Which president candidate fits you?

[SavvySwede]

Bernie Sanders 96% only differed on the death penalty. I still believe some deserve it.

[jbishop15]

Bernie Sanders 96% only differed on the death penalty. I still believe some deserve it.

I'm generally anti-death penalty because of the possibility of innocent people dying, but some def deserve it.

[Chilli Dipper]

1. As an Engineer, I won't get into the shoddy science behind global warming, but climate change is not as serious an issue as most believe.  It's an issue that we have to deal with whether it's too cold or too hot or anywhere in between.  If Climate change is the top of your agenda, you need to critically think about tree rings and proxies and what you can really deduce from them about the past.  All temperature gauges have an error in them, you add in location and setting and you will get wide swings of data which do not reflect reality.  Then they have to be fit back to what the scientist expects, not what they really are.  The data sets used by the government have been altered so many times, I don't think anyone has any idea what the real numbers are.  So for anyone to really think that they can tell what the planets temperature is or even is supposed to be, eh, much ado about nothing. The world might (or might not) have warmed by a fraction of a degree. This might (or might not) be all (or in part) due to the activities of mankind. It might (or might not) be all bad.  A warmer world is much more hospitable than a cold world (see the middle ages and the little ice age).  It all depends on the quality of observations and the validity of various hypotheses, which I'm afraid to say, are lacking.   If only there were some natural explanation for falling and rising temperatures.  Such a hypothetical source of warming would have to be massive, however. On the order of magnitude of our Sun. We should all praise carbon, it is the cycle of life.  The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the so-called greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting. It is only turned into a terror by computer models. These are pretty worthless prognosticators; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate (not a closed system unfortunately) and involve so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking by anyone. No model has been able to accurately predict the current non-warming that has been going on for 15 years.  I could go on and on and on...but that is probably for another blog 2. The government is too huge and needs to be reigned in, not everything demands the attention of the government.  That's the problem, the government is so huge they can't see the forest through the trees.   One of my favorite quotes: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken Back to Golf....Fore!

The mentality expressed in this post demonstrates why I'm turned off to considering voting for Republicans for the foreseeable future. I think climate change is real, and I don't believe that taking steps to reduce America's carbon footprint would result in economic catastrophe. As the world's largest economy, the United States can most afford to take the lead and set an example for other nations. Regardless of that, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource; we know that burning them degrades the quality of the air we breathe even before the effects of the greenhouse effect. Mountaintop coal mining has destroyed the landscape of Appalachia, displaced native species, reduced biodiversity in the region, and made the water unsafe to drink. The risks of fracking and oil sands exploration are still not well understood, and we certainly don't yet know how to clean up the mess if something goes wrong. The right side of the aisle likes to proclaim that we are a Christian nation, but a tenet of nearly every church on Earth is that we are supposed to take stewardship of God's creation. To "praise carbon" -- to advocate policies that pursue the extraction of fossil fuels at any cost, and without regard to the environmental consequences of those decisions -- is irresponsible to say the very least. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to the elemental structure of government: I don't really care how big or small it is, so long as it works. If Rockefeller Republicans still existed, I'd probably find a lot of ground with them, but the idea of "good government" has completely vanished from conservative politics. The dominant ideology now is that all government is bad, it only gets in the way of "freedom," and it should be made small enough that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Simply put, I don't agree with that, and I could never vote for that.

[jbishop15]

The mentality expressed in this post demonstrates why I'm turned off to considering voting for Republicans for the foreseeable future. I think climate change is real, and I don't believe that taking steps to reduce America's carbon footprint would result in economic catastrophe. As the world's largest economy, the United States can most afford to take the lead and set an example for other nations. Regardless of that, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource; we know that burning them degrades the quality of the air we breathe even before the effects of the greenhouse effect. Mountaintop coal mining has destroyed the landscape of Appalachia, displaced native species, reduced biodiversity in the region, and made the water unsafe to drink. The risks of fracking and oil sands exploration are still not well understood, and we certainly don't yet know how to clean up the mess if something goes wrong. The right side of the aisle likes to proclaim that we are a Christian nation, but a tenet of nearly every church on Earth is that we are supposed to take stewardship of God's creation. To "praise carbon" -- to advocate policies that pursue the extraction of fossil fuels at any cost, and without regard to the environmental consequences of those decisions -- is irresponsible to say the very least. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to the elemental structure of government: I don't really care how big or small it is, so long as it works. If Rockefeller Republicans still existed, I'd probably find a lot of ground with them, but the idea of "good government" has completely vanished from conservative politics. The dominant ideology now is that all government is bad, it only gets in the way of "freedom," and it should be made small enough that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Simply put, I don't agree with that, and I could never vote for that.

