It's like the doctors have given you second and third opinions and told you your liver is failing, you have to stop drinking or you'll die. You won't die the next time you have a beer, but every beer takes you farther over the edge. You can say the bartender who knows this is blameless for serving you, because others gave you the alcohol that destroyed your liver and it took longer than one night, or you can work from now and realize that he's intentionally killing you in hopes of a tip before you stumble outside and keel over.
Working from today, our planet's liver is failing, there no transplant, and Trump just reopened the bar and is serving everclear. Chances are he can't accelerate things so much that Florida submerges in the next 3 1/2 years, that doesn't mean he can't make things be far worse, beyond the point of possible mitigation.

You may hold that theory, but climatologists disagree. We are past, but still near the tipping point, and every ton of CO2 takes us farther from a survivable rise. It's ridiculous to think that we're already past holding at 3.5 degrees global rise (edit: the maximum assumed to be survivable by civilization), so we might as well make it 5 degrees.

Island nations, people who live South of New Orleans, and millions of others are already being displaced. It only takes one high tide (edit: or one extended drought) to wipe out low lying farmland permanently, and erosion has become an unstoppable force.

Trump is moving towards raising the level of multiple greenhouse gases we produce, Obama had us lowering those levels. Time can only tell what that actually means in tonnage, but 180 degree turnaround is awful enough. I agree, we also didn't do enough under Obama.

? Reversible means it can be reversed, not that it's easy. I don't know where you get that idea. Irreversible in this context means sending the temperature trend the other way before civilization becomes unsustainable. Eventually the planet should normalize unless we really follow Trump's lead wholeheartedly, then we might go full Venus. There WAS a magic bullet, being responsible with our atmosphere, but we argued over climate change until it was useless.

If, before it reverses (which it may not do at all, btw) the planet becomes inhospitable to humans, then for humans, it's irreversible. In 4 years we can do enough damage to 1) make the effects longer and harsher enough to make long term survivability impossible and or 2) go beyond the next tipping point where feedback loops reinforce each other, leading to a Venus like runaway greenhouse effect. We're damn close to massive methane releases (already happening) and if we don't avoid that, nothing will save civilization.
All that said, Clinton probably wouldn't do enough to avoid disaster either, but at least she accepted the science and agreed we should make efforts to mitigate the coming damages.

I'm definitely a pessimist, mostly because I understand the systems and human nature, and so I think we're totally hosed as a species.

That seems like it could be unhealthy since denatured alcohol is deliberately poisoned. Maybe burning poison is safer, but I wouldn't count on it.

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

Still, I guess you could use some everclear and attempt to drink whatever's left.

Dude, I think she's going to need something a lot harder than beer. SO break out the Everclear.
Also, Let her try the Wand of Vibrating Moon Power. I'm sure she would look a lot better in the unitard.

At the time of this videos, Indycars ran on methanol rather than ethanol. Ethanol has a very faint blue flame, but methanol is almost perfectly clear, though you can see the flames as sort of a shimmering disturbance in the air. These days Indycars run on ethanol, but it's more of a marketing thing than for any practical reason... the racing industry is hard up to show how "green" they are.



>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^bamdrew:
Are we sure this isn't a very elaborate Monty Python sketch?

While I am sure this is a joke, you can actually do this experiment at home with alcohol. Get yourself some everclear or some other very highly pure ethanol and set it ablaze. And did you notice he used the word inflammable. That is the correct word, we only recently made the word flammable up because it confused to many people.

I also noticed 'inflammable', and remember how funny language is.

And I've also drank previously aflame Everclear... I recall a faint blue flicker, if you squinted.

>> ^bamdrew:

Are we sure this isn't a very elaborate Monty Python sketch?


While I am sure this is a joke, you can actually do this experiment at home with alcohol. Get yourself some everclear or some other very highly pure ethanol and set it ablaze. And did you notice he used the word inflammable. That is the correct word, we only recently made the word flammable up because it confused to many people.

My favorite Everclear song. Very righteous selection.

the fearless jamie thomas at t-2:07. I'd never seen the one where the guy spills the flaming 151/everclear shot on his neck and then spits a fireball...