So I'll tell you again, no, and it's not arsonists in Oregon either, antifa or not, maybe a few, but not a statistically significant number. It's lighting and wind and accidents in California and Oregon and Washington. A massive lightning storm hit the west in mid August sparking fires everywhere, and unprecedented dryness and high temperatures has kept those and other fires alive since.
The newest right wing claim is that climate change has nothing to do with the fires, they're all antifa arson. Of course I assumed that's what you were referencing when you erroneously claimed many of the Oregon fires were arson.

Read it this time, the answers are there...
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/13/912449209/oregon-officials-warn-untrue-antifa-rumors-waste-precious-resources-for-fires

No, Bob. The "antifa is setting wildfires" claim is pure bullshit with zero evidence. I bet Trump is repeating it. The fires in Oregon were started by lightning. Edit: and downed power lines, and dragging trailer chains, ....

The cop who posted that bullshit lie with no evidence whatsoever has been suspended for spreading lies designed to instigate violence.

The fires are started by lightning mostly.

The wildfires are not caused by antifa or spontaneously exploding trees. They are caused by excessive dryness and decades of drought caused by anthropogenic climate change and dry summer thunderstorms that are increasing in number as our climate changes.

One was started by morons doing an explosive baby reveal.....yes, another one.


They are made worse by the criminal mismanagement of federal forest lands, which make up about 57% of the state's forests. Trump likes to blame California government for mismanagement of the forest, but is too ignorant to grasp that California only owns 3% of it's forests, and they're managed far better than the federal lands.

If you watched anything that wasn't pure propaganda, you would know this. Only right wing bat shit crazy propaganda hides those facts and pretends the fires are from liberals....Only fools believe the same people who've lied to them constantly for years.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/13/912449209/oregon-officials-warn-untrue-antifa-rumors-waste-precious-resources-for-fires

If you're talking climate change/ global warming shouldn't you be talking global temperatures?

As to why it happened https://www.climatescience.org.au/content/868-warm-oceans-caused-hottest-dust-bowl-years

I'm immensely concerned about climate change, and can absolutely see being upset about the video. At the same time, were I present for nature exhibiting its power in a manner like this, I'm sure I'd be woo-hooing along with all the other yokels. Pretty sure witnessing something this (literally) awesome would short-circuit all of the more intellectual parts of my brain for a little while.

I like Bernie, but his answer to "how do we pay for your plans?" seems to always be "We tax the rich more." That seems naive imo.
I agree, the extremely rich should pay way more, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that higher tax rates for the top 5% can pay to revamp our entire society. We are too deep in debt, and too shallow in our commitments towards the public, whether those commitments come in the form of investments in education, health, infrastructure, the legal system, prison reforms, ecology, climate change, .....the list of things we put on the back burner and ignore is long and fraught with perils far more pressing than, let's say a fence, or golf outings, trade wars, or another aircraft carrier.

As to the Castro ridiculousness, get a grip people. I can give you an example of something Hitler did that everyone, including holocaust survivors, can agree was a great thing he did.....he killed Hitler. If your ideological blinders and hatred are so thick you can't admit bad people/systems might also do some good things sometimes, you have a serious problem accepting reality and you need therapy.

If you don't think climate change is happening, you're on the same level as people who think the Earth is flat.

the O&G industry knew about climate change in the 60s and 70s and were initially concerned about it's effects on both the planet and their business. i don't know why you think either al gore or spock or whoever are the only choices for understanding the phenomena.

Carefully

None of the endothermic reactions in this video have been suggested as methods to regulate global temperature, because even if they could be scaled up enough to make a global difference they don't address the systems which regulate the earth's temperature.

Some things which have affected global temperatures either up or down are:

• Volcanic eruptions can cause global cooling, for example the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption released around 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide causing global cooling of approx 0.5°C over the following three years (ref: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/volcanoes-and-climate-change and https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs113-97/ )
  
• Increased rates of erosion of the right type of rocks can increase CO₂ absorption and reduce global temperatures that way, https://earth.stanford.edu/news/how-weathering-rocks-cooled-earth#gs.cmy3h0
  
• Cyanobacteria, https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/evolutionary-accident-probably-caused-worst-snowball-earth-episode-study-shows-1026
  

Well, not until the seas rise to cover the land due to climate change.

How do you solve something that's going apeshit in another country? For starters, in the case of Ukraine and Crimea, we keep our obligations we agreed to and support them with the U.S. military from day one when Russia invaded Crimea, and again in Ukraine proper. Had we done that as we specifically and unambiguously agreed to do when they gave up their nukes in return, the "civil war" (that's clearly a foreign invasion) wouldn't have occurred. That's an Obama administration failure, one that seriously harmed our international standing and trustworthiness, imo. If we had just put 100 Marines on the borders, Russia wouldn't have risked WW3 to invade either country.
My point is human political or boundary issues are nothing compared to intentionally reengineering the makeup of the atmosphere and getting enough cooperation to implement the desired (required) changes.

