Here is an editorial I wrote 3.5 years ago.

I am not a climatologist, but I do think of myself as a scientist.  With that in mind, I find it helpful to look at the issue in layers.  The simplest layer is just the factual question of whether the earth has warmed up in recent years.  This I am inclined to believe, based mainly on the years I spent living within walking distance of Canada.  There I heard constant reports of the dislocation of native peoples in the north.  Areas that had been solid for as long as written records and native legends go back are now mud or open sea. For the people who used to live in these areas, climate change is obvious. You can see a map of the changes in this article from The Economist.

http://www.economist.com/node/21556798

Then there is the question of whether that warming will continue.  (Some claim it has already stopped.)  Here I find it helpful to think about predicting the stock market.  There we have the same issue of sorting out short term from long term trends.  The market has been going up for several years as I write this.  Will it continue?  If the market went down last week, does that prove the long term trend is not up?  I also find it helpful to think about how well we are able to forecast the weather, for, say, five days.  Are we sure we can do much better when the time frame is five decades?

At the next layer, the reason people feel they can predict climate change is that they have a theory about its causes.  (There are as many theories about the stock market as there are investors or Presidents.)  I would be willing to call that theory our current best guess.  There has been no experimental confirmation, and limited empirical evidence to support it.  And even if it explains the past, there is a big leap of faith involved in assuming the future will be the same as the past.  

Finally we come to the political debate.  On one side we seem to have the creationists and flat-earth folks who consider science irrelevant any time they don't like its conclusions.  I would hate to see Objectivists associated with this group.   Except for the fact that the other side is even worse.  To me the most important thing to be said about the politics of climate change is that is represents an opportunity that is just too good to be true for those who wish to concentrate more money and more power in the national government.  It offers the potential for limitless regulation and limitless spending, but the beauty of it all is that it is all to prevent some disaster in the far future -- long after those who get the money and power are gone.  They can only be proven wrong after it's too late.

There are also some practicalities.  Nations like India and China seem little interested in curtailing their economic growth to avoid climate change.  So we do face the possibility of having the United States bear most of the costs of a likely failure.  But note that attempt does further the goal of more money and power for U.S. politicians!  "If you wish to understand a folly, ask what it accomplishes."

One clue of the insincerity of the climate opportunists is that they mention only possible bad effects of climate change.  The article cited above from The Economist is a rare exception.  Here in New Hampshire, where I live, a warmer climate would be hard on the ski resorts and snowmobile sales (and I am sure they will be putting in for subsidies).  Warming might be good for NH agriculture, and a boon to those of us who stay here and heat our homes in winter.  In fact, the climate change doomsayers seem to be basing their program on what Nathaniel Branden called "The Divine Right of Stagnation." (His essay by that title in included in The Virtue of Selfishness anthology.)  The fans of climate change can't weigh the good changes against the bad changes because they are opposed to change in principle.

In a free market, there would be no response to climate change until somebody was sure enough of it to bet their own money, perhaps by moving their ski resort 200 miles north.  They would be rewarded if their prediction was accurate, but only after they were shown to be correct.  The climate warmers want to force everyone to bet on their one possible scenario for the future.  They want a big cut on all those bets, to accrue to them whether they are right or wrong, and long before the race is run.

A podcast from NPR/NYT caught some reaction elsewhere:

I'll do my best to put in an unofficial transcript here, once Voicebase does its business.

-- textarea test text from a machine-transcription of the audio, vvia Voicebase (the page at the link shows a sound file, text-transcription, extracted keywords and concepts IDed by presumably AI, all in all decent means to aid analysis of the text):

