SergeantMatt

I thought you wanted to know why it is believed that its human CO2 emissions that are behind elevated CO2 levels. 
 
So you wanted something like this?
 
 
My sarcasm is that the leap in logic needed to say an increase in a gas known to increase temperature will increase temperature isn't a leap at all. Saying its just a correlation is just dismissing. 
 
I didn't watch Lindy's video. So I don't know what you mean at the time. I still don't know exactly what he means when he's going on about there's no linkage between CO2 and warming temperatures. 
That would help, but having the world's entire plant biomass increase CO2 uptake by ~8% seems rather daunting in my opinion. 
These are good opinions. 
Having modern ecosystems and human civilization to adapt to Miocene conditions within a century or so seems problematic. 
Its a tactic that's carried over from the evolution vs creationist debate that has become habitual. 
As I noted, the 3 degrees is a conservative estimate based solely off CO2 emissions and doesn't touch on all those feedback loops that aren't that well understood, from my understanding, regarding how much warming they'll cause. Besides a moderate 3 degree increase would put us about where the Eemian interglacial was at its absolute peak where sea levels were 20 feet higher than today and when hippos thrived in the Thames. 
 
Agreed. 
I say it every 5 times a day 
I think you can tell the difference when you get to know their opinions about nuclear energy and GMOs. How many actual geochemists, climatologists, etc do you see on TV talking about this? None. You get fucking Bill Nye and you get rather poorly written articles in pop science magazines/websites. It's honestly not that different from most other fields of science in that regard. 

The concern is that carbon sinks aren't able to take up that CO2 due to warming and thus accelerate warming. The Ocean is the largest carbon sink and takes in gigatons more CO2 than it emits. The problem is that human activities has thrown the sink/source equilibrium out of whack so now the atmosphere is taking in more of the share of CO2 because as temperatures increase, the oceans lose their properties as good carbon sinks. 
Totally. 
Yeah, it was sorta figured out in 1956. 
 
Carbon 14  and 13 ratios are decreasing and thus the source for the extra carbon in the atmosphere is from an old and organic source. That suggests fossil fuels are driving the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.  
 
Depends where you live and how bad desertification/deforestation is in whatever region you're living in. 
I can see being skeptical about alarmism, though I can't see how a new climate regime being rapidly changed within a century's time can be harmless. There's plenty of worry about regarding positive feedback loops arising such as permafrost melting that will release methane that will warm the atmosphere even more. I touched on the oceans losing their ability to be carbon sinks earlier which is another feedback loop and you've also touched on the increased temperatures means increased water vapor (another greenhouse gas) feedback loop, the melting of ice is another feedback loop because ice reflects a good bit of solar radiation, but dark substrates such as the ocean or rocks will absorb heat and thus you'll get even more warming. This is what the alarmist sentiment is about, and the science behind how these feedback loops work are solid. 
 
I've tried to look for negative feedback loops associated with CO2 induced warming and I can't find anything.
 
 Many IPCC reports just focus on warming from CO2 emissions and not the warming that caused by these feedback loops as well, and thus there's been plenty of criticism that climate change projections, which often look at the end of the century, only show a rise in temperature of only a couple of degrees. Hell, even the sea level rise projections are just based off of thermal expansion and don't include ice melt.  
 
The powerful individuals and organizations... is an argument that goes both ways. 

 
Plenty of organizations, people, companies, etc are using global warming as a tool for their scams. It's disheartening for me as there's plenty of research papers documenting the potential negative effects of global warming and the most obvious solution is still demonized. 

The most idiotic claim in this is the idea that CO2 has nothing to do with temperature. 
 
It's been understood since the mid-1800s that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Its not magic, its the physical properties of CO2 molecules that interact with long-wave radiation that the earth gives off and radiates that back. CO2 actually does match up well with temperature once you also include that the ancient sun was less irradiant. CO2 has doubled in the atmosphere, and its isotopic signature shows that it is from fossil fuel emissions. 
 
It's fine to debate how bad climate change will be, but this guy's "we don't know how the climate works, but doubling CO2 will surely make things better" is rather disappointing. I was expecting something more. Something not retarded. 

IIRC Canada and Australia are two of the countries with the biggest uranium reserves, and we're cool with them.
 
Aside from the climate change aspects, we should phase out fossil fuels just because not burning a fuckload of hydrocarbons will reduce air pollution. Also, I'd have to crunch the numbers, but the environmental footprint of uranium mining is almost certainly less than that oil drilling (it's no contest against coal). (Inherently more energy dense fuel = less shit getting dug out of the ground).

Even if global warming isn't even real (it is fwiw), I'd still be for replacing fossil fuels with nuclear. The less money falling into the hands of the Saudis, the better. Fuck them. 

