livendive

A pretty poor candidate, but possibly better than the current d-bag.

Blues,
Dave

You're correct that no single weather event can be attributed to climate change, whether it's an extreme temperature, a storm, or a drought. Each of those is weather. Climate is the collection of those things (and more), averaged over time. thus climate change can only affect the frequency and/or average magnitude of such events.

As for the other part, I'm no weather geek, but it seems to me that increased temperatures = increased evaporation, areas near the coast are generally more humid than inland areas, and the warmer it is near a large body of water, the more humid it gets. New Orleans is fun, but I damn sure wouldn't want to live there. YMMV.

Blues,
Dave

lawrocket

Quote

However, the energy lobby hasn't targeted tornado formation science for a smear campaign

Correct. But the AGW lobby has targeted tornadoes as the result of global warming. Scientists for the very large part haven't.

You're correct that there isn't much consensus on what effects, if any, climate change will have on tornadic activity. Droughts will generally reduce such storms, due to a lack of moisture in the air, but elevated temperatures will increase moisture near coasts to increase storm formation. How opposing forces will interact with each other is anyone's guess.

But don't think I didn't just notice you suggesting that a lack of scientific consensus is indicative of something. If you believe its absence is signficant, than logically its presence should also mean something.

Blues,
Dave

mirage62

Thanks Dave, I will look into this, my accountant told me I didn't qualitfy. I have more than 23 employees BUT some don't take the insurance because they have better insurance provided by there spouse. I used the number (23) that I provide for my example. Maybe that is the reason?

Yeah, that might do it. Not sure whether they count uninsured employees, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do.

Blues,
Dave

mirage62

From “The Kiplinger Letter”
“Firms offering insurance must pay and annual fee of $1 for each of the average number of people covered in 2012.
...
A $63.00 per person fee starting in 2014 on all firms that offer insurance.
...
Fact: The above will cost me over $1,473.00 a year.
...
BTW the “tax credit” I was supposed to get because I offered company paid health insurance – remember that? Well that credit was only for companies SMALLER than mine.

It sounds like you have 23 employees ($63 * 23 = $1449, plus $23 @ $1 each = $1,472).

The tax credit covers companies with up to 25 employees, not including owners.

So, if the average annual wage of your employees is less than $50,000/year, it would seem that you should be eligible for the tax credit.

Blues,
Dave

jcd11235

***the real issue is that taking money from State A and giving it to State B (after taking a cut) and then next year taking it from State B and giving it to State A (after taking a cut) is goofy.

the shell game should be eliminated, the states can take their own money for their own people and everyone ends up ahead - except for those that skimmed off it in the first place

It's not goofy at all. It's the basic insurance model. Losses are pooled and risk is significantly reduced, without any significant increase in cost. It's no different from your insurance premiums being used to pay the benefit for other insurance customers when they experience a covered loss, and their premiums being used to pay your benefit when you experience a loss.

If the individual states self-insured, they would have to maintain MUCH larger cash reserves, which, in all likelihood, would translate to higher taxes (with no economic benefit from those taxes, since the additional revenues would have to be stockpiled instead of pumped back into the economy).

It's not a shell game; it's basic risk management.

Except that in insurance, premiums are tied to individual risk. I live in an area that doesn't experience floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornados and that is a highly unlikely target for terrorist attacks. While I agree that pooling state resources reduces the individual risk to any particular state, if we were really following a commercial insurance model, the folks who exhibit safe home purchasing behavior (analogy clean driving record) would pay lower taxes than those who buy in hazardous areas (analogy reckless/DUI drivers).

Blues,
Dave

Southern_Man

***. I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to speak with any conviction, but if CNN published war plans, or the location of vulnerable American forces, or an in-depth analysis of Secret Service procedures, and any of these resulted in the loss of American life, I'd want to see reporters and management convicted and imprisoned.

I wouldn't. I value the freedom of the press far too much.

You are free to shake your fist at the world, but that freedom stops where someone else's nose begins. Likewise, the press is free to report what they wish, but there should be consequences if they abuse that freedom in a manner that costs others their lives.

Blues,
Dave

kallend

***
I find those private trade schools are very much over priced. you can get the same training for a fraction of the cost at a community college usually. the community college doesnt advertise during daytime tv though. so many might not know that.

in some areas industry partners with community colleges and even pays a lot of the tuition depending on demand. ive seen that with commercial diving and with trucking.

community colleges are great IMO. i wish more young people understood their value.

I agree, and many students who want to go to 4 year schools would actually do better to go to a community college for a year or two and then transfer. Would save them a ton of money.

This. My progression...
- AAS in environmental restoration at a community college ($500/class)
- BS in energy & environmental quality at a city college ($900/class)
- Now pursuing a Master's in infrastructure planning & management at a state college. ($2k per class)

Blues,
Dave

Gravitymaster

This is why we need guns.

