This thread is just to post interesting news, thoughts, opinions about climate change.
That's true—it's the IPCC after all—but for getting across to the public and politicians what the real issue is, I'd prefer "global warming".
But using the term "global warming" allows deniers to do this bullshit.
I'd argue that climate change is the proper term because it's the impacts of global warming that are going to get policymakers to pay attention to the issue.
A chart with a hockey stick temperature curve or talks about PPM of CO2 aren't ever going to get a Congressperson to pay attention to the issue. What will is their constituents constantly coming to them complaining about extended droughts that are killing their crops or causing massive wildfires that burn their houses down. Or that that they frequently have to vote for billions in emergency FEMA spending because of natural disasters.
It's up to scientists to make sure that policymakers understand the direct linkage between increasing temperatures and all the things that are hurting their constituents and causing them to spend more money.
And if the Tea Party and Trumpists get more seats, they literally won't listen to their constituents on this. Look at Florida; Miami has been seeing direct effects of sea level rise (far more flooding at high tide and in storms, blocks into the city; salt water intrusion into the freshwater table), but the Governor has banned not just tracking climate data but the state using terms that indicate it...
The state has only recently (and stingily) started to contribute to flood control plans in Miami.
That's amazing, Robear. The depths to which these people will plunge and subject everyone else to their frightening agendas.
Rick Scott needs to have been impeached five years ago.
There's a lot worse than Indiana. 
There might be language which is more or less effective at convincing people, but there's no magic bullet to phrasing things such that folks won't be able to misconstrue it. The "tricks" to get people on board are things like gently sowing doubt in their wrong beliefs, avoiding a sense of inevitability or doom, and offering them small, achievable ways to help. I know that's not stuff that feels like it's going to make enough of a change soon enough, but that's what it takes to get humans to change their minds.
I want to take that exact same graph, but change the labels and values on the axes to make it look like a graph of the economy under Obama, and try to convince my climate change skeptic acquaintances that it's just a temporary dip due to natural global economic processes. Then, after they exhaust their efforts to prove that it's actually an economic nosedive because of direct actions on the part of Obama and the Democrats, do the old switcheroo and reveal what it's really a graph of, and say "I'm glad you finally accept that this is not a natural process, but the result of human activity." 
Don't do it, Farscry. "Of *course* it looks that way, the data was *manufactured* to look that way. Climate science is junk science and the scientists are frauds. They probably used the Obama economy stats as a model for their climate lies, to distract us from Obama's failures...".
I'm serious. The weird goes deep...
I wish you were wrong.
Gotta move out of the South for that graph to have any meaning, Mr. Boon sir.
Tagging in.
The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Please, won't anyone think of the iron?
Malor wrote:Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Please, won't anyone think of the iron?
We will if the core stops spinning and we lose our protective magnetosphere.
Malor wrote:Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Please, won't anyone think of the iron?
I keep misreading that as "ion."
#ionospheresmatter
Yonder wrote:Malor wrote:Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Please, won't anyone think of the iron?
We will if the core stops spinning and we lose our protective magnetosphere.
It's okay, we can restart it with a few well-placed nukes.
Yonder wrote:Malor wrote:Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:The planet will be fine... it's the inhabitants that should worry.
When people use 'the planet', what they really mean is 'the biosphere'.
The planet itself is just rocks and water, mostly. It's not very interesting. The Solar system is full of rocks and water.
Biospheres? Not so much.
Please, won't anyone think of the iron?
I keep misreading that as "ion."
#ionospheresmatter
(made joke, realized it was probably incredibly insensitive. Retracted)
Sorry, Michael Crichton is long dead.
Sure seems to be. Years earlier than I expected.
Well, if you want to wallow in how bad things are. Watch this:
I haven't finished it yet, but it's like looking at that XKCD comic over and over again. I'm only able to watch it because I have it on in the background as I do some work.
Video got set to private.
Video got set to private.
Bleh, I guess it's no longer free. I noticed you could rent it for free via PSN a week ago.
It's called Before the Flood. I thought things were pretty dire before yesterday happened. Huh. I'm sure glad I don't have any kids.
Well, this isn't good, but it's not the worst news you can imagine: Global carbon emissions flatline continues.
Until the number starts going down, though, there's no real reason to be hopeful. We're still dumping more emissions out than ever before these last 3 years. Of course, it could start going up again, too.
2016 Will Be the Hottest Year On Record, UN Says
2016 will very likely be the hottest year on record and a new high for the third year in a row, according to the UN. It means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record will have been this century. From an article on The Guardian:The scorching temperatures around the world, and the extreme weather they drive, mean the impacts of climate change on people are coming sooner and with more ferocity than expected, according to scientists. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, published on Monday at the global climate summit in Morocco, found the global temperature in 2016 is running 1.2C above pre-industrial levels. This is perilously close to to the 1.5C target included as an aim of the Paris climate agreement last December. The El Nino weather phenomenon helped push temperatures even higher in early 2016 but the global warming caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities remains the strongest factor.
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