The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Don't forget to check if it also coincides with the sun spot cycle; extra, extra freak out potential!

[MKI]

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

For my part - the only conspiracy I believe is that Climate Change is actually desired by those Sneaky Canadians and Greedy Russians... because once all the permafrost melts, they're the new 'breadbasket of the world'.

Those sneaky Canadians and their gas guzzling machines!

 

13 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

This is the drive-by fallacy, a subset of argumentum ad ignorantium. Drive by, firing bold claims haphazardly out the window at pedestrians, then speed off before anyone thinks to ask you to provide any evidence. Perhaps, the driver thinks, some of the shots will find fertile ground in the torsos of innocent onlookers.

"drive-by fallacy" is a new one to me, and I love the term. Going to have to research this one and use it in the future

Edited July 27, 2021 by MKI
grammars

[sevenperforce]

20 minutes ago, MKI said:

"drive-by fallacy" is a new one to me, and I love the term. Going to have to research this one and use it in the future

Oh, it is just a term I coined myself a while back. A variant of the Gish Gallup as well as the burden-shifting fallacy. But I encourage you to use it!

[Vanamonde]

This discussion has been split from an unrelated subject. 

And some personal remarks have been removed. Keep it polite, please. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I've hesitated to respond because I don't want to come across as lecturing or pedantic... but I do want to address a couple of things.

First off - we all know (or should) that the issue of climate change and the subset of arguments about anthropogenic climate change are hot-button topics which have been unfortunately politicized over the last several years.  There is a tendency for those who spend intellectual and especially emotional energy in this space to bring the baggage of past arguments (and the associated emotional feelings) into new discussions.  This is especially true for people who have previously engaged with others who express themselves emotionally and from a place of ignorance or willful denial.  My perception of Slashy's comments was that they were in keeping with the generally approved conduct of this board - in that he had an opinion, stated it and claimed to have done research supporting that opinion.  From what I read, he did so in a respectful manner.

One of my criticisms of how these arguments play out is firmly centered upon the emotionalism that both climate change deniers and exasperated anthropogenic climate change explainers bring to the table.  The extreme proponents of both sides actually hurt their cause by focusing on the extremes.  On the one side you have the 'Nope, nope, nope, nuttin happenin' group and on the other we get 'the worst case is going to happen, cataclysmically, and soon.'  Neither are true.

Most people are not extreme in their beliefs.  Some anthropogenic climate change deniers do accept that natural processes are causing a change in climate.  Some anthropogenic climate change activists recognize that the Earth is resilient and that the processes will take time (decades to centuries) to play out.  Many skeptics believe that something is happening - and it makes sense to reign in our pollution.  In this space, education and good policy making can occur.

The problem is that it's the alarmists and the offended who get airtime.  Some alarmists want us to abandon all technology and go back to subsistence farming like the Amish.  Some deniers just don't care a whit about ecological damage if it means any reduction upon their wealth and convenience.  The two sides scream and snipe at one another, which causes a lot of people to roll their eyes and wish everyone would just quit shouting.

The takeaway I have from a lot of reading in this space is this: climate is hard.  With everything from natural processes like the sun, the moon, volcanoes, Earth's orbit and our own wanton human pollution contributing to climate on the one planet we have... we should address the one part we have control over.  Pollution.

Just as seeing rivers catch fire in the '70s caused reasonable people to require change in industrial practices, I'm fairly certain that reasonable people are seeing the effects of air pollution and are demanding change, now.  It may not be happening as fast as some wish... but it is happening.

---End of general lecture---

@sevenperforce I will never have your education in math and science and I respect your knowledge.  I will caution, however, that some of your arguments here have danced on the 'sudden, cataclysmic collapse' realm, as if all of the land-locked ice was imminently going to melt and flood the oceans as an event.*  I don't point this out to challenge your authority on this issue - but rather to suggest that people like me are turned off by unnecessarily alarmist language as much as we are by the categorical and wantonly stupid deniers.  I'm not implying that you went full on 'the sky is falling' - but the frustrations you've felt in trying to communicate in other arenas was evident, here.

 

Ultimately, I agree with you that we need to take pollution seriously, and change our habits.  And we are.