From the New York Times on Michael Barbaro this is the day. Today. Three years ago the United States had a chance to stop climate change almost nothing stood in the way except human resistance. What went wrong. It's Friday August thirty first. So by the one nine hundred fifty S. scientists had known for more than half a century that the use of fossil fuels was warm in the atmosphere but it was only in that decade that scientists started to worry about what that might mean for human society Nathanial which reported this story for The Times Magazine. And there were a number of articles published during that time trying to alert the public about the dangers that we are facing even now man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization due to our release factories and automobiles every year more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide which helps air absorb heat from the Sun our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer and although these articles appeared in places like the Times or Time in Life magazine or on educational programs on primetime T.V. a few degrees rise in the Earth's temperature. Not much attention has really paid to it outside of scientific circles for another couple of decades. This is very few Americans. But then in one nine hundred seventy nine I can actually remember the moment quite well I came across a paragraph on the environmental impacts of coal use Rafe Palmer and this political lobbyist and activist for environmental organization is sitting in his office on Capitol Hill reading an obscure government report about coal and acid rain when he comes across this paragraph at the end of a chapter and that section of the report was devoted to the possibility that coal and other fossil fuels would mourn the planet through their emissions of carbon dioxide Pomerantz reads all this and is astonished and terrified but it seems that he must have misread something or that he doesn't understand it and he kind of puts it out of his mind I said to myself This can't be it just seemed like a transformation of the planet and all in that one sentence a couple days later however he comes across an article that interview scored a McDonalds who's this prominent government scientist who is warning about the exact same problem and he immediately called Gordon McDonald and asks if they can meet a set I'm very curious about this I need to know more and I said will you see me and he said yes so I did so McDonald explained the whole issue to him and Palmer and says at the end of this long meeting if I set up briefings. Move forward ministration officials people on Capitol Hill will you do them will you tell them what you just told me and he said yes Pomerantz basic idea is that surely if we communicate this problem to the people who are in power in this country they will understand the necessity of action and they will do the responsible thing. So they start having meetings on Capitol Hill. They meet with the P.T.A. and then actual Security Council the State Department Council on Environmental Quality they meet with the New York Times and Frank Press who is the president's science advisor and after meeting with people from the White House the White House commissions a report to determine whether the dangers as good MacDonald saw them were accurate and whether action should be taken and a very high level group of scientists gathered in Woods Hole Massachusetts in July of seventy nine and issued a report on the whole problem known as the Charney report and that in the way formulated the baseline science that to this day people look back at. What I think the environment at a protection agency in many instances. Has gone to an extreme but Reagan wins the election and Pomerantz realizes that he has to start fighting other battles Reagan appointed the worst possible people to the key agencies. In Gore such a D.P.A. Jim Watt interior there's a very anti environmental ground about AS and I environmentalists. We've got environmentalist who would like to build a house unless it looks like a bird's nest and they must be restrained and the climate issue basically goes off the map and Pomerantz doesn't know what to do right now the biggest of the federal government could be would be to get out with some of its regulations as Reagan tries to roll everything back essentially to. Teddy Roosevelt's administration you know I remember at a meeting in one nine hundred eighty shortly after the election I was sitting in meeting in my bar male colleagues they said we're finished you know this is this is this. This is a side which is starting from the. Shelves full of. Containing a whole variety of products to chemists recognize that these very interactive compounds accumulate in the atmosphere and could lead to a decrease in the amount of ozone in the stratosphere but in one nine hundred eighty five there's a major study published by a bunch of British scientists who have observed that the level of ozone above the Antarctic has dramatically declined recently scientists discovered a weak spot in the ozone layer over Antarctica the. Whole there it was this huge hole the size of North America over Antarctica they say increased ultraviolet radiation through a hole in the ozone could raise temperatures damage farm crops and cause a lot more somber and almost overnight there is an enormous amount of public panic about what this might mean yet the ozone hole had a powerful effect on the public even though it was a different kind of event in the atmosphere it made it believable that human beings could alter things on a