations led to the results you arrived at. You must be able to explain it so clearly that other people can make similar observations, measurements and calculations to see if they will get the same results that you got. That is science.

If you claim that you have received special, privileged information from God or from ghosts or spirits, or that you have been lifted above the time stream by emissaries of God and have seen things that no other person will ever be privy to, then whatever information you claim to possess is not science, because no scientific methods were used to arrive at it. It is, of course, possible that the information that you claim to possess will turn out to be correct after all. If you were right about one thing but wrong about many others, then your correct prediction was probably just a lucky guess. If, however, you make a number of detailed and clear predictions about the the relatively near future based on the information that you received straight from God and they all turn out exactly as you said they would, then you are either part of the biggest scam ever or you have just given the world proof that God exists and that you are his spokesperson.

But since no one has ever managed to interpret Nostradamus' prophecies correctly before the actual events happened, it is clear that they don't contain actual information but just suggestive wording that can be interpreted the way you want to after the events have happened.

So, Tara, the prophecies by Nostradamus are not science, but the predictions about climate change, which are based on observations and measurements of actual events and mathematical calculations using the results of those measurements and observations, are science. That's an absolutely crucial difference.

Ann

Ann, you seem to have gotten the misconception that I believe in the Nostradamus prophecy. I do not. I do not believe in prophecies or anyone else who claims to be able to psychically predict the future. I do know, however, that there are periods of warming on this planet. That is a proven fact. They have scientific evidence that the planet does warm up. They have not, however, proven to my satisfaction that it is humanity that has caused this. Also, there are scientists who also are not satisfied with the evidence.

Personally, I'd be a little more credulous if the pro-global warming crowd didn't mess with the temperature readings as they have been exposed as having done. Just last year, they (NASA, I believe it was) took the readings for August and copied them to September, making it look like it'd been hotter than it actually was.

Tara

This is just an aside, but if memory serves the significance of the date “2012” has nothing to do with Nostradamus.

Again, if memory serves (and people more inclined to research might be able to correct me on this) the 2012 issue is based upon several things including the Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar as I understand it is a mathematically complex system that is much more accurate that the calendar the modern world uses today. It also inexplicably ends in 2012 (sometime in December I think) with a highly accurate occurrence of calculation being unable to calculate any higher (again, anyone with better knowledge can feel free to correct me). This has led to speculation as to the significance of this date being a doomsday of sorts.

As to the scientific issues related to this, I believe that there have been a few noted scientists that have arrived separately at similar conclusions through different methods. I think one noted that the Earth and Sun would be aligned with the galactic center on that date, another calculated that our solar system would actually be aligned with the horizontal galactic plane and yet another using ancient texts which mentioned a “tenth planet” as noted by astronomers in the past to speculate about a “rogue” planet with an irregular orbit that would intersect with our solar system at that time causing environmental upheavals if not out right destruction.

I’m not sure what everyone expects to happen in 2012 and I’m not a big believer in doomsday scenarios per say, but as I understand it there actually is some scientific basis that “something” will happen so I just wanted to mention that.

As others above have mentioned, just because some scientists believe something is true doesn't make it so. Then again, until 2013 I don't guess I can really say it isn't either.

No, Michael. There is no scientific evidence that something will happen in 2012.

I consider myself a big astronomy fan. I visit my favorite astronomy site, www.astronomynow.com every day. I regularly check up other astronomy sites. I know that those sites tell me in advance when some interesting astronomical event is going to happen. They tell me when there will be a total or partial solar or lunar eclipse. They tell me when there will be a conjunction between the Moon and bright planets. They tell me when I can expect a meteor shower. They tell me when an asteroid is going to whizz by close to the Earth. These predictions always come true, because they are based on science. If there was any sort of astronomically based evidence that the Earth was going to be in danger on Decmber 20, 2012, don't you think they would present that evidence to me?

Well, whoever calculated that knows nothing about the geography of our galaxy and the solar system. The Milky Way, which is the horizontal plane of the galaxy, can be seen curving high overhead...



But if the horizontal plane of our solar system was aligned with the horizontal plane of the galaxy, the Milky Way would be seen curving around the Earth's horizon, not stretching high overhead. The plane of the solar system is actually perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way.



