Unfriendly Climate Greets Gore At Apple Meeting 572
theodp writes "Apple's shareholder meeting this week took on a Jerry Springer vibe, with harsh comments about Al Gore, former VP and Apple board member, setting the tone. Several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising Gore's high-profile views on climate change. Apple shareholder Shelton Ehrlich urged against Gore's re-election to the board, claiming that Gore 'has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted. If [the] advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected.' Hey, at least he moved a few copies of Keynote, Shelton. Shareholders introduced proposals regarding Apple's environmental impact — one asking Apple to commit publicly to greenhouse gas reduction goals and to publish a formal sustainability report; another proposing that Apple's board establish a sustainability committee. These proposals were rejected by shareholders. However, preliminary voting results indicated that Gore was re-elected to Apple's Board."
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's even the slightest chance global warming is a hoax, we should feel free to use as much energy and non-renewable resources as possible because we'll figure out a way to work around it when they're much more difficult to come by. You believe in technology and human ingenuity, don't you?
Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
How do i mod the whole article -1 flamebait?
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:1, Insightful)
"denialists", eh? I guess we can infer from that that you will be in there trolling...
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
IMPLEMENTING "GREEN" POLICIES ISN'T A GOOD BUSINESS DECISION.
Yeah, a lot of companies thought that way, and ended up polluting places, and then going out of business, leaving the rest of us to clean it up.
Not implementing "green" policies is a bad social decision.
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger question is why denialists cluster around Slashdot in the first place.
Oh, wait. I know the answer:
ENGINEERS ARE BATSHIT INSANE [slate.com]
(Yes, computer science proper is pure mathematics, and most people employ a bit of both in their jobs. But it's well-known that the only people crazier than engineers are mathematicians.)
Re:Fools. (Score:1, Insightful)
Tora! Tora! Tora! (Score:1, Insightful)
That's Japanese for "Attack! Attack! Attack!" and it seems to be the mantra of the right. No, not the right, there are smart right-wingers who actually acknowledge that there are real environmental problems we can't ignore. After all, doesn't conservativism have some connection with conservation [wikipedia.org]?
Let's call them the Lazy Right. Coming up with arguments is too much work, so all they want to talk about is how stupid and evil liberals are. If you cite evidence that glaciers are receding, they'll tell you Al Gore can't keep his facts straight. Suggest that GWB's anti-terror strategy is a disaster, and they'll respond with some nonsense about Barack Obama's real name. I once posted a comment on Amazon casting doubt on the whole EMP peril thing, and somebody who disagreed with me said "The only thing you've proven to me is that there really are dire consequences to having hyper-obsequious mothers who breast feed their children until they're 11."
Come one people. Maybe you're right, and we're wrong. But you'll never know until you give up all the stupid trolling and start having a real argument.
And yes, I know, there are liberals that do it too. I don't think they're in charge of the left. And even if they are, how does that justify responding in kind?
Thunk dumb. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, apple stockholders must be really dumb.
Because, seriously? Al Gore's movie came out like a couple years ago, and global climate change isn't something that you're going to see happening in dramatic fashion in a couple years. How is that not common knowledge?
Re:In the long run... (Score:3, Insightful)
So could I paraphrase you as, "F*** Al Gore: Because We're Not *All* Going To Die" ?
Who are the denailists? (Score:5, Insightful)
One one side you have people who ignore scientific evidence for financial gain.
On the other side you have... those who ignore scientific evidence for financial gain.
Science got way lost in the middle of this whole debate. Indeed the very term "debate" is laughable, as it is currently a which hunt on both sides.
And you, sir, are not helping by demonizing those who think differently than you.
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is we are turning into societies that love technology but really hate the underlying science. All the "don't tell me about it until I can buy it at Walmart" posts that are starting to infest this site are a symptom of that. They just want magic and are starting to think just talking about physical things can make them real instead of the process of people knowing how to do things and then making it real.
It's bad news that reality involves tradeoffs to make things fit and they never want to hear the bad news. We've had a century of nearly free energy with the tradeoff of altering the atmosphere, and various idiots would not believe that even if we could tell them what time it's going to rain tomorrow morning. Others demand to know details like that and do not understand that wide trends can be predicted without knowing to the second when it's going to start raining.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:3, Insightful)
You sound like one of the retards who say that one shouldn't bother to vote in the USA
First, I'll ignore the politically incorrect slur, and the further attempt at demonization that serves only to make people think less of you, not me.