global scale the most popular theory is that chemicals. In a sea of seas a causing the problem now with an eye on what's happening over and pick up some scientists want to ban all uses of C.F.C. and by one thousand nine hundred seventy you have the Montreal Protocol which is the first global atmospheric environmental treaty. By. And it becomes a template for a possible global warming solution. Requires. That. The ozone hole kind open the door to the credibility in the certain way of the climate problem. Well Steve Newman is standing by now to fill us in on what went on weather wise today and I can tell you this one thing we set a brand new record which may never be broken again and then we get to the summer of one nine hundred eighty eight June one thousand nine hundred eighty eight global temperatures for the first five months of the year were the warmest ever recorded the hottest summer in recorded history Good evening it wasn't even noon today when the temperature at Sioux Falls in South Dakota was over one hundred how many days is a been one hundred this year fifty three in Georgia a woman died from heat stroke while she was working in a tobacco field this was her fifteenth day since Memorial Day with temperatures of ninety degrees or better if the air is so thick you can see that it should be no surprise you could also feel it and we could be heading for new records over the weekend a third straight day of record high temperatures and heat waves shivering across the area you have an incredible drought across the U.S. severe drought conditions caused half of the nation's agricultural counties to be declared disaster areas that's the worst I've seen it. It's the worst five father has seen and he's seventy six years old you have headlines all summer long that are apocalyptic where some people have become so distraught they have told their congressman gone is against its. Washington was having unusually hot weather too all of that tended to fall. A hearing here on Capitol Hill so at the height of the summer in June there said to be a hearing before the Senate about global warming and the night before the hearing Pomerantz gets a phone call from the lead witness a NASA scientist named James Hansen and Hansen tells them tomorrow at this hearing I'm going to make a major statement. Of a number of senators here and we want to move very rapidly into questions let me just first of all ask a short Dr Hansen and then ask others to comment if they would like. The question that everybody is asking today with all of the everything going on across the Middle West in the southwest and so on is is the current heat wave. Related to the greenhouse effect. Global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect. The signal has emerged. The temperature of the planet is telling us that climate change the greenhouse effect is underway we're now seeing the effects of what we predicted years ago it's no longer theory it's happening now and afterwards in a press conference he says it's time to stop waffling and it's time to take action the scientist was Dr James Hansen director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City he told a Senate committee the warming trend of the one nine hundred eighty S. which included the five hottest years on record was not normal not a natural climate variation. This seems like a dramatic moment along the lines of There is now a hole in the ozone there is now evidence. That global warming is happening now yes it's a perfect corollary to there's a hole in the ozone layer. And it has a major effect there are dozens and dozens of headlines across the country the week of the hearing the consensus in favor of taking action has been building slowly and haltingly Hansen becomes overnight a kind of celebrity the face of the global warming problem the Congress is considering legislation to coordinate and strengthen U.S. policy with regard to the problem by the end of one thousand nine hundred thirty two climate bills the environment minister agrees Canadians must get ready for a warmer globe but he's also pushing for an international agreement that would control carbon dioxide emissions and a process begins in earnest to formulate a global treaty to prevent catastrophic global warming the idea is to convince everyone that all of this isn't just scientific speculation it's real and it's cause for great concern so at this point POMERANZ is feeling pretty good I think we were feeling like we were making progress. Nine hundred eighty eight was also an election year and today I'd like to begin to outline what I do about the environment my plan for how we as a nation and as a people can lead the world to a new recognition of the importance of the environment and so George W. Bush campaigns on the issue some say these problems are too big that it's impossible for an individual or even a nation as great as ours to solve the problem of global warming he says it can be done and we must do it it means we're going to do something about the problem the White House will do something about the problem. From N.B.C. News election headquarters this is a once a month eighty year. So George H.W. Bush gets elected and industry starts to brace for new regulatory policy or even climate legislation but shortly after he enters office there emerges a very strong divide between different factions within the White House on one side the E.P.A. administrator and the secretary of state who are pushing strongly for a global treaty and on the other side Johnson a new chief of staff who's deeply skeptical of the science and of any efforts to