The numbers don't lie. There is global warming and it will get worse/hotter no matter what is done. The question is what are the consequences will be, how humanity will be effected and what we can/should/will do about it. The first issue is to understand it will happen neither deniers or the crazy "stop the world" activists can stop it or will it away. As I said before there are at least 5,000,000,000 people who want and are working to become like us inthe way we enjoy modern conveniences. Let's be generous and say efficiency improvements etc cut the additional amount of energy required to merely double that of today we will add immeasurable volume of CO 2 and other greenhouse gas to the atmosphere and ocean. That is going to happen no one can deny them that right nor can we reduce our lifestyle to theirs. Likewise the so called "green power sources" will never be able to replace fossil fuel. They can supplement and help but two significant problems prevent that. First is availability. The sun doesn't shine 24/7/365. In fact in Hawaii where the sub is most available there is only a 6 hr/day available sun that can provide power. Even with storage solar can never meet more than a minor portion of demand. Likewise wind, wave or other flow derived source of power is reliable or dense enough. Only nuclear could do that but cost and safety make it problematic. The second block in the path to green power is location. The place where solar, wind and other of these options isn't where the power is used and needed. There is great cost in long line HV power transmission that would again prevent economic use of this power even if there was enough reliable power to be had from those sources and there isn't. We have a challenge ahead as a species. We can't go back and even if we did it would kill billions of people through starvation, epidemic and riot/war. We much use our brains to work our way forward. It may take radical steps in earth engineering to manage the build up of ocean acidity and temperature. It will likely require a spectacular transformation in technology. It may be a fusion breakthrough as Northrup Grummen alluded to a few months ago. Maybe orbital solar energy narrow beamed to earth. Fantasy? Maybe but look at the last 100 years...what we have would be considered fantastic. I do have tremendous faith in the genius of human ingenuity. I believe we will adapt and end up better off by far. My main problem is that many of those preaching the fear of global warming is that they are ruled by fear and rather than take on the challenge they want to walk back. My problem with they deniers is that by trying to ignore reality they will prevent us from moving ahead in a positive way to overcome this great challenge. We... Humanity Ned's to accept the challenge and use our brains, hearts and ingenuity to deal with it. Sorry for the sermon.
Not if they continue to deny that climate change is happening, amigo. When everyone gets on board THAT train, then we can get serious about the steps that you suggest.
I was joking, but you're wrong, I'm not better than that. I appreciate you think that highly of me tough
You know, that's not how it is normally defined in my experience. Of course, hard science and soft science are very informal terms and can be used in many contexts. But when I hear it used, it is to characterize fields of study by how their methodological rigor and objectivity is regarded. Basic and natural sciences are described as "hard", whereas the social sciences are usually considered to be "soft." Applied sciences like engineering and medicine can fall into both categories. There is really nothing soft about climatology.
Context...in consideration of the NASA budget, climate science does not compare to things I already mentioned like SOFIA, the Webb telescope, international space station. I specifically said Cruz would support the hard science projects as opposed to soft science. It's applicable across various projects and where money is being divided up.
Telescopes, space stations and observatories are not hard science, they are simply hardware. "Hard" sciences like physics, geology, and mathematics utilize these tools, and yes . . . that includes climatology, meteorology, cartography, and oceanography. Climate science is a natural science, not a humanity.
I addressed a very specific point about the NASA budget and what Cruz would likely support. Cruz was and has been called a "denier of science" which is absurd mostly because science is such a broad concept and clearly he doesn't "deny" all of it. It is likely that he would support projects that are traditionally considered "hard" in definition to include SOFIA, Webb telescope, further space exploration, etc. NASA's budget, in their own terms, breaks Earth Science (climate) out from everything else. NASA's budget has continued to shrink under a Democratic controlled Congress. Why are they not the deniers? I don't think one can successfully apply the term "science" across a broad spectrum, any more than one can`successfully apply the terms hard and soft across all academic disciplines. There are aspects of each to be found regardless of the field. "This difference is one of the examples that the very soft reasoning also exists in the hard scientific fields. In climate science, we face a lot of scientifically illiterate journalists who are excited if they are able to understand an idea such as the theory of the evil oil industry that is going to burn the Earth by 2016. But even many people paid as scientists are very soft. When people in many groups agree that the climate reconstructions are perhaps the single most well-defined tool to see whether the human influence on the climate exceeds the natural factors and whether it is unprecedented, they just don't want to look at the corresponding scientific work carefully enough. They don't care whether it's correct or wrong - and they openly tell you so - because what they're really building upon is not hard science. They are building on pillars of soft science such as the social consensus, the popular support for widely held myths. Very similar comments apply to the critics of theoretical physics. Whenever any particular question is being discussed - such as the question whether the coefficient 1/4 in the black hole entropy could be something else such as "ln(3)", they just don't want to look at the particular papers in detail. Many of them despise all serious papers. The epithet "not even wrong" is nothing else than a clear expression of hatred against hard scientific thinking in general. People who follow the "not even wrong" reasoning don't ever want to read or write any serious paper. They have already decided that about the truth without looking at a single technical question carefully. They have decided by the methods of very soft sciences. Various Peters Woits are extremely soft intellectual jellies - or jelly fish, if you wish - that you never want to touch because nothing useful can ever come out of it. The contrast between people like Peter Woit and hard sciences could not be sharper. In hard science, it is the whole idea to look for the most natural theories that are compatible with the real data - theories that are "not yet wrong". Hard sciences can never find theories (except for the ultimate and complete TOE) that are "forever correct". The only thing that hard sciences can find is a theory that is still working fine, a theory that is "not yet wrong". The fact that the jelly-fish critics of science try to humiliate this important principle by their epithets such as "not even wrong" proves that they have not understood what science is all about." I found this point of view to be interesting. http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/culture-wars-hard-vs-soft-sciences.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...get_2015_house_bill_restores_cut_funding.html This article is a good highlight of what to expect for this year and perhaps going forward.
Earth Science is not soft science, period. Spin it any way you like, but NASA's budget broke out climate for political reasons, not because the science was "soft". There was a democratic controlled congress exactly four years out of the last twenty. Nice try. You were the one that used to term in an attempt to make climate science seem somehow less worthy and a science, which is nonsense. No one is talking about journalists here. Stop trying to change the subject, We are talking about climate science, which you seem to be denying. Prove it. More science denial. You can't give me one example of this nonsense. I challenge you to do so. If you think the science of climatology relies on "social consensus" and "myths", then you don't understand how science works. Is it possible that you re confusing political tree-huggers with climate scientists who do legitimate research published and surviving challenges in established journals. You are arguing my point now. Glad to see you come around. Climate Science is legitimate, "hard", and scientific consensus is abundantly evident within it . . . all you have to do is look.
You took the conversation to a predictable place. I am not trying to have a discussion with you about the climate. I made a very correct and accurate comment about how Cruz will likely try to support NASA's budget. You can claim that climate study and space exploration are the same thing, but they are not. The terms hard and soft are easily applicable to the differences. I never said, nor even implied that climate science was less worthy. I said it was different....period. The fact that Dems are more fond of that budget aspect and Republicans are more fond of space exploration is also predictable. The entire discussion is political and I don't care about the politics of it all. You yourself claimed Cruz is a science denier....to borrow a phrase, what the hell does that even mean? It's stupid politics.