Secondly, what does one have to do with the other? Is it so wrong to ask that long-term science be untangled from the rapacious tentacles of political actors like some really bad anime that I have no choice but to watch, and which comes with a dub that is simply an overlay of the dialog track from Gigli?
Thirdly, I would urge everyone to vote, ESPECIALLY if there were really only one party (which I do not claim, I leave arguing that fantasy to yourself). Of course the key is to vote from the bottom up, to vote in people from below at the local level until they rise to the top. When there's only one party and no-one cares about politics it's very easy to make your views felt.
Three strikes - you're wrong.
Don't understand the hostility... (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if the theories are wrong, reducing green-house emissions (etc) won't hurt anything but the pocket book. I know this is no small thing, especially in the context of a global economy and global competition, but the consequences of ignoring things if man-made climate change is a reality are bad.
Flame me unbelievers, but not too much lest you warm the planet :-)
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
My typical argument with these people is,
Me: "So, God gave us dominion over the Earth, correct? He put us in charge of His creation?"
Them: "Yes."
Me: "So, if a parent told their children, 'We're going to be out for an hour. We're leaving you in charge of the house while we're goine,' and they came home and the house was burned down... how happy do you think they'd be with their children?"
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to give you a hug, man. (But I won't. I respect your personal space.)
I'm one of those guys who suspects that global warming is probably a real phenomenon, but that its coverage in the media is mostly-fake, its coverage in science proper is mildly biased and exxagerated as an institutional matter (cf. 'climategate', overrated as it may be) and the public policy prescriptions that are preached by Al Gore are mostly nonsense. But more importantly, the state of the "debate" is shameful.
Do I get to be called a "denialist" too?
Re:chill out shareholders (Score:5, Insightful)
Create, definition 1: [reference.com] "to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes."
Invent, definition 1: [reference.com] "to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation, or contrivance: to invent the telegraph."
Clear?
Next we'll be having to debate the definition of "is". :P The "Gore Bill" turned ARPANET into the internet. Feel free to hate the guy, but he deserves credit for this.
The fallacy of the other path (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand the mocking and hostility of the opponents of climate-change theory toward the supporters.
Pretty simple, the naturally human instinct is payback for years of mockery. And indeed why should only one side be allowed vitrol and mockery and demand it not be turned against them when the tide of fate ebbs for them?
I don't think it's productive but it's understandable, and honestly well deserved.
Even if the theories are wrong, reducing green-house emissions (etc) won't hurt anything but the pocket book. I know this is no small thing, especially in the context of a global economy and global competition, but the consequences of ignoring things if man-made climate change is a reality are bad.
Do you believe in God? Because you have just stated you must. After all, the consequence for being wrong is fairly horrific since a lifetime here is nothing compared to an infinity of afterlife, right?
Such is the power of the Precautionary Principal [pajamasmedia.com] which is what your argument relies upon.
Here is what I know from years of traveling the world. If you want to see true devastation, you have only to travel to where people are generally poor. It's hard to save a forest when millions are looking for firewood (see: Haiti).
So you claim we should look upon hurting people in an economic downturn as a small consequence to avert potential disaster, but all I can envision is a global environmental cataclysm as economies fall and people do what they do best - survive at any cost.
Far better to invest heavily in alternative energy now, like nuclear and solar, so that we can all get off the oil train. The chances of GW actually causing enough problems to really bother us all before we can make that happen are to my mind exceedingly low vs. the certainty of what happens when we make a whole lot of people poor.
Re:Thunk dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
Clearly you have not seen Al Gore's movie.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen, you can either drop everything and study your ass off for the better part of a decade to get a PhD in atmospheric science, or listen to the people who have them. Science isn't fair or balanced. The atmosphere doesn't care if you believe in greenhouse gases or not.
The state of the "debate" is indeed shameful.
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:5, Insightful)
I simply credit it to the "I can do it!" attitude that leads people to become engineers or CS people in the first place. The sense that you're smart enough to understand everything and capable enough to figure everything out. Even when you're not. It's a great attitude to have in an engineer, but it has the side effect of them assuming that they know more than people who actually do know what they're talking about.
Equally Lazy (Score:5, Insightful)
If you cite evidence that glaciers are receding, they'll tell you Al Gore can't keep his facts straight. Suggest that GWB's anti-terror strategy is a disaster, and they'll respond with some nonsense about Barack Obama's real name.
Why is it not equally lazy to paint all "right wingers" as Birthers, and people who cannot argue with science even though there are tons of carefully thought out articles from real scientists questioning AGW - in many aspects turning out to be right in doing so? Those who questioned "glaciers melting before 2035" were laughed at as loons before and told the science was carefully studied, when it turned out it was not. Why can YOU not believe there are and can be scientists who do not agree with the current AGW theories?
