The One and Only Climate Change thread...

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

I hope your joking, Glenn Beck has to be on the same level of intelligence as Sarah Palin.

They sure seem to be stirring things up for Obama's 2010 mid-term elections. I have been thinking about getting a copy of Sarah Palin's book but have been pretty busy and have been a bit slow reading non-chess related books. Slow for me anyway. Hard to find time when you are playing chess almost every weekend.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Finally, a chink in the armour of science. I submit to you that climate change is exactly one of these problems that are chaotic and cannot be predicted. How can you refute this? All climate change has are theories. The train of evidence needs to have a million million cars, and instead it's got a few dozen.

Another way to think of it: climate is weather stretched out in time. Weather is unpredictable and chaotic. In terms of climate change, predicting the total melting of the polar ice caps in something like say 100 years is like predicting 12 inches of rain in Las Vegas in the next few minutes. Even if you can point to radar images showing some large clouds gathering over parts of Nevada, you can't know how much rain will hit a small area like Las Vegas nor how long any rain might last there nor when any such rain might begin to fall. As I've pointed out before, 100 years is a microsecond in geological time. Trends we are observing now could reverse as easily as a trend of coin tossing bringing up heads. Even long time stock market gurus, with all their technical knowledge and raw computing power, cannot say for certainty that a market trend will continue.

They predicted an active hurricane season this year. Hasn't happened.

The idea behind that is hurricane's in the Gulf of Mexico close down oil and gas production and drive up the commodity prices. People buy ETF's on those commodities and make money. I don't participate in such speculation of disasters to drive up prices.

Don't be knocking stock market gurus, because Garu did pretty good in during the last big dump. :)

[Paul Bonham]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

What is your education background in science. Please let the readers know what science background you have; apart from Star Trek reruns...

Hey, I learned a lot from those reruns! I know all about the Prime Derivative!

(Yeah, yeah, I know it's really called the Prime Directive. But like they say in Spinal Tap, "our amps go to 11". So I repeat: I know all about the Prime Derivative! :D)

Not only that, I have learned how to combine some of the things I've learned. For example, I might be the only person to think up this new futuristic technology: "dilithium crystal flux capacitor". :D

I am also the inventor of the "ultrasonic muffler". :D

Drug companies put their products on the market after many years of tests; occasionally some bad ones are pushed through for various reasons, mostly non-scientific...

Are you serious? You can't even blame the science for these mistakes? The science needs to be good enough to be able to PREDICT side effects PRECISELY. Anything less means the science is invalid and should not be depended on. All these commercials for this and that drug, warning about possibly fatal side effects for something designed to clear up your sinuses.

This has nothing to do with the science or engineering. It has everything to do with politics, money, and the desire to maintain the status quo by those in charge of both the companies and the government.

Again, you hold the science blameless (for continuing use of highly inefficient internal combustion engines). Yet I tell you this: if there were a technology somewhere out there that would give us non-polluting vehicles that could immediately replace what we have now, with no serious side effects, that technology would become public. It is precisely the money aspect that would make this happen. If someone will risk their life bungee jumping or parachuting, someone will risk their life to be the next Bill Gates and make this technology public. It ain't happening because it ain't out there. Science cannot solve the problem.

Some problems are chaotic and cannot be predicted. Read the interesting book on "The man who predicts earthquakes" for some of the science.

Finally, a chink in the armour of science. I submit to you that climate change is exactly one of these problems that are chaotic and cannot be predicted. How can you refute this? All climate change has are theories. The train of evidence needs to have a million million cars, and instead it's got a few dozen.

Another way to think of it: climate is weather stretched out in time. Weather is unpredictable and chaotic. In terms of climate change, predicting the total melting of the polar ice caps in something like say 100 years is like predicting 12 inches of rain in Las Vegas in the next few minutes. Even if you can point to radar images showing some large clouds gathering over parts of Nevada, you can't know how much rain will hit a small area like Las Vegas nor how long any rain might last there nor when any such rain might begin to fall. As I've pointed out before, 100 years is a microsecond in geological time. Trends we are observing now could reverse as easily as a trend of coin tossing bringing up heads. Even long time stock market gurus, with all their technical knowledge and raw computing power, cannot say for certainty that a market trend will continue.