This. If the girl who ran for help had shot the intruder before he took a hostage, the police would have been doing clean-up duty, a much more significant part of their job description than trying to stop a crime in progress.

Blues,
Dave

Kennedy

I don't like the idea of criminalizing the press sharing information. It's their job. I like things as they stand. Sharing classified information is a crime if you are sworn to protect it. It's not for anyone else. If you hack in and copy it, you're guilty of the hack, but not do sharing it. If you break in and steal it, that's burglary. If someone hands or to you, you're not.

That's the way it should be. I see no need to make it any more insane about classified material.

My gut instinct is that divulging classified information is a criminal act, and solicitation, coercion, or publication of classified material should make one at least an accessory to the crime. That said, this article mostly disagrees with my opinion. I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to speak with any conviction, but if CNN published war plans, or the location of vulnerable American forces, or an in-depth analysis of Secret Service procedures, and any of these resulted in the loss of American life, I'd want to see reporters and management convicted and imprisoned.

Blues,
Dave

kallend

Sens. Jim Inhofe (R, OK) and Tom Coburn (R, OK) repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief.

Late last year, Inhofe and Coburn both backed a plan to slash disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

In 2011, both senators opposed legislation that would have granted necessary funding for FEMA when the agency was set to run out of money. Sending the funds to FEMA would have been "unconscionable," Coburn said at the time.

I suspect the backpeddle will be along the lines of "Of course we want funding. As long as the great citizens of Oklahoma are forced to pay for recovery from disasters in other states, we should have access to the same forms of relief."

Blues,
Dave

The TL:DR version - You're correct that we're not going to just wake up one day and find Miami underwater. By the same token, we're not going to wake up one day, realize the climate scientists were right, and magically change the way we live. Both are gradual processes that will take some time. We know the world has been warming for the last several decades, and all signs point to this trend continuing, though there's some uncertainty as to the magnitude. Thus, the logical thing to do is to start adapting to accomodate both observations and reasonable predictions and start trying to mitigate any further contributions. We can ramp such efforts up or down as conditions suggest. Ignoring the signs would be stupid, as would be trying to immediately accomodate conditions that aren't expected for another century. Observe, adapt, predict...it's not just the means by which science is refined, it's also a good idea for how we go about our lives.

Blues,
Dave

You say this as if any reasonable person is proposing that there be no weening period for oil. I’m not suggesting that we simply close the valves. Adaptation takes time, and starting 80 years from now will be too late. Agriculture, as you say, represents an important set of impacts, however its also one that isn’t terribly difficult to modify over time, e.g. your grape and orange examples, or someone who’s currently dry-farming to switch to irrigation (Assuming, capital A, that sufficient water exists to do so).

For a different example, let’s look at Seattle, one of “greenest” powered metropolitan areas in the country (currently 92.4% hydro, 4% wind, 2.5% nuclear, and less than 1% from all fossil fuel sources), and also one with a very moderate climate, where extreme temperatures should not be a problem in the foreseeable future. Recent (2009) regional climate models suggest a temperature increase of about 2F in the 2020s, 3.2F in the 2040s, and 5.3F in the 2080s. No big deal, right? Given the wet nature of snowpack in the Cascades, these temperatures will have a significant impact on the “natural reservoir” from which Seattle draws its power through hydroelectric dams. Losing a week or two of winter on either side, and having more precipitation that currently falls as snow come down as rain instead is projected to reduce summer hydroelectric power potential by around 9-11% in the 2020s, 13-16% by the 2040s, and 18-21% by the 2080s (increasing winter potential by 0.5-4, 4-4.2, and 7-10% respectively). Again, that doesn’t sound intolerable; however it’ll take some innovative thinking to come up with carbon neutral solutions that don’t magnify the problem vs just installing a couple burners.

Now let’s complicate things. Currently, only a small percentage of homes in the Seattle area have air conditioning units. My family has five households in the area (brother, sister, parents, an aunt, and an uncle) …none of them currently have AC, despite good jobs and nice homes. For the few days of hot each summer, they keep the blinds down, the windows open, and strategically place fans. Add another 2 degrees on average, with a longer warm season, and they have the expendable income to retrofit, or to ensure AC is installed on their next homes. The problem is what comes next…given the access to AC, suddenly it becomes a lot more convenient to avoid even mildly “too warm” conditions, thus the AC is running a lot more often than the few days it currently would if they had it. One of my classmates who lives in Seattle confirms (anecdotally, of course)…he was in the same position, not installing AC because it wasn’t worth the investment, till his pregnant wife put her foot down, he installed it, and now he runs it on program 3 months per year. Estimates (Source) for the overall effect of this increased market penetration of AC? 92-118% increased energy for cooling in the 2020s, 174-289% in the 2040s, and 371-749% in the 2080s, and those are assuming the population remains constant at the 2000 level (broad ranges because social predictions are even tougher than climate change), Also, the vast majority of this will comie during the peak demand time of day, and substantially later in the year than “peak hydro” is available.