This is a good post. We're on the same page almost in totality.

[rkim291968]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkolo

1. As for lies about global warming, I don't know which you're referring to, but climate change is an extremely serious issue that needs our attention.

2. In any event, the government is a big entity and there's plenty of ways to allocate resources to address different problems.

1. As an Engineer, I won't get into the shoddy science behind global warming, but climate change is not as serious an issue as most believe.  It's an issue that we have to deal with whether it's too cold or too hot or anywhere in between.  If Climate change is the top of your agenda, you need to critically think about tree rings and proxies and what you can really deduce from them about the past.  All temperature gauges have an error in them, you add in location and setting and you will get wide swings of data which do not reflect reality.  Then they have to be fit back to what the scientist expects, not what they really are.  The data sets used by the government have been altered so many times, I don't think anyone has any idea what the real numbers are.  So for anyone to really think that they can tell what the planets temperature is or even is supposed to be, eh, much ado about nothing.

The world might (or might not) have warmed by a fraction of a degree. This might (or might not) be all (or in part) due to the activities of mankind. It might (or might not) be all bad.  A warmer world is much more hospitable than a cold world (see the middle ages and the little ice age).  It all depends on the quality of observations and the validity of various hypotheses, which I'm afraid to say, are lacking.

If only there were some natural explanation for falling and rising temperatures.  Such a hypothetical source of warming would have to be massive, however. On the order of magnitude of our Sun.

We should all praise carbon, it is the cycle of life.  The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the so-called greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting. It is only turned into a terror by computer models. These are pretty worthless prognosticators; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate (not a closed system unfortunately) and involve so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking by anyone. No model has been able to accurately predict the current non-warming that has been going on for 15 years.

I could go on and on and on...but that is probably for another blog

There is simply too much evidence of rising temperature that's causing havoc globally.   You may insist that is not a man made problem but you can't deny the global temperature has gone up enough to cause many issues globally.   Many lives are forever changed whether it's fishermen who can no longer fish for the same fishes or people living in Marshall Islands.

[tmac20]

There is simply too much evidence of rising temperature that's causing havoc globally.   You may insist that is not a man made problem but you can't deny the global temperature has gone up enough to cause many issues globally.   Many lives are forever changed whether it's fishermen who can no longer fish for the same fishes or people living in Marshall Islands.

This. I trust the evidence presented by scientists with PhD's in climate studies more so than the opinion of an engineer.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkim291968

There is simply too much evidence of rising temperature that's causing havoc globally.   You may insist that is not a man made problem but you can't deny the global temperature has gone up enough to cause many issues globally.   Many lives are forever changed whether it's fishermen who can no longer fish for the same fishes or people living in Marshall Islands.

This. I trust the evidence presented by scientists with PhD's in climate studies more so than the opinion of an engineer.

It's not a deniable fact, but one that we probably can't really do a lot about at this point. We'll more than likely need to adapt to the climate changes rather than try to reverse 100 years of polluting. . .

[Abu3baid]

It's not a deniable fact, but one that we probably can't really do a lot about at this point. We'll more than likely need to adapt to the climate changes rather than try to reverse 100 years of polluting. . .

No one might have to worry about it in about 15 years if these scientists are right. Read it the other day. [URL]http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-freezing-a-mini-ice-age-is-on-the-way-by-2030-scientists-say-2015-07-13[/URL]

[Chilli Dipper]

No one might have to worry about it in about 15 years if these scientists are right. Read it the other day. [URL]http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-freezing-a-mini-ice-age-is-on-the-way-by-2030-scientists-say-2015-07-13[/URL]

The article references Newsmax as a source; AKA the website that claimed irrefutable evidence that President Obama's birth certificate was fake. I'd want to hear it from somehere else.

[jsgolfer]

This. I trust the evidence presented by scientists with PhD's in climate studies more so than the opinion of an engineer.

Seriously you're going to throw out the PhD over an active Engineer, I guess my Master's degree in Engineering is meaningless in a debate against a PhD scientist. How will I ever live with myself.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

It's not a deniable fact, but one that we probably can't really do a lot about at this point. We'll more than likely need to adapt to the climate changes rather than try to reverse 100 years of polluting. . .