This is where I have my dispute with climate scientists, that they think they can say for certainty that such and such will happen. At least Adam Cormier was smart enough to give it a probability of happening and nothing more.

The question then becomes: what should humans as a species do based on some probability of some disasterous event? Regarding AGW, I will post more on this in response to one of Adam Cormier's posts.

Just the other day, I watched an episode of the History Channel's show, "The Universe". The topic was solar magnetic storms. One could hit Earth directly, and it could happen at a precise time when the Earth's magnetic field is in the processing of "flipping" (magnetic North Pole becoming magnetic South Pole, and vice versa). Scientists have evidence that this flipping does happen every so often, can't remember the number. The last one was 780,000 years ago, way above the statistical average, so we are overdue. No one knows how long the flipping takes, and how weak the magnetic field gets while the flipping is occurring. So, a flip might occur sometime during our lifetime, it might last days or even weeks, during which there is little or no magnetic field protecting Earth, and a solar magnetic storm might hit Earth directly during this time. The consequences of such would definitely be millions upon millions, perhaps billions, of human deaths, because all electricity would be lost due to blowout of transformers worldwide. There would be no electricity nor running water in the developed world. The electricity could not be turned back on, the transformers would be unrepairable. To manufacture one electric transformer takes 6 months time (according to the show). Based on all this, should we spend gazillions of dollars replacing our electric infrastructure so that transformers could be made safe against this threat? The probability of such an event is quite high, relatively speaking. But those gazillions of dollars wouldn't buy us a better electricity system, just a safer one. So as you can imagine, no one is proposing to do anything about it.

You are confused about the concept of scale. On human scales, the ball is most certainly there. Magnify scales enough and you can find lots of empty space.

No, YOU are confused about the concept of "empty space". It's not that you find lots of empty space, it's that you find NOTHING BUT empty space. Maybe you should replace the concept of scale with the concept of imagination.... and faith.

It sounds like you have supernatural faith; can you recommend some good books in this area to chesstalkers?

Sylvia Browne's "Life On The Other Side". Pretty much explains everything.... but still requires a large degree of faith. It even explains WHY we need to have that faith.

Also a non-Sylvia Browne web site that reinforces her teachings:

http://www.nderf.org/

Nobody has suggested that "we should turn everything over to scientists". However you seem to think that you know more science than "scientists".

Read again: I wrote about having more common sense, not knowing more science.

And I do believe you are in support of letting climate scientists direct political policy, even if it's indirectly.

I have plenty of common sense and a sense of humor. Thus my Vlad = Russian joke and my cartoon on carbon nanotubes; how could anyone possibly take this seriously. Unfortunately you cannot see much humor in things. With weather patterns I will repeat that climate change models predict increases in frequency of severe weather events relative to long term averages; which is what we see happening. Do a Google search yourself to read the latest on this.

Paul, about 2 weeks before your posting with the carbon nanotubes cartoon, you wrote on this board that you would soon be posting your idea of a solution to AGW. The cartoon was the only thing I saw from you that resembled such a solution. If you had, or have, a more serious solution, please direct us all to it. If you have no solution at all, then I repeat my suggestion that you just like playing Chicken Little.

Your greatest weakness, it seems, is that you often jest without giving anyone any idea that you are jesting. Some people WOULD think the name Vlad is purely Russian, and you might be one of those people. How are we to know?

Maybe you should take a trip to Harlem, start tossing the N word around, and when the blood starts gushing out, tell everyone you were just kidding.

[Adam Cormier]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Excellent book. My brother borrowed it from me. I need to get it back as it is almost indispensible on this thread.

I hope your joking, Glenn Beck has to be on the same level of intelligence as Sarah Palin.

[Adam Cormier]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

I read it. Central planning is doomed to fail. It always has and it always will.
Initially Marx purported to be scientific and made predictions based upon his science. His predictions failed miserably and so he revised his theory to make it unfalsifiable. It is no surprise that someone taken in by AGW fraud would be enamoured of marxism as the AGW is just a way for the fools that want to meddle and control our lives to justify the draconian ideas they want to implement.



