OT: Greenland is literally cracking apart and flooding the world

Interesting, but the most important question in front of humanity is global warming. This is a do or die issue. Please focus on the issues and the consequences.

Thanks

Exactly. Either you do or don't have unwanted side effects. I don't. Either you do or don't have clogged arteries. I do. Not much of a decision here. I don't mind margarine. The stuff we use is just vegetable oil anyway. It actually tastes quite good (but isn't worth a damn for baking).

You can elect to die if the temperature rises a couple of degrees C (which it very well may not). I assume you'd die of pure fear.

Oh dear, Steve, I certainly don't have your urgency. Sea levels are rising (east coast US) at ~1 foot/ 100 years. In 100 years we'll all be dead, there will be lots more data, and faster computers, and I'm not all that worried. I figure we'll figure it out.

George H.

Oh dear, let's not get into language arguments. Science starts out almost totally wrong, and get's less wrong over time. Is there anything wrong with that statement?

At least that's the hope.

George H.

Please post your links. I assume you have none.

Tipping point. Beyond that, it's too late.

We'll tip it back if there is some tipping point. It's never too late, just more embarrassing.

But to be clear I've been in favor of some type of carbon tax, since John Anderson.

George H,

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In the observational sciences - which John Larkin clearly knows nothing abo ut - "wrongness" is corrected by more observations. He needs to think about astronomy.

An unsubstantiated claim. When John Larkin can be persuaded to post example s which he imagines support this fatuous (bit persistent) claim, he merely reminds us that he doens't know much about science, and that what he thinks he knows is largely wrong.

Observations aren't experiments, but they can be used to falsify hypotheses . If John Larkin had any idea what he was talking about, he'd be aware of t his.

In fact there are statistical techniques which let you work out whether a c orrelation is statistically significant. John Larkin hasn't got a clue abou t them either.

All cross-correlation can throw up are associations, not causal relationshi ps, and it is well known that while correlation may suggest causation, it d oesn't prove it. You might be able to publish a suggestive correlation, but you'd pretty much have to hypothesise a testable cause and effect relation ship to get it into the literature.

Testing cause and effect relationships can be tricky. In medicine it would be unethical to withhold a potentially helpful treatment to establish cause and effect. Prospective studies can work, but they can take decades to pro duce results.

John Larkin's ignorance is unfortunate, and his failure to appreciate just how ignorant he is is even more unfortunate.

Can you read? No, I suppose not.

Exactly where is this "tipping point"? I thought AlGore got rid of her.

Why do you want a tax on prosperity. Don't you like it?

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Do or die - in this context - doesn't involve actually expiring. "Act or fa il" is is what is meant.

It the global temperature rises another degree Kelvin - it has already gone up by roughly one degree Kelvin - extreme weather events (like particularl y intense tropical cyclones) will kill even more people than they do at the moment, and more intense (and prolonged) droughts and more severe floods w ill probably kill more.

None of those killed will have elected to die, and none of them will die of pure fear, though if your house is in the process of being blown to pieces by a tropical cyclone you'll get pretty nervous in your final moments.

John Larkin prefers to ignore this reality, helped by some particularly dec eitful - if not all that convincing - denialist propaganda pushed out by th e fossil carbon extraction industry.

It makes him look like a gullible sucker, but he's much too vain to ever le t himself become conscious of this possibility.

Occasionally dumping a bucket of dirt in your yard will keep ahead of sea level rise.

I grew up three blocks from the Mississippi River, and looked UP at the ships passing by. We had a levee to keep us dry.

Without real feedback, and good experiments, it just wanders around.

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Current sea level rise is essentially the ocean acting like a thermometer - as it gets warmer it expands.

Sea level rise only gets interesting when the Greenland (6 metres of sea le vel rise)and the West Antarctic (4 metres of sea level rise) ice sheets sta rt sliding off into the sea. Nobody know exactly when this might happen, bu t it's very likely to happen tolerably soon.

The critical changes are happening at the bottom of the ice sheets, which i sn't a particularly accessible area, so computer modelling doesn't have lot of data to play with. Ice sheets aren't all that stable

and we don't really know why.

The sea level rise that is going on at the moment. Hurricanes give occasional spikes. The Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets have the capacity to makes more significant and more persistent changes.

You'd moved away before Hurricane Katrina?

not all of those levees survived it.

John Larkin isn't aware that it's good observations that make good science. If you can do experiments to create the opportunity to make good observations, progress is easier, but astronomy has done fine with observation alone.

John Larkin is insensitive to real world feedback, or he would have long ago stopped insisting that experimental science is the only kind that works.

Once it hits the tipping point, you have lost control. You can't bring it back.

Carbon tax is a good idea. It can be abused.