Your whole post frankly struck me as full of such lazy stereotyping, with no effort on your part made to understand the reasoning behind those who do not buy into the same group-think you do.
DumbdotNewsforIdiots (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, slashdot commenters must be really dumb.
Because, seriously? There are nine hundred and some million shares of Apple stock on the market, and extrapolating from a single loudmouthed shareholder, who was voted down on the issue in question no less, to the views of all of the thousands of others is completely unjustifiable. How is that not common sense?
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:5, Insightful)
One one side you have people who ignore scientific evidence for financial gain.
On the other side you have... those who ignore scientific evidence for financial gain.
Yes, but one side also happens to be wrong.
Re:Thunk dumb. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he hasn't. I have. That's not what it says. The movie has a great sense of urgency for precisely that reason: when we start seeing dramatic things close to home it will be too late.
Re:Don't understand the hostility... (Score:1, Insightful)
Be more specific. Which global warming model predicted massive blizzards in the northern hemisphere in 2010? Point to the source code if available.
Hurting the pocket book can be the difference between life and death for millions of people in poverty, especially in Africa.
Insofar as gleeful mocking, that's par for the course when you make an idiot out of yourself by pushing pseudo-science. Real science means a falsifiable hypothesis, not a group of a hundred "models", of which one may have predicted more snow, another predicted less snow, then claiming your predictions are right no matter what happens.
I just can't believe that natural global climate change deniers have had such a lock on the public discourse for so long.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't confuse two the public debate with the scientific debate.
The public debate is as screwy as any political debate.
But I'm don't think that the actual scientists are remotely as compromised as the denialists claim they are.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most atheists and agnostics I know question (or deny - but that seems to be a dirt word nowadays)the validity of man-cause global warming.
I've found that's because most Atheists or Agnostics have better BS detectors and critical thinking skills. In short, we are skeptics, meaning we question most anything that doesn't have hard evidence to support it.
I don't put stock in any fairy tale, whether it be about Santa Claus, God, or conspiracy theories, unless there is evidence to back it up. They do make fun thinking exercises, though.
Re:Equally Lazy (Score:4, Insightful)
To group all right wingers as birthers would be lazy however, most of the birthers are right wing.
Well for one thing, not all right wingers (ie republicans/libertarians) deny AGW. Approximately 25% acknowledge some degree of the phenomenon. For another, the vast majority of attacks on AGW that have been launched (primarily from the right) have been... poorly thought out to put it mildly. The CRU hack frothing as the prime example of this.
The problem is that this error was found not by an AGW "skeptic" but by a scientist in full agreement with the scientific consensus on AGW.
Few dispute that there are scientists out there that don't agree with the AGW consensus, the same can be said of Evolutionary theory, it's just that as in the case of Evolution, the vast vast vast majority of skeptics are not in relevant fields and have not actually done any relevant research on the topic. It is possible to have legit skepticism about AGW; it just requires actual work and data to back up the assertion made. The same applies to both sides of the issue, it just seems that the vast majority of AGW "skeptics" aren't holding up their end of the bargain.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule of thumb: there is no provable premise in science. The only thing that exists is data that either supports your claim or doesn't. Also note that data that doesn't support your claim is not the same as disproving your claim. In that context, settled science just means that no one has been able to do a generally accepted experiment that contradicts the major ideas in a field.
I wish that people would know just these two things before talking about science.
The real problem with the glacier claims (Score:3, Insightful)
Random straw man example: the "glaciers aren't melting" comment.
It's all well and good to point out the realities behind glacial melting. But it misses the more fundamental problem with the glacial quote - the 2035 claim was treated in the past by prominent figures of AGW as studied science, as an incontrovertible fact.
So the reality that in fact the quote came from one off the cuff comment, when people were once called "deniers" before for questioning it - well that begs the question, what else are people called "deniers" about now that is equally wrong? Do you see the real problem? Even stuff that is well studied, that has good results - that ceases to matter. It doesn't matter if there is a wolf when there wasn't one before the other times you claimed there was one.
And that's the real trouble, that now you have to question and double check EVERYTHING because no-one can be trusted at this point. That's exactly why scientists need to be careful publishing results and not dive willingly into the hands of politicians, no matter how well meaning they may seem. No matter that it might be somewhat harder to get funding if you are not willing to back outlandish claims.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've found that's because most Atheists or Agnostics have better BS detectors and critical thinking skills. In short, we are skeptics, meaning we question most anything that doesn't have hard evidence to support it.