There are a bunch of topics in science that are large, complex and subject to controversy amongst experts in the field around their margins. Only a few seem to generate this attitude of "well I'm sure you're right about some of it, but there's controversy so I'm going to act as if the whole thing is wrong" amongst the general public.
 
As for people getting het up about it, what do you expect people to act like when their understanding (which, again, is well within the consensus) is that this is the KT boundary all over again? Climate change might be the biggest existential threat to our civilisation besides nukes and angry space rocks - so I'd imagine that people would get a bit upset at the response of society to the issue.

The thing is, the issue is settled.
 
There is a broad consensus amongst climate scientists that, you know, returning all that carbon from the carboniferous era into the atmosphere is having an effect on our climate. And, as we don't have too many ways to plausibly stuff it back into the ground, most are now talking about mitigation and adaption rather than prevention.
 
I'm an optimist, in that I think that it might be a good thing in the long term to have lots of CO2 around for photosynthesis (so long as we don't end up like Venus). But then I also like the idea of dragonflies the size of eagles.

The US State Department and other US government organs believed their own propaganda.  Remember this?



The US government is filled with aging Baby Boomers who feel considerable nostalgia about the social uprisings that defined their generation.  They also feel guilt about not having participated in them more vigorously, and wish to vicariously participate in such uprisings elsewhere.  They became convinced that the entire Arab world was filled with hip, Western-educated young people who aspired to live in shiny, Western-style democracies instead of shabby, corrupt dictatorships.  With a little help from their friends in Washington DC, they could make their dreams a reality!  Yes we can!
 
Also, once the revolution was complete there were going to be some shady oil deals and whatnot to sweeten the deal for some of the people involved.  The first batch of diplomatic cable leaks have alluded to some of these.  But this isn't to say that the US government started all this chaos to get their hands on oil.  They're simply not that rational.  The horrifying thing about US foreign policy is that the US is so overwhelmingly powerful, and so completely insulated from the consequences of its actions, that the primary goal of US foreign policy is to posture and to gain advantage in US domestic politics.  If you live outside the US, you are just a puppet on a string, dancing to a solipsistic and insane tune played by the blind idiot god of America.  Unless you live in Russia or China and to a lesser extent India.  They have nukes and they're not afraid to tell the US government to shove it.  Everywhere else?


 
So, the Democratic Party and their extended network of allies in the State Department and elsewhere decided to prove their purity and support for Democracy by assisting in the overthrow of secular dictatorships throughout the Middle East.  This was, in retrospect, and also a the time, obviously a bad idea.  While these countries did have large numbers of hip, westernized youth who were tired of the corruption and economic stagnation of their homelands, these countries had even larger numbers of Islamists who were older, better-funded, better-organized, and far better at playing the game.  The results were entirely predictable; the young, cool, hip protesters who basically wanted to turn the entire southern coast of the Mediterranean into LA were quickly displaced and cowed into silence by barbarians who want to dynamite the pyramids and conquer all of their neighbors so they can have them as rape-slaves.  Also, I want to point out that that last sentence sounds like a breezy, poetic exaggeration but it's actually literally true.
 
This happened pretty quickly; it was obvious that Islamist elements were wearing the pants only a few months into the Arab Spring movement.  But the US government does not let mere facts stop it.  Instead of quickly pulling support and walking away while pretending nothing happened at all, the US government decided that if Islamists had taken over pro-Democracy protests, Islamists must be the true face of Democracy in the Middle East.  Seriously; that's how come you get retarded buzzfeed articles like this one lamenting the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
Very quickly, a number of governments that managed not to implode decided that if Uncle Sam was going to act all retarded and shit, they might as well do their best to make sure that it was directed at their enemies.  These countries, chiefly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, formed a surprisingly effective alliance of strange bedfellows that aimed at exporting their domestic political problems and at sticking it to the Persians.  Saudi Arabia has a long history of religious radicalism, and an almost equally long history of exporting those radicals so they can get killed by airstrikes from civilized countries.  Qatar is a Salafist country that is looking very nervously at their own 20% Shia minority and what's going on in Yemen and Iraq.  Turkey is run by a knuckle-dragger who stays on top because his opponents are completely retarded, and who needs displays of foreign military might to keep his base satisfied with his lack of internal success.  Israel's Likud government has a precarious hold on power and opposes an Iranian ally and long-standing rival.
 
So, by making sure that a bit of money got into the right pockets, this coalition has kept the mostly Islamist opposition in Syria fed and armed.  Propaganda in the US, funded by the Saudis and powered by boomer egos, has mainly kept the public from realizing that this is exactly the sort of anthill that the US does not need to stick its dick into, although they have remained opposed to large-scale deployment of ground forces.
 
The biggest losers are, of course, the mainly secular, hip, westernized youth for whose benefit this idiotic operation was started.  And yes, I'm sure they would grit their teeth and side with Assad if any of them haven't been killed.

