According to scientists we are currently in an ice age.

submitted by Canbot from (en.m.wikipedia.org)

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]raven9 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

Yes. As long as there are polar ice caps we are in ice age.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

Kinda blows the theory that global warming is destroying the planet out of the water.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

We are In the middle of an environmental catastrophe, of which many corporations would like to remain in denial about.

They want the party to go nonstop until the very end.

[–]Canbot[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There is nothing about the climate change narrative that is anti corporation. Any regulations will stop competition from springing up because startup costs will be too high, while established powers will pass the costs to consumers.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is nothing about the climate change narrative that is anti corporation.

Then why are so many corporations so desperately trying to spin climate change as fake?

Any regulations will stop competition from springing up because startup costs will be too high, while established powers will pass the costs to consumers.

Very true... except when its not.

Concrete producers have a captive audience, and very few alternatives, so they can just raise prices. Up to a point, then consumers will just cut their usage of concrete. Demand for concrete is not infinitely inelastic: eventually people will just make do with less, or find alternative building materials.

Coal has to compete with cheaper, more efficient sources of energy, and they cannot put prices up without pricing themselves out of the market. Coal is already on its way out.

Companies that can save fuel can pass those savings onto the customers and out-compete companies that don't save fuel, or make a higher profit. Either way, they have an incentive to cut their costs.

Consumers can choose more energy-efficient products which cost less, or other alternatives. If flying overseas on holiday costs more, they can have their holiday locally and support local businesses.

Free market economists like to have it both ways: they claim that any government tax or regulation will cut corporate profit, or cause consumers to use less of the product being taxed -- except for CO2, where they claim that government taxes and regulations will have "no effect" on both profit and usage. Just like magic, hey?

Personally, I believe that if governments would just transfer the hundreds of billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies and protectionism (including military force to defend access to oil and gas) to greener, renewable energy, we would solve climate change in a decade.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Kinda blows the theory that global warming is destroying the planet out of the water.

How? So long as there is one inch of ice lasting one single day in the deepest part of winter at the very tip of the north or south pole, we're still technically in "an Ice Age" according to the strictest definition of the term. Except that geologists aren't actually so stupid that they can't tell the difference between a tiny amount of ice at the poles and glaciers covering Europe and New York being covered by a mile of ice.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

How

For the vast majority of the history of earth there was NOT an ice age. The natural state of the earth is NOT an ice age. The ice age is the abboration. The earth was going to naturally return to a warmer steady state on it's own regardless if humans have an impact.

So long as there is one inch of ice lasting one single day in the deepest part of winter at the very tip of the north or south pole, we're still technically in "an Ice Age"

Not true.

There has to be permanent ice all year round.

tiny amount of ice at the poles

Literally billions of tons. Literal ice caps.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

For the vast majority of the history of earth there was NOT an ice age.

Perhaps not, but what is your point you are trying to make?

Over the 4+ billion years that the earth has existed, the climate has changed drastically repeatedly, in timeframes of millions of years. Aside from long-term astronomical cycles, over billions of years the sun has warmed significantly. At one extreme we had snowball earth. By the late Permian, much of inland Pangea was an inhospitable desert.

But so what? We don't live in a time frame of tens of millions of years, human civilization is less than 10,000 years old, and we only care about timeframes of a few hundred years. For the last few thousand years, the climate has been remarkably stable and kind to us. What do we care if in fifty million years the earth is covered by ice a mile thick? Or baking hot desert everywhere? We can't do anything about million-year long astronomical cycles, and we won't be around to deal with it. But what we should care about is the next few hundred years.

In just fifty years or so, we've raised the average global temperature by around 0.7 °C. That's a lot. Since the industrial revolution, we're raised global temperatures by about 1°C in total, and we're on target to hit 4°C in around a century. The last time the earth's climate was that hot, almost the entire planet aside from costal areas was like the Sahara Desert.

The natural state of the planet earth is change, but in cycles lasting tens of thousands of years to millions of years, not decades. It is the speed of change that is going to fuck civilization, not the change itself.

There has to be permanent ice all year round.

Okay, I exaggerated. The point is, there is a big difference between a bit of ice at the poles, and ice covering most of Europe and North America under glaciers two miles thick in places.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

We don't live in a time frame of tens of millions of years,

The claim that "it is changing too fast" is a completely unscientific claim. This is propaganda unsupported by facts. It is fear mongering, doomsday bullshit.

Every prediction made by climate scientists has greatly over estimated warming. There is a vary strong pattern in climate scientists being wrong, and always with the same agenda. How many times do you have to be lied to before you learn to be skeptical?

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The claim that "it is changing too fast" is a completely unscientific claim.

No it is not. We can and do study this scientifically. Global warming deniers just use the term "unscientific" to dismiss facts they don't want to hear, just as vaxxists call inconvenient facts about their ineffective Covid vaccines "fake news".

We can already see that warming climate is leading to more conflict in drought-prone places. Dafur and Syria are good examples of wars that were triggered by changing climate.

Every prediction made by climate scientists has greatly over estimated warming.

