>>551131

This past week the NASA GISS was hacked by unknown black hats. It seems as though climategate was such a media coup that the denialists will be using this strategy a lot from now on. In light of these developments, I would appreciate it if /sci/ could help reduce the ignorance to what limited degree are capable of.

Readme-only:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yjjgton54mw

Threads will be posted in ~20 minutes.

Global warming exists, anyone who doesn't beleive that doesn't know the science behind it at all. Any arguments like "but this winter was really cold" or "Antartica isnt melting" just proves you don't know anything. The only contention is whether or not it is humans that are contributing to the cause. That you may disagree on because it has not been proven beyond a doubt yet.

The amount of economic self-regulation to decrease global emissions enough to stabilize global warming is not worth it.

>>551181

The evidence that points to anthropogenic causes are very strong. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a legal notion, not scientific. Creationists, for example, will use that sort of argument that evolution is a sham theory.

>>551208

Can you qualify your statement? What makes you think it's economically impossible to mitigate climate change?

>>551209
Well yes I know, personally I feel the evidence in that matter is rather strong and think humans have had a large affect. However, there is at least not enough strong evidence supporting it that another scientists with reasonable data would still be able to say it is untrue.

>>551208
You're saying its not worth it to keep our climate at a reasonable level and maintain the status quo we currently have? What if the affects are very detrimental to the ecosystem and by extension us?

>>551219

Yes, there is some good science out there that points in the opposite direction. In any case, in the unlikely case that the warming is mostly natural, I argue the effects on human lives and livelihood would be so enormous that it justifies action anyway.

I wish I knew more about climate change to give decent input. Sorry.

>climate skeptics
Stop justifying them with this term. "Climate retards" is more appropriate.

>>551255

Please download the .rar from the original post. If you have the time to read it, it should cover all the basics.

>>551267

I believe the proper term would be either climate deniers or climate denialists, but then they'll accuse you of invoking Godwin's Law.

>>551255
You don't need to know the particulars but basically all over the world they measure temperatures and record average global temperatures over time. They even get very accurate older measurements from ice cores in antartica known as the Vostok ice cores. They can estimate the temps from the past very well and have recorded data for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years ago. They can see that the average temperature of the earth is normally between 0 celcius and 6 celcius and varies over time. Some times it is low and some times it is high but it generally stays average. However in recent decades the planet has shot up, higher than normal. Now of course one could argue that this is no more than a random fluxuation, and it could very well be (however more recent evidence shows there are also many other factors like the industrial revolution). But the fact of the matter is the planet is getting warmer, and this could have very bad adverse ecological, atmospheric, and biological affects on the planet as a whole and on the living conditions of life in the future if the trend continues. You can't really argue the planet isn't getting warmer unless you point blank deny the measurements. You can however argue what has caused it and why it is doing it and how long it will last. Strong evidence supports that humans cause some of it, but no one can be sure 100% because there are so many factors involved in the global environment that you just can't be sure.

Threads are up.

>>>/new/376730

>>>/r9k/7984947

>>551325

No responses ;_;

Maybe I should be more inflammatory and less polite.

I have been accused of being a climate denier. But even a retard that can read the data can see that climate is changing, but even a retard that can read at all knows that changing is what the climate does.

Historically climate has shifted several times even in recorded human history, let alone all of the human history before we began writing it down.

I don't believe in AGW because I find it supremely arrogant. On top of that the attitude of may climate scientists that people don't need to see the unaltered data is beyond offensive. If a scientist wants to hide behind the false validity of their lab coat then fine, but don't expect me to be happy with their "value added" data, when I want to see raw data to try to understand how they came to their conclusion.

>>551399
Duh. The climate changes. Currently its getting warmer. How can you deny that? How warm it gets and for how long is the bad part. The climate fluxuates slightly but right now were in a very high high and many thing its because of humans.

>>551423
like i said though, I find the concept of AGW arrogant, and since the climatologists still refuse to release their unaltered data, I refuse to consider their opinions valid.

They need to release the data to people that may not agree with them before their conclusions can be verified.

>>551459
Uh, the unedited data is widely available.

>>551519

Yes. There are a number of sites that have the data freely available, and you can draw your own conclusions for them.

/new/ is a tough cookie, but as long as you are polite and you press past the troll posts, you should make some progress. Good luck.

