"Scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities from an understanding of basic physics, comparing observations with models, and fingerprinting the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences."
Here is a question. There is only one correct answer to it. Consider the nature of the evidence for the claim that smoking causes cancer. In your opinion is the evidence for AGW as strong as that evidence, or stronger, or weaker? And by how much?
What a stupid question.
Some things cannot be quantified. You can't quantify "by how much" the evidence that smoking causes cancer is stronger or weaker than the evidence for AGW.
I think you can, by producing probability measures, though one wonders if there is a real practical difference between a 99% risk vs a 99.99% one.
How certain should you be to take action to avoid catastrophe? 95% or just 50%? perhaps just 10% when we consider the apocalyptic possibilities?
The real question is what is the best action? sea defences or reduced CO2?
Those numbers cannot be meaningful unless you have made a large number of predictions in which you claim a similar degree of confidence, and found that 99% of them (or 99.99 %) are correct.
Some things cannot be quantified, and attempts to do so only mislead.
In the case of AGW, it is better to explain the physical reasoning why we expect such a causal connection, and to stop there.
So where on the spectrum would you put the risk that AGW is a real threat 10% or 90%?
We have only one earth, so get only one chance at this...
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
5. Involves the population of Bangladesh, the Yangtze, Nile, and Niger deltas, SE United States, and London all moving elsewhere. Doable certainly, but likely to cause at least some social disruption.
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
5. Involves the population of Bangladesh, the Yangtze, Nile, and Niger deltas, SE United States, and London all moving elsewhere. Doable certainly, but likely to cause at least some social disruption.
Social disruption is inevitable, because nothing serious will be done about global warming.
For the pension experts, would today's pension age change have been necessary if triple lock pensions had not been introduced ?
Not an expert, but as a mathematician I'm quite sure the effects of the triple lock are marginal compared with the impact of demography. Maybe it would have shaved a year or two off.
You are an intelligence agency that has access to information & material that would be extremely damaging to Donald Trump. Some might suggest fatally damaging to his Presidency. It is not, however, directly associated with current federal and state level investigations related both his and his staffs' association and collusion with Russian intelligence services and criminal entities.
Do you: a) release it through an appropriate channel to the wider world? b) withhold it as a possible distraction from the current investigation and indeed possibly giving rise to the accusation that Trump may not get a fair trial? c) wait?
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
6. We're not a population of millions as we were when adapted in the past, but of billions. Of course we'll adapt, the worries are large numbers of deaths, social unrest and unsustainable population movements that will make the fall out from Syria look like a picnic.
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
5. Involves the population of Bangladesh, the Yangtze, Nile, and Niger deltas, SE United States, and London all moving elsewhere. Doable certainly, but likely to cause at least some social disruption.
Social disruption is inevitable, because nothing serious will be done about global warming.
I share your pessimism that anything will really be done in terms of prevention, at least in the short term. We should be building flood defences etc to cope with the effects though.
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
6. We're not a population of millions as we were when adapted in the past, but of billions. Of course we'll adapt, the worries are large numbers of deaths, social unrest and unsustainable population movements that will make the fall out from Syria look like a picnic.
The developed countries aren't going to reduce their emissions much---10% or 20% over a decade is possible. To halt global warming would require giving up two or three of the following four: fossil fuel generation of electricity, motor vehicles, air travel and fossil fuel heating of buildings.
It won't happen. People won't be cold in the dark, or stop taking flights, or stop driving cars, for the sake of a scientific theory, even a correct scientific theory!
Emissions from developing countries will rise rapidly because so many sources (travel, electric power, infrastructure that requires carbon emission to build) are things people buy more of as they become more prosperous.
People in the thin world are not going to listen to people in the fat world lecturing them on climate change.
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
6. We're not a population of millions as we were when adapted in the past, but of billions. Of course we'll adapt, the worries are large numbers of deaths, social unrest and unsustainable population movements that will make the fall out from Syria look like a picnic.