While I acknowledge that some predictions have been too high, and some have been too low, it is just nonsense to say that "every" prediction has been "greatly" exaggerated.

Over 20 years, the predictions have been moderately accurate (0.4° rather than 0.55°); over 40 years the prediction was almost exactly right.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

No it is not.

It is, as proven by the fact that every prediction has been wrong.

to dismiss facts they don't want to hear,

You are dismissing facts you don't want to hear. How many times have you said "the science has changed" to deny that you were lied to?

Dafur and Syria are good examples of wars that were triggered by changing climate.

Absolute bullshit. Syria, as most wars, was instigated by the CIA to push a globalist agenda. That is why the US was funding the terrorists.

While I acknowledge that some predictions have been too high, and some have been too low,

Wrong. It is absolutely not "a little bit this way and a little bit that way". All predictions that made concrete, testable claims were wrong. But obviously the bullshitters aren't going to simply let that fact stand so the put out more bullshit to cover that up. They claim that vague bullshit they said like "it will get warmer" is an accurate prediction and tally that against everything that is proven wrong.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How many times have you said "the science has changed" to deny that you were lied to?

Never. At least in the broad details, the science behind the greenhouse effect has been well understood for well over a century, a lot longer than I've been alive.

Of course my knowledge has changed, and the fine details of what is understood about climate has changed a lot, and there is still a lot we don't know. There are many cycles in climate, short term, medium term, long term, and very long term (measured in hundreds of thousands or millions of years) and the result is a complex system where fine detailed predictions are next to impossible.

But the broad picture is clear: global climate is already appreciably warmer now that it was when I was a boy, and we can already see the consequences. Glaciers are shrinking; Siberia is becoming more hospitable; more extreme bushfires in Australia, California, South Africa, Brazil; significantly warmer nights; lowered oxygen levels in the oceans; milder winters in general, but more extremes cold periods in places where the air flows from the Arctic or Antarctic have shifted.

Much to my relief, while Australia as a whole has gotten warmer, the city where I live is (at least so far) seeing fewer extreme summer heat waves. Not so much the rest of the country.

Syria, as most wars, was instigated by the CIA to push a globalist agenda. That is why the US was funding the terrorists.

The Syrian civil war started as actual grass-roots protests by farmers who lost their farms, livelihoods and incomes and were protesting against the lack of assistance from the Assad government. Assad used a heavy-handed violent reaction to oppress the protests, which lead to more protests (people with nothing to lose are more likely to fight back), which lead to the US funding (initially) pro-democracy groups but then rapidly shifting to funding pretty much any group of fundamentalist Islamic nutjobs so long as they would fight the Assad government and Russians, including people every bit as bad as ISIS.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The point is, there is a big difference between a bit of ice at the poles

The entire CONTINENT of Antarctica is under permanent ice that is miles deep at some points.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes, and New York isn't. Can you tell the difference between ice at the poles now and ice across most of Europe and North America back then?

You do understand that parts of the globe warm at different rates?

Antarctica will be the last to melt. It might still take a thousand years for Antarctica to be completely ice-free, and if the world ever gets that hot, human civilization will surely have collapsed by then.

But there is a good chance that I'll live to see the Arctic ice-free in summer, and our children's generation may live to see the Arctic ice-free in winter. Much of the Middle East will be uninhabitable. Temperatures are already hitting 54 degrees Celsius (129.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kuwait.

[–]Canbot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Antarctica will be the last to meltand if the world ever gets that hot, human civilization will surely have collapsed by then.

Wrong. The poles are more sensitive to rising temperatures than anywhere else. There is absolutely no reason to think an ice free planet is dangerous to civilization. The absolute worst case scenario is the oceanfront properties have to move over the course of hundreds of years, if not thousands.

But there is a good chance that I'll live to see the Arctic ice-free

No there isn't you absolute tool. Every prediction has been wrong and you still keep believing the bullshit. What would it take to get you to realize you have been lied to?

Much of the Middle East will be uninhabitable. Temperatures are already hitting 54 degrees Celsius (129.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kuwait.

Completely unscientific bullshit. It is already a fucking desert, nothing is going to change.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The poles are more sensitive to rising temperatures than anywhere else.

True, but the Antarctic ice is so fucking enormous that even under the worst-case scenario, it will be the last to go. Its not Greenland or the Arctic.

There is absolutely no reason to think an ice free planet is dangerous to civilization.

There are many reasons. To be ice free, average global temperatures would have to be four or six degrees hotter than they are now, which is unprecedented in human history. Last time the world was that hot, most of the planet was one giant desert. At that temperature, with the unavoidable increase in humidity in many regions of the world, mammals including humans will be literally unable to sweat to cool themselves outdoors and will die from overheating.

The absolute worst case scenario is the oceanfront properties have to move over the course of hundreds of years, if not thousands.

Wishful thinking.

When you say "oceanfront properties", we're talking about dozens of cities with billions of people in them, not a few holiday houses by the beach.

What would it take to get you to realize you have been lied to?

I worked out that I was being lied to years ago.

It is already a fucking desert, nothing is going to change.

Does this look like a desert to you?