Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Ray]

NASA has stats on CO2 concentration showing the increase in the atmosphere.

 https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/?intent=121

CO2 is not transparent to infrared and so an increase hinders the earth's ability to balance energy input to the earth from the sun and from the earth by radiation.  Hence global warming, the consequences of which have been well documented by the world's scientific community and weather watchers.

Jonathan

I understand that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation and that its effect on temperature is often described as similar to the the effect of a blanket that traps heat. However, the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is very tiny, even at todays levels. 427ppm (parts per million) equals a percentage of 0.0427% by volume.

Have you ever wondered why deserts get so hot during the day, but sometimes fall below freezing temperatures at night, despite the blanket effect of CO2? It's due to a lack of water vapour. Water vapour is a far more significant greenhouse gas than CO2.
CO2 is a very poor blanket. A better analogy would be a fishing net with big holes. 

[digitaldog]

NASA has stats on CO2 concentration showing the increase in the atmosphere.

 https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/?intent=121

CO2 is not transparent to infrared and so an increase hinders the earth's ability to balance energy input to the earth from the sun and from the earth by radiation.  Hence global warming, the consequences of which have been well documented by the world's scientific community and weather watchers.

Jonathan

Jonathan, you're making way too much sense for this forum!
So are the overwhelming majority of climate scientists!

[digitaldog]

Have you ever wondered why deserts get so hot during the day, but sometimes fall below freezing temperatures at night, despite the blanket effect of CO2? It's due to a lack of water vapour. Water vapour is a far more significant greenhouse gas than CO2.

Have you ever wondered why Flooding is becoming an ever-increasing problem worldwide?

Steamy Relationships: How Atmospheric Water Vapor Amplifies Earth’s Greenhouse Effect
Some people mistakenly believe water vapor is the main driver of Earth’s current warming. But increased water vapor doesn’t cause global warming. Instead, it’s a consequence of it. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere amplifies the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide is responsible for a third of the total warming of Earth’s climate due to human-produced greenhouse gases. Small increases in its concentration have major effects.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/steamy-relationships-how-atmospheric-water-vapor-amplifies-earths-greenhouse-effect/

Yes, NASA again, darn those scientific facts and data getting in the way of man-made climet denial.

[kers]

I'm glad you agree that climate change is as old as the Earth, but I can't help wondering how an increase in average global temperature of just 1.5 Degrees C, over a 150-year period, can be a problem for adaption.

Everyone, wherever they live, experience far greater swings in temperature than 1.5 degrees, every day of their lives, unless they spend the whole day inside a building with controlled airconditioning set to one specific temperature for both day and night.

Maybe you forget about the increase of extreme weather conditions that come around since the last 10 years;
Fires, hurricanes, tornados, floods... probably the environmental change is not that lineair as you would like, and is not a temperature rise alone. It is possible that when some tresholds are crossed climate may become dramatically different in a short period of time.
Apart from that the oil industry causes many environmental problems while there are cleaner and sustainable solutions available. And affordable. Now is a turning point like going from steam engines to gasoline engines. The US will get behind in this matter and will get more polluted with the enormous amount of fracking stations that may pollute groundwater resources in an already dry environment. If you compare an electric car with a traditional car - it is clear the traditional car is old technolgy; electric drives silent and smoother and the engine is small, powerful and one simple piece that does not pollute. It is a 100 year difference.

[Robert Roaldi]

.
.
.Everyone, wherever they live, experience far greater swings in temperature than 1.5 degrees, every day of their lives, unless they spend the whole day inside a building with controlled airconditioning set to one specific temperature for both day and night.

It gets cool at night so the long-term climate effects are not important, is that the argument you're offering?

Are you claiming that human activity is not significantly affecting climate at a rate that is far outpacing the rate of change of natural cycles? And you don't believe that rapid changes in equilibriums matter?  (We have to be careful about using the word cycles, lest it leave the impression that everything cycles back to the way it was in last cycle, which is not the case.)

[Robert Roaldi]

Does Trump's "immunity" reach as far as SEC rules? Or is it ok for him to give out insider knowledge online?

Is there anyone left in any law enforcement agency to take action anyway?

[Robert Roaldi]

Ray, you're making way too much sense for this forum!

Is anyone following up on the dog-eating scandal, do you know?

[digitaldog]

Does Trump's "immunity" reach as far as SEC rules?

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm Trump nominee Paul Atkins as head of the SEC. In February, Trump signed an executive order claiming more power over independent regulatory agencies, including the SEC.
So, it seems he is immune. 

[Robert Roaldi]

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm Trump nominee Paul Atkins as head of the SEC. In February, Trump signed an executive order claiming more power over independent regulatory agencies, including the SEC.
So, it seems he is immune. 

It's all grift, all the time, isn't it?

[Ray]

Have you ever wondered why Flooding is becoming an ever-increasing problem worldwide?

Excellent question! Yes, I have wondered why flooding appears to be an ever-increasing problem, worldwide. Australia is well-known for it's alternating floods and droughts. I personally experienced a major flood in Queensland, Australia, in 2011. I had to travel over flooded roads in a boat, and walk knee-deep in parts of the flooded road to get back home. It was a wonderful photographic opportunity, but I'm disappointed I didn't take better photos. Perhaps I was too worried I might find my house to be flooded when I eventually arrived there. Attached are a few shots I took of the boat ride.

