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Pentagon:Windows Upgrades not needed after 2020
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
As they say, behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining.
Karthik
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
That may be the least objective and most biased major newspaper story I've ever read. It was all FUD, and they never explained the supposed science explaining how this "climate change" is supposed to be brought on. Wow.
--Josh
JWA
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Pardon,
Its not a newspaper report. Its a pentagon study that Europe will resemble Siberia in 15 years.
Karthik
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Right, but your link was to a newspaper story from The Observer supposedly reporting on this report from the Pentagon. My point was that they mentioned the conclusion multiple times and used it to make all kinds of political accusations and inferences, but never mentioned the supporting facts in the Pentagon report. From reading the article I have zero idea what this report entails. I doubt that it resulted in a definitive conclusion that a climactic change is going to happen and Europe will be wiped out in 15 years. I would have expected a news story about the report to outline the findings, but it didn't. That was my point.
JWA
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
> It was all FUD, and they never explained the supposed science explaining how this "climate change" is supposed to be brought on.
A model that predicts northern Europe's cooling is mentioned e.g. here: http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040216.gtcotad16/BNPrint/Technology/?mainhub=GT
The BBC is saying that the effects of global warming will outweigh the cooling effect of a diminished Gulf Stream: http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml
Christopher Wells
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
There used to be a group in the Pentagon whose job was to create worst-case analyses. They would do things like "what if a nuclear reactor blew up in the US" or "what if the USSR and China signed a treaty and invaded Europe" etc. They weren't meant to be prognostications about things that were actually going to happen, but things that could happen, and some recommendations about possible responses.
It wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those reports - "What if global warming is happening and accelerated?"
This makes more sense than the Pentagon doing weather analyses (we have another agency for that, you know)
Philo
Philo
Thursday, March 25, 2004
"It wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those reports - "What if global warming is happening and accelerated?"
This makes more sense than the Pentagon doing weather analyses (we have another agency for that, you know)"
That's exactly what I suspect, and I was quite surprised that the article didn't explain anything about the nature and findings of the study.
(I'm not surprised at articles like this, but I am surprised that someone on a forum such as this one would buy into such "reporting".)
--Josh
JWA
Thursday, March 25, 2004
How do you get that job? That sounds right up my alley after paying my dues in this industry...
"What if an internet worm get's really smart and takes advantage of most of the known holes in commonly used OSes?"
Predicting the doom and gloom that would happen in a worst case scenario sounds midly entertaining in a somewhat perverted way.
christopher baus (www.baus.net)
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Well, how about you read the thing in question before making a conclusion to yourself and everybody else agree each other how much "more sense" this more comfortable conclusion out of thin air makes.
_
Thursday, March 25, 2004
I'm not sure how strong the evidence for/against global warming is.
But I do think that since we only have the one planet, we shouldn't really be trying experiments along the lines of "how much carbon can we put into the atmosphere before something breaks and what will break first?"
Katie Lucas
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Well, that resolves the whole outsourcing issue!
Not this time
Thursday, March 25, 2004
"Well, that resolves the whole outsourcing issue!"
It solves more problems than that. I've always believed the only problem with this planet is the existence of humans. Once we reach extinction, the planet can begin recovering, and live happily everafter.
Paulo Caetano
Thursday, March 25, 2004
As soon as I read this line:
>> A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and >> obtained by The Observer,
my bullsh_t meter spiked and I didn't read any further.
old_timer
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Philo:
Quite right. If you read carefully it doesn't say anywhere that the Pentagon is predicting this (in fact no one is predicting this). It just says that if the climate changes the worst case scenario is wars and riot and so forth. The odd thing to me is that they note that there has been severe climate change in the past and yet somehow the coming climate change must be the fault of humans.
I really believe there is a subset of the population which has a very deep need to believe that humans suck and are really fucking everything up. That's not to say that humans don't suck and are fucking some things up. I just think it's a bad idea to decide one's conclusions and then try to make facts fit them.
The same "science" that shows we are warming up also shows that there was a mini ide age that ended in the late 1800s and this warm-up seems to be a continuation of a warming trend that started back then. In addition there was a warmer period during medieval times and it sounds as if agriculture was better back then in some parts of the world, which are colder now.
The warming, if it is occuring, is gradual. I don't think we will wake up one day to find that England is frozen and over-run with zombies who feast on human flesh.
Yes we should use science to predict bad things and figure out ways to prevent them but it is a really bad idea to believe automatically, every dire prediction. If we throw money at every potential problem we won't have enough money concentrated on real problems.
name withheld out of cowardice
Thursday, March 25, 2004
I love PHilo's "What if global warning is happening?".
Everybody knows it's happening, including the people his President and the Energy Lobby (sorry for the redundancy) pay to publish reports that say the opposite.
What is a different matter is how fast it's happening and what the results will be.
With regard to Europe the question of whether the Vale of Kent will turn into Chiantishire, or whether the the Gulf Stream will shift and turn it into the tundra, is still under debatel. Fifteen years away is of course a worse-case scenario.
What is clearer however is that the temperature of the oceans are rising and this is destroying coral reefs. The effect of even a small rise in sea-levels will be disastrous for many countries that have contributed little towards global warming. Tens of millions will lose their houses and livelihoods in Bangladesh and the Nile Delta, with the consequent negative effect on the world's food supply.
I'm sure the article was a worse case scenario, and am surpirsed that a newspaper with the reputation of "The Observer" should have fallen for it. Perhaps they'r employing Andrew Gilligan under a pseudonym.
Of course the conspiracy theorist in me, which always wakes up when I hear the words Pentagon, makes me suspect that the document was deliberately leaked in order to discredit the environmentalists. Either that or the Observer has outsourced its research to the paralegal in Californinia who nearly persuaded the town elders to ban dihydorogen monoxide.
Stephen Jones
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Hi,
This article (and most others which picked up the story) are taking the study completely out of context. It wasn't intended to be a definitive prediction of the future, nor was it secret or supressed.
Here's some info from the authors:
http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231
The report was authored in part by futurist Peter Schwartz (who wrote the acclaimed "Art of the Long View"). Schwartz is well known for his "scenario planning" approach which helps governments / corporations prepare for future events which are often unlikely but disastrous if they do occur.
The basic idea of scenario planning is to make sure your strategies and policies provide optimal outcomes against a variety of future possibilities.
A good write up of where this paid off is in "The Living Company," Arie De Geus' excellent memoirs of his work in the planning group at Royal Dutch/Shell. Working with Schwartz in the early 80's, Shell took a look at the possibility of oil prices declining in future years. (which was considered extremely implausible in those post-oil crisis days). They concluded that if they proceeded with plans to invest in a major North Sea oil field, they would be significantly at risk in such a scenario, and (as insurance) delayed that investment. When average world oil prices dropped over 50% in 1986, the industry was strongly hit, but Royal Dutch/Shell was a significant exception.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chron.html
I'm no fan of this current administration, but it's amazing to me how quick the media was to jump all over this story (particularly European) without looking into any of the details.
WILL
Will
Thursday, March 25, 2004
This is my favorite Apocalypse site:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Basically saying that oil isn't running out, but cheap oil is.
/back to building my bunker
Lee
Thursday, March 25, 2004
I think we've been told we're all going to die about 50 bajillion times in recent years.
We better stop those cows from farting, they're going to KILL US! WAHH!
Warren Henning
Saturday, March 27, 2004
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