I'm guess from you're tone your American, or at least only figure Americans are going to be reading? You note that 'we' can't get to the moon, while Chinese rovers navigate it's surface. You note with alarm what coastal Florida will face from sea level rise, and not an entire nation like Kiribati. When we look at a global problem we can't ignore technology just because it's Chinese, or focus so hard on Florida's coast we ignore an entire nation in peril.

Sea levels aren't going to be fine in 2099 and then rise a foot on the eve of 2100. They will continue to rise about 3mm annually, as they have already for the last 100 years.(on a more granular level slightly less than 3mm nearer 1900 and slightly more nearer 2100 but the point stands). Coastal land owners aren't merely going to see this coming. They've watched it happening for nearly 100 years already and managed to cope thus far. Cope is of course a bad word for building housing near the coast and at less than a foot above sea level. It's like how occupants at the base of active volcanoes 'cope' with the occasional eruption. All that is to say, the problem for homes built in such locations has always been a matter of when not if disaster will strike. The entire island nation of Kiribati is barely above sea level. It is one tsunami away from annihilation. Climate change though is, let me be brutally honest, a small part of the problem. A tsunami in 1914 would've annihilated Kiribati, as a tsunami today in 2014 would, as a tsunami in 2114 would. And we are talking annihilate in a way the 2004 tsunami never touched. I mean an island that's all uninhabited, cleared to the ground and brand new, albeit a bit smaller for the wear. That scenario is going to happen sooner or later, even if the planet were cooling for the next 100 years so let's be cautious about preaching it's salvation through prevention of climate change.

Your points on food production are, sorry, wrong. You are correct enough that local food growth is a big part of the problem. You are dead wrong that most, or even any appreciable amount is to blame on climate change now or in the future. All the African nations starving for want of local food production lack it for the same reason, violence and instability. From this point forward referenced as 'men with guns'. The people in Africa have, or at least had, the means to grow their own food. Despite your insistence that men with guns couldn't stop them from eating then, they still did and continue to. A farmer has to control his land for a whole year to plant, raise and harvest his crop or his livestock. Trouble is men with guns come by at harvest time and take everything. In places like the DRC or Somalia they rape the farmer's wife and daughters too. This has been going on for decades and decades, and it obviously doesn't take many years for the farmer to decide it's time to move their family, if they are lucky enough to still be alive. That is the population make up of all the refugee camps of starving people wanting for food. It's not a climate change problem, it's a people are horrible to each other problem. A different climate, better or worse growing conditions, is a tiny and hardly worth noting dent in the real problem.
CO@ emission restrictions do not equate to global economic downturn, they could just as easily mean global economic upturn as new tech is adopted and implemented.
I stated meaningful CO2 emission changes. That means changes that will sway us to less than 1 foot of sea level change by 2100 and corresponding temperatures. Those are massive and rapid reductions, and I'm sorry but that can not be an economic boon too. I'm completely confident that electric cars and alternative or fusion power will have almost entirely supplanted fossil fuel usage before 2100, and because they are good business. Pushing today though for massive emission reductions can only be accomplish be reducing global consumption. People don't like that, and they jump all over any excuse to go to war if it means lifting those reductions. That's just the terrible nature of our species.

As for glaciers, I did read the article. You'll notice it observed that increasing the spatial resolution of models changed the picture entirely? The IPCC noted this and updated their findings accordingly as well(page 242). The best guess by 2100 is better than 50% of the glaciers through the entire range remaining. The uncertainty range even includes a potential, though less likely GAIN of mass:
. Results for the Himalaya range between 2% gain and 29% loss to 2035; to 2100, the range of losses is 15 to 78% under RCP4.5. The modelmean loss to 2100 is 45% under RCP4.5 and 68% under RCP8.5 (medium confidence). It is virtually certain that these projections are more reliable than in earlier erroneous assessment (Cruz et al., 2007) of complete disappearance by 2035.

If you still want to insist Nepal will be without glaciers in 2100 please provide a source of your own or stop insisting on contradicting the science to make things scarier.

Then slow down with theories of our impending demise, the IPCC doesn't support it. You want to talk about not denying the science, then you don't get to preach gloom and doom. Don't claim a large percentage of farmland is going to be lost to sea level rise by 2100. Don't claim coastlines are going to be pushed back 10 miles by a worst case 1 foot rise of sea level by 2100.