I don't put stock in any fairy tale, whether it be about Santa Claus, God, or conspiracy theories, unless there is evidence to back it up. They do make fun thinking exercises, though.
Hasn't it become so easy these days to lump God in with Santa Claus, and conspiracy theories? You must have a great BS detector and all, but I question the open-mindedness of anyone (even Dawkins) who, without the slightest explanation, compares God, first, to Santa Claus, and second, to unnamed conspiracy theories. The implied nuances of your claims are so drastic, I doubt you understand the very things that you're saying.
The magnitude of the claims set forth about God are reason enough to consider the question of the existence of God. To lump God in with Santa Claus and to imply that he belongs with the rest of the conspiracy theories is to neglect these claims all together.
And please take notice that the foundation of your argument rests upon itself: In order to dismiss God as a fairy tale, you have presumed it. You yourself offer no evidence for your claims whatsoever. How sweetly ironic.
It's great and all to be able to find what things may have in common. But to have a truly precise intellect you can't forget what sets things apart.
Re:chill out shareholders (Score:2, Insightful)
You need a dictionary.
And ...
The Internet today is pretty much identical in everyway to the Internet I used before anyone knew who Al Gore was.
The difference today is more spam and more shitty businesses that I'd really rather not exist.
Please enlighten me as to what Mr Gore actually did other than using a group of networks that were already about to explode into the public as a political battle cry.
If you think Al Gore did anything special for the Internet, you weren't doing much on the Internet back then.
Re:Fools. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, let's rent a motel room and shit on the bed, but on a larger, macro scale.
That's a great idea.
Re:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
there's nothing setting god apart from a fairy tale in the eyes of someone demanding proof of his existence, the both lack any physical evidence.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein used the peer review process. He didn't assert a cabal of Newtonian conspirators faking international consensuses and rigging who gets into journals and who doesn't in order to install a socialist world order.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're implying that:
1. people who accept poor salaries and working conditions to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of truth and knowledge are as likely to "ignore scientific evidence for financial gain" as those who pursue power and wealth in big business.
2. every person on Earth is biased and corruptible to exactly the same extent.
I would dispute both those claims.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Magnitude of the claims" ...so you mean because they make really big claims that may or may not be true then they are more likely to be true?
The size or magnitude of a claim has no effect on the probability of its being true at least inherently.
If you really want a more one to one comparison the God of Christianity could be lumped in with Thor, Zeus, Odin, Hera, or Marduk.
It is a mythology. One that may or may not be real. Just because one or even many people believe it is real doesn't make it any more real. If that were the case then the Christianity would be a false religion as most people in the world are not Christian. A high end estimate puts Christianity (lumping all forms in to one) at 33 percent.
Most people in the world used to believe that the Earth was flat, women should be subservient and not allowed to work, and that the sun rotates around the earth.
You missed again (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the WG2 team screwed up there. On about two sentences of one page of a thousand page report
Yes and then the head of the IPCC proceeded to widely publicize this one screw-up as factual beforehand, magnifying the problem a thousandfold. Normally one mistake in the middle of a huge document would not matter - but in the end it did matter because of how they used this without double-checking. If you are going to tell heads of state how to act based on some data it doesn't matter how much of a 3000 page report is correct, you better make DAMN SURE the small part of data you are feeding them is. The fact they did not, for years, with people questioning them - that again is the real problem. These days climate "scientists" are looking very Nixonian in that they claim there is no problem when mistake after embarrassing mistake keeps coming to light.
Re:Thunk dumb. (Score:1, Insightful)
You do realize, they've been in decline for about the last 18k years, right? Since the last glacial period.
No one who knows whats going on denies they are retreating. The argue is that the reason its happening and what it will mean for is. The argument revolves around one group of people who think humans are far more impacting on the planet than science suggests, and how the other group doesn't really think our species has much to do with it or much control over it, mostly due to the evidence that ... this happened thousands of times before humans even existed.
The ice age was ending long before we started speaking. The 'glaciers have melted' thousands of times.
The climate is changing, no one anywhere is arguing that. Everyone talks about how the Earth has changing and getting warmer, but everyone who does that conveniently ignores the fact that the planet has done this before, and has gotten far hotter, and its doing EXACTLY WHAT IT SHOULD BE DURING THIS PART OF THE CYCLE according to data we have.
