# Modern Civilisation Is Unsustainable - NASA study



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I think it was already increasingly obvious to anyone with a capacity to think, but maybe NASA can enlighten a few cronies.

"Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use."

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

Of course we all know Canada is superior to any other arbitrary space on this finite planet, so let's all just worry about how to get our big heads back in the sand.

PS, Can anyone provide a link to the actual study?


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I was reading about this on reddit last night. I've love to read the actual report, have read requests from people asking for the actual report link but so far nothing I've seen links back to the original report.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Does it actually exist?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

You'll find it right next to the study that says we will all be just fine.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

It hasn't been published, but here's a link to the author's page with a link to the draft: http://www.sesync.org/users/smotesharrei

It's really just a Malthusian mathematical model.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Reading all the news reports on this reminded me of my days as a journalist watching how much copying goes on by reporters too lazy or too pressed for time to do any actual reporting by going back to the original source. First, lots of news sources referred to this as a "NASA Study," when it was in fact a university study done with funding by NASA. The lead author is a graduate student at the University of Maryland. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a "NASA Study." A number of the news reports spelled his name incorrectly, and you can follow the copycat trail of lazy reporting by looking at the stories that spelled his name Safa Motesharri instead of the correct Safa Motesharrei, including the Huffington Post, the London Independent, and dozens of other sources.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Every civilization in the history of our planet has eventually collapsed...why do people of this one assume they are any better? Just because it will collapse, doesn't mean something better won't arise to replace it.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

Just a Guy said:


> Just because it will collapse, doesn't mean something better won't arise to replace it.


I'd substitute 'else' for 'better'. :wink:


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

NASA still believes in Global Warming.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> Every civilization in the history of our planet has eventually collapsed...why do people of this one assume they are any better? Just because it will collapse, doesn't mean something better won't arise to replace it.


but the issue wasn't collapse of a civilization, which is routine throughout history ... the issue was disappearance of human life due to socio/enviro damage to the planet, was it not?

this has never happened. It's true that humans could die out & their places could be taken by other life forms, perhaps insects or bacteria for example, that might require less oxygen or food ... but nothing like this has ever happened ...


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Tell that to the dinosaurs and the other 99.999% of all creatures which are now extinct (most of those long before humans ever had an impact).


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

... i was just pointing out that "civilization" is a word that applies to human networks only ... are u saying that the dinosaurs had a civilization? complete with languages, art, laws, music, government, beings with social consciences, etc?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> Tell that to the dinosaurs and the other 99.999% of all creatures which are now extinct (most of those long before humans ever had an impact).


I think humans have shown that they are not your run of the mill species. Humans are one of the most adaptable multicellular species ever. We probably won't outlast cockroaches, but it's going to take a pretty epic extinction event to wipe out humanity entirely.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Do you have any concept of what 65 million years ago really means? Humans have only been around for about 15,000. I'd bet it would be pretty hard to imagine how "advanced" our society was looking back 65 million years from now. Other than twinkies, not much else would be around...even plastics break down and disappear in those time periods.


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## hboy43 (May 10, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> Humans have only been around for about 15,000.


Say what?! My National Geographic has renderings of things that look a lot like humans going back millions of years, you know "Lucy" et al? Perhaps what you meant to say was was "civilization" as in organized agriculture and settlements.

On second thought maybe you are right and the predecessor species are not considered human. What is the definition of human anyhow?

So I consulted the great guru Wikipedia, Ok, so humans are only **** sapiens, but not the predecessor species. I did not find a hard number like we have been around 15000 years but I did find:

"Anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record in Africa about 195,000 years ago, and studies of molecular biology give evidence that the approximate time of divergence from the common ancestor of all modern human populations was 200,000 years ago."

Continuing down ...

"The forces of natural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display directional selection in the past 15,000 years."

Still unclear to me if you are right or not. Any biologists her to enlighten?

hboy43


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

Not a lot of Christians in cmf?
My belief,god(or if you like a ''higher'' power is in control)
I personally don't believe the scientific community.
I truly believe in the spirituality ''world'' we humans are puppets
If we get wiped out it wont be science based.
I don't buy we just evolved from a black hole or a atom
We are all on a journey and there is a after life.....life is a test.I don't believe we die and that is" it" and if ''god' wants to wipe us out he will and if he replaces humans with a different creation he will.
I do believe that most of our life is filled between good and evil/beauty and pain.Think about it,humans are souls in a human body(free to think/choose for the most part)
How can you not look out your window and not see this is god's painting!?fully believe that.
Nasa smarter than that?FAT chance!bullshit.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> Do you have any concept of what 65 million years ago really means? Humans have only been around for about 15,000. I'd bet it would be pretty hard to imagine how "advanced" our society was looking back 65 million years from now. Other than twinkies, not much else would be around...even plastics break down and disappear in those time periods.