*  (Event in human-scale terms, as opposed to a potential, lengthy process and gradual change over time).  Nothing I have read leads me to finding that plausible.  Perhaps it is something that - if our wanton polluting were to remain unchecked could happen over time - and ultimately cause us as a species some discomfort and economic problems.  But as an event, that happens, suddenly, shockingly and catastrophically?  No.

 

[sevenperforce]

10 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've hesitated to respond because I don't want to come across as lecturing or pedantic... but I do want to address a couple of things.

Can you repost the above in the dedicated thread?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

26 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Can you repost the above in the dedicated thread?

Hah!  Missed that! 

Sure. 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I've asked @Vanamondeto move it - I'm on my phone and can't figure out how to do it myself 

[MKI]

What I lack in hard science knowledge, I believe I make up for in considering as many perspectives as possible.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

On the one side you have the 'Nope, nope, nope, nuttin happenin' group and on the other we get 'the worst case is going to happen, cataclysmically, and soon.'  Neither are true.

The meaning of "soon" here can vary in meaning on who you ask, about how "cataclysmic" something like climate change could be.

"Soon" in the scale of the universe is millions of years. "Soon" in the scale of a human lifetime ranges from tomorrow, to next week, to possibly next year. 

So in many senses "soon" isn't really soon at all, it will take decades/centuries to really see incredibly obvious effects of climate change. Except its taken roughly 1.5 centuries to get here from 0.  So yes, for people of today, most wont be impacted at all, a few will be impacted a little more due to more "wild changing weather", but it wont be "that bad". The fact its taken less than 200 years to end up in a situation where its very possible your grandkids will be dealing with it might not seem like "soon" to many, except in relation to just human civilization, "soon" is an incredible short time span. 

This is one of the reasons why its such a hard problem to tackle. Because it isn't "soon" at all in regards to the perspective the average human has and can easily be dismissed, but even in the history of human civilization (lets say the last 2000 years), we created this problem in the last sub-1% of that time. So its more of a "right now" problem when viewed from that angle. 

If the issue was visible, with sudden, dramatic consequences, like an asteroid impact, or an invading nation, or to a lesser extent some extensive virus outbreak (seems kinda relevant ;P), it usually is easier to recognize and mobilize a solution. If the issue is essentially invisible, slow, far reaching, and gradual it always appears to be less a risk, that's just human nature where the "me" and "now" takes over.

So I can understand why there are those that run around screaming the sky is falling, because if the sky was falling, but so incredibly slowly you can hardly tell, and it wont even reach you in your lifetime, many would say "so what", or "yea right!" or even "it wont affect me!". With that, it would appear most are "alarmist" because everyone they are talking too, even if they believe them, wont directly be effected.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by MKI
finish scentence

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

18 minutes ago, MKI said:

if the sky was falling, but so incredibly slowly you can hardly tell, and it wont even reach you in your lifetime, many would say "so what", or "yea right!" or even "it wont affect me!". With that, it would appear most are "alarmist" because everyone they are talking too, even if they believe them, wont directly be effected

I think that - at least among the developed nations - people are taking the issue seriously.  It may not be evident by sweeping legislative or regulatory reform... But it is evident in people's behavior - which is a huge shift. 

People's interest in electric cars, use of public transit, recycling and efforts to cut emissions are higher than ever.  It can be argued that it's not enough... But the change is happening. 

In recent decades China accused the West of pushing climate and emissions reform on developing nations as a pretext for maintaining the status quo and keeping them down.  Yet there are indicators that both official policy and public opinion in China and other developing nations are shifting to require lower emissions.  That latter part - domestic public opinion - is the only way nations change.  

People are waking up to the problem - and regardless of whether they think climate change is caused by sunspots or non existent, I think a lot of people agree with the concept of 'we have one Earth... Let's take care of it' 

 

Still - there are many who are only focused on what's in their short term interest, profit or comfort.  They'll always be here.  But the rise in interest of personal responsibility and buying from responsible companies is having an impact 

Edited July 27, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mikegarrison]

26 minutes ago, MKI said:

So in many senses "soon" isn't really soon at all, it will take decades/centuries to really see incredibly obvious effects of climate change. Except its taken roughly 1.5 centuries to get here from 0.  So yes, for people of today, most wont be impacted at all, a few will be impacted a little more due to more "wild changing weather", but it wont be "that bad". The fact its taken less than 200 years to end up in a situation where its very possible your grandkids will be dealing with it might not seem like "soon" to many, except in relation to just human civilization, "soon" is an incredible short time span.