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
6. We're not a population of millions as we were when adapted in the past, but of billions. Of course we'll adapt, the worries are large numbers of deaths, social unrest and unsustainable population movements that will make the fall out from Syria look like a picnic.
The developed countries aren't going to reduce their emissions much---10% or 20% over a decade is possible. To halt global warming would require giving up two or three of the following four: fossil fuel generation of electricity, motor vehicles, air travel and fossil fuel heating of buildings.
It won't happen. People won't be cold in the dark, or stop taking flights, or stop driving cars, for the sake of a scientific theory, even a correct scientific theory!
Emissions from developing countries will rise rapidly because so many sources (travel, electric power, infrastructure that requires carbon emission to build) are things people buy more of as they become more prosperous.
People in the thin world are not going to listen to people in the fat world lecturing them on climate change.
I think developed countries will reduce their emissions by more than that without any great difficulty. It isn't a case of one big leap, but of lots of little ones:
Natural gas rather than coal Solar and wind Improved engine (jet and ICE) efficiency Better insulation More efficient home appliances More public transport
"Scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities from an understanding of basic physics, comparing observations with models, and fingerprinting the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences."
LOL, you respond to a post pointing out that the appeal to authority is a fallacy, with an appeal to authority. Yesterday you claimed, quite wrongly, that a piece of writing was riddled with errors, but when you were challenged to identify one such error your internet connection went down.
Here is a question. There is only one correct answer to it. Consider the nature of the evidence for the claim that smoking causes cancer. In your opinion is the evidence for AGW as strong as that evidence, or stronger, or weaker? And by how much?
And here is another: consider the circumstances in which professor Holick lost his job for questioning the unanimous scientific view that exposure of the skin to sunlight has only harmful consequences. That unanimity has now been utterly reversed. What makes the AGW consensus any stronger than the sunlight consensus?
The point is not whether AGW is right or not, it's whether you are equipped to have a useful opinion on the subject. You aren't.
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa. Since 2001, he has been the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, which publishes pieces viewed as conspiracy theories and fake news. Chossudovsky is himself a proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Centre for Research on Globalization is known to promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods. According to PolitiFact, the Centre "has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like 9/11, vaccines and global warming."
1. Global warming is real and much of it is anthropogenic.
2 Nothing serious will be done about it.
3 It may be good for humanity by lengthening growing seasons; it may be bad for humanity if weather patterns, rainfall, sea-levels change for the worse. We don't know.
4. Man conquered the globe because he adapted, in prehistoric times, to climates from the Arctic to the Sahara.
5. We will adapt to a warmer Earth.
6. We're not a population of millions as we were when adapted in the past, but of billions. Of course we'll adapt, the worries are large numbers of deaths, social unrest and unsustainable population movements that will make the fall out from Syria look like a picnic.
The developed countries aren't going to reduce their emissions much---10% or 20% over a decade is possible. To halt global warming would require giving up two or three of the following four: fossil fuel generation of electricity, motor vehicles, air travel and fossil fuel heating of buildings.
It won't happen. People won't be cold in the dark, or stop taking flights, or stop driving cars, for the sake of a scientific theory, even a correct scientific theory!
Emissions from developing countries will rise rapidly because so many sources (travel, electric power, infrastructure that requires carbon emission to build) are things people buy more of as they become more prosperous.
People in the thin world are not going to listen to people in the fat world lecturing them on climate change.
I think developed countries will reduce their emissions by more than that without any great difficulty. It isn't a case of one big leap, but of lots of little ones:
Natural gas rather than coal Solar and wind Improved engine (jet and ICE) efficiency Better insulation More efficient home appliances More public transport
+1 for that. Solar in particular will soon become the cheapest source of electricity.
You are an intelligence agency that has access to information & material that would be extremely damaging to Donald Trump. Some might suggest fatally damaging to his Presidency. It is not, however, directly associated with current federal and state level investigations related both his and his staffs' association and collusion with Russian intelligence services and criminal entities.