>>551459
For example, here are the raw scanned forms for every weather station in the US.

http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/coop/coop.html

>>551459
Further, there's no such thing as an 'unaltered' data source for many things you want. For example, there's no way to measure the world temperature. You have to make lots of measurements in different places and aggregate them somehow into one time series. Reasonable people can and do have disagreements about how to do this, but the differences are typically not large. However, this are no hidden, pure data sources that do anything except record temperature at one individual location.

>>551535

Thanks for your support bro.

>>551208
There was an economic report that came out a year ago, that took a hard look at the costs of doing something, and the costs of doing nothing.

If the warming trend continues, it's going to cost us [us being the world] A LOT. Possibly trillions. Entire cities will need to be evacuated, and millions of people will be displaced. Spending billions now could save us a lot of money in the long run.

On the other hand, of the warming trend reverses or stops, then the billions spent preparing for warmer climates and the changes that entails will have been wasted.

About the only good economic outcome of global warming is the opening of the northwest passage.

I am not a climate skeptic, I simply live where this shit benefits me (Canada).

Yes, let us all live in the 20th century forever, the 20th century is such a sacred place*.

*what they really mean is that they don't want no nigger immigration northward

Okay, I don't really know enough about climate change to possess an opinion, but I've been exposed to lots of denial of it. I've also heard a lot about how some could profit heavily from it's prevention and how that might be a cause for blowing the subject big.

As I said I don't really have any opinions on this and have no idea what to think of anything, but can /sci/ give me the general idea behind climate change and their opinions on what influence profiting companies might have on its presentation?

>Entire cities will need to be evacuated
bullshit, coastlines can be managed, they already do it in parts of europe to expand the amount of avaliable land.

>millions of people will be displaced
shit happens now bro

>About the only good economic outcome of global warming is the opening of the northwest passage.

bullshit again, the warming will lead to massive amounts of farmland opening up in siberia and canada.

>>551586
The irony is that this information is disseminated by oil companies who are currently making it big and don't want that to change.

>>551571

It's about the balance of probabilities. Right now it seems almost certain that warming will continue, and very likely that we'll see overwhelmingly detrimental impacts to humanity.

Let's assume that p=0.5. The biggest change would be a switch to renewable energy sources. Is that a bad thing? Would it suck to have an energy infrastructure not reliant on Middle Eastern oil? To not have to rely on any foreign state for your energy needs? Would it be bad for us to skip the peak oil crisis?

>>551593
lol, as a fellow Canadian, I am a net benifactor from global warming, so I say bring it on.

RUSSIA HERE, VE VANT GLOBAL WARMING SO FUCK VU EQUATOR VAGS!

I live near Edmonton. I'm sitting pretty here at 2000 ft. rising sea level? nigger please. Convince me why I should go outside and turn my truck off, which has been idling for 40 minutes.

It gets cold here in the winter, and its not all that hot in the summer. Another 2 deg C seems pretty enjoyable.

>>551399
>Historically climate has shifted several times even in recorded human history

But never so quickly, it's always over hundreds or thousands of years, not half a century.

The greenhouse effect is an observable phenomenon. The amount of greenhouse gases has been increasing (contributed by human activity), so logically there should be a warming trend, and there is. Every other possible explanation has been ruled out. How is this arrogant?

>>551626

And it's been shifting for 100 years now, and how do you know historically that the climate doesn't wobble quickly and frequently. You don't, you just have general averages for 1000 years at a time. Even if you look at ice cores, if you have a mile thick sheet of ice that's only 1,000,000 years old (quite brief) then each year is a measly .06 inches thick. You can't tell the exact temperature of the whole year in .06 inches.

>>551611
>>551574

I'm also Canadian. You haven't heard of the pine beetles fucking up the forests in BC? We'll also have to deal with three global effects that will be working against everyone, namely famine (which will admittedly effect Canada less, thankfully for us), sea level rise and mass refugee migrations. There is also a possibility that the entire boreal forest could experience a mass die-off.

>>551571
I assume you're referring to the Stern report.

There are basically two things that influence the cost-benefit analysis of climate change.

1) Discounting. How much do you discount the welfare of future generations? Most of us would prefer $100 today over $100 five years from now. For one person, it's usually estimated at about 1% a year. It can be argued this isn't appropriate in the context of overlapping generations - me discounting 400 years in the future is different if I was still alive, or I'm considering my distant descendants. There are no 'correct' answers to how we should discount the future. Many (most?) economists would argue that society has been getting steadily richer over time, so a positive discount factor is appropriate over long time horizons. But any significant positive discount factor will compound, reducing the cost of things in the future to basically zero.