[YNM]

46 minutes ago, MKI said:

"soon" isn't really soon at all, it will take decades/centuries to really see incredibly obvious effects of climate change. Except its taken roughly 1.5 centuries to get here from 0.

And we already regularly use 1000-year return period flood data, 3300-year return period wind data and 2500-year return period (or equivalent risk) earthquake data (ground acceleration) in design of structures. 150 years is short. I expect us to have some preparation ready for 100-year once pandemics next honestly.

Edited July 27, 2021 by YNM

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

18 minutes ago, YNM said:

I expect us to have some preparation ready for 100-year once pandemics next honestly.

We should - and yet if history teaches us anything, we have notoriously short memories and keep making the mistakes of our ancestors 

[kerbiloid]

The industrial revolution has seriously started just 200 years ago, just two butterfly wingflaps.

They started mining coal in industrial amounts and produce carbon dioxide in industrial amounts, too.
The plant pipe smoke was like a huge source of pride, and it was.

A century later they developed the chemical production of pre-food, synthetic clothes and resins, synthetic petrol.
And it became too expensive to just exhaust the exhaust. The deoxidization became common place, bringing the carbon dioxide back into the industrial cycle as a chemical resource.

Now they tend to return into process as much carbon dioxide as they can, and what is more important, they need to force the people to buy new things when the old ones aren't spent.
The only way to do so is to force the so-called "green tech" and conjure gretchens, and that's right. That cleans the way to the future fusion power, and thus that's right.

But the whole phase of human history when the overevolved monkeys are parasiting on 300 million years old rotten algae (and on the black oil from beneath whatever it actually is), unlikely will last longer than a century more, than the third butterfly wingflap.

As the global warming, carbon footprint, and so on, are a process of centuries, I believe that the human greed as always will win, and hi-tech corporations will force everyone to buy the green tech products and save every molecule of the precious carbon dioxide to turn it into goods.

And this will happen regardless of anyone's efforts to slow or to accelerate this process, so all these greenpeaces and other ecovillagers are just an entourage, affecting really nothing.
As well as active citizens separating food remains from paper plates sticky from food remains and thinking they are saving the nature.

In greed we trust.

Edited July 27, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Vanamonde]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've asked @Vanamondeto move it - I'm on my phone and can't figure out how to do it myself 

Done. 

[Nuke]

i live like 2 or 3 short blocks from the water. perhaps 50 feet above sea level depending on tide. should i remain in this town for the next 50 years, i suspect that down town may be under water.  in fact the collapse of ocean front property has been somewhat of a regular occurrence around here as boathouses fall into the sea. but in 50 years, what will have happened is that the next street over becomes the new down town, all the businesses and people living down there will relocate. this will happen slowly over decades as keeping water out becomes more expensive than simply moving.  but things will be ok, and people will still claim that climate change is a myth. the rate of sea level rise will be slow enough to not be catastrophic, or even noticed by most people. at least for cities currently located above sea level. were not going to instantly have more water on top of us. of course that's only one aspect of climate change.

[Souptime]

I was the one who made the original thread about the wobbling moon, then it turned into something about sea level

That being said, how would the sea level rise effect rocket production? would it flood mines used for getting the metals and materials for rockets, and rocket fuel, since hydrolox can be made from water and the white puffy clouds you see from hydrolox rockets are just rain clouds and other bits of rocket stuff

[Rakaydos]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

And it became too expensive to just exhaust the exhaust. The deoxidization became common place, bringing the carbon dioxide back into the industrial cycle as a chemical resource.

Can you source this please?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Souptime said:

I was the one who made the original thread about the wobbling moon, then it turned into something about sea level

That being said, how would the sea level rise effect rocket production? would it flood mines used for getting the metals and materials for rockets, and rocket fuel, since hydrolox can be made from water and the white puffy clouds you see from hydrolox rockets are just rain clouds and other bits of rocket stuff

https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/slr.html

Worst case scenario:

Los Angeles hardly affected.  Miami becomes a tropical Venice (or abandoned). 