No, its really fortunate that he did. It makes it easier for some people to realize that he's nothing more than a politician doing whatever he can to get attention and actually doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Its that kind of crap that makes people think global warming is a bunch of bullshit. Its hard to argue for something when it seems like every week more peer review shows that the existing statements about whats 'going to happen' and whats 'happening' are just bullshit exaggeration. Makes it really hard to be taken seriously when you keep getting shown up as a liar or being nice, a horrible inaccurate excuse for a scientist. Sure ignorant people like yourself who haven't actually looked at the data will continue to treat it like a religion, but no one can stop nutjobs who blindly believe what someone says without thinking for themselves.
I know global warming exists. I've seen the studies and the histories. I've done some research on my own into these studies. The only conclusion you can come to is 'this isn't something new, its happened thousands and thousands of times before and will happen thousands and thousands of times again. Other than that, you really can't make predictions. We can't even accurately model daily weather, and you want to argue that we understand and can modify long term global climates? If we can't predict day to day weather patterns reliably, WTF makes you think we can predict the outcome of those patterns repeating with theoretical outside input that we've never modeled before? Stop treating science like a religion and treat it logically, that is after all what science is.
Re:wind (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear is now safe. See Japan and France for more information.
Re:Who are the denailists? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:3, Insightful)
> Have you read the interview Phil Jones did with the BBC. He came clean and admitted that there is no evidence of man made global warming. This is the TOP GUY, who still believes its true, and given millions upon millions to prove it over a 20 year period, he was unable to.
I love seeing that interview raised in debates on global warming because it quickly tells me who the liars and pretenders are. If you are prepared to portray it in such a fashion then you're clearly either so biased or so ignorant that not much else you say needs to be taken seriously. Shame you posted AC.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this problem worse in the US? (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as logical reasoning goes, I believe your post supports my statements.
My point of view is: A situation is like it is, completely independent of my point of view, or yours, or the point of view of a majority. And I think that everybody should realise that all of the time. Like in: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no matter how strongly Toni and George believed it.
There was no mention of alternative energy in my post. The only example I gave concerned conservation of energy.
But if you want to discuss it. At one time or another, fuels (including nuclear fuels) that are used up when generating electricity run out. Wasting nuclear fuel isn't so much of a problem because you can't do nice other things with them. But oil you can use to make plastics; very convenient.
Not that I do care, but have you any idea how much tax money was invested into nuclear energy? Now, I don't want two wrongs to be a right, but using two different yardsticks wouldn't be fair, I think. Assuming you're correct and nuclear energy is cheap, it has become cheap(er) thanks to that subsidy. Is there a law of nature that says similar improvements in efficiency and lowering of costs can't be achieved for the alternative energy sources you mentioned? The answer in any case is no so far: The cost per kWh for each of these sources has come down over the years. The future is in the hands of smart people who can think creatively. Anyone can contribute by giving them some extra time by not wasting resources.
Bert
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:1, Insightful)
All the "don't tell me about it until I can buy it at Walmart" posts that are starting to infest this site are a symptom of that.
They are a simple reaction to innumerable bullshit PR releases of companies that soon folded or at least had to eat their words. Like the fuel-cell one a few days ago where "black and green ink" magically make the gizmo work. That is pure bullshit there. If the company doesn't have anything substantial to say, they should STFU. Oh wait, but then there is no next VC funding round. Oh noes!
The icing on the cake is then the claim to be cheaper than the grid but only with massive subsidies with vague hopes of bringing down the cost in the future while currently it takes 30 years to break even, something solar cells or windmills can do a lot earlier with less environmental impact (natural gas is not exactly green).
So the sensible attitude is "Go away and come back when you can produce your tech so cheaply and make it so consumer friendly and useful that Walmart sells your stuff, but spare me your pie in the sky bullshit". Walmart is in this case the litmus test of "is it profitable, is it useful". In the above case of course Walmart wouldn't sell it but lots of builders, contractors and the like.
Re:Fools. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's try an analogy. We are at the airport. Someone calls in that there is a bomb threat and that if we don't respond immediately, the whole thing is gonna go up in flames. Now, is it not the responsible thing to investigate these claims, no matter how outlandish they may seem?
That doesn't really seem outlandish though, does it? This has happened before. We kind of expect people to try this again some day. If somebody called in and said that God was going to stop the plane...well, actually we'd probably assume that terrorists were coming in the name of their God, and still investigate it. If they suggested, however, that a space alien was trying to escape justice back to his generational mothership hiding behind the moon via the ship he has stashed in the elevator, and if he did he'd end up launching the doomsday device and destroy us all, they probably wouldn't close the elevators. Even though it's a more impactful claim. Even though it is, in principle, possible.