We are talking about advancements solving problems like a maximum sea level rise of a foot in the next 100 years, with best guesses being lower than that. I think it's modest to suggest our children's children will have figured out how to raise the dikes around places like New Orleans by a foot in the next 100 years.
The concord and moon trips are no longer happening because they are expensive. We can do them if we needed to, and more easily than the first time around. Finding out people aren't willing to pay the premium to shave an hour off their flight doesn't mean the technology no longer exists. Just because America no longer needs to prove they can lift massive quantities of nuclear warheads into orbit doesn't mean we couldn't still go to the moon again if it was needed. There's just no reason to do it, the tech exists still none the less.
Yes, there are social problems that confound the use of new technology. You fail to notice that is also the problem with feeding everybody. Food production isn't the problem, but rather the men with guns that control distribution. Stalin's mass starvation of millions was a social problem, not climate change or technology. Mao's was the same. North Koreas the same. All over Africa is the same. We have more than enough food, and plenty of charities work hard to send food over to places like Africa. Once the food gets there though the men with guns take most of it and people still starve. The reason Africa has so many crop failures is the violent displacement of the farmers. Exactly the same problem that saw millions starve in Russia, China and North Korea.
You are right that a changing climate could compound Africa's ag industry a bit, but it's a small hit compared to the violent displacement problem. Also, don't neglect to consider to impact of meaningful CO2 emission restrictions around the globe. A large scale global economic downturn probably means a lot more war, bloodshed, and starvation. If you do not reduce emissions enough to trigger that downturn and instead just 'marginally', you get stuck with both because Africa is still going to see virtually the same climate changes through the next hundred years.

And if you are worried about losing the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2100 there is very good reason to believe that's gonna be alright:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/39/84Q12/index.xml?section=topstories

Slow down on the we need to panic soon or we are even too late for panic. The IPCC estimates through to the year 2100 do not show unmanageable changes. We can adapt to the temperature and sea level changes expected. More over, that is based on today's technology. We are talking nearly a hundred years in the future. 100 years ago cars, planes, refrigerators, spaces ships and nuclear weapons were all yet to be discovered or known to the public. Problems like putting a man on the moon or travelling the globe in hours seemed insurmountable then. They are done and a matter of course to us today.

Apologies, but with all due respect panic hardly seems called for over a temperature and sea level increase we can handle currently pending on us in a hundred years. Something tells me it'll give the people then with hundred years of advances more if a laugh than a burden.

Do the models that you reference (that say it won't be disastrous by 2100) include methane? From everything I've read and seen reported, the methyl hydrates are already melting in the oceans, causing large releases of methane throughout the globe. Methane is a FAR worse greenhouse gas than CO2. What I've read is that, once that cycle gets going, it's self re-enforcing because the methane traps heat, heating the ocean, releasing more methane, trapping more heat, etc. It's hard for me to believe they are now predicting LESS warming by 2100 when the hydrates are already melting ahead of predictions....perhaps there's a part of the cycle I don't understand?

I think it's very important to recognize that there is more than 1 camp in this that has completely abandoned science. Sure there are plenty denying that things are warming, or that our activity contributes to warming. Don't spend so much time decrying them that you miss the people demanding the science clearly indicates impending catastrophic disaster that only emission reductions can save us from.

Also take note that we are just beginning to move into the measuring the 'real' part of the issue now by satellite for the last few decades. Previously temperature was the only proxy measure for showing increasing energy trapped in the atmosphere. With satellite records though we have been able to directly measure radiation coming in and going out and observe the real trends. The IPCC that shared Al Gore's nobel prize on climate change has this to say on the satellite measured energy budget:
Satellite records of top of the atmosphere radiation fluxes have
been substantially extended since AR4, and it is unlikely that
significant trends exist in global and tropical radiation budgets
since 2000.

It's important to read that closely and correctly. There has been an overall net influx of radiation, as in more energy coming in than going out. The RATE of that increase is the flux they are referring to. The IPCC is stating that since 2000, it is unlikely that the rate of energy being trapped in our atmosphere has been changing.

All that means is that it's not time to panic. If you look at the latest IPCC temperature projections you'll similarly see that the projections are much less scary for 2100 than the first IPCC projections from 1990. Better news still for us, the instrumental record thus far looks to be tracking the lowend of the IPCC projections.