introduce regulatory policy related to climate then Sununu became basically a difficult obstacle to moving forward so in response to this internal back and forth conflict within the White House Al Gore decides to hold another hearing again with James Hansen to put pressure on the White House to commit fully to the global negotiation process for a treaty so as usual James Hansen sends his prepared testimony to the White House for approval but this time it comes back heavily censored with all kinds of deletions that distort his scientific findings and also additions that make arguments about economic policy centrally saying that there should be no regulations that at all compromise the economic goals of the country. So Hansen rather than fighting with the White House censors he accepts all of the changes but then he makes a call to Gore and tells them what happened Gore asks Hansen can I tell this to the New York Times and Hansen says shore and the Times publishes a bombshell story saying that the White House is trying to censor a NASA scientist the administration's censored testimony by Dr Hansen to make his conclusions seem less serious and less certain So it's a huge embarrassment to the White House. And they have to apologize they claim that the censorship came from a functionary five levels down from the top and they shortly thereafter recommit to the international negotiation process for a climate treaty and they say furthermore that the US will lead the effort and who is that anonymous censor Hanson anyway behind the deletions on the editions so nobody knew who the censor was at the time but when I asked John Sununu about this during my reporting he said that the directive it come from him. We need action and we need it now every American deserves to breathe clean air so in November there's a meeting in the Netherlands which will be the first high level diplomatic meeting about the framework for a global treaty on climate change. Every country sends its environmental minister so that the U.S. is acquittal and is the head of the P.A. William Reilly who's the strongest proponent of a treaty and the White House but soon it doesn't trust him so he sends an ally as a kind of minder to make sure that the U.S. doesn't accept any kind of binding proposal there were a group of us advocates who were there on the last day there's a major session that's close to everyone except for the diplomats and Pomerantz and his fellow activists camped out outside of the big conference room at a hotel where this is taking place we were there to bring attention to the success or failure of the meeting and they waited at the meeting goes longer than expected deep into the night and finally into the next morning and we'd try to find out what was going on trying to bring some attention. The meeting to the media that sort of thing and finally in the early hours the Swedish minister emerges and they ask him what's happening and he says your country is fucking. The US led by a. Guy has refused to endorse any global treaty that has any hard targets or demands any specific emissions reductions and with that the best opportunity that we've had for a binding global treaty to prevent climate change falls apart. Will be right back. The daily is supported by made well the denim brand where the motto is good day start with great genes along with making great genes made while works with blue jeans go green to turn old jeans into housing insulation for communities in need visit any made while store to recycle a pair and you'll get twenty dollars off new ones consider it an instant upgrade from those jeans that have been fits it's college find out more at made well dot com slash denim recycling. And then what went wrong here how do you understand the Bush administration's opposition to participating in something that the entire scientific community as well as the vast majority of the rest of the world agree is an accidental threat to all of us that has to be addressed by all of us well there's a simple political explanation which is that the chief of staff John Sununu won this political fight within the White House but I think you can also ask well why was the level of support of the political and public support for. Solving the problem not strong enough to overcome the will of. One man who wasn't even the president and I think that leads you into some larger questions about our ability to grapple meaningfully with a problem of such enormous stakes and the problem is ramifications wouldn't be felt for decades or even generations we talk about the effects of climate change we're talking about civilizational death and I don't think we like looking at that in the face and so we do whatever we can not to. Our responsibility is to Main the quality maintain the quality of our approach our commitment to sound science and an open mind to policy options by nine hundred ninety Bush is entire economic council comes out against climate policy at the same time Exxon Mobil has long been criticized for allegedly hiding what it knew about climate change just today a pair of researchers say that Exxon's own documents prove that is true the oil and gas industry mobilizes on the issue and develops a strategy. And the campaign funding this information propaganda to assess Exxon Mobil's public statements they cast doubt on whether climate change was real it discounted human impacts and they suggested there was nothing practical to do about it anyway pain scientists and politicians and ultimately the entire Republican Party to embrace this notion of uncertainty in the science you know