And trust me, there is no scientific evidence that the solar system is about to 'keel over'. Nevertheless, how would it hurt hurt the Earth if the horizontal plane of the solar system was aligned with the horizontal plane of the Milky Way?

Sure, there has been speculation that a large tenth planet might exist in the outskirts of the solar system, but none has been found. If there is a large planet out there, it wouldn't be able to hurt us unless it is on a highly elliptical orbit and is fast approaching the Sun. Anything really large which is fast approaching the center of the solar system ought to have been detected by now, and its gravitational effects ought to have started affecting the outer solar system already. There is no scientific evidence that a large tenth planet exists, let alone that it is going to wreak havoc in the solar system in 2012.

As for that Mayan calender, I don't doubt for a moment that the Mayans were excellent mathematicians and that their calendar is of the highest quality, but being able to make a calendar does not mean that you are able to calculate the end of the world.

And so what if their calendar ends in 2012?

In the cathedral of Lund, close to where I live, there is a famous astronomical clock from 1425. That clock came with an original calender that accurately told you on what dates it would be a Sunday from 1425 to 1923. The calendar ended in 1923, and the world didn't come to an end in that year. The cathedral has now replaced the old calendar with one that starts in 1923 and ends in 2123. Does that mean that the world will end in 2123? All I can say is that if the world does indeed come to an end in that year, it will have nothing to do with the calendar.

When people even begin to compare nonsense like the 2012 scare with warnings about climate change based on science, then it is clear that many people can't tell real dangers from imaginary ones. And that is when it will be so much more difficult to take steps to protect ourselves and the Earth from real dangers, because humanity is busy worrying about flowerpots falling from the sky.

Ann

Michael, you are correct, most if not all of the 2012 hysteria is based on the Mayan calendar. I wasn't sure if there was a prophecy by Nostradamus as well, though, as I don't keep track of that. I should have said something earlier.

On another note, there is going to be a conference in New York from March 8-10 called the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change . The banner ad I saw says "Global Warming: Was it ever a crisis?"

Tara

eta: Not that I believe any of the end of the world nonsense, but from what I've read most of the concern comes from our solar system passing through the galactic plane, which actually does happen every 35-40 million years, according to my source, not us being aligned with the galactic plane. IIRC, there have been serious astronomy websites discussing the event, as well. One website says that we should expect more comet strikes during that time "because of gravitational interaction with the densest parts of our galaxy." If nothing else, it's something interesting to learn more about, yes?

There has indeed been speculation that the passage through the galactic plane may pose increased dangers to life on Earth, simply because the galactic plane is more crowded than most of the rest of the galaxy. There is an increased risk that we may collide with something, or be gravitaionally affected by something, or be irradiated by something. But at the solar system's distance from the galactic center, the danger is still small. In any case, we are not passing through the galactic plane right now.

A spiral galaxy almost always has a thick band of dust stretching along its mid-plane. This band of dust marks the galaxy's horizontal plane.



The galaxy in this picture is called NGC 891. As you can see, we seem to have a perfect edge-on view of this system. You can see that the galaxy is brighter and yellower in the middle, which is called the galactic bulge. In the case of NGC 891, the dust lane seems to cut the galactic bulge exactly in the middle, and we see just as much of the bulge 'above' the dust lane as we see 'below' it.

The Milky Way is also a spiral galaxy with a thick dust lane marking the galactic plane, and our galaxy also has a prominent galactic bulge:



As you can see from this picture, the dust lane does not cut the galactic bulge in the middle, not from our point of view. It is clear from the picture that the galactic bulge is much brighter 'below' the dust lane than 'above' it. Indeed, the galactic bulge can't be seen 'above' the dust lane. Conclusion? The Earth is not situated exactly in the plane of the Milky Way, but slightly 'below' it.

Astronomers are relatively confident that our solar system is 'bobbing' up and down along the galactic plane. The consensus is that right now we are moving away from the galactic plane, not approaching it. In any case, we are sufficiently far from the galactic plane that there is no chance that we will be crossing it in 2012.