If she changes policy in the west, that will impact the East....and South. What America does is more often than not mirrored, especially when we're successful.
Her impact is more for the public than governments. Sway enough of the public, get them to vote on your issue, and politics will evolve at light speed.

Her delivery is exactly what's needed. An angry, educated young woman (they called me young man at 14, so don't balk), being unpleasant about having her future stolen makes exponentially more impact to the audience she targets than a thousand dry, factual, statistic rich talks by scientists. (Those are a dime a dozen today) Kids telling their parents that when the shit hits the fan, the kids are tossing them in the swollen river, not supporting them through their old age, is exactly the kick in the face many need. Kids of today will blame adults of today for the future they live in. Adults of today clearly don't consider that enough.

Something is better than nothing, she's demanding something. She's 16, do you expect her to have all the answers? (Some feasible solutions would be nice) She's well ahead of the curve just understanding the severity of the problem. I'm sure if we listened to all her speeches she gives some suggestions of action we could take to move in the right direction, but I doubt any one person has answers that solve every major effect of climate change, much less all the secondary and tertiary effects. I certainly don't expect her, at that age, to do more than demand those in power take it seriously and find solutions....and act. Chastising a major polluter who walked away from the weak, insufficient Paris agreement is a good start if it works, but I agree it's only barely a start.

You should consider it, she got millions to March for her cause worldwide. Even if she is a willing tool for some adults, it's clear more adults are tools for her. Consider, she isn't talking to kids, she's talking to adults, and some at least are listening to her, not her parents.

Personally it disturbs me that emotional delivery like this is required for many to even consider the issue beyond "what does my political party say on this issue, that's what I say too." I wish scientific issues like climate change were immune to politics, propaganda, and emotion, but they aren't. That's why we're hosed imo, humans are too willing to be deceived if the lie is more pleasant than reality, and denying there's a problem or need for change is quite pleasant to lazy Americans, far easier than facing facts and implementing difficult solutions....until it's not at least, by which time it's far too late.

Hmmmm. According to
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
The NOAA .83C number was compared to average annual global temperatures 1901-2000...and oddly enough is lower than 2017's measurements.

@bcglorf Here's a tome for you....


It's certainly not (the only way). Converting to green energy sources stimulates the economy, it doesn't bankrupt it, and it makes it more efficient in the future thanks to lower energy costs. My solar system paid for itself in 8 years, giving me an expected 12 years of free electricity and hot water. Right wingers would tell you it will never pay for itself....utter bullshit.

Every gap in our knowledge I've ever seen that we have filled with data has made the estimates worse. Every one. Every IPCC report has raised the severity and shrunk the timeframe from the last report....but you stand on the last one that they admit was optimistic and incomplete by miles as if it's the final word and a gold standard. It just isn't. They themselves admit this.

The odds of catastrophic climate change is 100% in the next 0 years for many who have already died or been displaced by rising seas or famine or disease or lack of water or...... and that goes for all humanity in the next 50 because those who survive displacement will be refugees on the rest's doorsteps. Don't be ridiculous. If we found an asteroid guaranteed to hit in the next 50-100 years, and any possible solutions take a minimum of 50 years to implement with no surprises, and only then assuming we solve the myriad of technical issues we haven't solved in the last 100 years of trying and only if we can put the resources needed into a solution, not considering the constantly worsening barrage of smaller asteroids and the effects on resources and civilisation, we would put all our resources into solutions. That's where I think we are, except we still have many claiming there's no asteroid coming and those that already hit are fake news....including those in the highest offices making the decisions.

Every IPCC report has vastly underestimated their projections, they tell you they are doing it, only including data they are certain of, not new measurements or functions. They do not fill in the gaps, they leave them empty. Gaps like methane melt that could soon be more of a factor than human CO2, and 100% out of our control.

The AR5 report is so terrible, it was lambasted from day one as being incredibly naive and optimistic, and for not including what was then new data. Since its release, those complaints have been proven to be correct, in 5 years since its release ice melt rates have accelerated 60 years by their model. I wouldn't put a whit of confidence in it, it was terrible then, near criminally bad today. I'll take NOAA's estimates based on much newer science and guess that they, like nearly all others in the past, also don't know everything and are also likely underestimating wildly. Even the IPCC AR5 report includes the possibility of 3 ft rise by 2100 under their worst case (raised another 10% in this 2019 report, and expected to rise again by 2021, their next report), and their worst case models show less heat and melting than we are measuring already and doesn't include natural feedbacks because they can't model them accurately yet so just left them out (but noted they will have a large effect, but it's not quantitative yet so not included). Long and short, their worst case scenario is likely optimistic as reality already outpaces their worst case models.