it's a climate change is manmade well. I don't know that that is a resolved issue in science today and ultimately to deny the existence of climate change all together we keep hearing that two thousand and fourteen has been the warmest year on record I asked the chair you know what this is it's a snowball and that just from outside here so it's very very cold out very unseasoned so that Mr President catch this I don't buy that Joe I mean you don't buy I just don't buy that I don't buy the fact that it's a crisis saw gonna suck at about for all of this with the global warming and that a lot of it's a hoax it's a hoax I mean it's a money making industry OK as a result of industry's efforts the politics around the issue become sharply divided for those who believe it would have to be dealt with on a worldwide basis so let's take a look at that even if you believe that that is a serious problem has to be addressed one country doing it is going to have no and. It taken so long for the interest to special interests it's that utility companies and of the petroleum companies and the other special interests they're the ones that that apply to progress in the in the Congress United States and in the administration. At the same time the seas continue to rise and natural disasters continue to occur at increasing frequency there are reports from New Orleans of all people try. In buildings that have come down around the area and just split it in. Your house do it now Hurricane Sandy threatening a massive stretch of the US from Virginia to New England all the way to the Great Lakes so this is the highest the water has ever gotten here in New York City a monumental flooding and humanitarian disaster continues to unfold after Harvey with. The island of by beach I was once a kind of be in paradise hurricane Emma has reduced it to rubble all fourteen Caribbean community countries together produce less than zero point one percent of global emissions we have the least of the polluters but the largest of the casualties now to Maria this is the one I am most frightened about damn it this is not a good news story this is a people are dying story and temperatures keep getting warmer more than fifty million Americans are under excessive heat warnings and it's not going to end anytime soon at least twenty two thousand people have been treated in hospitals what heat stroke at least ten large fires are burning across the state ranch far as of our three hundred fifty one thousand acres making it the largest wildfire in state history excessive heat is also a threat thousands of miles away in Europe in Lisbon Portugal Mercury peaked at one hundred eleven degrees the highest temperature ever measured in Britain was recorded at Heathrow Airport two men thirty seven point nine degrees Celsius more than one hundred and in Frankfurt Germany the thermometer reached ninety seven Bunny's fighting back against a heat wave that many of the country's famine threatened Somalia for the second time this decade almost had a temperature over the last twenty four hours it never dropped below one hundred eight point seven degrees if this verifies it would set the record for the hottest minimum have her across the entire world for that happened this morning when they. Are. It feels like this decade that you examined nine hundred ninety nine is this moment when everybody is willing to meet from all these industries and all these advocacy groups and the government and to talk about this without yet becoming so entrenched in their positions and in their self-interest even though those things all begin to rear their heads when this was actually still about the science for a moment and that after this decade everything would become so much harder yeah absolutely I think you are still in the window at which a relatively gradual intervention would have had major positive benefits and maybe it takes a couple decades to get it right but it would have been enough Now that's not enough that window is closed. But it's not too late there are plans out there that present a pretty clear path towards solving this and keeping global temperatures under two degrees Celsius rise but what's lacking is the political will to achieve the kind of transformation of our energy system and really of the global economy that's required to do this and I don't think we're going to muster up that level of political Well until we understand the issue in moral terms and until everybody or most people feel some sense of moral obligation to demand action. If you know thank you very much we appreciate it thank you for having me. The daily is produced by feel welcome. Rachel Quest any brown. CAMMARATA Clare tennis getter page coward Michael Simon Johnson and Jessica with editing help from the recent Anderson Lisa token is our executive producer Samantha head it is our editorial director our technical manager is Brad Karsh our engineer is Chris Wallace and our theories is by Jim Bromberg and Ben Lance for of one really special thanks to Sandal. And Stella to him. That's it for the day on Michael Bob I. See you Tuesday after. This is dead bam one crossword columnist for The New York Times solving the Times crossword is like entering another world where your mind can stretch its legs the wordplay column has your back if you need some help and soon you'll want to solve every day start a puzzle over breakfast and finish it by bedtime it's everything a habit should be fun relaxing and able to go anywhere with you download the app or start playing on line at N.Y. Times dot com slash solve to experience life in the grid.