Ann

Edit:
There have been serious astronomy websites discussing the event? What event? The 2012 predicted end of the world, or our future - many millions of years into the future - passage through the galactic plane? And what serious astronomy websites are you referring to?

'Event' may not have been the right word, but I was referring to our solar systems passage through the galactic plane. I'm sure it was just prompted by the crazy talk by the end of the world nutjobs. The article I read said that when our solar system did move through the galactic plane, our planet would probably have more comet strikes and that may have affected the dinosaurs.

Here's a link to one story on Universe Today:

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/0...e-as-we-pass-through-the-galactic-plane/


Tara

Just a few points:

First, I don't think anyone here has even approached the argument that "we shouldn't worry about global warming because of Nostradamus".

Second, there is some logic in comparing risks. We have limited resources, and we have to decide where to allocate them. More money/time/etc spent on Risk A means less spent on Risk B. So you ought to decide if Risk A is more of a threat or not. And that can be a very complex question. Is AIDS worse than breast cancer? How about heart disease?

How about drinking Coke? The city of New York is looking at taxing every non-diet drink, with the goal of regulating people's sugar intake. (Me, I'm addicted to Diet Coke, but if you want to drink the "real thing" I've got no problems with that). Is marijuana use more of a public health threat than drinking alcohol? Why do we spend millions fighting marijuana and much less on regulating drinking? Is genetically modified food going to cure hunger or kill us all? If we close a hospital, for instance, that will save electricity. But what do we do about the patients, leave them to die? There are some extremists who will tell you it's better not to waste the resources on people who are just gonna die anyway (sooner or later). Of course, we're all gonna die at some point.

So when it comes to global warming, some of us want to know, honestly and without hysteria, how much of a risk is it? How much is a proposed solution going to cost, what evidence do we have that it will work, and is that really the best use of those resources? Yet all too often, those questions get shouted down with accusations of us wanting to kill the planet.

My point is, it's more complicated than that.

PJ

[img]http://www.box.net/shared/static/lttoo1zxla.bmp[/img]

*snork*snork*snork*

*sputter*


That was probably the funniest thing I've seen this week.
JD

Your underwear picture was a riot, Sue!

However, here in Sweden, our largest daily proclaims today that not only is global warming real, but it is worse than people thought, too. They quote Professor Chris Field of Stanford University. Read more here .

What's more, today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows an impressive icescape in Antarctica - an icescape of yesterday! Because the caption informs us that the picture was taken in 1994, and that ice shelf is all gone now, a victim of global warming. Here is the picture of the vanished ice shelf, if anyone is interested.

I might add, too, that there have been absolutely devastating wildfires in Australia recently, and although it is generally agreed that many if not not most of those fires have been set, Swedish newpapers have said that the fires would not have raged so out of control if Australia had not been the victim of global warming, so that the southern parts of it are becoming ever hotter and drier.

So for me, surfing the web, today's news about global warming felt like a double whammy.

Ann

Well, if it's in the newspaper, it *must* be true! :rolleyes:

What I heard about the Australian fires is that they would not have raged so out of control if trees and brush had been pruned and thinned out, but the local environmentalists wouldn't allow it.

PJ

Allow me to reiterate my own personal position. The following statements should not be construed as applying to anyone but myself.

The world is getting warmer. That's not in question.

I do not believe that humans are primarily - or even significantly - responsible for that warming.

So providing evidence of global warming impacts my position not at all.

I have no doubt that's partly true but the fact is that Australia has been in a terrible drought for many years and these fires were ultimately the result of that drought. We get no rain - I heard a couple of days ago that the official average January rainfall for my state is 25mm. This year we had less than 1mm. I don't think we've had any so far in February.

You just have to drive in the country - or even my city, which is known for its beautiful parks - to know that a dropped match will have disastrous effects. There is *no* green. Everything is dead.

The weather this summer has been unbelievable. 110-115F for days on end. Terrible winds and lightning. Combine those three and you have a perfect storm.

When I was growing up (1980s-'90s), 40C was a hot day. Today, 44C is considered hot. Experts are saying that in the near future, 50C days will not be uncommon. Something has very definitely changed. 2 weeks ago we had 43-46C weather for about a week. On the day it finally dropped down to 38C, people were walking around commenting to complete strangers about how lovely the cooler weather was. It's insanity.