Chopping off mountain tops and gigantic mines don't disappear from the geological record too easily.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I noticed that as well. But this is, sadly, how the human masses think, like lemmings. I used to bang my head against a wall trying to have people think about the sh*# they were spewing, but eventually realized they didn't want reality, they wanted reality television.



brad said:


> Reading all the news reports on this reminded me of my days as a journalist watching how much copying goes on by reporters too lazy or too pressed for time to do any actual reporting by going back to the original source. First, lots of news sources referred to this as a "NASA Study," when it was in fact a university study done with funding by NASA. The lead author is a graduate student at the University of Maryland. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a "NASA Study." A number of the news reports spelled his name incorrectly, and you can follow the copycat trail of lazy reporting by looking at the stories that spelled his name Safa Motesharri instead of the correct Safa Motesharrei, including the Huffington Post, the London Independent, and dozens of other sources.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Chopping off mountain tops and gigantic mines don't disappear from the geological record too easily.


In 65 million years, even mountains can disappear...

Again, humans have a hard time grasping that number. Even if we take 200,000 years, that's 200,000/65,000,000 or 0.3%

Do you realize the stegosaurus was around 100 MILLION years before the T-Rex?

As for knowing how intelligent they were, remember about 100 years ago, if not still today, scientists "proved" intelligence was related to skin colour or religion...

Even the environmentalist think plastic doesn't last much more than 1000 years. Everything you think of today will not be recognizable in 1 million years...there would be no computers, books, CDs, DVDs, pyramids, Great Wall, buildings, roads, or anything...

We may have left our mark on the moon, but even then, with the number of asteroids that will strike it over 65,000,000 years, even that is unlikely.

Humans can't grasp large numbers...and are so arrogant that they believe they can defy them. If we get into the fact that dinosaurs spanned millions of years, even our lousy 120,000 is not much more than a rounding error. Our "science" is only a few hundred years old, yet we assume we know what to look for in detecting signs of "civilization" from a few holes in the ground...heck, this is the same species who many would argue the world is only 6000 years old because they read it in a book that was pieced together from a bunch of selective paper stuffed in clay jars, many of which were rejected, surpressed or edited, and designed to control others...

(Well, this thread should start to get interesting)


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Well, the next ice age is scheduled for 30,000 years from now, so that should put an end to a lot of things. 
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-6-1.html


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

brad said:


> Well, the next ice age is scheduled for 30,000 years from now


So, um.....buy Zamboni shares?


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

Just a Guy said:


> Every civilization in the history of our planet has eventually collapsed...why do people of this one assume they are any better? Just because it will collapse, doesn't mean something better won't arise to replace it.


The difference is that this isn't just the collapse of a civilization - it is the collapse of the the entire plant's food chains and ecosystems!http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists


Quite sobering really. I read a variation on the story found in the above link. The scientists ran 4 mathematical models to determine whether current and expected rates of consumption and population growth could support the population in the future - and the models cam back with a verdict of "extinction" - this is not good.
Thomas Malthus (a scientist who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin) arrived at a similar conclusion in the mid 1800's - but modern agriculature (the green revolution) extended mankind's ability to produce more food - but this recent study suggests that even technology may not be able to help unless some drastic action of population controls, and wealth restructuring are implemented.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

These mathematical models any better than the ones they use to predict the weather?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

No model can predict the far future; models provide projections based on assumptions and scenarios. If the scenario's wrong, the future won't play out according to the model projection. If the assumptions are wrong, same story. Some outcomes over some time frames are scenario-independent: they will occur no matter what. But most far-future outcomes projected by models depend crucially on the chosen scenario.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

Just a Guy said:


> These mathematical models any better than the ones they use to predict the weather?


I doubt that they are any better - but are weather forecasters (at least those that predict weather within 24-72 hrs in the future) often wrong?

It is a model that they are using. Forecasts are limited -they only take "inputs" and produce "outputs", so your question, and inference that these models acheive little, is not lost on me. But, some models -especially those produced by NASA scientists, I suspect are quite good.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

brad said:


> Reading all the news reports on this reminded me of my days as a journalist watching how much copying goes on by reporters too lazy or too pressed for time to do any actual reporting by going back to the original source. First, lots of news sources referred to this as a "NASA Study," when it was in fact a university study done with funding by NASA.


Yes I noticed this as well. I'm not 100% sure if this is really worthy of being called a "NASA study" either, but it is quite common for studies to be outsourced to academics and partially claimed by those who backed it. If the military or whoever wants something studied, they do take partial credit for having it studied even if they didn't study it them self.. Some of the best courses I've taken by far were based on NASA studies.. They have unique interests you could say. Whether modern civilization is sustainable (on this planet) is definitely in NASA's best interest!



humble_pie said:


> but the issue wasn't collapse of a civilization, which is routine throughout history ... the issue was disappearance of human life due to socio/enviro damage to the planet, was it not?
> 
> this has never happened. It's true that humans could die out & their places could be taken by other life forms, perhaps insects or bacteria for example, that might require less oxygen or food ... but nothing like this has ever happened ...