Do you: a) release it through an appropriate channel to the wider world? b) withhold it as a possible distraction from the current investigation and indeed possibly giving rise to the accusation that Trump may not get a fair trial? c) wait?
You are an intelligence agency that has access to information & material that would be extremely damaging to Donald Trump. Some might suggest fatally damaging to his Presidency. It is not, however, directly associated with current federal and state level investigations related both his and his staffs' association and collusion with Russian intelligence services and criminal entities.
Do you: a) release it through an appropriate channel to the wider world? b) withhold it as a possible distraction from the current investigation and indeed possibly giving rise to the accusation that Trump may not get a fair trial? c) wait?
Releass it asap.
Wait until 2020 to boost Democratic chances in the next election... releasing it now would give us Pence as POTUS; at least Trump is completely ineffective. Indeed, Trump may be the most effective block on a GOP programme we've got.
You are an intelligence agency that has access to information & material that would be extremely damaging to Donald Trump. Some might suggest fatally damaging to his Presidency. It is not, however, directly associated with current federal and state level investigations related both his and his staffs' association and collusion with Russian intelligence services and criminal entities.
Do you: a) release it through an appropriate channel to the wider world? b) withhold it as a possible distraction from the current investigation and indeed possibly giving rise to the accusation that Trump may not get a fair trial? c) wait?
Release it.
Trump is not going to get a trial while he's president - at best an impeachment, which is a political rather than judicial process. Anything really damaging reduces his support in Congress, and makes impeachment more of a possibility.
The priority is surely to get a dangerously unpredictable sociopath out of the White House, rather than worrying about whether he's ever likely to go to jail.
Very bad - something like a four-fold increase in total emmissions, I believe. China now counts for c.30% of global emmissions. But if we decided there is therefore no point in bothering, the problem would not go away.
China will tackle their emmissions eventually; we need to keep up pressure on them to do so as quickly as possible. Trump pulling out of the Paris accord will not help that.
I read somewhere, might have been here, that China and India are not expected to limit CO2 by the Paris agreement to 2030 - about 1600 more coal power plants are scheduled. Actually, Australia mines every ton of coal it can, and still comes out on the right side of public opinion because they don't burn them itself.
Its probably worth taking the time to read the Senate committee letter summoning Donald Trump Jr to a hearing. The list of names mentioned tells you a lot.
Whats more intriguing, the counter intelligence investigation holds information that makes Junior's responses to questions likely to be put him very problematic for him.
I read somewhere, might have been here, that China and India are not expected to limit CO2 by the Paris agreement to 2030 - about 1600 more coal power plants are scheduled. Actually, Australia mines every ton of coal it can, and still comes out on the right side of public opinion because they don't burn them itself.
I don't think that's true. China's total number of coal fire power plants plants is in decline as they put in much more efficient CCGTs, and they are currently building more wind capacity than anyone else. And while India is still building more coal plants, their attitude has changed quite significantly since they discovered the giant D6 gas field.
I read somewhere, might have been here, that China and India are not expected to limit CO2 by the Paris agreement to 2030 - about 1600 more coal power plants are scheduled. Actually, Australia mines every ton of coal it can, and still comes out on the right side of public opinion because they don't burn them itself.
I don't think that's true. China's total number of coal fire power plants plants is in decline as they put in much more efficient CCGTs, and they are currently building more wind capacity than anyone else. And while India is still building more coal plants, their attitude has changed quite significantly since they discovered the giant D6 gas field.
Sorry: technically, the number of Chinese coal fired power station has continued to grow. However, as in the UK, coal losing ground to natural gas and renewables. Its share of generation has gone from 78% in 2014 to 66% in 2016 and total electricity generated by coal (as measured in TwH) has fallen by more than 10% in the last two years. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
FPT: Sci-fi fans: tomorrow at the San Diego Comic-Con there'll be an announcement about the future of Stargate.