Again, the economy benefits from new energy production in multiple ways. Exxon is not the global economy.

It took 100 years for the impact of our pollution to be felt by most (some still ignore it today). Even the short term features like methane take 25+ years to run their cycles, so what we do today takes that long to start working.

If people continue to drag their feet and challenge the science with supposition, insisting the best case scenario of optimistic studies are the worst we should plan for, we're doomed....and what they're doing is actually worse than that. The power plants built or under construction today put us much higher than 1.5 degree rise by 2100 with their expected emissions without ever building 1 more, and we're building more. Without fantastic scientific breakthroughs that may never come, breakthroughs your plan relies on for our survival, what we've already built puts us beyond the IPCC worst case in their operational lifetimes.

There's a problem with that...I'm good with using real science to identify them without political obstruction and confusion, the difference being we need to be prepared for decisive action once they're identified. So far, we have plans to develop those actions, but that's it. In the event of a "surprise" asteroid, we're done. We just hope they're rare.
This one, however, is an asteroid that is guaranteed to hit if we do nothing, some say hit in 30 years, some say 80. Only morons say it won't hit at all, do nothing.
Climate change is an asteroid/comet in our orbit that WILL hit earth. We are already being hit by ejecta from it's coma causing disasters for millions. You suggest we don't start building a defense until we are certain of it's exact tonnage and the date it will crash to earth because it's expensive and our data incomplete. That plan leaves us too late to change the trajectory. The IPCC said we need to deploy our system in 8-10 years to have a 30-60% chance of changing the trajectory under perfect conditions....you seem to say "wait, that's expensive, let's give it some time and ignore that deadline". I say even just a continent killer is bad enough to do whatever it takes to stop, because it's cheaper with less loss of life and infinitely less suffering than a 'wait and see exactly when it will kill us, we might have space elevators in 10 years so it might only kill 1/2 of us and the rest might survive that cometary winter in space (yes at exponentially higher cost and loss of life and ecology than developing the system today, but that won't be on my dime so Fuck it).' attitude.

@newtboy,

"bankrupting the global economy isn't the only way to plan for asteroids, now is it? What we have done is put some money towards developing solutions that could be implemented in time, with minor exceptions for super fast unknown asteroids we likely couldn't do much about if we did have a planetary defense system."

That's precisely my point though, bankrupting the global economy to reach negative net emissions tomorrow isn't the only way to plan for climate change either.

"the probability of disastrous climate change is near 100% if you take historic human behavior into account. For many it's already hit. It's only the severity and speed that are in question, and those estimates rise alarmingly with every bit of data we use to replace guesses in the equations.

And the odds of a catastrophic asteroid hit sometime in the future is near 100% too, it's just a question of how many millions of years Earth's luck holds out. Nor has every prediction or projection underestimated future warming so far, your flat wrong on that.

More to the point, the timing and severity of the changes we face is ABSOLUTELY relevant to the actions we need to take. Similarly, knowing the benefit of reducing our emissions by X% by a particular date is also extremely relevant to the actions we need to take. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that we have a lot of gaps and uncertainty in our knowledge on those points.

At minimum base level, we know changing global temperature on the whole will impact us negatively, that our CO2 emissions will make things warmer than they otherwise would be, and thus can easily conclude with certainty that the science dictates policies to reduce emissions are a good idea.

Now, you seem to be hell bent on demanding those policies take the shape of staring down the face of disaster 2-3 times worse than the IPCC AR5 reports absolute worst case scenario. I've got to tell you, that the uncertainties involved with that kind of prediction are too great to warrant an honest dictate that the facts support a need for economically devastating action being taken today. It's just not the case.

Even if green tech never takes over, if the next century sees us final solve fusion power and adoption of electric cars, we already get our emission outputs off the worst track scenario the IPCC projected in AR5. I honestly do believe that we will see non-fossil fuel electricity generation and electric cars as the norm in my lifetime, so I'm hopeful for a future that tracks better than the IPCC worst case. That doesn't mean we should do nothing, but it's more like we should take a similarly rational/practical approach to it like you see us doing with asteroids.

Ahhh....but bankrupting the global economy isn't the only way to plan for asteroids, now is it? What we have done is put some money towards developing solutions that could be implemented in time, with minor exceptions for super fast unknown asteroids we likely couldn't do much about if we did have a planetary defense system. What we haven't done is just say "It not certain we'll be hit, so wait until it's a certainty to make any preparations."

In this case, the probability of disastrous climate change is near 100% if you take historic human behavior into account. For many it's already hit. It's only the severity and speed that are in question, and those estimates rise alarmingly with every bit of data we use to replace guesses in the equations. We aren't just driving our Cadillac off the cliff, we're accelerating as if we hope to jump the canyon. Even Evil couldn't pull that off with a rocket.