 

Most of the US is fine - its the low lying coastal areas that are at risk.  Note: most people live near the coasts. 

So - very little impact on rocket production.  Also note - this would not be a 'run from it' event but rather a 'my grandpa remembers when the coast used to be over there' situation 

 

Edit - here's a more direct link https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've hesitated to respond because I don't want to come across as lecturing or pedantic... but I do want to address a couple of things.

First off - we all know (or should) that the issue of climate change and the subset of arguments about anthropogenic climate change are hot-button topics which have been unfortunately politicized over the last several years.  There is a tendency for those who spend intellectual and especially emotional energy in this space to bring the baggage of past arguments (and the associated emotional feelings) into new discussions.  This is especially true for people who have previously engaged with others who express themselves emotionally and from a place of ignorance or willful denial.  My perception of Slashy's comments was that they were in keeping with the generally approved conduct of this board - in that he had an opinion, stated it and claimed to have done research supporting that opinion.  From what I read, he did so in a respectful manner.

One of my criticisms of how these arguments play out is firmly centered upon the emotionalism that both climate change deniers and exasperated anthropogenic climate change explainers bring to the table.  The extreme proponents of both sides actually hurt their cause by focusing on the extremes.  On the one side you have the 'Nope, nope, nope, nuttin happenin' group and on the other we get 'the worst case is going to happen, cataclysmically, and soon.'  Neither are true.

Most people are not extreme in their beliefs.  Some anthropogenic climate change deniers do accept that natural processes are causing a change in climate.  Some anthropogenic climate change activists recognize that the Earth is resilient and that the processes will take time (decades to centuries) to play out.  Many skeptics believe that something is happening - and it makes sense to reign in our pollution.  In this space, education and good policy making can occur.

The problem is that it's the alarmists and the offended who get airtime.  Some alarmists want us to abandon all technology and go back to subsistence farming like the Amish.  Some deniers just don't care a whit about ecological damage if it means any reduction upon their wealth and convenience.  The two sides scream and snipe at one another, which causes a lot of people to roll their eyes and wish everyone would just quit shouting.

The takeaway I have from a lot of reading in this space is this: climate is hard.  With everything from natural processes like the sun, the moon, volcanoes, Earth's orbit and our own wanton human pollution contributing to climate on the one planet we have... we should address the one part we have control over.  Pollution.

Just as seeing rivers catch fire in the '70s caused reasonable people to require change in industrial practices, I'm fairly certain that reasonable people are seeing the effects of air pollution and are demanding change, now.  It may not be happening as fast as some wish... but it is happening.

---End of general lecture---

@sevenperforce I will never have your education in math and science and I respect your knowledge.  I will caution, however, that some of your arguments here have danced on the 'sudden, cataclysmic collapse' realm, as if all of the land-locked ice was imminently going to melt and flood the oceans as an event.*  I don't point this out to challenge your authority on this issue - but rather to suggest that people like me are turned off by unnecessarily alarmist language as much as we are by the categorical and wantonly stupid deniers.  I'm not implying that you went full on 'the sky is falling' - but the frustrations you've felt in trying to communicate in other arenas was evident, here.

 

Ultimately, I agree with you that we need to take pollution seriously, and change our habits.  And we are.

*  (Event in human-scale terms, as opposed to a potential, lengthy process and gradual change over time).  Nothing I have read leads me to finding that plausible.  Perhaps it is something that - if our wanton polluting were to remain unchecked could happen over time - and ultimately cause us as a species some discomfort and economic problems.  But as an event, that happens, suddenly, shockingly and catastrophically?  No.

 

I'd like to comment that both "denial" and "alarmism" should be acceptable so long as actual data is provided. The way I took it from your post, alarmism is not good simply because it is a "turn off".

Obviously this is not the same case, but if someone was interesting in swinging an axe at their head "to see what happens" in the next five minutes, and I was frantically trying to convince them not to, would the frantic nature of my concern for this hypothetical person be "alarmist"? Despite myself having "data" that swinging an axe at one's head will positively, undeniably result in death or serious injury?