After reading that, or listening to the podcast, remember that the investigations and reconstructions of alleged past temperatures, and the invention of the "hockey stick" graph didn't happen until 20 years after these assholes expected everyone to heed their warnings and forcefully alter everyone's freedom, productivity and lives. With that in mind, go back and read it or listen to it again. They were demanding and expecting the same power and control then as they are today, and they were doing so prior to applying the scientific method, making predictions, and testing them. That says quite a lot about their biases and their disregard of actual science.

Which "scientists" who haven't demonstrated their case using the scientific method should we be listening to and heeding today? If we're going to be judged as villains in the future for expressing doubt today about someone's scare stories which haven't yet had the opportunity to be tested or have their predictions succeed or fail, by what "settled science" means should we choose whom to believe? Do we go with whomever has the strongest feelings, whips up the largest crowds, and convinces the most politicians? Or maybe we go with the story which predicts the worst horrors, presents them in the scariest colors, and promises that we'll get to punish certain people with jail time, or maybe even disembowelment if everyone has a taste for it at the time?

J

I think it a mistake to focus on the science which few of us are able to judge.  Regardless of the science, the political question is whether this provides justification for a massive concentration of wealth and power in Washington, DC.  Even if things do heat up, I doubt the government will respond in a more efficient and economical manner than will leaving people to sort this out for themselves.  About the only regulation I would support would be a stiff tax on hot air from politicians.

4 hours ago, bob_hayden said:

About the only regulation I would support would be a stiff tax on hot air from politicians.

"I think it a mistake to focus on the science which few of us are able to judge."

"We few . . . ."

Now why is that?

Gross deficiency in Liberal Arts education.

Neither Ayn Rand nor Nathaniel Branden really understood science, for instance.

--Brant     

I'm not sure better Liberal Arts education would help.  In any case, though I am an MIT grad. I know little about climatology.  I do know a fair bit about statistics, and often I think the climatologists are at least talking the language of science, while the doubters often talk the language of ignorance. 

http://oddblogs.org/irrevo/?p=106

But I am also all too aware of the hubris in the science community.  In self-defense, I have had to learn a lot about medicine in my old age, and experienced "experts" unwilling to listen to patients or common sense. 

Didn't you leave out the climatologists who are "doubters"?

--Brant

On 9/2/2018 at 8:18 AM, bob_hayden said:

I think it a mistake to focus on the science which few of us are able to judge.

I disagree. The science is the only thing that we should focus on. Scientists should present the science, and nothing else. And I mean the actual science, not their interpretations of it or what we should do about it, not appeals to opinions and consensus and scary feelings and to trust them because they're scientists and we're not.

Simply demonstrate that they've followed the scientific method, release their models, predictions, observations and results.

J

Black hole headed our way:

http://www.physics-astronomy.org/2018/04/a-supermassive-black-hole-is-heading.html

It's coming for us, and I bet that it's mankind's fault. In fact, let just say that it's settled science that it's our fault. We need to crack down immediately. Regulations. Stuff some motherfuckers into the wood chipper. We need Obama back, or Bernie. Maybe even Ocasio-Cortez. She would personally stuff 'em into the chipper with that special socialist gleam in her eye. We have to act now to save the world.

33 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

It's coming for us, and I bet that it's mankind's fault.

Jonathan,

The black hole is attracted by the burning of carbon fuel in an oxygen-rich environment.

As you said, that's settled science.

Michael

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Black hole headed our way:

http://www.physics-astronomy.org/2018/04/a-supermassive-black-hole-is-heading.html

It's coming for us, and I bet that it's mankind's fault. In fact, let just say that it's settled science that it's our fault. We need to crack down immediately. Regulations. Stuff some motherfuckers into the wood chipper. We need Obama back, or Bernie. Maybe even Ocasio-Cortez. She would personally stuff 'em into the chipper with that special socialist gleam in her eye. We have to act now to save the world.

 

In two and half billion years.  Don't worry. complex life on earth will be dead and gone by that time.  The Sun will have used up its hydrogen fuel by then,  and will be fusing helium. This will make the Sun 40 percent hotter than it is know, causing the oceans and seas to dry up.  With the water gone, complex life on the surface will become extinct. That includes us, unless we can find another star with an earth like planet to live on.  There are two chances of that happening: slim and none.

48 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In two and half billion years.  Don't worry. complex life on earth will be dead and gone by that time.  The Sun will have used up its hydrogen fuel by then,  and will be fusing helium. This will make the Sun 40 percent hotter than it is know, causing the oceans and seas to dry up.  With the water gone, complex life on the surface will become extinct. That includes us, unless we can find another star with an earth like planet to live on.  There are two chances of that happening: slim and none.

 

So, what you're really saying is that we need to come up with some regulations which will stop corporations from doing things which are making the sun use up hydrogen.

