Who is right? The climate alarmists? Or the Climate deniers?

Of course it is.

You're confining the term 'behavior' to internal behavior. There is external behavior, as well.

Driving a car without a catalytic converter is external behavior, it's behavior that pollutes.

Murder is external behavior, it's behavior that kills unjustly. Surely, you agree that is behavior within the purview of government to regulate.

Ever heard of the term 'misbehaving'?. It normally refers to external behavior.

If you read what I wrote, I addressed your point, and explained how it didn't negate mine.

In modernity, most people will agree that the state has no business regulating such a thing as 'cunnilingus'. Accept that reasonable premise is all that is needed to support my argument, which is the one where you are unable to discern the difference between behavior that is beyond the purview of government, and behavior that is inclusive of government.

Murder is behavior, and the gov has the right to make it illegal.

Capiche?

Try again.

 

Oh, this is an outright lie. Did you completely miss my long post where I gave the exact density of a great many major cities?

You know, you simply have to stop lying and making crap up. I quite clearly went through the density of cities, and showed how it is a key part of this. And if you look at a list of the densest cities in the US, they actually do have some decent mass transit. But then the density quickly falls off, and along with it the success of mass transit.

Now please tell us how mass transit is possible in a city with a low population density.

https://kinder.rice.edu/2018/11/13/excerpt-many-cities-have-transit-how-many-have-good-transit#:~:text=The fundamental math of density,doesn't match density well.

Do you see the above? That is known as a "reference". Can you say "reference"?

I knew you couldn't.

I have actually studied this for a great many years. Why do you think I was able to point out population density so quickly?

Now please, point out a single serious study that does not link population density as a key part of mass transit.

And how about a retraction, for once again accusing me of "making crap up"? Because you do that all the damned time, and it is annoying. All you ever do is scream "no" with absolutely no references, and scream that everybody else is lying and making things up.

 

Oh really now?

You know, there is actually no law that mandates catalytic converters, right? Not one.

Oh, they are mandated on all cars I believe made after 1975, but that is it. Not one law was ever made that mandated people to put them on their cars.

You see, you keep failing because you do not even know what you are trying to say. Mandating that manufacturers put something on an item they sell is not "mandating behavior". Hell, leaded gasoline was still legal for cars as late as 1996, long after gas stations stopped selling it. It was pretty much gone by the late 1980's, as it was no longer economical to sell it. It was not mandated out of existence, it was a quickly shrinking segment of fuel sales so the oil companies simply stopped making and distributing it.

Oh, and it is still legal, and sold in the US. Just not for automobiles.

You really do not understand any of this, do you?

 

too many red herrings here. Okay....

Let's back up to what you originally wrote, and approach this from another angle.

You wrote:

Yet you want to give the government powers to do something like change the weather.


No, we're going to give the government the power to remove, limit, or otherwise control, the causes that contribute to ACC/AGW, and the gov does have the power to do that.

And then you wrote:

And since when has that been the job of the Government?

It's in the constitution.

 

Apparently based on the assumption that the government can accurately identify said causes.

 

Yes, but the alternative is to do nothing, and that's not particularly more comforting.

I'll go with a ray of hope, if that is all there is, than to abandon it altogether.

 

Unless, of course, it turns out that "nothing" is what's needed.

 

An excellent takedown of the "cherry-picking" allegation often leveled at skeptics.

• Cherry, Pick Thyself

 

Dude.

I'm ready to talk about the technicalities of this issue. I am ready to talk about the laws of science themselves. I am ready to talk about the requirements of statistical mathematics with you. I've been through this song and dance with warmizombies a thousand times over.

If the best you can do is an appeal to popularity fallacy and a false authority fallacy...............

 

I certainly understand that this whole rant is BS.