2) Fat tails. Most of the (expected) costs from climate change come from the probability assigned to a catastrophic event, e.g. needing to resettle a billion people. Nobody can accurately determine this probability. I think Stern picked 5%. If you drop it to 3%, costs are suddenly cut in half. There's no good answer for this. We can't expend resources to fight every small-probability catastrophe lurking in the wings, but we can't just ignore the potential costs, either.

Here is my honest opinion.

I see global warming as a conspiracy of racism.

If the free flow of people was allowed (give me your tired, poor, hungry, etc) than global warming is a NON-ISSUE.

There are many places in the world that stand to gain from the shift in climate, but nationalism and stupid artificial borders controlled by worthless old men has made movement of labour impossible (notice how capital isn't given the same restriction hmmmm) They spent the last few centuries using the race/nation divide to distract people from the class divide and are now panicing at the possiblity of mass migration.

I repeat global warming is only an issue because of nation politics.

>>551660
Oh, forgot. Stern (and it's maybe a 2007 report?) did not apply any discounting to future generations.

WE CANT LET DEM NIGGERS MIGRATE TO OUR SACRED NORTH LANDS!

>>551667
This is patently false. Consider the United States. There's free flow of people within. Yet cities at risk from global warming - Manhattan, San Fran, New Orleans - are not being emptied. Also holds true for other nations, consider Calcutta.

>>551660
Dammit, going to correct myself again. For one individual, it's usually about 4% a year, i.e. you're indifferent between $100 today and $104 next year. For long-term analysis, people tend to use 1%.

>>551660

We're not talking about gains, though, We are not getting $100 five years from now, but rather losing trillions, every year, for centuries. I found a good blog post that explains this:

"As far as I can tell, pretty much every structural macroeconomic model makes use of a rate of around 3% to discount future utility. Since there are many reasons to think that an even lower rate is appropriate for an analysis of climate change, it's probably quite sensible to consider slightly lower values as well.

As far as the arithmetic goes, Wilkinson has a point: a higher discount rate would indeed significantly affect the present-value calculations. But there's no earthly reason to think that the proper discount rate is the one used to discount the returns from a capital investment project. The return on those sorts of investments incorporate a risk premium over and above the rate at which the investor discounts future utility. For most investments, that risk premium is positive, since their payoffs are generally positively correlated with movements in consumption. But since the benefits of of addressing climate change are unlikely to have any particular correlation to movements in consumption (i.e., the business cycle), the appropriate risk premium for discounting the benefits of slowing global warming is approximately zero."

>>551660
>>551728

As for the fat tails, there are a number of studies that suggest a cascading series of ever-escalating climate change impacts. Worst would be something like methane venting increasing to catastrophic levels. If humans became extinct, I'm not sure that applying a discount rate would be appropriate.

>>551651

But "wobbles" don't just happen out of the blue, there are factors involved. There is no naturally occurring process than can explain the global warming trend.

why are cities threatened? There are places already below sea level you know and I doubt New Orleans could happen to a place were people who matter live.

>>551728
Yes, we are talking about gains: today, right now, it's a heck of a lot cheaper and more fun to drive around in my gasoline powered car than it is to invest in a high-efficiency hybrid.

I disagree with the blog post. The macroeconomic discount rate does not include the risk premium. The business discount rate does. They're not the same - business usually discounts at a much higher value, e.g. 12% annually. Therefore arguing the risk premium implies lower than 4% is wrong.

He's wrong on the 3%, too.

>>551678
Average IQ of Africa is in the low 70s. I'd say we cannot allow the continent of Africa to migrate to North America and Europe.

They've already benefited from Western civilization without giving shit back. Fuck'em.

I love how people think it is only going to take billions to combat global warming in the face of an increasingly energy demanding society.

>>551752

So we are trading driving around in a fun gasoline car today for wars, famine, dislocations, refugees, and collapsing ecosystems for the future?

That's a good fucking deal. Let's make the discount rate 100% while we're at it.

>>551742

Look at a graph of GDP, you see the wobbles? Yes, they don't effect the long term growth, but they look like a big bad thing, and predictions based upon a wobble would have seriously wrong results.

Temperature is the same way, it wobbles, but we only have a relatively short run of reliable data that shows the wobbles. All the long term data we have is smoothed out to averages because there's no feasible way to measure temperature in the past that accurately.