The solution? It’s not to turn off the oil that’s not currently being burned, it’s to avoid the need for it in the future. How do we do that? By encouraging the use of carbon neutral technologies now. In large housing projects, require south facing roofs to have sufficient overhang to minimize solar heating in the summer while still allowing it in the winter. Encourage/subsidize geothermal and/or adiabatic systems in new housing projects. Try to encourage similarly carbon-neutral solutions now, let the early adopters make them popular, and reap the benefits later.

If all climate scientists are wrong, meh…some homes are more comfortable. What’s the “OMG, we’re all going to die” downside? On the other hand, if the warming goes as predicted, and nothing is done, then by the 2040s we’ll have a 175-289% increase in cooling demand to go with a 13-16% reduction in primary power capacity. Offsetting that with easy to install fossil fuel plants and you just exacerbate the problem. My point? Confronting the problem now has a lot less downside than it will in the future.

Blues,
Dave

lawrocket

I say, "we don't know whether we can accurately predict or not. We have to wait another 80 years until we see how the predictions panned out."

Here's the rub...what are the implications of being wrong? If we prepare for global warming and try to mitigate it by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and trying to live more sustainably, and the warming fails to materialize, what harm have we done? On the flip side of that coin, if we ignore it for 80 years and do as we please, and the climate scientists were right, well that's a cat you can't put back in the bag.

Reasonable accomodations leave us as prepared as we can be for any eventuality, and the cost of being wrong is measured purely in dollars. Obstinance, on the other hand, leaves us only prepared for one eventuality, and the risk of being wrong is not only far more dollars (preparation being cheaper than recovery) but many lives as well.

I'm a big proponent of robustness analysis, in skydiving, at work, and for life in general. My basic approach is "Keep as many options and feasible paths to success as possible." Ignoring the claims of an overwhelming majority of experts, with very little credible opposition, on the basis that long term predictions haven't been proven yet, seriously limits our future options.

Blues,
Dave

rehmwa

***7. Address the argument instead of attacking the person making the argument. Ad hominem arguments are a clear sign of intellectual dishonesty. However, often times, the dishonesty is more subtle. For example, someone might make a token effort at debunking an argument and then turn significant attention to the person making the argument, relying on stereotypes, guilt-by-association, and innocent-sounding gotcha questions. - BINGO. The whole argument rests on two points: (1) not debateable; and (2) look at who disagrees. The whole article is an attack on those who question. (These are now called threats to national security, by the way).

these are scientists

it would different if they were just posting in Speaker's Corner - then the tactic is normal

In Speaker's Corner, valid arguments and invalid rhetoric are compared as apples to apples. I respect the people who make valid arguments, even if I disagree with their conclusions. The other folks...meh, just noisy entertainment. It's highly unlikely that they or I will ever convince the other of anything because both of us stopped listening to each other long ago, albeit for different reasons.

Blues,
Dave

My favorite part was, "But in this new analysis, by only including the temperatures from the last decade, the projected range would be 0.9-2.0C."

Blues,
Dave

Going one further than my last graph, in order to accommodate some economic data...

Blues,
Dave

jcd11235

***Agreed, however when the observations fall outside of the 95% confidence range the model is invalidated.

That is incorrect. Even with an accurate model, we expect some observations to fall outside of our prediction interval. Those observations do not invalidate the model.

Not only will some observations fall outside a 95% confidence interval, the true value will lie outside of it 5% of the time.

Blues,
Dave

We only get one week off between this quarter and summer...you should come over for dinner one night the week following June 10th! Or....maybe one afternoon next weekend? Be warned though, I'll put you to work. Replacing one of the engines in the boat and hoping to assemble the new engine on Friday and maybe get a tow-truck here to do the lifting during the long weekend. With any luck, I can get the rest of the pieces bolted on during the week off from school and finally get her back in the water.

Blues,
Dave

lawrocket

[Reply]. When all of the IPCC models predict the same observable trend, and no critics offer a better alternative theory, the logical thing to do is look for revisions to the models that will accomodate observations,

For example, considering that climate sensitivity to CO2 might, just might, be less that 2 C? The IPCC figures of 3 C have been lowered to 2 C. Might the sesitivty be even lower? It would explaint a lot.

The data/model disconnect is meaning that the estimation of forcings is wrong. Which is easy enough to do, considering the myriad relationships that must be estimated. So volcanic aerosols might be underestimated. Sulfur forcings from anthropohenic forcings might be underestimated.

And CO2 forcings may be overestimated. What about a value of, say, 1.6 or 1.7? It would seem to better match the data. Problem is, that takes down a whole bunch of the predictions to have CO2 forcing at roughly half the IPCC value. It's the difference between "you're eating an extra 300 calories per day" to "you're eating an extra 160 calories per day.". That's the difference between gaining 30 pounds in a year and gaining 16 pounds in a year. The implications of that difference are huge.