That's some pretty epic bullshit there Don, sorry.  Hiitler gassing people in the camps might not be 'warfare' use, but it is definite chemical weapons use. Gassing thousands and thousands of people with pesticides and nerve agents is chemical weapons use in any sense of the word.
 

Oh yeah, massacres for days.  Poke around in this thread and you'll find rebel spokesmen getting harassed by their backers for not having genocided enough Shia yet.
 
There is an interesting mirror image.  The US has the resources to prosecute a massive war in Syria that would easily defeat all opposing factions (unless they resorted to nuclear exchange which is why this option should not be considered at all), but there is wavering public support for such a mission.  Eventually the US public will come to their senses and say "oh yeah, that's right, wars in the Middle East suck and we shouldn't do that again."  Possibly they'll even think something like, "also, there are a lot of Saudi-sponsored media outlets that keep telling us lies and trying to get us to fight their stupid war for them.  We should expel all Saudi lobbyists and anyone who ever touched their thirty pieces of silver from this country forever and cut off all support for the rebels in Syria because they are horrible people and there is no point in winning a war by proxy in a country that has modest amounts of oil and almost no surviving infrastructure."  But the odds of that level of common sense becoming the general perception are fairly slim.  Bottom line though, there isn't really any strong support in the US for protracted involvement in Syria (even though there already has been).
 
On the other hand, Iran and Russia have far less abundant resources to pursue a war in Syria, but their heart is really in it.  Support for the war is at something like 70% in Russia, and probably even higher in Iran.  In no small part, this is due to their respective publics seeing the war as an intervention to protect their co-religionists (Syriac Orthodox Church and Shiite minority in Syria) against outside aggressors who would slaughter them.  The fact that this is basically true makes this view all the more compelling.
 
I don't have a good feel for the level of support from the public in Saudi Arabia or Turkey.  I suspect that the public would rather that the zillions of dollars being spent funding the rebels be spent at home, and I suspect equally that the leadership of both of those countries doesn't give a fuck what their public thinks.  There were some projections showing that Saudi Arabia was dipping dangerously into their reserves to continue funding their wars in both Syria and Yemen.  I guess if Saudi Arabia implodes in the next five years we'll know that those projections were correct.
 
The worst part about Saudi Arabia imploding is that the country will inevitably be taken over by Wahhabist extremists of the worst sort.  They'll use the country's oil wealth to export terrorism even more aggressively than the House of Saud does.  So basically, the entire House of Saud will be butchered and their heads will be displayed on pikes, and nobody will get any time to reflect on how richly those bastards deserved it, because everyone will be too busy trying to eradicate whomever it was that overthrew them.  That's truly cruel.

LEARN THIS ONE COOL TRICK

lol, HL2 in 2004 had better face animations.
 
 

Counterpoint: Snoop is a fucking national treasure and knows full well what he's doing at any given moment. He's also proof that weed really does adversely affect cognitive ability, as without the limitation of about a hundred spliffs a day he'd be in danger of accidentally becoming a chess grandmaster and/or discovering new branches of theoretical physics in his spare time. Which would completely ruin the sweet gig he has going right now.

Vox, I know, but the numbers are the important bit. Yet more confirmation of how utterly incompetent Hillary's campaign was. If the Democratic Party wants to win, they need to purge the party of everybody involved. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads

Vox, I know, but the numbers are the important bit. Yet more confirmation of how utterly incompetent Hillary's campaign was. If the Democratic Party wants to win, they need to purge the party of everybody involved. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads

Vox, I know, but the numbers are the important bit. Yet more confirmation of how utterly incompetent Hillary's campaign was. If the Democratic Party wants to win, they need to purge the party of everybody involved. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads

I think it is officially OK now to talk about Rogue One for those who have seen it without having worrying about spoilers.
Also it is rather indicative that none of us have felt the urge to talk about Rogue One despite it being out for 3 months.

I haven't actually seen Rouge One yet.  I just don't really care all that much, despite having been obsessed with Star Wars as a kid.  My coworker and I were talking about it and we would like to see star wars spin off films directed by famous directors in their own style.  Imagine a film about a Jedi young-ling leaving the Jedi temple to pursue a teenage ice-queen directed by Wes Anderson.  Or a film about young Mace Windu (Samuel Jackson) who has to use his light saber to " kill absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes" directed by Tarantino.  And of course who would want to miss "Imperial Star Ship Troopers" directed by Paul Verhoeven?  Or how about a film young Jabba the Hutt by David Lynch?  I suspect a baby Hutt looks a bit like the baby in Eraserhead.  And finally, can we have a film about people who can only sexually climax while watching Deathstars explode directed by David Cronenberg?  

Fine, but the New Testament is very clear too:

Alternatively the army finds a stooge like Decius to back, totally removes the need to win over the army!

Yet direct democracy (really proportional representation) plus a parliamentary system is very stable.