And on the nature of truth, and for the sake of good quotes, I give you Spock: "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
The nature of religious claims is that their most general senses can never be eliminated, no matter whether they are true or not, so it's basically irrelevant. Specific claims can possibly be taken down (although literally anything can be overruled by a deceptive omnipotent force or forces). Also, Spock was quoting his ancestor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who said it through the mouth of Sherlock Holmes.
Re:Don't understand the hostility... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the theories are wrong, reducing green-house emissions (etc) won't hurt anything but the pocket book.
I think the problem is that that is the wrong approach. So many of the greenie eco-nuts seem to have this mindset that helping the environment means hurting ourselves, and that's where the problems start. Check it out:
We improve our energy grid with nuclear energy. We use the newest models, the ones that recycle the 'waste,' the only thing it releases into the enviroment is steam. That cuts out all the nasty of coal. Meanwhile, we research solar to make it more usable than it is now. That makes energy cheaper, which helps manufacturing ect. and improves the economy.
We really need to develop an alternative to oil. Either hydrogen power, or a biofuel, and not corn, something decent, like desert based enclosed algae farms. Once a suitable solution is found, we put it into mass production. This cuts off the huge amounts of money we send to foreign oil sources, and if it works well enough, cuts the cost of travel & shipping, and may even provide an export, possibly cuts off terrorism funding, which really improves the economy.
We improve our agriculture. We diversify our crops, do improvement work to breed commercially viable species of new crops, which will reduce the amount of inputs that are needed to keep crops pest and disease free. We develop and grow more locally adapted varieties of traditional crops, and grow the new ones in the best possible areas. In both cases, use techniques like intercroping and crop rotation to further reduce the need for inputs like pesticides and fertilizers. In all cases, we develop new traits that can be inserted via genetic engineering to further reduce inputs and increase yields, as well as open up previously inariable land for cultivation. This lowers food prices, might even increase overall health, and improves the economy.
Certainty, of course, it must be stated that regulation must happen, but whether AGW is real or not, who wants to be breathing in smoke and drinking polluted water anyway? Again, rather than saying 'Waah, industry!' what we need to do is ask, 'How can we develop cost effective solutions to maintain air/water quality without a significant decrease in business?'
We need to get over this mindset that green technology and green lifestyles must by necessity hurt the economy. We don't need to go back to the caves, we need to go back to the labs. Green technology is good for the economy. Greenie technology, on the other hand, the feel good hippy-dippy stuff, that's another story, but if done right, there is no problem whatsoever. Everybody wins. If man is causing global warming, this is what we should do, and even if it isn't us, we should do this sort of stuff anyway. What we should do is clear. That there is a political controversy is just baffling.
Re:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh.... I'm confused. Are you arguing that conserving materials is a badly thought out idea? How so? Or are you just generally pissed off about badly thought ideas? If it's latter, sorry to hear that - there really can't be any group of people left in the world you don't hate, as there isn't a single one that has never proposed a single bad idea.
As for the Gore dig, I always thought that was sour grapes. You can't tell me that if you had enough money where you can create a business that allows you to pay yourself, you wouldn't do it. Everyone's just mad that they don't have the resources to set up a gig like that.
If you are older, think cigarettes (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember for how long the tobacco industry denied that their was a health risk to smoking? Oh they were so happy to point out all the old people who smoked and still had gotten old, surely that proved how wrong all the scientist were and that there scientist who got their paycheck from them were right.
Or car safety. No sir, seatbelts kill people.
Look at Mythbusters, just how many stupid myths people want them to investigate over and over because they just want to believe some silly idea. Using a net in your pickup truck to safe fuel... IF that is going work, it only works in an empty truck AND one that doesn't need the door... so why have you got a pickup truck then? You drive a three ton vehicle with huge wasted space and worry about saving a few nickels.
One simple example of how denialists think, is that they have leaped on "global warming" rather then "global climate change". It is easier, anytime it snows you can shout "see, the world ain't getting warmer". Climate change is harder to debunk because ordinary farmers can tell you about it. Just a few more days of rain, or less can ruin a crop. And our western society isn't based on our universities, it is based on our farms. Farms that put plenty of food in our bellies, so much that very clever people can think very clever ideas and still think milk comes from a carton. The more intelligent a creature the less time it spends hunting for food == the less time hunting for food, the more intelligent you can become.
But what if the climate does happen to change? It could radically shift were what types of food can be grown. You might think grain is just about putting a seed in the ground and coming back half a year later to mow it, but it is a delicate process. A frost at the wrong time, not enough rain at some point, to much at another, can ruin the crop.