When certain resources become scarce, modern civilization would collapse long before humans went extinct. Imagine you could no longer afford electricity or oil? Humans wouldn't die out anytime soon, but civilization would instantly collapse as we know it. The abandoned power grids and pipelines would become our viaducts. Mass populations would no longer be sustainable and survival of the fittest would prevail. This apparent study says we are headed for that scenario within decades using conservative models. Modern civilization fueled by non-renewable resources is unsustainable at this rate of growth.

I see a blatant yet unspoken justification for space exploration here. I think it's more likely to discover new resources than to convince society to start sharing and conserving what we have now.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

^ I think that's an important distinction. Collapse of human civilization is orders of magnitude likelier than extinction. But even that is pretty unlikely, I think. Not to say things can't go badly and result in many deaths/shrinking of population.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Just a Guy said:


> These mathematical models any better than the ones they use to predict the weather?


You mean the ones that proved that by 2010 we would be drowning and dying of thirst at the same time?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Which models predicted that?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I was thinking more of the nasa backed, as well as government backed, models that can't even predict that next week it's going to be cold and lousy in Canada...heck, I could have written a model for Canadian weather that would be accurate for 8 months of the year...and saved a lot of money.

I suppose I should add an exception to my model for Vancouver and the west coast. There, instead of being cold and crappy, it's going to rain.

More money has been spent on weather prediction than any extinction papers, and they can't get more accurate than about 48 hours into the future, yet all these chicken littles think that these models that predict things long after we'll all be dead are accurate...

Should we prepare to catch a ride on the next comet tail too?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

^ This just sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Difference between weather and climate...


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I was talking weather...not climate. More money has been spent on weather prediction models than climate models, yet they still can't predict next week's weather.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

It's actually easier to predict climate with confidence than weather -- kind of like the difference between trying to predict stock prices for next week versus long-term trends in stock prices.

We've just passed 348 consecutive months in which the global average temperature has been above the 20th century mean, which is in line with climate model projections. It's a pretty safe bet that this trend will continue, but next week's weather is hard to predict with much confidence.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Yet we are still colder than we were in the 1300...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Did you even read that?


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

brad said:


> We've just passed 348 consecutive months in which the global average temperature has been above the 20th century mean, which is in line with climate model projections. It's a pretty safe bet that this trend will continue, but next week's weather is hard to predict with much confidence.


Not where I live. We have just had one of the longest, coldest winters I remember and it isn't over yet. Temp has been below average since early December. First day of spring and it's freezing. I'd like to catch one of those douchebags who promised us Global Warming back in the 80s and kick him in the nuts.

For those who are not sure about the difference between weather and climate. Climate is why people move to Vancouver. Weather is why they leave.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Not where I live. We have just had one of the longest, coldest winters I remember and it isn't over yet. Temp has been below average since early December. First day of spring and it's freezing. I'd like to catch one of those douchebags who promised us Global Warming back in the 80s and kick him in the nuts.
> 
> For those who are not sure about the difference between weather and climate. Climate is why people move to Vancouver. Weather is why they leave.


And yet Australia was suffering heat waves and Europe generally had a mild winter. But I guess none of that counts because it's not local weather.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Did you even read that?


Did you look at the scale of that graph? 2004 isn't even a blip on a 200 year span. The graph is an interpretation, at least at the end. The data for it would probably be rounded down significantly. Ever study statistics?


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

bgc_fan said:


> And yet Australia was suffering heat waves and Europe generally had a mild winter. But I guess none of that counts because it's not local weather.


\

Well then it's not GLOBAL warming is it? Don't give me that bullshit about how the world is burning up, everywhere except where I live.

I've given up criticizing the Global Warming scam. Nobody believes in it anymore but a few diehards. None of their predictions have come true or even come close. Many of them have been exposed as outright fakes. One of the fathers of Global Warming, and the inventor of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock, held a press conference in which he said it was time to rethink the whole business because none of his predictions came true and he obviously had gotten things wrong. He also said that he could tell the truth about the Emperor's clothes because he was 92 years old and retired, and no longer had to worry about things like tenure and political correctness.

Australia always suffers heat waves in the winter. Our winter is their summer. And if Europe had a mild winter it is news to me, but I suppose it makes up for what they suffered last winter.

I thought I would be safe in saying what the weather was like outside my own door but evidently, that does not count. The only thing that counts is the statements of some hand wavers with an agenda to sell.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

The heat waves that Australia suffered this year were extreme. The heat records they set this year broke the records that they set last year. Yes I'm quite aware that the Southern hemisphere's summer is during our winter time which isn't exactly and argument. By that rational, we shouldn't be surprised by the cold weather in winter. Besides, from my recollection, up until this year winters have been fairly mild compared to a dozen years ago.

