This drought is seriosly concerning me.

[Davidxvx]

[Davidxvx]

What am I saying?

Science rules! Knowing stuff is great.

[Davidxvx]

PS

FUCK YEAH AMERICA.



FUCK YEAH SCIENCE.

Next they're going to put a laser on a dolphin. Or maybe they already did that.

[Davidxvx]

SCIENCE.



Okay. Maybe I got a bit carried away there.

[Freedom&Liberty]

What that before or after it gave us the semi-conductor? The electric lightbulb? Fission? Just about every crop you eat? The internal combustion engine? The condom (that isn't made from a bit of a goat with a knot tied in it)? Trousers? The tradition of post-enlightenment thought that led to the US Constitution? Sub-ocean data cables so that I can despair at you from an ocean and half a continent away? Retroviral drugs that make HIV survivable? Smallpox effectively eradicated? Polio on its way out? The television you use to watch Fox News while idly masturbating? The Fisher Space Pen that can write upside down and looks like something from a 70s Bond movie? Hey, movies in general too - celluloid! Breast implants? Eye glasses? The Chinese factory that made the American flag photographed in your avatar? And the camera that took the photo? The entire industrial revolution?

Damn science. Never gave us anything. Totally fucked itself.

When climate science takes credit for all the things in this post, let me know.

[86Dùde]

Mr. Normal, I respect your credentials, I really do and you're probably right. I apologize for labeling you as a technocrat because I don't really know that much about you. My problem is with the policies they'll enforce in order to try and stop it. There is money and power to be made there, and that's where I get a little pissed off.

[Davidxvx]

Oh, so it's only one branch of science that you don't understand that you object to then? So you're perfectly fine with the scientific method and think it's a great way of producing results...except when it's about climate, for some reason that you cannot explain?

I understand. Magically, using the exact same experimental techniques and principles and deductive logic and all that will magically work in most fields, but couldn't possibly help us understand how the climate works? That makes perfect sense!

What was it, again, that science - oh, sorry, you backpedalled, climate science - did to fuck itself? Make all those predictions you talked about on the last page? You mean all the ones that the vast majority of climate scientists didn't make and the ones that were made by a small minoriy geologists etc before climate science was even a separate branch of science...those ones? The ones that were raised by a minority of scientists as hypothetical possibilities - which, because you love science and all, you'd understand is totally different from being identified by the vast majority of scientists with a very high degree of certainty?

Or do you think science is some kind of troll-like mythical beast that comes down out of the mountains and makes pronouncements unto man in a deep, booming voice, before disappearing again, untestably and unverifiably?

[Davidxvx]

Mr. Normal, I respect your credentials, I really do and you're probably right. I apologize for labeling you as a technocrat because I don't really know that much about you. My problem is with the policies they'll enforce in order to try and stop it. There is money and power to be made there, and that's where I get a little pissed off.

Cheers. The thing I see with it is that, as is, the most money and power is being made from exploiting natural resources. You see governments like Harper's in Canada that are filthy with oil money, for example. In the short term, which we're conditioned to worry about by election cycles and balance dates, ignoring ecological crises is easy and profitable. The people who're suffering the most and will suffer the most are the already powerless and dispossessed. So I don't have a problem with the people pushing to hold our leaders, in business and government, to account by forcing them to pay some of the real costs of their pollution.

[Davidxvx]

PS

[86Dùde]

Cheers. The thing I see with it is that, as is, the most money and power is being made from exploiting natural resources. You see governments like Harper's in Canada that are filthy with oil money, for example. In the short term, which we're conditioned to worry about by election cycles and balance dates, ignoring ecological crises is easy and profitable. The people who're suffering the most and will suffer the most are the already powerless and dispossessed. So I don't have a problem with the people pushing to hold our leaders, in business and government, to account by forcing them to pay some of the real costs of their pollution.

No argument here. Fracking is ruining America. Causing earthquakes in places they should NEVER occur. Thanks to George Bush, those businesses are free and clear of the clean water act. It's pathetic.

[Freedom&Liberty]

Oh, so it's only one branch of science that you don't understand that you object to then? So you're perfectly fine with the scientific method and think it's a great way of producing results...except when it's about climate, for some reason that you cannot explain?

I understand. Magically, using the exact same experimental techniques and principles and deductive logic and all that will magically work in most fields, but couldn't possibly help us understand how the climate works? That makes perfect sense!

What was it, again, that science - oh, sorry, you backpedalled, climate science - did to fuck itself? Make all those predictions you talked about on the last page? You mean all the ones that the vast majority of climate scientists didn't make and the ones that were made by a small minoriy geologists etc before climate science was even a separate branch of science...those ones? The ones that were raised by a minority of scientists as hypothetical possibilities - which, because you love science and all, you'd understand is totally different from being identified by the vast majority of scientists with a very high degree of certainty?

Or do you think science is some kind of troll-like mythical beast that comes down out of the mountains and makes pronouncements unto man in a deep, booming voice, before disappearing again, untestably and unverifiably?

What branch of science were we talking about, Joey? I didn't backpedal. You made a stupid assumption and then ran around like a 5 year old posting pictures all over the place.

Most early climate avengers were geologists and environmentalists. The hypothetical possibilities you mentioned found there way into newspapers and books. Like today's current crop of meteorologists on steroids, they had no problem with making bad predictions and spreading the word via media and publishing. Climate science has a very smarmy history. Certainly not one that should be used as a basis for policy.

[Davidxvx]

You said science. That was your word.