No one might have to worry about it in about 15 years if these scientists are right.

Read it the other day.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-freezing-a-mini-ice-age-is-on-the-way-by-2030-scientists-say-2015-07-13

Right, supposedly we're intelligent. We should be able to adapt. It's not going to be trivial, but nothing's easy.

[Chilli Dipper]

Right, supposedly we're intelligent. We should be able to adapt. It's not going to be trivial, but nothing's easy.

Sure, we could adapt. It's the rest of the food chain I'm worried about.

[jsgolfer]

The mentality expressed in this post demonstrates why I'm turned off to considering voting for Republicans for the foreseeable future. I think climate change is real, and I don't believe that taking steps to reduce America's carbon footprint would result in economic catastrophe. As the world's largest economy, the United States can most afford to take the lead and set an example for other nations. Regardless of that, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource; we know that burning them degrades the quality of the air we breathe even before the effects of the greenhouse effect. Mountaintop coal mining has destroyed the landscape of Appalachia, displaced native species, reduced biodiversity in the region, and made the water unsafe to drink. The risks of fracking and oil sands exploration are still not well understood, and we certainly don't yet know how to clean up the mess if something goes wrong. The right side of the aisle likes to proclaim that we are a Christian nation, but a tenet of nearly every church on Earth is that we are supposed to take stewardship of God's creation. To "praise carbon" -- to advocate policies that pursue the extraction of fossil fuels at any cost, and without regard to the environmental consequences of those decisions -- is irresponsible to say the very least. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to the elemental structure of government: I don't really care how big or small it is, so long as it works. If Rockefeller Republicans still existed, I'd probably find a lot of ground with them, but the idea of "good government" has completely vanished from conservative politics. The dominant ideology now is that all government is bad, it only gets in the way of "freedom," and it should be made small enough that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Simply put, I don't agree with that, and I could never vote for that.

Damn I didn't know so was a republican, thank you for clearing that up.

[jsgolfer]

The mentality expressed in this post demonstrates why I'm turned off to considering voting for Republicans for the foreseeable future. I think climate change is real, and I don't believe that taking steps to reduce America's carbon footprint would result in economic catastrophe. As the world's largest economy, the United States can most afford to take the lead and set an example for other nations. Regardless of that, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource; we know that burning them degrades the quality of the air we breathe even before the effects of the greenhouse effect. Mountaintop coal mining has destroyed the landscape of Appalachia, displaced native species, reduced biodiversity in the region, and made the water unsafe to drink. The risks of fracking and oil sands exploration are still not well understood, and we certainly don't yet know how to clean up the mess if something goes wrong. The right side of the aisle likes to proclaim that we are a Christian nation, but a tenet of nearly every church on Earth is that we are supposed to take stewardship of God's creation. To "praise carbon" -- to advocate policies that pursue the extraction of fossil fuels at any cost, and without regard to the environmental consequences of those decisions -- is irresponsible to say the very least. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to the elemental structure of government: I don't really care how big or small it is, so long as it works. If Rockefeller Republicans still existed, I'd probably find a lot of ground with them, but the idea of "good government" has completely vanished from conservative politics. The dominant ideology now is that all government is bad, it only gets in the way of "freedom," and it should be made small enough that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Simply put, I don't agree with that, and I could never vote for that.

You do realize that carbon is he basis of life?

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

Right, supposedly we're intelligent. We should be able to adapt. It's not going to be trivial, but nothing's easy.

Sure, we could adapt. It's the rest of the food chain I'm worried about.

It's not going to be trivial, but nothing's easy.

[tmac20]

Seriously you're going to throw out the PhD over an active Engineer, I guess my Master's degree in Engineering is meaningless in a debate against a PhD scientist. How will I ever live with myself.

PhD in climate studies. Congratulations for getting a Master's degree in Engineering. It doesn't give you expertise on climate issues.

[Chilli Dipper]

It's not going to be trivial, but nothing's easy.

I'd argue that reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is an easier problem to solve than mass extinction and population collapse.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsgolfer

Seriously you're going to throw out the PhD over an active Engineer, I guess my Master's degree in Engineering is meaningless in a debate against a PhD scientist. How will I ever live with myself.

PhD in climate studies. Congratulations for getting a Master's degree in Engineering. It doesn't give you expertise on climate issues.

Actually, the models they use for climate studies are not as sophisticated as most people think. One small variation in the parameters can change the outcome radically, and very likely unrealistic.