As for James Lovelock, he didn't turn away from global warming, he stated that he exaggerated and over-extrapolated the data. He still believes in global warming, just that it won't occur as quickly as he thought.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Not where I live. We have just had one of the longest, coldest winters I remember and it isn't over yet. Temp has been below average since early December. First day of spring and it's freezing. I'd like to catch one of those douchebags who promised us Global Warming back in the 80s and kick him in the nuts.


The term "global warming" refers to global average warming: an increase in the earth's average (mean) temperature. I'm not sure if you understand the concept of averages, but when you took a test in school and the class average was 85, does that mean everyone in the class scored 85 on their exam? And if the class average score last week was 85 but this week the average score was 90, does that necessarily mean that everyone in the class got better grades? Or if you picked 10 stocks that all lost money this year, does that mean the stock market as a whole did badly?

The global average temperature is about 15 degrees C. Does that mean that the annual average temperature in every part of the world is 15 degrees C? In Antarctica? In Brazil?

I defy you to find a single climate model or climatologist who ever predicted that every area of the world would get warmer at the same rates under "global warming." In fact all the models show different areas warming at different rates, with some regions warming very little and even some cooling in some areas, at least until later this century. Plus there's a lot of natural variation in climate that can swamp out the global warming signal in any given year. Right now El Niño and La Niña have a bigger influence on climate than greenhouse gases do, for example. All the models predict snow and cold snaps in winter, even as the world warms overall. In fact there may be more snow in some areas than anyone has experienced in the past century.

So far the global average temperature in 2014 has been warmer than the 20th century mean, even if the temperatures in North America have been colder than usual this winter.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> Did you look at the scale of that graph? 2004 isn't even a blip on a 200 year span. The graph is an interpretation, at least at the end. The data for it would probably be rounded down significantly. Ever study statistics?


To see actual data from 1880-2014 see this graph:

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> NASA still believes in Global Warming.


LoL! NASA should be doing their research in Winnipeg in the winter instead of Florida..
Now take Winnipeg this "Artic Vortex" winter. It reported that it was so cold, your words would freeze, then you would have to wait for spring to hear them
and there would be a huge babble of conversations that nobody could understand what they said when it was so cold. .:biggrin:




> (Did "Polar Vortex" Cause Deep Freeze?)
> Persistent winds pushed wind chills into life-threatening territory, reaching 40 below to 60 below zero across a large swath of the Midwest.
> The National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio, said the wind chills were the coldest observed in central and southwest Ohio since 1994.


I think Randy Bachman best summed up this "global warming" as it affects Canada in this "Prairie Town" song.

Winter nights are long, summer days are gone
Portage and Main fifty below
Springtime melts the snow, rivers overflow
Portage and Main fifty below


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

carverman said:


> Now take Winnipeg this "Artic Vortex" winter. It reported that it was so cold, your words would freeze, then you would have to wait for spring to hear them


That's a story from the Paul Bunyan fables! I remember hearing it when I was a kid.

As for the Arctic vortex, some scientists think that this winter was so cold due to the reduction in Arctic sea ice (caused by global warming), but it's far from proven and there are lots of other possible explanations. Sea ice extent has a big influence on weather patterns in North America, and it's been declining rapidly over the past few decades. See https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ and http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/future/warm_arctic_cold_continent.html


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

It's the second day of spring and 2 more inches of "global warming" fell overnight. This past winter was about the worst in 25 years for cold, snow and storms and it isn't over yet.

Do you guys ever watch the news? Do you ever go outside? What would it take to convince you that what you were told about Global Warming 25 years ago isn't true?

Even the Global Warming scammers have moved on. They saw they were busted by reality so they gave their racket a new name and now it's called Climate Change.

It doesn't have the zing of Global Warming, or Global Cooling as they called it in the seventies. But at least they won't have to keep changing it, since it doesn't mean anything to begin with.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

To bad that link doesn't go back to before the 1300 to see how it compares (records I read said the global mean was 1.5C warmer than today back then...no pollution cause, just nature). One always forgets about the smaller cycles as well...

I remember a brown Xmas when I was younger, followed by some of the worst weather, then 30 years later (more or less) we had a couple of brown Xmases followed by some of the worst winters...

The nice thing about stats is, you can prove anything you want as long as you take the right sample set.

Again, humans have no concept of large numbers...100 years is nothing in the long scheme of things.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> To bad that link doesn't go back to before the 1300 to see how it compares (records I read said the global mean was 1.5C warmer than today back then...no pollution cause, just nature). One always forgets about the smaller cycles as well...


Natural cycles are well accounted for in the climate models and projections. All climatologists understand that the climate is naturally variable and changes from one year to the next, and periods of abnormally cool or abnormally warm weather are to be expected. Solar and orbital variations play a big role in climate on long time scales, but they can't explain the changes we've seen over the past century. Those don't follow the pattern you'd expect from natural causes.