Marxism's brand of communism requires a perfect man. That is not my claim, that is the claim of the Marxists. Let me know when he arrives. There is no such thing and never will be.

I don't love communism, I just find it interesting, in the same way I find religions/Gods interesting doesn't mean I believe in either.

AGW-doesn't have any draconian ideas all the deniers want to do is delay the inevitable and making it worse in the process...

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

That wasn't Marx's communism, read the communist manifesto, the dictator has to fall and the government dissolves into a utopia where people are their own government, that is atleast Marx's theory.

I read it. Central planning is doomed to fail. It always has and it always will.
Initially Marx purported to be scientific and made predictions based upon his science. His predictions failed miserably and so he revised his theory to make it unfalsifiable. It is no surprise that someone taken in by AGW fraud would be enamoured of marxism as the AGW is just a way for the fools that want to meddle and control our lives to justify the draconian ideas they want to implement.

The communism that has been tried out is just a variation of Fascism with minor differences.

Marxism's brand of communism requires a perfect man. That is not my claim, that is the claim of the Marxists. Let me know when he arrives. There is no such thing and never will be.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Now I have to admit there is a (big) positive side in this thread! :D

I guess you like good-old-Glen:

Arguing

Excellent book. My brother borrowed it from me. I need to get it back as it is almost indispensible on this thread.

[Ed Seedhouse]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Umm, technically speaking, yes it would. The Koran talks about how the followers of Moses, Jesus and Mohamed all have their place in heaven.

Just a quibble, nothing more.

I don't mind a friendly quibble. Let me quibble back. The Ahlah of the Koran appears to be very different than the Ahlah of, say, Al-Qaeda. Just as many so called "Fundamentalist Christians" pretty clearly have a rather different idea of who Jesus was than, for instance, Paul or John.

Of course, Pascal's wager fails mathematically under Baysean statistics as well.

[Garland Best]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

If the one true God turns out to be the one the muslims believe in, then your belief in Christ might not help you much.

Umm, technically speaking, yes it would. The Koran talks about how the followers of Moses, Jesus and Mohamed all have their place in heaven.

Just a quibble, nothing more.

[Adam Cormier]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

It was tried out. What we got was Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and a host of other dictators.

That wasn't Marx's communism, read the communist manifesto, the dictator has to fall and the government dissolves into a utopia where people are their own government, that is atleast Marx's theory.

The communism that has been tried out is just a variation of Fascism with minor differences.

[Ed Seedhouse]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

It was tried out. What we got was Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and a host of other dictators.

None of whom ever tried either socialism or communism, as anybody who has done a little reading will know.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Karl Marx's true communism has never been tried and until it is we won't know if it will work or not.

It was tried out. What we got was Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and a host of other dictators.

[Ed Seedhouse]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

Karl Marx's true communism has never been tried and until it is we won't know if it will work or not.

Well, I'd bet off hand that it wouldn't. But actually the so-called "libertarians" today believe in the fading away of the state just as Marx did when you pin them down. At least the ones I have talked to say they do.

[Adam Cormier]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

I doubt it. I read your comments about Gawd loving everyone. If that were the case there wouldn't be a hell. For a preview, take a walk through the furnace part of a steel mill. It gives warming a whole new perspective.

Regarding he bible which you have mentioned, as far as I can recall the only part Gawd produced is the 10 commandments which it's said he gave to Moses. The other parts of the bible have been subject to changes in view of the Dead Sea Scrolls and translations.

Actually Gary that is exactly what you said, read quote^.

If God loved everyone, there would not be a hell.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The One and Only Climate Change thread...

You are correct Hell wouldn't exist with an all-loving God, the very existence of hell is illogical(punished for infinity, for finite sins seem rather odd to me).

I didn't say that.

Hell has it's advantages. Another place for a union. I figure the negotiation of the contract would be interesting. :) I knew a guy who carried around 2 books. The Union Bylaws and book with the current Contract.

In any case, some people are so full of themselves they think they are Gawds.

Now I must run. I'm working on a CC game and Caissa calls....