Back to climate change, I think the denial has been pretty well disproven by others. As to the other end, are people really claiming that all of the bad effects of climate change are going to happen within the space of months or hours one day? Even among the likes of media outlets that claimed that 16 Psyche cost a billion quadrillion dollars or something, I have not seen such claims. Even if it is "by 2050" (IIRC one of the earliest dates for the "really bad stuff" to come into effect) it seems everyone recognizes all of this will take time. It is just that when it does eventually reach "full force" it will be very, very bad (although the exact details of "very very bad" are undetermined). Maybe not for those in the US and other first world countries with robust emergency response organizations, but for everybody else it will be. And of course, for the other complex organisms on the planet too.

I think the entire reason climate change is such a "hot-button topic" is because it is politicized by its very nature. One of the major solutions/remedies to climate change is cutting back on CO2 emissions. This idea obviously would displease any (dirty) energy CEO. Those directly involved with dirty energy (those who rely on the oil industry for employment) also don't like that idea. These CEOs and employees of dirty energy companies were aligned to one political faction prior to climate change "becoming a thing". Thus when climate change "became a thing", those politicians naturally took up the cause of downplaying or denying climate change to save their supporters, either because they actually care about the cause of their supporters or simply because they want to be re-elected. And then that politician's/political faction's other supporters- ones who have no connection to dirty energy and otherwise likely don't care about how their energy is produced- tag along, keeping in line with the political faction's policies and beliefs. Thus you get people across the world with no connection to the energy industry denying climate change voraciously for no apparent reason.

If such a political situation didn't exist I don't think climate change would be such a "sensitive" subject. After all, Mars and Venus colonies are completely uneconomical at this time and despite such projects presenting different problems with unclear solutions, no one is particularly vicious when arguing about them, certainly not to the point of saying that data about radiation exposure on Mars has been "altered" by "them" for some reason in order to defend the feasibility of a Mars colony.

Likewise, if climate change was completely divorced from the economy and thus politics, arguments about it would be much more civil and sane.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

...both "denial" and "alarmism" should be acceptable ...The way I took it from your post, alarmism is not good simply because it is a "turn off".

Good note.  I hadn't meant that interpretation!

 

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

hen climate change "became a thing", those politicians naturally took up the cause of downplaying or denying climate change to save their supporters, either because they actually care about the cause of their supporters or simply because they want to be re-elected.... Thus you get people across the world with no connection to the energy industry denying climate change voraciously for no apparent reason.

I perceive an analogy to smoking. 

My wife and I remember a time when smoking was ubiquitous, and how our kids cannot possibly imagine what it was like back then.  Decades of 'you are going to die' were contested by 'ain't nuthin wrong with smoking' in the public discourse.  There was a lot of pushback by farmers and the tobacco industry to any legislative changes - and yet legislative and regulatory changes did occur, because of public support.  I recall the absolute shock and anger when smoking was no longer allowed in government buildings.  Initially, regulation did not seem to have any real effect on how many people smoked, however... instead it seemed to just serve to inconvenience those who chose to still smoke.  In the early 2000s, something began to change.  Public - I don't want to say 'opinion' - but rather choice happened.  The younger generation (read: Millennials) did not seem to be as interested in cigarettes as a part of their socialization as we Gen X and previous generations had... the habit fell out of favor.  (Did not disappear, mind you, but just wasn't as common).  GenX youth also grew older, had kids and quit.  It just started to fade away. 

Fast forward to today, and my middle-schoolers are shocked when someone is caught vaping - no one actually smokes.  (Funny story: my wife's friends, who do still smoke, came over one night after my then 4 y.o. had gone to sleep and tossed their used butts in our firepit.  The kid, who at the time was a legit Rooster, busted into our room at sunrise to alert us that our backyard had been invaded by 'Hobos'... because only 'hobos' smoked.)  

(Her friends have been known as hobos ever since!)

Long ago, I was frustrated with the 'public service' anti-smoking campaigns of the time, because instead of truth, they just went with 'scare'.  Demonizing nicotine as if it has no possible benefits.  I felt at the time that they should at least be honest - but 'scare' apparently works.  Some of these were actually kind of funny, like "Splode" from Truth.org.