As for the Medieval Warm Period, the jury is still out on whether it was, on a global average basis, warmer than the 20th century. See https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Of course the jury is still out, as it would really screw up the global warming debate...of course them changing the name to climate change shows me they had to throw in the towel.

My point isn't if it was or wasn't warmer...my point is people are arrogant enough to think they KNOW. We think we understand medicine, history, climate, etc. and we're willing to change history or facts to suit our needs. The truth is, we know very little, we discover a few facts, create a few myths (remember being taught that Columbus proved that the world wasn't flat? The stuff I've read said it was a well known fact long before...but many still believe it was Columbus who changed the thinking) and pretend we are all experts...

Most of what I was taught in high school was, as I found out in university, proven wrong years before...it was still taught though because it was simpler and what teachers knew...

My kids were still taught about the brontosaurus in school in the last few years...it was disproved to exist before I was out of play school...but people still believe it existed. The teacher refused to believe she was wrong, even when presented with the truth...

We, as a species, like to think we have an impact on the universe, that we alone are the only ones to understand...the truth is we're nothing but a bunch of arrogant, silly monkey cousins (note, evolution states we share a common ancestor, not that we a are descendants of monkeys) with inflated egos.

What would happen if we one day discovered dinosaur prints on the surface of the moon? They were around a lot longer than we were, and we only explore an area the size of a small park on the moon...

Do I think it's likely? No but, I think it's possible for a species that was around for 1,000,000x longer than us, of which we know basically nothing (and what many believe was mostly made up in the beginning of the discoveries) to have accomplished a lot more than we think.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> Of course the jury is still out, as it would really screw up the global warming debate...of course them changing the name to climate change shows me they had to throw in the towel.
> 
> My point isn't if it was or wasn't warmer...my point is people are arrogant enough to think they KNOW.


Actually, though, the only people I see claiming they KNOW are the skeptics. If you read anything by climate scientists they all acknowledge and stress the uncertainties. It's just that the evidence is now so strong that very few climatologists remain skeptical. A lot of the "true believers" started out as skeptics but were convinced by the evidence.

Science isn't done by vote, and one person who's right is worth 10,000 who are wrong. I'd love to see one of the skeptics turn out to be right, as would everyone. But so far the strongest evidence points the other way. The science of climate change is a lot more sophisticated and robust than most of the skeptics would have you believe. But everyone (except people like Al Gore, who's not a scientist but a politician) acknowledges that there is uncertainty and we don't have all the answers.

Rusty's position reminds me of an excruciating interview I saw with the founder of the Weather Channel a few years ago. It would have gotten him flunked out of Climatology 101 (meteorology and climatology are two separate disciplines, and many meteorologists have only a basic understanding of climate). There were lots of howlers in his assertions, but the biggest one was when he said that none of the IPCC's predictions about global warming had come true. The poor dude was so clueless that he hadn't looked at the dates for those projections -- they are for the years 2075-2100. Why would we expect to see conditions today that aren't expected to occur for another 60 years or more? This like someone telling you that you'll be dead by the year 2100 and you saying, "I'm alive now, therefore your prediction is wrong."


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

brad said:


> Why would we expect to see conditions today that aren't expected to occur for another 60 years or more? This like someone telling you that you'll be dead by the year 2100 and you saying, "I'm alive now, therefore your prediction is wrong."


Well if we have nothing else to worry about, we can always worry about the future..asteroid impact or this..our sun turning into a red giant some day and the seas evaporating..and life as we know it..will cease to exist.


> Over the next 5 billion years, it will burn the last of its hydrogen, bloat up as a red giant and consume Mercury and Venus.


But that is far far into the future..the immediate concern is overpopulation and using up earth's resources and pollution every where.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

The secret to good predictions is to make them far enough into the future that you won't be around if you're wrong...also make them vague enough so there's some wiggle room...think second coming, Michel de Nostredame, end of the world, etc. 

So sometime, in the next hundred to two hundred years, the temperature on March 21 will be higher or lower than it is in 2014, not only that, but the general climate won't be the same...

Now I'm going to turn my great predictive powers to the stock market, you should all let me manage your accounts for an MER...I guarantee I'll change your net worth or I'll give you your money back.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

I have read plenty on both sides of the climate debate. I think there may be something to it, but the situation is more complicated than the Global Warming promoters will admit and every year it seems to get more complicated as new influences on the weather are found.

When Goldman Sachs shut down their carbon credit exchange, I knew the jig was up for the Global Warming scam. The old timers like Al Gore and David Suzuki are still milking it but their jamborees are a mere shadow of what they were 20 years ago. Politicians still pay lip service but no longer take them seriously.

It's over, it's time to move on to the next scam. There is no point to it anymore. I just like razzing the True Believers.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

Somewhat off topic for this thread but.... 


Rusty O'Toole said:


> I knew the jig was up for the Global Warming scam.