Indeed.
Anyway, must be off.
And in real space news, Musk has just announced that Red Dragon is dead.
(Red Dragon was his plan to land one or more unmanned capsules on Mars in 2020).
Technological dead end. Mini ITS the prior. Also I suspect Musk cba to fight an additional battle with NASA
I'm sure your post makes sense to the space geeks Pulpstar but I'm a bit lost... Mini ITS the prior? (NASA I get!)
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur with a company called SpaceX, which builds rockets to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, orbiting about 100 miles up . A combination of entrepreneurial spirit, good design (his rockets can land and be re-used) and government funding means that the company is profitable, and combined with the profits from his other ventures means he can think big
One of his big dreams is the ITS, or Interplanetary Transport System. This is a unbuilt ginormous rocket intended to launch a spacecraft to travel to Mars. The combination of big rocket and big spaceship would be laughable if Musk didn't have a track record if making impossible things happen (rockets landing on boats? electric cars?), and even with his rep it's a big ask.
But whether bullshit or chocolate, you don't just build these things from scratch, you have to do smaller bits first. One of these smaller things was to take a small space capsule that his company builds, fiddle around with it, and send it unmanned to Mars. The capsule is called "Dragon", Mars is mostly red, so this became known as the "Red Dragon"
Pulpstar is opining that the Red Dragon approach was not useful and a smaller version of the ITS would be better
Increasing CO2 levels are a fact and therefore you are quite correct to say that there is some level of human generated temperature increase. Very few people, even skeptics, dispute this.
The problem is that climate models have zero track record of ever forecasting outcomes in real life testing. They don't work, so they are modified and then the new model is backtested to prove it is more accurate. As anyone who has ever looked at stock markets knows, it is incredibly easy to get a formula that accurately 'predicts' historical data but these models never work in forward testing.
The big question is the extent of forcing and feedback - basically, what exactly is the effect of increasing CO2 and how much feedback you get from other factors, such as the storage and release of CO2 in the oceans. Depending on the assumptions used, global warming is either a catastrophe or a non-event.
Skeptics quite rightly urge caution, since climate scientists are not a disinterested group. People always follow their own incentives, and climate science (and their scientists) are a lot more relevant if the outcome is predicted to be more extreme.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
The two basic facts of climate change are that CO2 levels have increased in a linear (ie not cyclical) fashion over the past couple hundred years and that higher CO2 levels in the atrmosphere result in higher surface temperatures due to a greenhouse effect. The only sensible explanation of the increasing CO2 levels is human activity. That's accepted by serious scientists in the same way as, say, the competitive evolution of species is accepted.
There is a lot we still don't know about the science. We can debate policy. There is plenty to be sceptical about. I just don't think it's useful to challenge the basic fact of human generated climate change and to dismiss it all as a big plot.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
That's relative to all the molecules in the air, presumably, rather than relative to all the CO2 molecules?
What experiments have taken place in a "closed" environment where the proportion of CO2 (and we should probably add methane in for good measure) has been raised by a similar amount?
FPT: Sci-fi fans: tomorrow at the San Diego Comic-Con there'll be an announcement about the future of Stargate.
Indeed.
Anyway, must be off.
And in real space news, Musk has just announced that Red Dragon is dead.
(Red Dragon was his plan to land one or more unmanned capsules on Mars in 2020).
Technological dead end. Mini ITS the prior. Also I suspect Musk cba to fight an additional battle with NASA
I'm sure your post makes sense to the space geeks Pulpstar but I'm a bit lost... Mini ITS the prior? (NASA I get!)
Priority. Propulsive landing is untested on a dragon type vehicle so adding it would have delayed certification to crewed ISS missions for SpaceX which is a 2018/19 goal for SpaceX
FPT: Sci-fi fans: tomorrow at the San Diego Comic-Con there'll be an announcement about the future of Stargate.