All that is to say that science is agreed things are warming. It is agreed we are contributing. It also agreed that the severity isn't some doom and gloom we are all gonna die in 2050 scenario either.

Absolute BS.
Bad math, no science. He's cherry picking data and extrapolating using partial worst case scenarios rather than actual measurements...that is not science, it's misleading propaganda.
The cost of moving away from fossil fuels is easily offset completely by the savings of the new technologies used, and likely the switch would be a gain to GDP, as it makes tens of thousands of new technology jobs and billions-trillions in additional GDP selling the tech, and once built many new techs have far lower operation costs, saving money. (That's how economies work, you sell stuff and make money...right?) It sure worked for my solar system, which you, Trance, would likely still try to talk people out of, claiming it's more expensive than it's worth, while reality is it paid for itself in less than 1/3 of it's expected lifespan AND has other benefits.
The cost of 'adapting to climate change' is infinite, as it's impossible. Plants, animals, and biota can't survive it...and people like to eat. Kind of hard to adapt if there's no food, far LESS farmable land, less or no natural food sources, etc.
Also, he ignores the facts that 1) it's almost certainly going to be MORE than 3 deg. by 2100 and 2)methane hydrates are already melting, and methane is (I think) something like 100 times more damaging to the atmosphere (as far as greenhouse effects), so even "just" 3 deg. suddenly becomes 8 deg...that's often ignored.
3 deg. means on average, but also means the spread gets larger. Winters are colder, summers are even hotter. 3 deg. doesn't sound like much by itself, but it really means 15-20 deg. hotter when it's hot, and 12-17deg. colder when it's cold.

@gorillaman

Why would we need to quintuple resources by 2100 if population is only forecast to grow 50%? There is no shortage of potential arable land and more would be made room for if food prices were to rise (bringing them back down).

As I said before, I'm not debating environmental damage and climate change need to be addressed. But you address it directly, you don't attempt to reduce the world population to <1Bn ... somehow, like you propose.

No, corporations primarily do cause environmental harm, particularly climate change:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

That's why changing their incentives directly through taxes or emission schemes is the best approach. I would almost say that attempting to reduce your carbon footprint at a individual level is an exercise in self masturbatory indulgence, which while gratifying is completely insignificant. It's the by-products of all the everyday products that you consume during the industrial process that create the vast majority or pollutants.

3rd paragraph - I've already addressed everything there several times here. You simply are not acknowledging the facts:

http://priceofoil.org/2013/11/26/new-analysis-shows-growing-fossil-reserves-shrinking-carbon-budget/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/nov/26/why-fossil-fuel-reserves-growing-oil-carbon

Does our current reliance on carbon based energy precipitate environmental issues with regards to global warming in the future? Obviously, but an international agreement on raising the cost of it, to reduce our reliance on it, is more likely than an agreement on enforced family size limits.

@SDGundamX

Thanks!

@shveddy

Bit confused since you say there's a point of no return at the end, but yes your argument is not really about that.

People not meeting their nutritional needs right now is not due to an under supply but due to general poverty. If sufficient employment and income existed in impoverished countries the world supply of food would be able to cope. As far as a lack of balance, see my earlier point about bringing people out of poverty, closing global income gaps and all sharing the available resources.

I don't think you could characterise any of the global conflicts in the past 100 years as being primarily due to resource scarcity. Perhaps Japan's aggression in SE Asia around WWII because of its lack of energy resources but that's an isolated case in the post-Depression era brought about by misguided isolationist economic policies. If you really want to prevent resource wars, your best bet is to be a staunch advocate of free trade.

Large countries have gone to war because of personalities, territorial ambitions and a general desire for power, not out of necessity because of scarcity.

As far as a point of population balance, that's entirely subjective. Like I said before, his bandying around of exponential is completely unfounded. Population growth is rising at a much reduced rate, proportionate growth relative to current levels is much smaller than in the 1950s during the baby boomer period.

When you say 20Bn as an example, I don't think you appreciate how much we're going to plateau. Have a read of:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/06/daily-chart-10

9.6Bn by 2050
10.9Bn by 2100

There is a good chance we will never hit anywhere close to 20Bn short of life enhancing technology which at this point doesn't exist. If we do, then I could equally argue we will invent technology that will reduce our individual resource needs dramatically.