:rolleyes2:



> Two-thirds of Americans (67%) say there is solid evidence that the earth has been getting warmer over the last few decades


http://ncse.com/news/2013/11/new-poll-climate-from-pew-0015157



> Asked, "From what you've read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature of earth has been getting warmer over the past four decades," 81% of Canadian respondents said yes, 12% said no, and 8% said that they were not sure. Acceptance of global warming was highest in Quebec and the Maritimes (85%) and Ontario (82%), lowest in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (65%) and Alberta (71%). In the United States, 61% of respondents said yes, 25% said no, and 14% said that they were not sure.


http://ncse.com/news/2013/11/polling-climate-canada-0015168



> Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.


http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> I knew the jig was up for the Global Warming scam. The old timers like Al Gore and David Suzuki are still milking it but their jamborees are a mere shadow of what they were 20 years ago. *Politicians still pay lip service but no longer take them seriously.*


Somebody better inform the Premier of Ontario then. Al Gore managed to convince her to announce publicly that they are planning to shut down the Nanticoke (coal fired hydro generating plants) in favour of "green power'.
I don't want to start another debate on the Ontario electricity scam here..enough complaints about it already everywhere, but just trying to make a point here on the effects of "climate change". 

Just remember that even if we go green all the way, and pay through the nose to be green..China and the rest of the third world and the US too, will continue to spew out carbon emissions for us.
It's like saying...the price of gasoline is too high, so I will ride my bicycle instead and save the earth and the "baby whales"....
If you don't burn that gas..somebody else will.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

carverman said:


> Somebody better inform the Premier of Ontario then.


Hopefully, in the next election, she and her party will be informed by the voters.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Actually, there is a lot more "green" power initiatives going on in Ontario than many people think.

My son's company was kept busy installing fencing around the perimeter of numerous "solar farms" last year and there is a long list of new ventures for this year.

Wind turbine farms are being created as well.

It takes time...........but Ontario is heading in the right direction.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> Did you look at the scale of that graph? 2004 isn't even a blip on a 200 year span. The graph is an interpretation, at least at the end. The data for it would probably be rounded down significantly. Ever study statistics?


Do you mean interpolation and outlier? I have studied statistics and nothing of what you said was a statistical argument.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

carverman said:


> If you don't burn that gas..somebody else will.


This is the tragedy of the commons. It's like saying if I don't clear cut the rainforest, someone else will. There are policies we can adopt to address these collective action problems. A good one is a carbon tax with revenue used to reduce other taxes as done in BC very successfully. Massively subsidizing wind and solar are not the solution. That is like pushing on a string. Using prices is far more effective.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Do you mean interpolation and outlier? I have studied statistics and nothing of what you said was a statistical argument.


I meant that a single datapoint was meaningless...especially in 2000+. I suppose I could have also pointed out you don't fit the curve to a single data point. Guess you fell asleep in that class, or they taught you something different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_fitting


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I don't think you've proved your point about the mideival warm period being significantly warmer than today. The chart does not rely on a single data point for the late twentieth century. There was also this passage in the entry you referred to:

"Despite substantial uncertainties, especially for the period prior to 1600 for which data are scarce, the warmest period of the last 2,000 years prior to the 20th century very likely occurred between 950 and 1100, but temperatures were probably between 0.1 °C and 0.2 °C below the 1961 to 1990 mean and significantly below the level shown by instrumental data after 1980. "

So, did you even read it?

Edit: you linked (confusingly) to the entry on the little ice age, though you were referring to the Midieval Warm Period. What I posted above is from that section.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I don't have a problem with people believing or disbelieving anything that cannot be proven with absolute certainty. Those things should be discussed with an open mind. I'm agnostic and I find various cultures fascinating to learn from, even though I'm not religious. I agree there's a lot more to the universe than we know, but that doesn't mean we don't know a thing.

If you can prove that something _could_ happen then you should take it into consideration. There are finite resources on this planet, therefore I will argue as fact that they may not always be readily available to everyone as populations grow. Basic supply and demand. As for climate change, I will argue that humans _can_ impact the environment. What if we tried for the sake of proof? We could fire off all the nukes, meltdown all the reactors, set all forests ablaze and dump every chemical we have into our water sources etc. We go a long way to contain our impact on the environment, but a small impact still accumulates over time as populations increase.

Nobody can state what the climate or civilization will be like in the future. I can't state as fact that your house will burn down or that you will crash your car someday. One can prove it could happen, therefore a reasonable person would agree to take preventative measures to minimize the chances. Saying you don't believe catastrophes can happen because everything was fine for you up until now.. that's just asinine.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

My intention was not to prove, or disprove anything...nor would I seriously consider Wikipedia to be an authority when it comes to scientific research. In truth, the information I read on the medieval warming period and little ice age came from better, more scientific or historical papers and not Wikipedia who's article I only briefly skimmed...having a company that publishes websites amount other things has taught me not to believe everything I read, especially when it comes to the web. I also don't believe everything I read on this site...