Indeed.
Anyway, must be off.
And in real space news, Musk has just announced that Red Dragon is dead.
(Red Dragon was his plan to land one or more unmanned capsules on Mars in 2020).
Technological dead end. Mini ITS the prior. Also I suspect Musk cba to fight an additional battle with NASA
I'm sure your post makes sense to the space geeks Pulpstar but I'm a bit lost... Mini ITS the prior? (NASA I get!)
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur with a company called SpaceX, which builds rockets to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, orbiting about 100 miles up . A combination of entrepreneurial spirit, good design (his rockets can land and be re-used) and government funding means that the company is profitable, and combined with the profits from his other ventures means he can think big
One of his big dreams is the ITS, or Interplanetary Transport System. This is a unbuilt ginormous rocket intended to launch a spacecraft to travel to Mars. The combination of big rocket and big spaceship would be laughable if Musk didn't have a track record if making impossible things happen (rockets landing on boats? electric cars?), and even with his rep it's a big ask.
But whether bullshit or chocolate, you don't just build these things from scratch, you have to do smaller bits first. One of these smaller things was to take a small space capsule that his company builds, fiddle around with it, and send it unmanned to Mars. The capsule is called "Dragon", Mars is mostly red, so this became known as the "Red Dragon"
Pulpstar is opining that the Red Dragon approach was not useful and a smaller version of the ITS would be better
Yep Musk has decided this too. Dragon 2 goal is human rated. Propulsive landing would be an additional complication so it is sensible to ditch it and focus that effort towards ITS development
"Scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities from an understanding of basic physics, comparing observations with models, and fingerprinting the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences."
LOL, you respond to a post pointing out that the appeal to authority is a fallacy, with an appeal to authority. Yesterday you claimed, quite wrongly, that a piece of writing was riddled with errors, but when you were challenged to identify one such error your internet connection went down.
Here is a question. There is only one correct answer to it. Consider the nature of the evidence for the claim that smoking causes cancer. In your opinion is the evidence for AGW as strong as that evidence, or stronger, or weaker? And by how much?
And here is another: consider the circumstances in which professor Holick lost his job for questioning the unanimous scientific view that exposure of the skin to sunlight has only harmful consequences. That unanimity has now been utterly reversed. What makes the AGW consensus any stronger than the sunlight consensus?
The point is not whether AGW is right or not, it's whether you are equipped to have a useful opinion on the subject. You aren't.
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa. Since 2001, he has been the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, which publishes pieces viewed as conspiracy theories and fake news. Chossudovsky is himself a proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Centre for Research on Globalization is known to promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods. According to PolitiFact, the Centre "has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like 9/11, vaccines and global warming."
Yep Musk has decided this too. Dragon 2 goal is human rated. Propulsive landing would be an additional complication so it is sensible to ditch it and focus that effort towards ITS development
I fear it's a bit more complex than that. SpacX have been working on propulsive landing of their Dragon 2 capsule for years now, and developed rocket motors to do it. This gave them the option of landing a capsule on land (unlike all other US capsules at sea), which is much cheaper - you don't need loads of ships at sea to pick it up.
Firstly, NASA wanted backup parachutes. This added weight. Secondly, they've nixed the propulsive landings by saying they wanted the heat shield unbroken by rocket motors or landing legs - understandable after Challenger.
This left propulsive landings for just cargo Dragon 2's, and it would not be worth doing it for just that. This also nixed Red Dragon, which was to use that technology, and would have been useful to provide data for atmospheric re-entries of heavy bodies on Mars.
SpaceX wanted propulsive landings for many reasons: it's cheaper, it reduces reliance on the US government (the ships at sea), and it's more flexible. NASA didn't want it for all those reasons, and they're the paymaster.
In a day of generally bad news for SpaceX, Musk also cast some doubt on the likelihood of the Falcon Heavy's first flight succeeding.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
That's relative to all the molecules in the air, presumably, rather than relative to all the CO2 molecules?