*demands we should stop using carbon fuels*

*proceeds to siphon off a fraction of the Earth's natural energy cycle to play xbawx convert bauxite and drive tesla roadsters*

*wonders why Earth's climate continues to change in direction not predicted under current models*

Have you ever thought it might have to do more with our lifestyle and economy which demands exponential consumption growth and only somewhat to do with our poor choice in fuels.

Short term fixes are not going to solve anything when 9 billion people will demand the same standard of living as the current 1 billion who keep demanding more.

>>551824

You can't ask people to live differently. You can force them to, but they won't like it. That's why have have no choice but to maintain our current standards of living with non-carbon energy sources. Otherwise, we can try to convince people to live differently (unlikely and probably fruitless) or wait until we enter a crisis situation and we have no choice.

>>551824
>current 1 billion who keep demanding more.

The industrialized world deserves more simply because they create more. Unfortunately we will still be forced to bear the burden for the unsustainable (long term) population growth in 3rd world shitholes. Your kinda implying we owe them shit.

>>551852
our energy requirements seem to keep going up just to maintain our standard of living so even with renewables it will only put off the inevitable heating by a few decades.

And before you say that it can't happen, remember we are discussing economics here and one thing that happens alot is that demand expands to supply, and supply expands with demand so once we start on the green energy bandwagon we will be slathering cheap printed panels all over the planet. and putting massive balloon wind turbines to suck up the jetstream.

Yeah that'll keep our climate stable.

people keep talking about how population is going to decline without intervention but the only reason for that is because of the high cost of having a kid in the first world.

what happens when that cost is reduced when machines take over the labour and education of children?

50 billion people by 2110, I called it.

>>551893

Didn't the industrialized world create the climate problem in the first place, by getting rich off burning fossil fuels? And isn't the Third World, concentrated around the equator, going to suffer the most? Ethically speaking, yes we do owe them shit. In b4 Ayn Rand

>>551898

Humans have always altered the planet. The aboriginals of North America used fire to produce the landscapes they desired for the animals they hunted, for example. We can't escape our own pressures on the Earth without 6 billion of us dying. If we must become the stewards of the Earth to survive, then so be it.

>>551930
I'd be popping out babies like mad if I didn't have to work so hard and quit my job to take care of them.

My instincts :S

So much of this thread is just "prices don't reflect costs".

>>551993
lol, yeah economists dealt with exernalities decades ago.

too bad non-economists think economics is just econ 101 and is as worthless as philosophy

>>551790

How does that relate to what I said at all?

Of course there are wobbles, but there is always some explanation for them. Sun activity, ocean currents, greenhouse gases, and so on. The greenhouse effect is the only explanation we have for global warming. You could argue that there is some mysterious unknown factor, but how would we not at least have an inkling about it by now? It's very unlikely.

If you're saying that global warming will subside, how? And when?

>>552023
global warming will never subside.

even with all the talk about switching to renewables our energy consumption just keeps going up.

god forbid we actually build tens of thousands of nuclear reactors putting out massive amounts of heat.

>>551942
Ethically speaking africa wouldnt have medicine needed to prevent the most trivial of diseases from being deadly if not for us zomg EVOL CAPTALISTS.
We are not responsible for their fornication resulting in difficulties in relocationg the population in the event of a natural disaster either...

>>552056
western diseases get priority over African diseases.

how much did we spend on hair/baldness vs malaria research?

>>551898

You are fucking retarded in economics, duel requirements don't go up to maintain standards of living, they stay the same if they were maintaining the standar of living, they go up to overall increase the standard of living.

>>552039

Maybe we could find some way to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere directly.

>>552070
Again not our fault that Mtumbo cant build hisself some laboratory,

>>552056

The ethical case for assisting developing countries with regards to climate change is quite strong. We broke it, we bought it ("it" being the climate). Simple as that.

However, if you think we shouldn't help developing countries at all, then we have a pragmatic problem. Billions of people live in developing countries. Not all of them will be killed off by the effects of climate change or the resulting political chaos. They can't stay where they are either. They will move.

The option for letting them into our borders doesn't exist. So what can we do? Kill them? Could you do it with your own hands? In addition to the problem that the refugees might have weapons and armies, the sheer moral bankruptcy of what you're proposing is worse than Dick fucking Cheney.

>>552096
notsureifsrs.jpg

>>552078
build furniture using tree farms

>they stay the same if they were maintaining the standar of living

goddamn you people are stupid.

you do realize that to maintain our current standard of living we are depleting resources other than oil right?