No, there is no law mandating catalytic converters, because that's not how emissions regulation works. The Clean Air Act in 1972 gave EPA authority to regulate automotive emissions. They dictate the numbers that manufacturers need to hit in order to be allowed to sell their vehicles. The EPA as a whole couldn't actually design their way out of a paper bag. How manufacturers meet those required levels is up to them, since they actually know something about engineering and design. In a gasoline engine that operates at stoichiometry (a technical term, look it up) the emissions regulations led to a number of innovations like catalytic converters (that operate at stoich), fuel injection, computer controls, EGR, etc. each getting more complicated and precise as the years went on and the standards tightened.

In order to accommodate the technical requirements that allowed catalytic converters to work and have a useful life of more than a couple minutes, unleaded gas was required in highway applications, which also required a redesign in the engines since lead was an important anti-wear component in engines of that day and continued to be useful in non-automotive applications and older legacy equipment (engines are used for a bunch of stuff outside of automotive by the way, like generating electricity if the grid fails) it continued to be sold for quite a while after it was outlawed in cars.

Since this is a thread on Global Cooling/Global Warming/Climate Change or whatever other horse hockey they're calling it now, I'll also relent and tell you what stoichiometry is. "Perfect combustion", that point where hydrocarbons burn perfectly releasing all potential energy without any unwanted pollutants being created is called a stoichiometric ratio of oxygen to fuel. Each hydrocarbon has it's inherently perfect stoichiometric ratio. Petroleum products (primarily gasoline and diesel fuel) have a ratio of 14.7 to 1, or 14.7 units of air to 1 unit of fuel. That much air is required since roughly 21% of air is oxygen.

Now there are other hydrocarbon fuels with different ratios. Nitro-methane used in drag racers has a ratio of about 2.5:1. This is important because the real trick to making power is to get as much fuel into the combustion chamber and burned as possible and air is really difficult to push. So if the fuel brings its own oxygen then the BOOM is much bigger.

Now, the equation of the exothermic reaction that is combustion is HC + O2 => CO2 + H2O. Note that carbon dioxide and water are the desired outputs. No, they are not pollutants. No, without them life wouldn't exist. Period.

Now for some basic high school science and math. Roughly 79% of our atmosphere is Nitrogen. 21% is oxygen. Supposed "greenhouse gases" are part of what's left after that. 400 ppm CO2 is roughly 0.04% of the atmosphere.

These jack wads that make their living off government grants to scare the bejeezus out of everybody else about the world ending next week unless you and the rest of the the little people personally endeavor to die soon are just pulling your leg.

But don't worry, a decision on WV v. EPA is coming soon which should start to blow the whole scam up.

 

As long as you believe you are smarter and more knowledgeable than all the scientists in the entire world, discussing ANYTHING with you is a ridiculous idea.

And, that is exactly what you repeatedly claim.

Plus, I don't really like talking to people who proclaim I've made statements that I have not made.

 

It doesn't matter how smart or dumb I am with regard to others... the arguments stand on their own... the laws of science speak for themselves...

You are avoiding doing this because you know that you are "outgunned" with regard to this discussion.

 

Since you are smarter than all science, there is no way to propose evidence or argument from any source of science.

You even deny that the entire world of science knows about thermodynamics!!!

Please find someone else to tell about your magnificence.

 

And the largest flaw in this entire statement is that apparently you believe that every scientist accepts AGW as a fact.

That is not true at all. You simply dismiss any who does not agree with it.

And as for the other things we discussed, I notice the only sound from your corner is crickets. It is amazingly predictable. When called out or something comes up you do not like, you try to ignore it.

I also note no retraction for calling me a liar.

 

Which is the entire premise of the OP: On whose side do we err, if err we must?

1. If we do something, and we are wrong, it's all for naught, then all we've done is waste effort and money.

2. If we do nothing, and we are wrong, and AGW is reality, we risk an uninhabitable planet.

Now, on the latter, if we do nothing and we are right, all is well, but we don't know this, at the outset. Additionally, if we do something, it is also possible that no amount of 'do' can solve the problem, but we don't know that at the outset, either.