Do I wish population growth was lower and there were more for each of us? Sure. Louis CK has a great bit on it. Agreed on women's rights and education, but as with everything it's correlated to societal poverty. You may as well kill two birds with one stone by just focussing on that. Every policy action has an opportunity cost, given what I've said, I would rather focus on something more pressing.

Are those the spaceships by the guy who did the Spacecraft 2000-2100 and Spacewars books back in the 80's?

Automatically replaced video embed code with backup #2100 (supplied by member ant) - video declared dead by member kulpims.

On a daily basis, politicians, like Obama, and pundits in the lamestream media mindlessly bump their gums about global warming, uh... "climate change" (the term employed when the earth stopped warming), without having the slightest idea what they are talking about. Most simply parrot the line about a "so-called "consensus of scientists," without the slightest knowledge of the science or data, or point to extreme weather events as “proof.” Al Gore and Henry Waxman have become masters at this. Noam Chomsky should stick to linguistics. Once he ventures outside of his specialty, he’s just a run-of-the-mill leftist loon.

Science does not operate on the basis of consensus, but provable fact and hard DATA that is replicable. No one can prove that C02 causes warming, apart from the other forces that are chiefly determinative of climate--solar output, cosmic rays (and their effect on cloud cover), the earth's elliptical orbit, its axial tilt, etc. The earth's climate cycle has been in place for eons and is not being altered by any significant degree by anthropogenic CO2. In fact, 99% of the people who believe in the "global warming crisis" cannot even tell you what the current globally-averaged temperature is, nor how much it may have risen over the past century (or any other time frame for that matter). Nor do they know that the current globally averaged temperature is 1-2 degrees C below what it was during the Medieval Warm Period, when human activity could not have been a factor.

Neither temperatures nor sea level rise are accelerating. Temperatures haven't risen since 1997. And even the U.N. predicts just an 8.5" to 18.5" sea level rise by 2100 (2007 IPCC Report), far below the 20 feet predicted by Al Gore, or the 35 feet predicted by Joe Lieberman in 2002. In fact, sea levels have been rising at a rate of about 7" per century since the end of the last age 12,500 years ago, so the U.N.'s predicted range is likely to fall at the low end.

Weather stations around the world are notoriously unreliable, many placed in locations now near asphalt parking lots, etc., replicating the urban island heat effect. Calculating the globally averaged temperature in an enormously complex task. compounded when scientific frauds like Phil Jones and Michael Mann (of the infamous "hockey stick" graph) hide, and would not supply, their data because it does not support their predetermined conclusions of anthropogenic global warming. (Climategate). This is not surprising, however, since thousands of scientists stand to collectively lose billions in federal research grants if the hoax is exposed (more than $80 billion has already been spent on such research, nearly 500 times what oil companies have spent to fund so-called “skeptics”), a fact totally lost, or grossly misrepresented, by global warming religionists.

The fact is: even if the earth's temperature is rising marginally, from natural forces, it will be far better for mankind than falling temperatures. It will result in higher crop yields and less death around the world. More than twice as many people die of extreme cold than extreme heat.

Contrary to morons such as Al Gore (who will never agree to debate the topic, so fearful is he of getting his clock cleaned), scientific evidence clearly shows that we have had no increase in extreme weather events. Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, summed up the latest science on weather extremes when he wrote that “There is no evidence that disasters are getting worse because of climate change....There's really no evidence that we're in the midst of an extreme weather era - whether man has influenced climate or not,”
Pielke also explained that the data does not support linking Hurricane Sandy to man-made global warming. “Sandy was terrible, but we're currently in a relative hurricane 'drought'.” But that doesn’t stop politicians from trying to make political hay from them.

Much of the gum bumping about "global warming" may be attributed to the political aspirations of Al Gore who hoped to ride an environmental white horse into the White House. It all comes down to a politically-motivated overreaction to a 0.35 degree C increase in globally-averaged temperatures in the period from 1978-1997. Since 1998, temperatures have flat-lined. They are now at 14.5 degrees Celsius which is exactly where they were in 1997. What this amounted to was a hyperbolic response to a temporary and cyclical climate phenomenon, which has been replicated a myriad of times in human history.

