Well as predicted by ME and everyone else who isn't a moron, months later, NOTHING CAME OUT OF THIS, after 3 investigations, no data trafficking was discovered and the only thing standing against them was that they didn't hand out X information to people who inquired because they said they were constantly flooded with frivolous demands from idiots and it would be a waste of time to respond to every last one of them.
Apparently you can't do that.
But yeah, there you go, nothing happened, they didn't do anything wrong and now no one's talking about it anymore and I'm sure the same people who, 3-4 months ago were thinking this would end global warming research will STILL quote this incident forevermore as the smoking gun without ever bothering to check what became of it.
Anyway the guy who stepped down during the investigation just went back to work at his post. Wee. All this did was delay his actual work and create a bunch of useless paperwork.
Crazy people: 1
Scientists : 0
At 11/24/09 11:42 PM, Elfer wrote: I'd like to place a bet now though that if any wrongdoing is uncovered, it will be irregularities pertaining to FOIA requests, and not the actual research itself. That sort of thing is the only stuff I've seen in the emails that seems truly suspect.
And yet, people still don't want to believe me whenever I'm talking about anything related to science, how science works or the behaviour of scientists.
At 7/20/10 02:09 PM, Elfer wrote:At 11/24/09 11:42 PM, Elfer wrote: I'd like to place a bet now though that if any wrongdoing is uncovered, it will be irregularities pertaining to FOIA requests, and not the actual research itself. That sort of thing is the only stuff I've seen in the emails that seems truly suspect.And yet, people still don't want to believe me whenever I'm talking about anything related to science, how science works or the behaviour of scientists.
I think it's because when people hear the word "scientist", they picture Einsteins ressurrecting Frankenstein's Monsters with a smile on their face. Totally cool dudes, but probably not to be trusted. Also, they're probably all in on it together and this is a big coverup so they can get "the money".
I've always been in favour of that goddamn sarcasm font, where is it now that I need it yet again?
At 7/20/10 01:36 PM, poxpower wrote:
no one's talking about it anymore
Wait for it...
and I'm sure the same people who, 3-4 months ago were thinking this would end global warming research will STILL quote this incident forevermore as the smoking gun without ever bothering to check what became of it.
I think this might become a fine meme.
Zephiran: Maintaining grammatical correctness while displaying astonishing levels of immaturity.
I was gonna clean my room.
But then I got pie.
No one is talking about it because no one takes the global warming movement seriously. Of course people still pay lip service to it, but its proponents do not act as if they really believe in all of the dire claims that they make. How many global warming advocates argue for a rapid build up of nuclear power plants to reduce coal usage? Close to none - yet this response is truly underwhelming if one sincerely believes in global warming alarmism. The proponents actual method of support: histrionics and insulting people outside of the movement, do not fit the magnitude of their claims.
It is remarkably similar to the fundamentalist Christians who believe that the apocalypse will come within their lifetimes. It is a colorful belief, but if they really thought that it would happen, then they would take much more drastic actions to convert people or prevent the actions that would prevent people from entering heaven (yes, I know that Christians do spend a lot of time converting people, but if the apocalypse were near then it would be irrational to do nearly anything but convert people).
With that said, I don't really care about the global warming movement. The supply of fossil fuels is finite and coal has real negative externalities. A small carbon tax wouldn't be a horrible policy.
"The mountain is a quarry of rock, the trees are a forest of timber, the rivers are water in the dam, the wind is wind-in-the-sails"
-Martin Heidegger
Interesting point, AI, but consider that die-hard environmentalists consider nuclear power to be just as or more dangerous to human existence than coal. If you were the scientist that told the world to go all-out nuclear, and a global holocaust was the result, would you want to be credited with making that happen by whatever is left of the human race?
Also, there's a sociological danger with a mass shift to nuclear power. Even if it is safer than coal, it's still not a clean source, and like fossil fuels is finite. Making nuclear power the end-all solution would put the world in a false sense of energy security, which could be devastating to sustainable energy research. We would be under the same spell of dependence on radioactive decay that we are currently witnessing with coal and oil. Thus, our personal energy is better spent developing and advocating the renewable sources like wind, solar and tidal, which if used on a wide enough scale would offer all the same benefits without the price of addiction to an energy source that can't keep pace with our explosive growth. Nuclear power would reduce the need for coal by multitudes, but it can not be the ultimate solution.
At 7/21/10 01:44 AM, Al6200 wrote:
How many global warming advocates argue for a rapid build up of nuclear power plants to reduce coal usage?
The vast majority of them?
Many countries are moving into Nuclear energy ( Canada and France for instance ) and just about everyone realizes it's a great middle-term solution.
The proponents actual method of support: histrionics and insulting people outside of the movement, do not fit the magnitude of their claims.