So, given that we do not know which side is right, we must approach it from the vantage point, as policy makers:

On whose side do we err, if err we must?

Judging the two, it appears that the #1 is the wiser of the two paths.

 

that logic only applies if there is an equal, or near equal probability of either occurring. Which is far from the case. Over the past half-century or so there have been dozens of dire predictions which should have occured by now, but haven't; ice ages, ten meter ocean rises, uninhabitable temperatures, increased hurricanes/major storms, etc. The latest temperature predictions of the UN's IPCC have been 30-50% too high. The natural world, including mankind has proven to be remarkably adaptable to past climate disruptions.
We should continue to employ ALL options for energy production; emphasis on ALL; but not on an "Ommygod we're all going to die" basis. Facts are fossil -fuel vehicles are going to be around for a long time - and we should explore ways to make them more efficient. Same with power generation - We need a baseline system that delivers power dependably under all conditions. Renewables are find for supplementing, not so much as the frontline source.
The left wing idiocy of attempting to force transitioning to all renewables by a specific date is, well, idiocy. The left seem to thing passing a law or creating a mandate will miraculous cause all this to happy. It won't.

 

Not true.

The complexity of what might occur doesn't change the approach. It certainly doesn't on the 'do nothing' side.

On the 'do something' side, once we decide we must do something, THEN we further analyze waht to do about it, which at that juncture, factors in degrees of probability. Complexisty is only addressed on the do something side.

Here you are arguing for do nothing. But you might be wrong.

So, that takes us back to my original point.

 

#1 would be colossal waste of resources that would be better used helping people with real needs. #1 robs from the poorest to make well-to-do climateers feel better.

 

Sorry, absolutely true. That is a time honored management principle for dealing with risk/reward questions.

Complexity has to be balanced against probability. It's how virtually every complex systems is managed.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying; I'm not arguing "do something" vs "don't do anything". I'm saying we have to balance the effort against the probability of occurrence. It's a spectrum not an either/or situation.

 

In other words, you can not understand or explain what a behavior is, and you just believe that the Government can take any power it wants, simply because you want it to.

Sorry, that is not how it works.

Here, let me give you yet another example.

The US Government decides it wants to mandate behavior, and passes a law that anybody commuting more than 5 miles must use mass transit.

There, that is an actual law that would affect actual behavior. Or mandates that all travel whenever possible be done by rail, as it has a lower carbon footprint than car or air travel.

There, see the problem now? You are so completely lost, you think mandating a piece of automotive equipment is "changing behavior". That is not behavior, that is choice. Not even close.

California for over a decade has been trying to do that, and it has largely been failing. They made electric cars very appealing with multiple tax credits and incentives. And claimed that within 2 decades they would ban all ICE engines.

Well, now that the credits and other incentives for purchasing electric cars have largely ended, people are actually moving back to conventional cars again. They made a short term shift in behavior by essentially giving purchasers a lot of tax credits, and benefits like using the car pool lanes. And now that those are all gone, people are replacing their electric cars with conventional ones.

So as an example of the government changing behavior, it is basically a wash.

And California already knows what will happen if they try to mandate this. They already have a problem with population exodus, and large numbers are using loopholes to register their cars out of state. To be honest, even though I lived in that state for almost a decade, only 1 vehicle I owned was registered there. The rest remained registered in other states. And the beautiful thing about being military, they could not make me register my vehicles in California. The only exception was a motorcycle, which ignored their stupid smog laws.

 

I did not say that density is irrelevant.

I said there are US cities that are dense enough to justify public transit that they do not have.

Rather than focusing on density figures, one should look at commute time, and other measures of how people get around.

 

Commute time means absolutely nothing!

Go look at a map, see the commute time from Oroville to Sacramento. Road time, about an hour.

But with a population density of around 400 per square kilometer (19k people), no such system will ever even pay for itself. Simply not enough people commute there (even though I did for over a year).

