tico89’s Recent Comments

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  Positions

  Americans are in no position to tell others not to destroy the climate, at least not yet

  Always a bit of a dodgy statement, I feel. If a doctor who you know for a fact smokes tells you to quit smoking for your health, do you ignore him because he's being hypocritical?

  Just a small comment, because I do agree that setting an example would be a million times better.

  And a totally bizarre theory: with climate change presumably there will be fewer blizzards, meaning fewer flights cancelled at this time of the year, meaning more emissions from flying. Another source of runaway emissions? Just something that occurred to me during the hours spent in airports and idling on taxiways.

  Bit terrified, to be honest. Decided to return to Grist after several months away, and this article is the first thing I get hit with. I was hoping the world would have become less lunatic, not more. Merry Christmas.

  If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

  On The Versace beach will be refrigerated posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 4 Responses

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  It's evolution

  Maybe Krauthammer has invented his own theory completely disproving Newton's Laws of Motion and is preparing his ground before unleashing them on the unsuspecting public.

  What people (like Krauthammer) always seem to miss about science is that it doesn't stay static, it evolves. This much more often that actually being disproved. So when scientists talk about uncertainties, they don't mean that next week someone else will come along about invent a new theory; they mean that soon someone else will come along and expand on the theory. Relativity and particle physics came along to expand on Newton. Other theories like superstrings try and reconcile it all.

  The problem is that non-scientists have a tendency to view scientific theories as absolutes. It must state exactly this, and if a new theory states something dissimilar, then the old one must be wrong. Scientists occasionally bark up the wrong branch for a while, but it's extremely unlikely that they're barking up the wrong tree.

  Science adapts to new findings. As we increasingly seem to be seeing around us, it's the humans that are having trouble doing that.

  If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

  On Bizarre talking points of WaPo columnist Krauthammer posted 1 year, 5 months ago 18 Responses

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  Be grateful for small mercies...

  On the upside, we get an extra decade of cooler weather to enjoy. Now it really is going to be the next generation that gets hit. (Saying this from the point of view from someone who is basically in the next generation)

  On the downside, as said by rwelborn and perfectly exemplified by jabailo, we get another decade of deniers saying 'but nothing's happening so what are we worried about?'. And if we mention this study, we get accused of simply prevaricating and refusing to admit that there's no such thing as climate change.

  Oddly though, the graphs I saw seemed to show more of a levelling off than much cooling. And then it leaps back up to join the levels that don't take the ocean into account. So the warming is clearly more effective than the cooling. Although, what happens when the cycle ends? Suddenly the ocean stops affecting the climate, or it goes into a warming cycle, in which case shouldn't it go even higher than only under human influence?

  This doesn't really buy time...just makes it worse when the time is up. On Next decade could be cooler than expected, says study posted 1 year, 6 months ago 7 Responses

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  Oceania?

  I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'Oceania', jabailo. Are you referring to that 'continent' (it's always a bit hard to know how to classify it) that includes huge numbers of tiny Pacific islands that will slowly disappear off the map as sea levels rise? That includes Australia, a country hit by drought and so worried about climate change they basically voted in a new Prime Minister to sign up for Kyoto? Just wondered.

  Actually, I agree with you Viridian. He is kind of fun to have around, and I'm fairly sure he's the longest lasting troll we've ever had on here. The day I don't see his comments all over Gristmill, I will feel a twinge of regret at the loss of such a brilliant source of humour. He could even believe in AGW, and merely be a brilliant satirist of the denier viewpoint.

  Apropos La Niña: is it just me, or are these events becoming more and more frequent? I remember reading once you expect them a couple of times a decade, but we just had an El Niño the year before last. On Global temps may drop this year but, alas, world still warming posted 1 year, 7 months ago 132 Responses

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  No effect

  Scientists are not concerned that the ice breakage will have an immediate effect on sea-level rise

  Of course it won't have an immediate effect--it won't have any effect on sea-level rise. It's already floating on water!

  It's this twisting that makes me irritated. It's not so obvious here, but some articles I've read managed to put "this won't affect sea-levels" and "this could cause sea-level rise" practically in the same sentence.It's this kind of thing that damages credibility.

  Yes, it could trigger some more major collapses, the loss of ice is perilous for the local wildlife, and this could lead to more serious melting, i.e. continental ice. So why not focus on that?On Giant Antarctic ice chunk collapses posted 1 year, 7 months ago 5 Responses