Anyone who thinks that I'll get into a scientific debate by publishing a few sentences doesn't know me very well. Heck, half of my rebuttals has been pointing out things I thought were obvious (like curve fitting) that I didn't explicitly state because I thought I was addressing an intelligent audience who I figured could think for themselves...of course there are always those who look for any reason to dismiss an argue net instead of thinking about the point.

Personally, I find I do a lot more reading an research today than I ever did back in school...and having taught at post secondary, I found it to be true that I studied more than my students. The web is not my primary source for information on much aside from technology...I don't think this makes me particularly smart, but it does open my eyes to a lot more possibilities than others...

As some people seem to understand, my point was more to point out other possibilities rather than prove a certain point. I was always taught to be open minded, especially as it's an essential ingredient to progress, as opposed to following dogma...especially considering how much revisionist history actually exists out there.

I personally wasn't around in the 1300s, nor to I particularly believe we can accurately know the global mean temperatures from that period, especially as weather is a local phenomenon (I live just outside a major city and my weather is often completely different than in the city...heck, the city is large enough that one side can have different weather than the other) but that doesn't mean it couldn't be true. I also don't particularly believe in global warming, but that doesn't mean I believe in uncontrolled pollution, clear cutting, etc. The discounting of one, doesn't mean the discounting of both. 

Rigid belief is the antithesis of scientific progress. Try questioning everything you believe...instead of weakening your beliefs, it tends to strengthen them...those who don't, I tend to find, are quite insecure when you scratch the surface.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> Yet we are still colder than we were in the 1300...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age


Then why did you state this as fact, when you now say we can't know this with a high degree of confidence. I agree that there is uncertainty with reconstructed temperature records, but the evidence we do have does not seem to support your assertion here.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

When I went to school in Ontario in the sixties, I learned that Vikings were farming in Greenland and picking grapes in Newfoundland in the early 1000s. Both impossible in recent years because of the cold. I have seen no proof since then that my teachers were lying. Farley Mowat dug up a book by a French botanist describing wild grapes in Newfoundland in the 1500s or 1600s.

The warmists could simply say "yes and now it is happening again only worse" but they won't. They continue to deny that the climate was ever warmer than it was in 1850. They have to prove that the world's climate is getting warmer solely because of man made CO2 and that there are no other influences on the climate, which is ridiculous.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

I apologize for getting off the topic which is that NASA is not a very credible organization. One thing I will never understand, a while ago they announced that they had thrown out all the tapes and data from the moon missions. I was absolutely flabbergasted by this. Seriously, you are telling me we still have every episode of Gilligan's Island but they threw away the tapes of the moon missions?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> They have to prove that the world's climate is getting warmer solely because of man made CO2 and that there are no other influences on the climate, which is ridiculous.


It is ridiculous, which is why none of the "warmists" have ever tried to make that argument. If you read any of the scientific assessments on climate change, they spend entire chapters talking about natural climate variability, and how greenhouse gases are but one of many influences on the climate. They only conclude that natural variation alone can't explain the changes that have been observed in the past half-century or so, and that greenhouse gases are responsible for most (but certainly not all) of the change. See for example http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/ or the statements from 18 professional scientific associations at http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

Damn that weather disruption:

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/march-tornadoes-may-set-record-low-20140321


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Then why did you state this as fact, when you now say we can't know this with a high degree of confidence. I agree that there is uncertainty with reconstructed temperature records, but the evidence we do have does not seem to support your assertion here.


Because I'm not politically correct. I don't say "could", "probably", "maybe", "except for", etc. sorry... I assume others are smart enough to understand that there are exceptions to everything if you have an open mind.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

So smart, open minded people say things that are probably wrong in the name of political incorrectness. Thanks for the education.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

No we're just too lazy to think for people who look for the irrelevant technicalities that others use to tear down arguments. With more than 7000 posts, do you ever provide any positive discussion? You seem to like twisting things to prove your "superiority" instead of thinking about what's being said.

My children used to play games like this all the time, they'd look for logic faults, generalizations, Freudian slips, whatever and use them to distract from the fact that they really didn't have any intelligent argument. The best part is, there's absolutely nothing anyone could say that they couldn't twist into this game.

I don't think anyone else on this board is interested in more of this petty discussion, so I'll just avoid anymore of your baiting.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-...hange-As-Certain-As-Auschwitz-claims-Guardian



> You will never persuade countries to accept huge reductions in their living standards until you have made an irrefutable scientific and economic case for doing so.
> 
> The scientific case is looking shakier by the minute:* if there has been no global warming since 1997, why should we stake our faith in all those doomsday computer models which failed to predict this "pause"?*
> 
> ...


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Nemo2 said:


> The economic case is non-existent.