What experiments have taken place in a "closed" environment where the proportion of CO2 (and we should probably add methane in for good measure) has been raised by a similar amount?
We are over 400 ppm I think while 'normal' levels fluctuate around 200-300 ppm.
Increasing CO2 levels are a fact and therefore you are quite correct to say that there is some level of human generated temperature increase. Very few people, even skeptics, dispute this.
The problem is that climate models have zero track record of ever forecasting outcomes in real life testing. They don't work, so they are modified and then the new model is backtested to prove it is more accurate. As anyone who has ever looked at stock markets knows, it is incredibly easy to get a formula that accurately 'predicts' historical data but these models never work in forward testing.
The big question is the extent of forcing and feedback - basically, what exactly is the effect of increasing CO2 and how much feedback you get from other factors, such as the storage and release of CO2 in the oceans. Depending on the assumptions used, global warming is either a catastrophe or a non-event.
Skeptics quite rightly urge caution, since climate scientists are not a disinterested group. People always follow their own incentives, and climate science (and their scientists) are a lot more relevant if the outcome is predicted to be more extreme.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
Climate models do 'work'... They are continually being tweaked as we understand certain elements more... But the central features haven't changed that much for 50 years. For instance:
Any climate scientist who could somehow show that global warming isn't happening/cast reasonable doubt would never have to work again. There is an extremely well funded anti-climate science movement that would shower him or her with money.
Increasing CO2 levels are a fact and therefore you are quite correct to say that there is some level of human generated temperature increase. Very few people, even skeptics, dispute this.
The problem is that climate models have zero track record of ever forecasting outcomes in real life testing. They don't work, so they are modified and then the new model is backtested to prove it is more accurate. As anyone who has ever looked at stock markets knows, it is incredibly easy to get a formula that accurately 'predicts' historical data but these models never work in forward testing.
The big question is the extent of forcing and feedback - basically, what exactly is the effect of increasing CO2 and how much feedback you get from other factors, such as the storage and release of CO2 in the oceans. Depending on the assumptions used, global warming is either a catastrophe or a non-event.
Skeptics quite rightly urge caution, since climate scientists are not a disinterested group. People always follow their own incentives, and climate science (and their scientists) are a lot more relevant if the outcome is predicted to be more extreme.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
Climate models do 'work'... They are continually being tweaked as we understand certain elements more... But the central features haven't changed that much for 50 years. For instance:
Any climate scientist who could somehow show that global warming isn't happening/cast reasonable doubt would never have to work again. There is an extremely well funded anti-climate science movement that would shower him or her with money.
Not as well-funded as the pro-AGW science movement.
Comments
We have only one earth, so get only one chance at this... 5. Involves the population of Bangladesh, the Yangtze, Nile, and Niger deltas, SE United States, and London all moving elsewhere. Doable certainly, but likely to cause at least some social disruption.
Dilemma
You are an intelligence agency that has access to information & material that would be extremely damaging to Donald Trump. Some might suggest fatally damaging to his Presidency. It is not, however, directly associated with current federal and state level investigations related both his and his staffs' association and collusion with Russian intelligence services and criminal entities.
Do you:
a) release it through an appropriate channel to the wider world?
b) withhold it as a possible distraction from the current investigation and indeed possibly giving rise to the accusation that Trump may not get a fair trial?
c) wait?
It won't happen. People won't be cold in the dark, or stop taking flights, or stop driving cars, for the sake of a scientific theory, even a correct scientific theory!
Emissions from developing countries will rise rapidly because so many sources (travel, electric power, infrastructure that requires carbon emission to build) are things people buy more of as they become more prosperous.
People in the thin world are not going to listen to people in the fat world lecturing them on climate change.