Do you recommend electric wood chippers over gas-powered ones? What's the data comparing their effectiveness versus their carbon footprint?

10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In two and half billion years.  Don't worry. complex life on earth will be dead and gone by that time.  The Sun will have used up its hydrogen fuel by then,  and will be fusing helium. This will make the Sun 40 percent hotter than it is know, causing the oceans and seas to dry up.  With the water gone, complex life on the surface will become extinct. That includes us, unless we can find another star with an earth like planet to live on.  There are two chances of that happening: slim and none.

 

Well that puts a kink in my plan to live forever...

22 hours ago, Jonathan said:

So, what you're really saying is that we need to come up with some regulations which will stop corporations from doing things which are making the sun use up hydrogen.

Do you recommend electric wood chippers over gas-powered ones? What's the data comparing their effectiveness versus their carbon footprint?

 That is not what I am saying.

12 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Well that puts a kink in my plan to live forever...

Even the cosmos is not going to "live" forever.  The second law of thermodynamics  appears to be true.  Entropy will increase until no more happens in the cosmos.  

58 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Even the cosmos is not going to "live" forever.  The second law of thermodynamics  appears to be true.  Entropy will increase until no more happens in the cosmos.  

Bob,

I can't resist.

So how did the cosmos itself come into being with self-destruct baked in?

Through entropy?

It's like the anti-religious argument. If God created everything, who created God?

If entropy destroys everything, how was entropy created?

Do you believe in destruction without creation?

Michael

1 hour ago, Argument Clinic observer said:

So, what you're really saying is

...

William,

Step out of your story world and try to peg my question as an honest ontological question, not an attack on scientism, nor an indirect promotion of a different form of religion.

The question makes sense, that is, unless one believes in "settled science" as ontology.

We all know something exists called the cosmos. Bob says the only certainty is that it will destroy itself.

"I am that I am," says the God Science according to its disciples. "And I am destruction." 

And no one is allowed to ask if that's all there is to reality?

Why?

Talk about a faith-based epistemology...

Michael

I wrote:

Quote

 

So, what you're really saying is that we need to come up with some regulations which will stop corporations from doing things which are making the sun use up hydrogen.

Do you recommend electric wood chippers over gas-powered ones? What's the data comparing their effectiveness versus their carbon footprint?

 

Bob replied:

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 That is not what I am saying.

Ah, I see, so then what you're saying is that mere regulations and wood chippers aren't enough, and that we have to go much further!

J

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

I wrote:

Bob replied:

Ah, I see, so then what you're saying is that mere regulations and wood chippers aren't enough, and that we have to go much further!

J

I am saying eventually our species will become extinct.  And so will  life on this planet.  When the sun gets hot which it will in one billion to two billion years, the oceans and seas will evaporate and life on the surface and what were the oceans will cease.  Any life that hangs on underground will be ended when the Sun expands into a red giant and vaporizes the earth.

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

I can't resist.

So how did the cosmos itself come into being with self-destruct baked in?

Through entropy?

   

It's like the anti-religious argument. If God created everything, who created God?

If entropy destroys everything, how was entropy created?

Do you believe in destruction without creation?

 

Michael

Excellent question.  Even as the cosmos  expanded into what it is now  it was doomed from the start.  Entropy increases.  How things really began?  I do not know.

There is plenty of time to settle the entire solar system including millions of artificial satellites around this systems’ dozens of large bodies, plenty of time to then move away from this system.

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

... it was doomed from the start.

Bob,

Do you know enough about the start of the cosmos to make that statement?

All you know is what humans--at the present level of evolution--have observed.

Or do you believe humans stopped evolving?

Michael

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

Do you know enough about the start of the cosmos to make that statement?

All you know is what humans--at the present level of evolution--have observed.

Or do you believe humans stopped evolving?

Michael

Basic law of thermodynamics.  Entropy increases. When entropy becomes maximum  temperature everywhere is the same. No more work can occur.  The so-called heat-death of the Universe.  No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been observed so if the second law is really true  then the cosmos will reach a stage where nothing else happens. Heat death. It does not matter how the cosmos got started. The entropy is increasing.