When I lived in the Bay Area and commuted to downtown San Francisco, I actually had many options. But even the best of them meant I had to drive about 30 miles to catch another system. Either drive to Vallejo and take the ferry, drive to Concord and take BART, or drive to either one and take a bus. And that was in an area with a population of almost 8 million.

Oh, and the distance from Oroville to Sacramento was about the same as San Francisco to San Francisco. With a total of 11 trains from 4 in the morning to 7 at night. And Yes, I knew some who were able to telecommute and lived there, but only had to physically be at work 2 days a week. So they took the train, the rest of the time simply worked from home.

I am actually laughing, how once again you provide absolutely no reference, ignore my reference, and try to backpaddle on your claim while actually doubling down on it. And I notice you still have not apologized for calling me a liar and saying I did not provide any references or detailed data to support my claim.

Unlike you, who provides absolutely nothing.

Dude, get with reality and stop living in your fantasy world. You say density means nothing, then fine. Then kindly give us some kind of real reference that validates your claim.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...er density tend,options for walking or biking.

https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/hrr/1963/2/2-006.pdf

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qs6x14s

See the above? Those are known as "references". I know you apparently do not know what they are, and you never use them. But you had better start if you want to be taken seriously, and not just repeat over and over that everybody else is wrong. Especially when actual research says the exact opposite of what you are saying.

 

Crushing.

 

You're arguing FOR me!!

Yes - the SF bay area could use more public transit.

Look at the commute traffic across its bridges, etc.

 

And please tell us how that would work. Exactly what kind of "mass transit" is needed?

Simple fact, the average commute distance in the Bay Area is 16 miles. That's it, just 16 miles. About 30 minutes. And most who go into the city actually do use mass transit. Putting in more will be of no use, as two of the systems are barely even used. That being the street trolleys and cable cars. They are mostly there for the tourists, as they really do not go anywhere where locals need to get to (other than the California line, as once you leave the Financial District and move north you start to encounter hills as you are at that point actually entering into "real San Francisco and not reclaimed land).

Tell me, since once again you are simply talking out your ass and making things up, do you actually have any experience in San Francisco? Ever lived and commuted there? Because for a lot of my time working in the FiDi, I was the only one of over 100 people in my company that actually commuted into the city myself. Of course, I used a motorcycle. Trying to drive a car in the city (especially during the working day) is almost impossible, and horribly expensive. As in around $40 a day if you can even find it. There however is a lot of motorcycle parking, at around $20 a day.

There is a ton of mass transit inside the city. In fact, there are in addition to the busses and trolleys as well as the cable cars two different subway systems. Are you even aware of that? If you use the subway, BART is what you use to get to and from the city, that is the link outside. Once in the city, you use MUNI.

I am not arguing for you at all, I am once again pointing out that you do not know a thing about what you are talking about, and simply making things up with absolutely no knowledge. But please tell us now that you brought it up, exactly how would this "more mass transit" operate? From where to where? And how exactly would it work?

You see, many there thought I was insane, because when I did drive myself rather than take the ferry, my trip was about 50 miles. Of course, that was a decision my wife and I made together. Having learned by living in LA for decades, we would rather live well outside the city and commute, for a better standard of living. Where as in DF you can get an 500 square foot apartment for around $2,500 a month, we rented a rather nice house that was well over 1,000 square foot. Little crime, no homeless camping on your doorstep, and most of what we needed on a military base less than 5 miles away.

And as an FYI, the problem with extending commuting is the terrain. You can't run it into Marin County, that is why they only link to the city with boats and busses. The same with any solution to go past the Sacramento River. Those physical barriers block any attempt at connecting areas north of Baghdad by the Bay, and have done so for decades. There is simply no way to run trains any farther north, which is why if I commuted by train I had to cross a toll bridge to get on the south side of the river.

I suggest you actually take the time and pull up a map and look at the city and area around it. Inform yourself, that way you will not keep making such stupid claims without knowing a damned thing that you are talking about.