The climate history of the 20th century, by itself, contradicts the CO2 equals warming hypothesis. From 1913-1945, CO2 was not a factor and temperatures rose slightly. And from 1945-1977, temperatures fell in the face of rising CO2. It was only in the period from 1978-1997 that temperatures and CO2 rose simultaneously. But since CO2 is likely to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, we will have periods of both rising and falling temperatures in the face of rising CO2.

The scientific travesty is that many politicians are trying to transform CO2 into a “pollutant” requiring draconian federal regulations whose only effect will be to stifle economic growth. CO2 is a harmless trace element constituting just 0.039 per cent of the earth's atmosphere (390 parts per million by volume). It's what humans and animals exhale and its presence helps plant production. 500 million years ago, CO was 20 times more prevalent in our atmosphere. The aim is to convince the uninformed that carbon dioxide is the equivalent of carbon monoxide, a highly toxic gas.

With time and historical perspective, the global warming crisis will turn out to be the greatest scientific fraud in history. But that won’t politicians from exploiting it in the short term.

On a daily basis, politicians, like Obama, and pundits mindlessly bump their gums about global warming, uh... "climate change" (the term employed when the earth stopped warming), without having the slightest idea what they are talking about. Malloy is just the latest in a long line of demagogic politicians trying to capitalize on the scare. Most simply parrot the line about a "so-called "consensus of scientists," without the slightest knowledge of the science or data, or point to extreme weather events as “proof.”

Science does not operate on the basis of consensus, but provable fact and hard DATA that is replicable. No one can prove that C02 causes warming, apart from the other forces that are chiefly determinative of climate--solar output, cosmic rays (and their effect on cloud cover), the earth's elliptical orbit, its axial tilt, etc. The earth's climate cycle has been in place for eons and is not being altered by any significant degree by anthropogenic CO2. In fact, 99% of the people who believe in the "global warming crisis" cannot even tell you what the current globally-averaged temperature is, nor how much it may have risen over the past century (or any other time frame for that matter). Nor do they know that the current globally averaged temperature is 1-2 degrees C below what it was during the Medieval Warm Period, when human activity could not have been a factor.

Neither temperatures nor sea level rise are accelerating. Temperatures haven't risen since 1997. And even the U.N. predicts just an 8.5" to 18.5" sea level rise by 2100 (2007 IPCC Report), far below the 20 feet predicted by Al Gore, or the 35 feet predicted by Joe Lieberman in 2002. In fact, sea levels have been rising at a rate of about 7" per century since the end of the last age 12,500 years ago, so the U.N.'s predicted range is likely to fall at the low end.

Weather stations around the world are notoriously unreliable, many placed in locations now near asphalt parking lots, etc., replicating the urban island heat effect. Calculating the globally averaged temperature in an enormously complex task. compounded when scientific frauds like Phil Jones and Michael Mann (of the infamous "hockey stick" graph) hide, and would not supply, their data because it does not support their predetermined conclusions of anthropogenic global warming. (Climategate). This is not surprising, however, since thousands of scientists stand to collectively lose billions in federal research grants if the hoax is exposed (more than $80 billion has already been spent on such research, nearly 500 times what oil companies have spent to fund so-called “skeptics”).

The fact is: even if the earth's temperature is rising marginally, from natural forces, it will be far better for mankind than falling temperatures. It will result in higher crop yields and less death around the world. More than twice as many people die of extreme cold than extreme heat. The scientific evidence clearly shows that we have had no increase in extreme weather events. Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, summed up the latest science on weather extremes when he wrote that “There is no evidence that disasters are getting worse because of climate change....There's really no evidence that we're in the midst of an extreme weather era - whether man has influenced climate or not,”
Pielke also explained that the data does not support linking Hurricane Sandy to man-made global warming. “Sandy was terrible, but we're currently in a relative hurricane 'drought'.” But that doesn’t stop politicians from trying to make political hay from them.

Much of the gum bumping about "global warming" may be attributed to the political aspirations of Al Gore who hoped to ride an environmental white horse into the White House. It all comes down to a politically-motivated overreaction to a 0.35 degree C increase in globally-averaged temperatures in the period from 1978-1997. Since 1998, as Mr. Hart correctly points out, temperatures have flat-lined or declined. What this amounted to was a hyperbolic response to a temporary and cyclical climate phenomenon, which has been replicated a myriad of times in human history.