Dozens of people dropped dead from heat in my city (with a population of only 1 million) a couple of weeks ago. The city morgue did not have room to take all the dead and a temporary facility had to be set up. This is not normal weather.

Combine the intense heat and fires in the southeast with the terrible flooding in the north - and over the last couple of days, the east - and you have a country with weather that is quite simply out of control.

The population of Australia is only slightly over 21 million. 200+ were killed and more than 2000 homes were lost last week to fire - by a percentage of the population, that's the equivalent of about 2,900 Americans killed and 29,000 American homes burnt down. This has been an horrific summer and it has had a profound impact on everyone I have spoken to.

Bec

I'm so sorry to hear that, Bec.

However, I'd like to add something that I find relevant in this discussion about climate change. When the Australian wildfires were at their worst about a week ago or a little more, all major Swedish newspapers featured big articles and scary pictures of the devastation in Australia. If you picked up a major Swedish newspaper, you would almost certainly find something about the Australian fires on the front page. When you turned on your TV for the news, the situation in Australia was often the first news item to be presented.

Precisely because of the discussion about climate change that I have been very actively taking part in here on these boards, I was very interested in how American newspapers would present the fires and how they would describe the causes of it. I found, to my horror, that American newspapers wrote extremely little about the Australian fires, as if they were really no concern of America's and as if American people had better things to worry about. I got the impression that a person in America can be fairly well-informed, in the sense that he or she can try to find out what is going on by reading (American) newspapers and watching the news on American TV, and still know extremely little about the horrible fires in Australia.

Something that truly worries me wshen I read American newspapers on the web is how insular America seems to be. And because of America's huge impact on the world, that national introversion is a real problem to the world, to all the rest of us, and in the end, to America itself.

I get the impression that America thinks of itself as a different planet, a world all unto itself. What happens in other parts of the world does not concern you very much, unless some part of the world seems to penetrate your world and actively attack you, like Al Qaida. When that happens, you will take action and strike out into the world to deal with that particular problem. But why should you care about problems in the world that don't threaten you?

One of the first things President Bush did during his presidency was declare that the United States would not be part of the Kyoto protocol. During most of his presidency, America made no international commitments to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Bush also did not try to enforce any federal regulations of the emissions of major pollutants in America.

The American position has been something like this. Are the international problems that might be caused by climate change in any way caused by or related to America? You can't prove that they are. And since you can't prove it, America has nothing to do with it. Do the wildfires in Australia threaten America? No. So why should America care about them?

When I was a kid in the sixties and read Superman comics from that time, there were often pictures of Superman flying in space and looking back on the Earth. When you saw the Earth from space in the Superman comics, it always looked the same - you could see North and South America, but no other continents. It was always like that. I noticed it, but I thought to myself that if Superman had been a Swedish comic book, then no doubt Europe and Sweden would always have been prominently visible when the Earth was seen from space in the Superman comics.

But the problem with America is that it still sees the world that way, the way it was shown in the comic books from the sixities. Only the Americas can be seen. And of course, only the United States of America is of any real importance.

No wonder, Pam, that you would think that the wildfires in Australia were caused by environmentalists preventing the necessary clearing of undergrowth in the forests.



Australia? What Australia?

Ann

I've lost the link, but the environmentalist accusation was all from local Aussie residents, in an Aussie paper. I don't know to what extent they're right. As Bec says, it wasn't the whole cause.

I'll agree with you that Americans are fairly insular. I think there's a somewhat widespread attitude of live and let live; we'll worry about our problems, you worry about yours. That said, the American people (private citizens and companies) donated millions in one day after the Boxing Day Tsunami a few years back, and our military was promptly on its way to help (along with the Australian navy).

And I always laugh when people talk about Bush rejecting Kyoto. He was pursuing the exact same policy that Bill Clinton had, and they both knew it would be a waste of time to even try to get the Senate to agree on it. (Treaties have to be approved by our Senate) If Al Gore had been president, the US still wouldn't have entered Kyoto.

By the way, how's that Kyoto thing working out? What's it accomplished? Apart from making liberals feel smug about their moral superiority to Bush, I mean.

PJ