Right now, in the west we are incredible luck. A man can feed himself well for an entire day with about ONE hour of work, even on low pay. Say that prices double, what effect would that have on our society? Less money to spend on education, less money on healthcare. Less money to spend on taxes to fund the country as a whole.
People can understand that if the planet had just a slightly different orbit it would be a desolate place like mars or venus. But they don't understand that those two weeks of warm dry weather in fall are more then just a nice end to the summer, they are the time farmers need to make hay. No hay, no cheap cattle food for the winter, means that other places must grow the food that costs more and can't grow human food.
But hey, as long as you can drive your 3 ton pickup truck that never picks anything up, you can deny all you want. Just like a smoker with only 1 lung left and no larynx denies that there is anything wrong with smoking.
And really, the entire problem is just as with smoking, by the time we got the absolute evidence (you died from a tar lung) it really is to late.
Luddite flamewar approaching? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just over a decade ago someone at the small university department I was working at managed to produce reliable semiconductor junctions a single atomic layer thick on a tiny budget (not the first to do it), while in the room next door there was a guy with adjustable variable tint window coatings that worked a lot like e-ink. It takes time to iron out the bugs, you can't buy anything at Walmart like those yet but it's still worth hearing about such things long before they get turned into consumer goods or even before anyone goes looking for funding. There was a bit in the press about synrock TWENTY YEARS before it was used commercially to store high grade radioactive waste. I saw a hybrid car built to be used at a mine site in 1987 and scramjets were under development in the same building. Very interesting stuff, but not on the shelves anywhere. It can take years between when something interesting has prototypes and when you can easily get it.
The "where's my flying car now and I don't care what magic makes it work" attitude is actually fueling the bullshit PR releases you are talking about and the frequently increasing number of silicon snake oil scams. It's this bizzare obsession with technology coupled with a hatred of science - as paradoxical as young earth creationists in the oil industry.
You'll NEVER be able to buy the fruit of some new developments at Walmart but that doesn't mean that it isn't useful or interesting enough to be reported. It's depressing that even this site is infested with the "don't tell me if I can't buy it" attitude.
Shareholders voting against the public interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Shareholders Care More About Bottom Line Than Environment.
Film at 11.
Re:Thunk dumb. (Score:1, Insightful)
Modeling large scale climate changes is EASIER than modeling daily weather, for essentially the same reason that it is easier to guess how many people there are in a room than to give an accurate count: you are only interested in averages, small changes are irrelevant.
Re:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
Math doesn't demand any physical evidence of it's existence; it doesn't physically exist. Math is just a language used to describe other things. Math itself doesn't describe any physical reality, only the application of math may do so.
If you claim 1 + 1 = 2, you only need the internal consistency of math. If you claim 1 apple + 1 apples = 2 apples, you could ask for physical evidence.
Fairy tales and the notion of a god both describe things which would have a physical reality, thus both require physical evidence.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
If what most people believed in was real, then whatever the rapidly growing population of China believes in, will become reality very soon.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
Its becoming clear that a small core of wealthy individuals who benefit from laissez faire have hijacked the mind-share of you drones by their propaganda. Anthropogenic Global Warming is real according to the science and the reason we might get less optimal legislation is because of your drone like repetition of the views of the American Al Quaida - the Neocons or whatever they call themselves these days.
Let me put this bluntly, the biggest enemy of humanity is not global warming or terrorists, its you. The mindless drones of an insane political ideology that covets wealth for the few at the expense of the many. This is the war between the common people and the super rich, probably just the American super rich, though that is not yet clear. Do you think they care about the millions who will die as a result of global warming through wars over mass migration etc. They do not care because the rich are always able to look after themselves.
Take a good long hard look at the source of the propaganda you so enthusiastically spout and tell me with a straight face that the originators actually give a toss about your personal continued existence. They don't and you are a slave to people who would as soon kill you as speak to you. This AGW debate is not about the science, it hasn't been since before George Bush senior recognised it in public. Its about the subjugation of the American people by an ideology that despises the common man. Am I surprised that Al Gore is being used in a publicity stunt by the enemy of humanity, not at all.
The pure market may be capable of forcing business to take health and safety precautions like guards and interlocks on machine tools as a result of the dead suing them but in the mean time we use government to speed these free market changes up through regulation. The science says we are about to drown in our own excrement, so some kind of regulation is necessary to express the cost of these externalities in the market. Nothing new, nothing to see, move along now. Your outrage on behalf of the super rich is incomprehensible.