Take a moment to watch, if you've not seen it before.

Spoiler

In this... they take the absolute most liberal interpretation of how many people die from smoking (1/3 of users) to make their point.  Irony?  Truth.org

People don't explode from smoking.  But over time?  They are harming themselves, and while 2/3 of the population are fine... the 1/3 just... eventually... die.

Mind you - this 1/3 number incorporated people like my great grandfather who started smoking at 9 and died of emphysema at 98.  Clearly it was the smoking that got him. 

While I don't think this was effective on its own, it was definitely a part of a relentless public relations campaign... and it worked.  Public habits changed.

Much as America and the world was addicted to cheap cigarettes, the world is currently addicted to cheap and easy energy.  The campaigns alerting people to the hidden costs are having an effect.  And just as I resented the well intentioned mis-information being presented by those who wanted to save people from themselves with the smoking issue... I am critical of people who over-sell the potential effects of climate change ("if left unchecked, this horrible thing will happen, and soon").  Despite this, I have to acknowledge that fear does work.

 

...

 

Lets be honest.  Just like smokers, we need to change our habits to avoid killing ourselves or our children.  But we are going to give up something along the way.  We should acknowledge that.

I remember fondly many great evenings sitting around a fire with my friends and I having a few drinks and smoking and telling stories.  Were we slowly killing ourselves?  Yes we were.  Was there also an intangible benefit to what we were doing?  Of course.  But in the long run, did one outweigh the other?  Yep. 

If and when we get off this 'cheap energy' trip we are on - we are going to give up something else as well.

The thing we need to do is help people who do enjoy today's easy power to understand that small changes in their habits can have a big impact on their health, and the wellbeing of themselves, their neighbors and children.  Acknowledge the loss of ease - and remind them that it will be okay.

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[sevenperforce]

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

the issue of climate change and the subset of arguments about anthropogenic climate change are hot-button topics which have been unfortunately politicized over the last several years.

I will say again what I said before: I appreciate your reasoned approach to these questions. It is helpful.

As @SunlitZelkova pointed out, this politicization was not unexpected. [Snip]

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This is especially true for people who have previously engaged with others who express themselves emotionally and from a place of ignorance or willful denial.  My perception of Slashy's comments was that they were in keeping with the generally approved conduct of this board - in that he had an opinion, stated it and claimed to have done research supporting that opinion.  From what I read, he did so in a respectful manner.

As a person who has been on both sides of the science denial world and has spend the better part of his entire life dealing with science denial, I don't give much credence to "respectful" skepticism that lacks facts, evidence, or maths. Again, that's not a personal criticism in any way. I am sure @GoSlash27 is a lovely person and I would readily buy him any adult beverage of his choosing, given the opportunity. But I know what science denial looks like, and this is it.

Spoiler

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Some anthropogenic climate change deniers do accept that natural processes are causing a change in climate.  Some anthropogenic climate change activists recognize that the Earth is resilient and that the processes will take time (decades to centuries) to play out.

I can honestly say I have never seen any degreed climate change "activist" argue that climate change processes are more rapid than the decade-to-centuries timescale.

It's about perspective. It's about probabilities.

This is the more common perspective I have seen:

• There is a 10% chance of a rapid, runaway, cataclysmic climate shift due to accumulating factors which will cause global catastrophe and millions of deaths within a single decade.
• There is a 75% chance of a long-term cataclysm to our planet that will cause millions of deaths over the next half-century.
• There is a 15% chance that factors we don't yet fully understand will delay the cataclysm by a century or so.
• There is a 0% chance that inaction will avert ultimate cataclysm.

That is the approach most people in this world take. It is a fairly honest and straightforward approach. It is serious. This is a very big deal.

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Some alarmists want us to abandon all technology and go back to subsistence farming like the Amish.

I will very gently posit that this is a strawman. I have never seen anyone with a graduate degree advocate subsistence farming for all humans. Not even once. 