I am very familiar with the history of climate science. Your summary is grossly inaccurate. A minority of 1970s climate scientists suggested the possibility of global cooling. That received some media attention. The majority in the field then expressed more concern about a mean global warming. That also received media attention, and has been the subject of an increasing number of books each decade since the 1960s. You know very little about the history of climate science, and have utterly failed to explain why the current observations may be incorrect or why the predictions based on extrapolations from those observations are unreliable. Your only argument is that, previously, climate scientists have been incorrect. But, as I have pointed out, those have been (a) a minority in the field; and (b) people suggesting possibilities based on little evidence, not people drawing conclusions from overwhelming evidence.

You have also entirely failed to explain why it is that you believe that if 99% of climate scientists are correct and you are incorrect nothing will happen.

I remain of the view that you base your views on emotion and illogic, not empirical observation. Nothing else explains your religious denial of science.

And, yes, I will post comical pictures and mock you, because, frankly, you are easily mocked.

[Hyperbully]

"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"

[Chachma v'Oz]

"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense."

[Freedom&Liberty]

You said science. That was your word.

I am very familiar with the history of climate science. Your summary is grossly inaccurate. A minority of 1970s climate scientists suggested the possibility of global cooling. That received some media attention. The majority in the field then expressed more concern about a mean global warming. That also received media attention, and has been the subject of an increasing number of books each decade since the 1960s. You know very little about the history of climate science, and have utterly failed to explain why the current observations may be incorrect or why the predictions based on extrapolations from those observations are unreliable. Your only argument is that, previously, climate scientists have been incorrect. But, as I have pointed out, those have been (a) a minority in the field; and (b) people suggesting possibilities based on little evidence, not people drawing conclusions from overwhelming evidence.

You have also entirely failed to explain why it is that you believe that if 99% of climate scientists are correct and you are incorrect nothing will happen.

I remain of the view that you base your views on emotion and illogic, not empirical observation. Nothing else explains your religious denial of science.

And, yes, I will post comical pictures and mock you, because, frankly, you are easily mocked.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt for 86's sake. Unlike 86, I don't give a shit about your "credentials". Like most liberals, intsead of using practical common sense you chose to take the juvenile dumbass route, just as I knew you would. Have a shitty day, Joey. You've earned it..

[Hyperbully]

I say good day to you, sir!

[jwreck]

While I agree with what you are saying Joey, pure science, and and politicized science are not the same animal. Wether you or anyone else wants to admit it, climate science is tainted by politics.

BTW, I thought you were a lawyer?

PS: Welcome back! I missed you.

[Davidxvx]

Freedom&Liberty: I had an outstanding day yesterday, thank you for asking! I left the office early at 1730, went for a bike ride, caught and savagely dropped a bunch ride with bad attitudes, and then went straight on to a celebratory dinner with my colleagues. This morning is looking promising two - I've had four shots of coffee, and a bagel with avocado and tomato.

Again, as I have already said to you, I do not identify as a liberal. And, yes, I have been juvenile, because you haven't given me anything to engage with using reason and intellect and rationality. You have discounted climate science, based on one argument that is factually incorrect. You have not presented any persuasive arguments for why the vast majority of climate scientists are wrong. Further, you have failed to explain how, if you are wrong, nothing will happen.

Jwreck: Thanks mate. I am a lawyer. However, I did my law honours on climate policy and emissions trading in '09 and attended COP17 on behalf of an NGO. I do not agree that mainstream climate science is tainted by politics, because (a) the vast majority of climate scientists don't step into the political area; and (b) the IPCC reports and other politically-influenced summaries tend to under-state, not over-state the problem. Where climate science is tainted by politics (which, of course, tends to be in the popular nor scientific press, if that makes sense), that tends to be to belittle the problem. If you compare, for example, the IPCC's sea level rise projections to most of the current studies, the IPCC is on the very low side. The IPCC is infamously bad at considering the risks associated with positive feedback loops too. Then you look at some of the old guard of climate scientists turned activists - Jim Hansen, for example - and, from my interactions, you see earnest and genuine researchers who did not set out to be political but came to deeply troubling findings that pushed them into politics.

[queenlillian1962]

SCIENCE.



Okay. Maybe I got a bit carried away there.

Hey this is photoshopped! Everybody knows Chewie only rides cool looking black squirrels when beating the piss out of Nazi's. That squirrel is obviously a Eastern Gray Squirrel. Thought you could pull a fast one didn't you Mr Normal.

[Chachma v'Oz]

I generally use the shower in the 3/4 bath at the back of the garage in summer (so I can get cleaned up before coming back into the house after working outdoors). I use only the cold water tap because it's hot enough for a shower. The shower is about 150' from the water main buried in the road and runs under our long concrete driveway to the pipes exposed on the brick wall of the garage. Between the heat of the sun baking the concrete and the pipes exposed to the ambient temperature, the "cold" water gets and stays pretty hot unless I use enough to reach the colder water from the main.

Yesterday I was busy all day and instead of showering before lunch I ended up waiting until after supper. I damn near got scalded by the "cold" water. It was that much hotter six hours later than when I usually use it. I mentioned it to my wife and she said that the evening before she's had a similar experience with the cold water in the bathroom in the house when she went to wash her face before bed.

At her suggestion, I just now turned off the water heater.

We've lived here almost 25 years and this is the first time the cold water has been this hot. Local temps are running about 10° above normal. This morning I went out to water at first light and it was 94°, the morning's low.

We used to get an average of only seven days per year of at least 110°, but we've already had five days over that level and it's not even summer yet.