Re:Don't understand the hostility... (Score:3, Insightful)
So models were fine-tuned and improved with new data? You're making it sound nefarious, but that's just how science should work.
Re:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not in the least. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in the least. Isn't it funny how we don't mind laws as long as they're laws we agree with? Isn't it funny how we like the free market unless the free market eats our marketshare? Isn't it funny how you don't mind that companies want government in YOUR life but out of THEIR business?
Actually, that last one wasn't funny at all.
It's horrifying.
Re:Agree w/ parent... (Score:4, Insightful)
Proverbs 31:6-7 (NIV): Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.
Re:Thunk dumb. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in the traditional standard english sense of sentence, no. But in conversational use, people talk like that. If you're having trouble with it, it means that I'm incredulous as to the seriousness of the person I'm responding to.
Gore never once claimed that the glaciers would be completely melted by 2010. But that doesn't stop some idiot from claiming that Gore is a "laughingstock". Never mind that the glaciers *are* diminishing.
I'm usually of the opinion that idiots like this Apple shareholder shouldn't be dignified with a serious response. They should be laughed at and ridiculed. They aren't playing at making intellectually honest debate, and shouldn't be treated like they are. Sadly, many liberals seem to be infinitely patient and conciliatory when dealing with conservative cranks, and endure way too much abuse. We really need to do more to marginalize these cranks.
Re:Fools. (Score:4, Insightful)
Weird isn't it? It sounds almost like democracy.
Re:Fools. (Score:3, Insightful)
lead isn't any more dangerous than aspartame
Quite possibly the most stupid & uninformed claim I've heard all week.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning [wikipedia.org]
Re:Fools. (Score:1, Insightful)
Then there are the people who, any time they hear anything bad about the super-rich or the very much non-free market we have, go and assume we must want to prop up Lenin's dead body in the white house and paint a hammer and sickle on the flag.
People like you either don't know how stupid you sound, or don't really care. I can't think of any other reason someone capable of speech would be so idiotic.
Re:Flamewar imminent (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand why it is more comfortable to reject a conclusion that would require "uncomfortable" changes, but that doesn't make it any less true.
Cool it and think risk management (Score:2, Insightful)
Some important points are commonly lost in the climate change debate, not helped by the fact that the loudest voices are as likely to be motivated by ideology as informed by science.
There are few certainties- even the strongest advocates accept the increase by 2050 could be anything from 1 degree (manageable) to 5 degrees (catastrophic). There is definitely a finite probability (in my judgemement- but I'm not a climate scientist- high) that the planet is getting warmer, and also a finite probability (in my judgement less high but still significant) that the effect is man made.
So why don't we just cool it a bit, and see climate change policy for what it is- an exercise in risk management.
I don't think I'm about to wreck my car, and my house probably isn't going to burn down, but I insure both, because either event would hurt me seriously. I apply the classic risk management approach:
concern=probability of occurence * severity of consequence.
How about the same logic to the planet?
Re:Tora! Tora! Tora! (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet they'll at the same time start complaining about how they're being oppressed by moderation, even though they'll easily be dominating in the mod count. Mark my words.
It's really ridiculous. What ever happened to modding based on how reasonably a person is debating rather than whether the person matches your political ideology?
We've both been on Slashdot a long time. If you remember a time when your last sentence was true, I must have missed it.
Al Gore's boat, and my boat (Score:3, Insightful)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gore-hits-the-waves-with-a-massive-new-houseboat/ [pajamasmedia.com]
my boat:
cheap 8 ft. kayak
Yet, he gets to lecture me about carbon usage. Gore is a lightening rod of bad PR for everything he touches. That alone should make the Apple stockholders wary for electing him to the board. Making energy so expensive that the poor cannot afford it, while allowing the wealthy to use as much as they want through "carbon offsets" is one of the most despicable scams ever floated. Mr. Gore, if the planet is in such danger, then lead by example. Put on Gandi's loincloth first before telling the rest of us that we are wearing too much clothing. If we must use less energy, so be it. Then ration it. Then, if I have enough to last all month, Mr. Gore will be in the dark in his freezing cold home for three and a half weeks. By the way, Mr. Gore, the science is not settled simply because you say that it is. The bottom line: 1. don't lecture me 2. Stop trying to take money out of my pocket and putting it in yours.
Re:Fools. (Score:2, Insightful)
As an athiest myself, I have to say I personally am convinced that AGW does exist. I see no tendancy
for atheists to be deniers amongst those I know.
Wishfull thinking on the part of the deniers methinks.