Natural gas rather than coal
Solar and wind
Improved engine (jet and ICE) efficiency
Better insulation
More efficient home appliances
More public transport
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/589602/2015_Final_Emissions_Statistics_one_page_summary.pdf
32% reduction in emissions since 1990
Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa. Since 2001, he has been the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, which publishes pieces viewed as conspiracy theories and fake news. Chossudovsky is himself a proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Centre for Research on Globalization is known to promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods. According to PolitiFact, the Centre "has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like 9/11, vaccines and global warming."
Trump is not going to get a trial while he's president - at best an impeachment, which is a political rather than judicial process. Anything really damaging reduces his support in Congress, and makes impeachment more of a possibility.
The priority is surely to get a dangerously unpredictable sociopath out of the White House, rather than worrying about whether he's ever likely to go to jail.
China will tackle their emmissions eventually; we need to keep up pressure on them to do so as quickly as possible. Trump pulling out of the Paris accord will not help that.
Its probably worth taking the time to read the Senate committee letter summoning Donald Trump Jr to a hearing. The list of names mentioned tells you a lot.
Whats more intriguing, the counter intelligence investigation holds information that makes Junior's responses to questions likely to be put him very problematic for him.
One of his big dreams is the ITS, or Interplanetary Transport System. This is a unbuilt ginormous rocket intended to launch a spacecraft to travel to Mars. The combination of big rocket and big spaceship would be laughable if Musk didn't have a track record if making impossible things happen (rockets landing on boats? electric cars?), and even with his rep it's a big ask.
But whether bullshit or chocolate, you don't just build these things from scratch, you have to do smaller bits first. One of these smaller things was to take a small space capsule that his company builds, fiddle around with it, and send it unmanned to Mars. The capsule is called "Dragon", Mars is mostly red, so this became known as the "Red Dragon"
Pulpstar is opining that the Red Dragon approach was not useful and a smaller version of the ITS would be better
The problem is that climate models have zero track record of ever forecasting outcomes in real life testing. They don't work, so they are modified and then the new model is backtested to prove it is more accurate. As anyone who has ever looked at stock markets knows, it is incredibly easy to get a formula that accurately 'predicts' historical data but these models never work in forward testing.
The big question is the extent of forcing and feedback - basically, what exactly is the effect of increasing CO2 and how much feedback you get from other factors, such as the storage and release of CO2 in the oceans. Depending on the assumptions used, global warming is either a catastrophe or a non-event.
Skeptics quite rightly urge caution, since climate scientists are not a disinterested group. People always follow their own incentives, and climate science (and their scientists) are a lot more relevant if the outcome is predicted to be more extreme.
Food for thought - the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere is about one molecule in every 34,000.
What experiments have taken place in a "closed" environment where the proportion of CO2 (and we should probably add methane in for good measure) has been raised by a similar amount?
Cost.
Propulsive landing is untested on a dragon type vehicle so adding it would have delayed certification to crewed ISS missions for SpaceX which is a 2018/19 goal for SpaceX
Firstly, NASA wanted backup parachutes. This added weight. Secondly, they've nixed the propulsive landings by saying they wanted the heat shield unbroken by rocket motors or landing legs - understandable after Challenger.
This left propulsive landings for just cargo Dragon 2's, and it would not be worth doing it for just that. This also nixed Red Dragon, which was to use that technology, and would have been useful to provide data for atmospheric re-entries of heavy bodies on Mars.
SpaceX wanted propulsive landings for many reasons: it's cheaper, it reduces reliance on the US government (the ships at sea), and it's more flexible. NASA didn't want it for all those reasons, and they're the paymaster.
In a day of generally bad news for SpaceX, Musk also cast some doubt on the likelihood of the Falcon Heavy's first flight succeeding.
Climate models do 'work'... They are continually being tweaked as we understand certain elements more... But the central features haven't changed that much for 50 years. For instance:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/
Any climate scientist who could somehow show that global warming isn't happening/cast reasonable doubt would never have to work again. There is an extremely well funded anti-climate science movement that would shower him or her with money.