Of course, the Media reported this flood as unprecedented, and the worst on record, and that such floods will become worse in the future due to man-made climate change, which was a concern for me at the time because my house was located at the top of a bank of the Brisbane River.

Fortunately my house wasn't flooded. However, I searched the internet for the historical records of flood levels in the Brisbane area, and was amazed to find that, according to the government BOM records, the 2011 flood was the 7th worst during the existence of reliable records. Not even nearly the worst flood. The two highest flood levels occurred in 1841 and 1893.
For those interested, I've attached the following article from BOM which provides many details of the numerous floods in the Brisbane area that have been recorded from 1824 to 2017.

http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/flood/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml

[Frans Waterlander]

Again, Ray, you are making way too much sense. Actually looking at historic data and finding the media is lying and hyping? How dare you!

[digitaldog]

Again, Ray, you are making way too much sense. Actually looking at historic data and finding the media is lying and hyping? How dare you!

You may find this helpful, but the history suggests otherwise:
https://www.evolvetogrow.com.au/resources/why-people-dont-take-you-seriously/

[Jonathan Cross]

Matthew Parris, writing in The Times in the UK this week, quotes the 20th Century American columnist and phrase maker, HL Mencken,

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Jonathan




 

[Ray]

Again, Ray, you are making way too much sense. Actually looking at historic data and finding the media is lying and hyping? How dare you!

Thanks for your support, Frans.

[digitaldog]

Thanks for your support, Frans.

That and a quarter will get you…
Not a photograph 🙈

[Robert Roaldi]

This is a recent episode of Trevor Noah's What Now podcast series. It contains a 90 minute conversation with Scott Galloway. The title is 'The Problem With Men' but that's a bit misleading. It's a wide ranging discussion about the ills of our modern culture and the problems that young males (especially in the US) are facing as part of that wider discussion. Galloway points out things that in his view are errors that modern American culture is making regarding money, leadership, generational changes, etc. He reserves special disdain for the worship of money and the undue and unearned power that it gives to some people. Examples are numerous and obvious. At 90 min it's a bit long but never drags.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i11gj-iq1I

[Robert Roaldi]

Again, Ray, you are making way too much sense. Actually looking at historic data and finding the media is lying and hyping? How dare you!

The media does what it always does, exaggerates and simplifies. Every time there is a storm these days, some blonde with large incisors and too much hair says "climate change" in front of a camera. This is largely dumb. But just because that happens does NOT mean that accelerated manmade climate change is not actually happening. To claim that is as dumb as the original sound bite.

One hundred years of Australian flooding history does not prove or disprove long-term manmade climate change. It's more or less irrelevant to bring it up.

To emphasize, just because the media says dumb things, it does not mean that climate scientists believe in dumb things. They don't get their data from TV news.

[Robert Roaldi]

Gwynne Dyer's latest take on what the US tariffs might mean in the medium to long term. His bottom line is that although the US is a big economic power, it doesn't dominate world trade and the rest of the world can probably ride out the current craziness, in part by simply sidelining the US. It means some disruption of course.

He makes one really interesting statement "The US still accounts for 25% of the world economy, the same share it had in 1980 – proof, if any were required, that it has not been taken “ripped off, raped, pillaged and plundered” by its trading partners. But being largely self-sufficient, the United States only accounts for 13% of world trade – so Trump cannot blackmail everybody else into doing his will."

https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/trump-smashes-the-system/

[degrub]

Unless their economy is closely tied to the US economy with few options.

[Robert Roaldi]

Now here's an interesting bit of news on the Tesla front, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-speeds-up-odometers-avoid-warranty-repairs-us-lawsuit-claims-2025-04-17/. A possible class action lawsuit would claim that Tesla cars manipulate the odometer readings to avoid warranty repairs. The captain at DOGE wouldn't do that, come on.

Stories are emerging (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/elon-musks-children-ashley-st-clair?srsltid=AfmBOooyaYrg2YTGrmdbHO4eR1nHFKUyFWrij7jWaHqpew83qDyRbkOz) about Elon Musk wanting to seed a "legion" of children. I'm sure he's being altruistic, as he probably feels that any product of his loins will inevitably benefit the Earth. He's striking a blow for feminism 3.0.

Staying with Musk,  "... (DOGE) reportedly cut 30 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) workers in February, disproportionately affecting regulators tasked with assessing self-driving vehicle risks, according to a Financial Times report."  I'm sure that's a coincidence, smells too much like old timee backroom politics to me, they'd never do that, and even if they did, it's for everyone's good. (https://www.newsweek.com/doge-cuts-watchdogs-investigating-self-driving-teslas-2058241)

I saw in the news that Bezos sent some women into space for 11 minutes, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8e5gq8ljo.

I also saw that Zuckerberg and Meta are in court, or about to appear in court, with respect to anti-trust allegations. It's so important to hire the right brown bag lobbyists in hand to avoid this kind of thing. Maybe the orange mob boss in charge has a stranglehold on the courts like Don Corleone did in the movies. Carving out a monopoly middleman role is the new american dream.

Am I too cynical?