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

@sevenperforce I will never have your education in math and science and I respect your knowledge.  I will caution, however, that some of your arguments here have danced on the 'sudden, cataclysmic collapse' realm, as if all of the land-locked ice was imminently going to melt and flood the oceans as an event.*  I don't point this out to challenge your authority on this issue - but rather to suggest that people like me are turned off by unnecessarily alarmist language as much as we are by the categorical and wantonly stupid deniers.

I honestly don't think I have ever suggested that "sudden, cataclysmic collapse" is some inevitable immediate reality. If I ever have, I emphatically and wholeheartedly retract.

There is a small (but nonzero) probability of a sudden and cataclysmic collapse. My understanding of the science is that this probability is very low. I am not worried about a sudden collapse. I am worried about what happens if we continue to do nothing for the next half-century.

11 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

People's interest in electric cars, use of public transit, recycling and efforts to cut emissions are higher than ever.  It can be argued that it's not enough... But the change is happening. 

In recent decades China accused the West of pushing climate and emissions reform on developing nations as a pretext for maintaining the status quo and keeping them down.  Yet there are indicators that both official policy and public opinion in China and other developing nations are shifting to require lower emissions.  That latter part - domestic public opinion - is the only way nations change.

One of our major concerns is that while the rank and file humans are concerned about cutting their own personal emissions, the rich and powerful who control governments continue to avoid accountability for the industrial systems that dominate carbon emissions.

7 hours ago, Souptime said:

how would the sea level rise effect rocket production? would it flood mines used for getting the metals and materials for rockets, and rocket fuel, since hydrolox can be made from water and the white puffy clouds you see from hydrolox rockets are just rain clouds and other bits of rocket stuff

Good question! Our obsession with oil transcends oceanic boundaries, so we're almost certainly going to keep tapping the oceans for oil and tapping the land for gas regardless of where the boundaries are.

We need to get a better power grid focused on nuclear energy with wind and solar supplements so that it becomes economical to crack water into hydrolox (or to crack CO₂ and water into methane via the Sabatier process).

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I remember fondly many great evenings sitting around a fire with my friends and I having a few drinks and smoking and telling stories.  Were we slowly killing ourselves?  Yes we were.  Was there also an intangible benefit to what we were doing?  Of course.  But in the long run, did one outweigh the other?  Yep. 

If and when we get off this 'cheap energy' trip we are on - we are going to give up something else as well.

The thing we need to do is help people who do enjoy today's easy power to understand that small changes in their habits can have a big impact on their health, and the wellbeing of themselves, their neighbors and children.  Acknowledge the loss of ease - and remind them that it will be okay.

I appreciate this. And agree.

Edited July 28, 2021 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[GoSlash27]

@sevenperforce,

 I have gone to great lengths to avoid discussing this topic in detail on this forum because it's simply not appropriate for the 'little green space frogs' community. I have refrained from going into the details and supporting evidence that I *do, in fact* have for the same reason; I believe that such discussions and (ultimately) arguments simply detract from the enjoyment of all the other people on this forum who come here as an escape from such discussions. I have asked you *repeatedly* to drop the matter, or at least refrain from calling my attention to it. Yet you seem to be unable or unwilling to respond in kind.

 I will now call your attention to this text in the user guidelines:

• Political, ideological or religious posts unrelated to Spaceflight, or of a nature deemed likely to result in behavior banned under rule 2.2D;
• Content unsuitable for children or younger audiences, e.g. nudity, sexually suggestive or explicit images, excessive violence, gore and recreational drugs;

Insults and threats, stalking, bullying or any other behavior construed to be of a potentially rude, slanderous, accusatory, combative or otherwise harassing nature to/of another person;

I do not wish to participate in this or any other political discussion on this forum. Please refrain from pinging me in relation to such subjects in the future.

Please and thank you,

-Slashy

[sevenperforce]

10 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

I have asked you *repeatedly* to drop the matter, or at least refrain from calling my attention to it.

My only mention of you in my last post was to say that you seem like a nice fellow and I would happily buy you a beverage of your choosing.

[GoSlash27]

34 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

But I know what science denial looks like, and this is it.

^ Except for this bit.

I mean it. I do not wish to participate in this discussion with you or anyone else on this forum. Every single post that you make in this thread tagging me will be reported as harrassment to the mods.

I asked nicely,

-Slashy