The Phosphorus mines we use to get high yields will be depleted in 30 years. Try supporting 9 billion people when that happens.

Unlike oil, phosphorus does not have an easy fix replacement. Once we piss and shit it all into the rivers and oceans, it is uneconomical to get it back.

People talking about economic losses are retarded and short sighted.

I mean, it's the same as if lost your job and spent your last paycheck on food meant to last you for a while. What you people are saying is basically, I am not going to lower my food intake or stop being as wasteful with my food because that would mean I would have less calories. So it's not worth it. Rather than looking at the longrun and seeing that if they conserve their food now they can ration it out and live longer overall.

>>552106
lol, oil is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what resources we are raping for our benefit.

So called environmentalists are in for a big surprise soon. Getting all smug faced because you use a hybrid doesn't help fix the problem.

oil
fresh water
phosphorus
lithium
uranium
heiium
etc.

the big resource crunch is around the corner and we are so fucked.

But it is ok cause I just bought a new ipad. Isn't technology amazing, I will just let tehnology solve my problems. I mean if those science guys can make a computer that small they can solve anything right? Time to go back to my air-conditioned suburb and play farmville.

>>552078

Those are Carbon Dioxide Management techniques, or CDM. You fertilize the oceans with iron, causing algae blooms, or sequester the CO2 into the soil with biochar. By themselves they aren't enough, but it's an important part of climate mitigation solutions.

>>552147

What do you propose we do about it then? It would be great if we could get everyone to use less and share more resources, but we need to be able to convince them to do it without violating their right to freedom.

>>551930
>50 billion people by 2110, I called it.

Highly unlikely.

To be fair most of the population growth (if not all) is ocurring in the 3rd world. Industrialized countries as a whole probably has close to break even birth rates.

The real concern:
>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg

What all you fucking idiots are forgetting is the increase in technology and the incentives to use other goods when certain resources run out. If we run out of phosphorus we'll replicate it in the lab, or we'll find an alternative, or we just simply will use other machines and technology that don't need phosphorus

>>552188
No brah... The sky is falling. End is near.

>violating their right to freedom.
we already violate this freedom to a degree by restricting the most dangerous behaviours.

what is most dangerous depends on how forward thinking you are, that is all.

At this point with alternatives appearing everywhere oil is far less a concern than fresh water and phosphorus.

When the aquifiers are nearly depleted in 20 years do you think you should have the right to keep watering your golf course?

How long until Helium reserves are gone? I keep reading that we are really close because we never really stored the stuff since it used to be too cheap to bother.

>>552096

>>552178

Fertility rates will be leveling off over time. As long as the Third World develops economically, they should be able to reach the same level as the developed countries. Also keep in mind that many Sub-Saharan African countries are at the same standards of living as the US was in the 19th century.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

>>552198

Watering your golf course and smoking cigarettes are completely different from having children. There's ways to reduce the birth rate without resorting to methods like China's One-Child Policy. There was a province in India which got their TFT to 2.2 through a media campaign to encourage women's rights and contraception use.

>>552220
>Sub-Saharan African countries are at the same standards of living as the US was in the 19th century

19th century US developed their own infrastructure+++ while sub-saharan africa cant even make good replicas of shit thats been standard in europe for 60+ years. Expecting the same kind of economical development that the US had for Africa is at best naive and imo pretty fucking dumb given the circumstances (globalized economy).

>>552220
Why do people keep assuming that fertility rates will decline forever.

Hey guys if I chart a graph of housing prices from 1950-2007 I bet I can prove house prices will go up forever.

Education is NOT the factor. It is a correlation. When you live in a developed country the total opportunity costs of having a child rises, you learn this both intuitively and through education.

ANY technology that lowers this opportunity cost (maybe the robot nannies Japanese are working on) will change this trend in the population so long as we are biologically inclined to reproduce.

Got it? I hope so.

>>552251

That's why I mentioned that education policy they had in India. It was a poor province. We can reduce the TFT even if economic development isn't strong, although it would certainly help.

>>552257
I know that, but I did some econometric work in my fourth year and found that in both developed and developing countries where the time and financial opportunity costs of children were high, the birth rate went down at all education levels.

There are disruptive technologies around the corner that will make child care perceptively cheap and this could change the trendline.

>>552284

I haven't heard of those. What would these technologies that make childcare cheap be? Wouldn't the developed countries be more likely to afford these technologies more than the developing countries?