@newtboy,

"Stupid to use all these differing sets, that only adds confusion to an already technical and confusing topic."

I'm just glad they stick to metric, with sea level rise you don't even get that .

"No matter what, it's incontrovertible that every iteration of the IPCC reports has drastically raised their damage estimates (temp, sea level) and sped up the timetable from the previous report."

At least temperature wise the AR1 report had higher temperatures, and definitely higher worst case projection scenarios for temp than the latest. I can't say I checked their sea level projections, though typically they're other projections have followed on using their temps as the baseline for the other stuff and thus they track together. That is to say, if you can point me a source that reliably claims otherwise I might go check, but currently what I have checked tells me otherwise.

"I'll take the less conservative NOAA estimates and go farther to assume they over estimate humanity and underestimate feedback loops and unknowns and believe we are bound to make it worse than they imagine."

Which is fine, I only object if that gets characterized as the factually scientific 'right' approach.

"The NOAA .83C number was compared to average annual global temperatures 1901-2000...and oddly enough is lower than 2017's measurements."

Which is yet another source and calibration period from what I found. The 1901-2000 very, very roughly speaking can be thought of as centered on 1950, so in that fuzzy feeling sense not surprising it's 0C is colder than the IPCC centered on the nineties.

The source on current instrumental I went against is below:
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

As for 2018 being cooler than 2017, that's pretty normal. 1996/1997 were the hottest years on record for a pretty long time before things swung back up. It's entirely possible we stay below the recent high years for another bunch of years before continuing to creep up. Same as a particularly cold day isn't 'evidence', the decadal and even century averages are where the signal comes out of the noise.

You are correct, I was using NOAA numbers, not realizing they use a different start point to compare from. I honestly thought both would use 1890, pre industrial era start points, since that's what the 1.5C limit is based on. Stupid to use all these differing sets, that only adds confusion to an already technical and confusing topic.

No matter what, it's incontrovertible that every iteration of the IPCC reports has drastically raised their damage estimates (temp, sea level) and sped up the timetable from the previous report. You can accept their current estimate, that's better than the average person. I'll take the less conservative NOAA estimates and go farther to assume they over estimate humanity and underestimate feedback loops and unknowns and believe we are bound to make it worse than they imagine.

I have no horse in this race. I hit my best by date next year, and don't have kids...got fixed in my 20's. What happens after 2050 isn't my concern, and I have no problem if humanity goes extinct. It's all the other life we will take with us, or worse, that we survive as the last species standing, that gets me upset.

@dannym3141 Thanks for the thought-out response, I can tell you have strong opinion on the topic of education and I appreciate the discourse. The AA analogy was not meant as a strict analogy between the services rendered in their respective classes, it was meant to imply that just because the majority population in a voluntary environment wants to do something doesn't mean it will be beneficial to them in the end. In this case the restriction placed on drinking beer at an AA meeting is very similar to phone usage in large classrooms in that it is detrimental to the student and everyone around them.

I do understand the desire to quickly check something online for clarification (terms perhaps) BUT there are a lot of studies that indicating that the increased availability and instant gratification of just googling something to remember a term is harmful for long term retention. There are also multiple studies indicating that ability to multitask also goes way down despite the common misconception that constant usage of mobile devices enhances that ability. In a classroom environment, say your physics class, I would highly recommend that if you are confused on something to ask your instructor to clarify or provide context or examples of confusing topics or terms rather than looking them up.

Now, let's be a little more realistic here and point out that there is no way that everyone on their phone in class is using it to help them learn. Most of the time they are texting, twittering facebooking, etc. which is a waste of time. First of all, I want to say that I don't care, you're paying, you can do what you want, and at some level I do agree with that, but the problem is if you are anywhere near another person, which is hard to avoid in a classroom, you are almost certainly distracting them. In my large lectures, everyone on a laptop has to sit in the back so they aren't bothering the people behind them. Phones are a bigger problem since everyone has them and the addiction to the stupid things is such a distraction to them personally just because of constant desire to just check something real quick.

Anyway, there are legitimate ways around this and I employ them. The key is to keep them engaged so they are too "distracted" by learning to bother with their stupid phones. Basically, strict lecture is broken up by multiple class exercises. Drawing things, predictive demos, retrieval practices, think-pair-share, wall walks, conceptest, etc. etc. Ways to make them engaged and THINK about learning instead of just sitting there hearing things all day. These are effective teaching methods and help to keep students motivated and entertained.

As far as actually implementing a blocking system, I know it's not going to happen (for all the reasons you described), but to argue that you should be able to use your phone in class if you like will never be something I'm on board with. Laptops are theoretically being used to take notes (even though they usually aren't) but a phone has no place in class unless it's being used for some form of directed classroom participation (clickers, specific apps, demos) because you can't do anything constructive with it that couldn't be done better by student-teacher interaction. Question is asking is also better than quick checking a phone as other students also benefit from the clarification of something that was probably not explained very well.

I guess if there is a silver lining it's that the constant use of phones has forced a lot of educators to adjust their teaching to adapt to the problems that were always there but were less obvious without the visual clue of students playing on their phones. Before they were daydreaming, now they're playing on the phone. The main difference, from my perspective, is that daydreaming doesn't distract your neighbor, but your phone does.

Thanks for the responses, I'm always open to opinions, especially when they're wildly different from my own.

This is quite the confusing topic with no hard and fast rules...I think I am out of the sift housekeeping business! lol.

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
I didn't realize that shorter edits of the original longer version were allowed to stand.

They're not. Some people have been pushing for an exception for excerpts, but there isn't one yet. This was a legit dupe. bareboards2 sent me a private message and I've just explained this to her as well.

No doubt, someone will be along to crucify us both shortly, nonetheless.

Irishman, I have to disagree with you there. It's a confusing topic, but from what I can gather "earthquake lights" are a completely different phenomenon which has not been proven, and may have a very mundane explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light

All of the photographs and videos of purported earthquake lights show a glow on the horizon which is visible at night(and which would likely be invisible in daylight). Quite different from a circumhorizontal arc. Here's a citation link from the Wikipedia article, which has a collection of videos and stills. To me these seem pretty unconvincing, and I would guess what's shown in the the urban videos are caused by power surges.
http://inamidst.com/lights/earthquake

Another thing you shouldn't confuse this with is what's called "earthquake clouds". That's a term used by people who claim to be able to predict earthquakes weeks in advance by observing the shape of clouds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_cloud

As for the idea that circumhorizontal arcs can predict earthquakes. . . I guess it would need to happen more then once.