The climate history of the 20th century, by itself, contradicts the CO2 equals warming hypothesis. From 1913-1945, CO2 was not a factor and temperatures rose slightly. And from 1945-1977, temperatures fell in the face of rising CO2. It was only in the period from 1978-1997 that temperatures and CO2 rose simultaneously. But since CO2 is likely to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, we will have periods of both rising and falling temperatures in the face of rising CO2.

The scientific travesty is that many politicians are trying to transform CO2 into a “pollutant” requiring draconian federal regulations whose only effect will be to stifle economic growth. CO2 is a harmless trace element constituting just 0.039 per cent of the earth's atmosphere (390 parts per million by volume). It's what humans and animals exhale and its presence helps plant production. 500 million years ago, CO was 20 times more prevalent in our atmosphere. The aim is to convince the uninformed that carbon dioxide is the equivalent of carbon monoxide, a highly toxic gas.

With time and historical perspective, the global warming crisis will turn out to be the greatest scientific fraud in history. But that won’t politicians from exploiting it in the short term. Obama has already wasted billions trying to fix a non-problem.
And now he’s even orchestrating the mindless followers of a new secular religion to march on the Mall to advance this silly agenda.

Hello North Korea.

Also I'd rather be cared for by a Mormon than a bureaucrat with a 2100 page dictum.

>> ^bcglorf:

Perhaps a simpler observation is in order. Go and google the instrumental temperature record. There are plenty of sources for it out there, and it's pretty well known and agreed upon. Or you can go to the NOAA graph of the same here. Again, as the speaker points out, the last 100 years has shown an approximate increase of 0.8 degrees. If anyone remembers their high school math, try and tell if the warming in the graph looks linear or polynomial? Does it average it's way up in a straight line, or a curve that gets steeper and steeper? The speaker is emphatically stating the trend WILL become a very steep curve indeed. The current instrumental record though is linear, if you extend it out to the year 2100 it ends up another 0.8 higher than current. That's of course a really poor way to project climate, you'd really want more than 100 years of data. But the clear point is the speaker blithely ignores that simple measure because it doesn't fit his argument that 4 degrees of warming in the next 100 years is likely, and everyone should stop thinking and panic asap.



In fact, if carbon dioxide absorbs radiation in the same way as everything else (obeys Beer's law), one would expect its effect to be logarithmic, which is to say, much less than linear. With a logarithmic rise, each doubling of carbon dioxide concentration will cause the same rise in temperature. Moreover, the Earth was considerably warmer than it is today in the previous interglacial period (the Eemian). If it could somehow "run away" into uncontrollable warming, how did we ever get another glacial period?

Perhaps a simpler observation is in order. Go and google the instrumental temperature record. There are plenty of sources for it out there, and it's pretty well known and agreed upon. Or you can go to the NOAA graph of the same here. Again, as the speaker points out, the last 100 years has shown an approximate increase of 0.8 degrees. If anyone remembers their high school math, try and tell if the warming in the graph looks linear or polynomial? Does it average it's way up in a straight line, or a curve that gets steeper and steeper? The speaker is emphatically stating the trend WILL become a very steep curve indeed. The current instrumental record though is linear, if you extend it out to the year 2100 it ends up another 0.8 higher than current. That's of course a really poor way to project climate, you'd really want more than 100 years of data. But the clear point is the speaker blithely ignores that simple measure because it doesn't fit his argument that 4 degrees of warming in the next 100 years is likely, and everyone should stop thinking and panic asap.

LOL FAIL

Fact is Wikipedia is better by far for checking most things , where its inaccurate or wrong you can simply check other sources which are all linked in and out of the site ( which you should do for all information) . and because of the way Wikipedia is edited it will be much more up todate. Its also the case that Britannica has errors in it but it takes them longer to update due to there 15th century method of editing.

if britanica want to not be useless as a company then they should focus on making a on-line Encyclopaedia that's specifcaly for scientific papers and documents or focus on a very very very small subset of things but make them far more in depth and more media rich.

The way Britannica tries to act as a mature service with the guy saying "oh jah wiki is good for factoids " is a joke.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

The single reason why Wikipedia PISSES on Britannica is that its so accisable you can get up an artical on ANYTHING and then from that artical you can get a good overview of the subject ( maybe with some things wrong). You can then Google very specific things ( using your overview knowlage from Wikipedia) or go on Amazon and know what to type to get very specific books on a subject.