Oh and trivial things like developing new technologies, lobbying governments and turning their companies into green operations...
then they would take much more drastic actions
Like what?
They can't just take over governments and enforce all the changes they want.
They're fighting an incredibly hard uphill battle against scientific illiteracy, over-skepticism, lazyness, corporations with billions of dollars to put in PR campaigns and lobbies and apathetic governments who care only about what happens in the next 4 to 8 years.
They're constantly proposing tons of solutions and small things that could be done but people don't do it and governments don't give a fuck most of the time.
It's stupid things like PAINTING ROOFS WHITE. Can't even get that done.
And our entire society is currently structured in a way that makes it really really hard to be eco-friendly and really really easy to be lazy and wasteful.
A small carbon tax wouldn't be a horrible policy.
If it works.
On nuclear energy: The proponents of nuclear energy within the global warming movement tend to be scientists, engineers and science enthusiasts who are actually well-informed about the issues, since these people do not fear the nuclear boogeyman. They do, however, fear the very real and dangerous coal boogeyman.
Those opposed to nuclear power tend to be people who don't understand modern developments in the nuclear power industry, and ignore the fact that nuclear is being proposed as a high-density solution to coal usage, not a magic use-forever solution to our energy woes, since we are, in fact, aware that it's not sustainable in the long term.
At 7/21/10 12:00 PM, poxpower wrote: They're constantly proposing tons of solutions and small things that could be done but people don't do it and governments don't give a fuck most of the time.
It's stupid things like PAINTING ROOFS WHITE. Can't even get that done.
This is probably the biggest issue facing environmentalists: laziness and apathy on the part of the general population. It's very very difficult to get people to put in just a little bit more effort to make environmentally friendly changes.
For example, in my city, they have "green bins" that you put out along with your recycling, that can be used for organic waste. In other words, now everyone can compost, and the city will do all of the actual leg work for you. They take it away, they process it, it's all away from your house and very convenient. They even give out booklets explaining what kinds of waste can go in the green bin, and which should go in recycling or trash. Yet still, the large majority of people don't use the green bin, since they prefer to just throw their organic waste in the trash. It doesn't matter how easy environmentalists make things for people, it still takes forever for changes to fixate, because people die faster than they change their habits.
Other things are changes that would be incredibly easy to make, but they aren't made because of social expectations due to defunct standards. For example, buildings would be cheaper to operate and to build if a larger portion was made underground, which we didn't do initially because we didn't have large machinery to quickly dig big holes for us. When people put a roof on a house, it's a dark colour, because traditionally tar has been used for roofing applications. People still believe that solar panels don't pay for themselves within their lifetime, and they still believe that solar panels actually have some sort of magic upper lifespan that they just explode upon reaching, despite the fact that many of the original commercial solar panels are still functioning.
At 7/26/10 10:09 AM, Elfer wrote:
This is probably the biggest issue facing environmentalists: laziness and apathy on the part of the general population.
See that's the kind of thing people don't do if the government doesn't make them do it / make it easy but when the government does do that, they bitch about how it's communism.
At 7/26/10 10:09 AM, Elfer wrote: This is probably the biggest issue facing environmentalists: laziness and apathy on the part of the general population. It's very very difficult to get people to put in just a little bit more effort to make environmentally friendly changes.
yeah, pretty much the only way to get people to consistently do something good for others is to make them realize they're doing good for themselves at the same time... and otherwise penalize them if they DON'T do it. the problem is people want to see rewards for their effort right away, and the concept of instant gratification is almost directly opposed to the long-term goals of conservation, environmentalism and "doing it for the future". you gotta either sucker people into it, or give them easy-to-digest, short-term goals that make immediate sense to them. a bit of the ol' "waving a carrot in front of the donkey" routine.
what you said about the green bins in your town reminded me of my buddy's town: they started charging money for trash pickup. every bag of trash that got picked up at the curb cost $3 each (or more, i don't recall the exact figure), but all recyclables were carted and processed for 'free'. obviously residents had already been paying for pickup beforehand, but back then it was a forgettable add-on to their municipal taxes and everyone basically paid the same percentage each year. his town turned it into a self-contained bill that rose or sank as each resident's trash output rose or sank.
from the way he talked about, it sounds like it's working pretty good. at first some people were furious about it, but they learned to deal. folks who might've regularly filled their trashcans to overflowing had to rethink the situation... they HAD to start taking recycling seriously because their town turned it into a very simple equation for them: less trash = less bills, more trash = more bills.
so yeah, we need more programs that play on people's selfish tendencies in order to get them to do more 'selfless' things. we need to find more ways to incentivize the shit out of this shit and shit. i mean SHIT. people are fat and lazy because they think they can afford to be fat and lazy. might as well make em pay through the nose for it in the meantime. *shrug*
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