The funny thing is that reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be justified on pure economic grounds, because it saves money. The U.S. EPA's EPA's Energy Star program, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency, saves Americans enough every year to cover twice the operating budget of the EPA. "As of December 2012, families and businesses have realized estimated savings of more than $239 billion on utility bills and prevented more than 1.9 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the past two decades." See http://www.energystar.gov/about/. And note that those are savings _after_ the break-even point (i.e., after the incremental cost of Energy Star equipment compared with standard equipment was covered by energy savings).

There are hundreds if not thousands of other examples, but just look at one company, DuPont, which has saved $3 billion by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 70% since 1991. http://investors.dupont.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=73320&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=965118&highlight=.

This is really the "inconvenient truth" that opponents of action on climate change want to hide. They say the only way to reduce emissions is to enact measures (carbon taxes, mandatory caps, etc.) that would destroy the economy, but companies around the world are actually making a profit by reducing their emissions.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Nemo2 said:


> if there has been no global warming since 1997, why should we stake our faith in all those doomsday computer models which failed to predict this "pause"?


Anyone who thinks that climate change is supposed to proceed in a straight, unbroken line of ever-increasing global average temperatures doesn't understand much about climate. First, it's still the case that every year since 1997 has still been above the 20th century average, so we're still living in a warmer world. The last month in which global average temperatures were below the 20th century mean was February 1985. Second, climate models can account for natural variation but some natural variation is unpredictable. Stock market models can probably predict long-term trends but how many of them can predict specific downturns or flat periods with any precision? It gets back to the difference between short-term weather forecasts and long-term climate forecasts. Climate models become less relliable and more uncertain on shorter timescales and in smaller geographic areas (regional and local). 

Anyway, climatologists now have a few plausible theories for the recent (temporary) slowdown in warming -- perhaps the most plausible being that excess heat is being stored in the Pacific and will be released later. See for example http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/03/it-never-rains-but-it-pause/


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

It's really telling that people conveniently choose to start their examination of the temperature record in 1997, an exceptionally hot year. This is fundamentally dishonest.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> It's really telling that people conveniently choose to start their examination of the temperature record in 1997, an exceptionally hot year. This is fundamentally dishonest.


Not really, though: the "pause" in warming happened after 1997. Since greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise during this period, it might be expected that the global average temperature would continue to rise also, and until recently nobody has had a very convincing explanation for why the pause in warming occurred. It has only been a pause in terms of temperature (the reason climatologists don't use the term "global warming" is because greenhouse gas concentrations don't just influence temperature, but also precipitation, wind patterns, storms, ocean circulation, and lots of other aspects of climate); other changes have continued to occur since 1997, including an increase in extreme temperatures over land.

I do think it's fair to ask why global temperatures haven't increased statistically since 1997, although there are good possible explanations why (see that page I linked to above at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/03/it-never-rains-but-it-pause/ . It'll probably take years or even decades to know for sure, as the climate system is complex.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Does the apparent trend depend on starting in 1997? Or does it look different if you start in 1995 or 2000? The data supports a slowing in the rate of increase in temperature since the mid 90s, but 1997 was a bit of an outlier. People who hang onto 1997 to conclude that warming has stopped are starting with the conclusion and fitting the data to it.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Does the apparent trend depend on starting in 1997? Or does it look different if you start in 1995 or 2000? The data supports a slowing in the rate of increase in temperature since the mid 90s, but 1997 was a bit of an outlier. People who hang onto 1997 to conclude that warming has stopped are starting with the conclusion and fitting the data to it.


It was 1998 that was the outlier (the warmest year on record according to some analyses), but the rate of increase since then has been slower than before. It's not right to say that global warming has stopped, since nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. It's just that the pace of warming has slowed.

See

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/12/the-global-temperature-jigsaw/

The starting date does matter, but no matter how you look at it there's been something of a slowdown. That doesn't mean anything for the long-term trend, though.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

Nafeed Ahmed, who first reported this story at The Guardian, clarified his original piece in a follow up article.


> Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations.
> 
> The story went viral and was quickly picked up by other news outlets around the world which, however, often offered rather misleading headlines .....
> 
> ...


http://www.theguardian.com/environm...r/18/transition-tipping-point-revolution-doom

On Global Warming specifically, the Irish Times reported another NASA backed study:


> The world is at risk of “crossing multiple tipping points”, triggering dangerous global warming, if average surface temperatures rise by 4 degrees Celsius or more, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).


http://www.irishtimes.com/news/envi...int-on-global-warming-un-body-warns-1.1744861

We don't know if these predictions are right. What we do know is that they are coming from scientists who are willing to submit their work to peer review. Perhaps we should listen with an open mind.


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## Tightwad (Mar 28, 2014)

m3s said:


> Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."


Why am I not surprised. They are living "now" and since the usual "elite" is self centered, short term thinking is the result.

If the rest of the world was as wasteful of rresources as the US is, there would not be enough to go around. Little wonder they have interests in the Gulf.

The 6 minute mark in this video talks about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqIHKWd9rSc


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