Patterico's Pontifications

Ding !

Alastor (2e7f9f) — 6/17/2014 @ 9:59 pm

Of course, like almost all the rest of the enviro propaganda, this is more twaddle. The oceans are in no danger. Yes, some species are overfished, and that is a bad thing for all of us who like fish and would like to continue enjoying them in the future. But the ocean doesn’t care if some particular yummy species disappears; some other less tasty species will quickly fill its niche.

Yes, there are unsightly garbage patches, but they’re usually out where nobody has to look at them, and they don’t affect the ocean much, if at all.

And dead zones are a natural phenomenon. They’re not caused by anything we do, and the ocean has survived with them for thousands of years.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/17/2014 @ 10:06 pm

With all due respect to our Commander-in-Chief, perhaps he should work on a more important Marine Sanctuary before he works on adding 700K square miles to an existing marine sanctuary … perhaps he can add an Army Sanctuary and a Navy Sanctuary and an Air Force Sanctuary and a Coast Guard Sanctuary, too …

And *then* start thinking about his legacy …

Alastor (2e7f9f) — 6/17/2014 @ 10:07 pm

782,000 square miles

Drudge had a link to this article up yesterday:

New Zealand May Kick Start Race To Mine The Ocean Floor

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/17/2014 @ 10:08 pm

The astonishing idiocy of liberals like Obama and a variety of other Earth-first people of his ilk is there really is a serious, legitimate threat to the environment in the form of the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan. But do such liberals focus on and cite that? No, they instead talk about CO2 and creating and enforcing zones of no fishing.

I don’t think it’s being snarky to theorize that the area of the human brain that controls common sense must be either severely damaged or missing in people of the left.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/17/2014 @ 10:41 pm

The reactors in Fukushima are not a threat to anywhere outside their immediate area. The Pacific is huge, and nothing coming out of Fukushima could possibly be noticeable when diluted in that much water. In particular, the entire radiation from Fukushima, if spread throughout the Pacific, would raise the ocean’s natural radiation by such a small amount that it couldn’t be measured.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/17/2014 @ 11:13 pm

Earth First!!

we can strip mine the other planets later… 😎

redc1c4 (abd49e) — 6/17/2014 @ 11:55 pm

i was at a native plant event where a variety of moonbat groups had tables…

the ones ranting & raving about plastics in the ocean had jars filled with water & bits n’ pieces that they said were samples picked up floating in the Pacific.

they got really butthurt when i asked why, if they had been floating in the ocean, they were all collected on the bottom of the jar unless you shook it.

fing Luddites, one and all.

redc1c4 (abd49e) — 6/17/2014 @ 11:58 pm

If you’re correct, Milhouse, then that makes the gloom-and-doom warnings about AGW, CO2 and similar issues related to holy, sacred environmentalism seem even more overblown or laughable, even further down the list of priorities, if even a priority to begin with.

But I’m also assuming that most or, better yet, all of the following can be refuted or attributed to causes that have nothing to do with radiation contamination.

globalresearch.ca, Michael Snyder, June 7, 2014:

The following are 28 signs that the west coast of North America is being absolutely fried with nuclear radiation from Fukushima…

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…Wildlife experts are studying whether fur loss and open sores detected in nine polar bears in recent weeks is widespread and related to similar incidents among seals and walruses. The bears were among 33 spotted near Barrow, Alaska, during routine survey work along the Arctic coastline.

2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…. At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die. It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”

4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.

7. Experts have found very high levels of cesium-137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast.

8. One test in California found that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima.

9. Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

– 73 percent of mackerel tested
– 91 percent of the halibut
– 92 percent of the sardines
– 93 percent of the tuna and eel
– 94 percent of the cod and anchovies
– 100 percent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish

10. Canadian authorities are finding extremely high levels of nuclear radiation in certain fish samples…Some fish samples tested to date have had very high levels of radiation: one sea bass sample collected in July, for example, had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

12. BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

13. An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

15. At this point, 300 tons of contaminated water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

16. A senior researcher of marine chemistry at the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute says that “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

17. According to Tepco, a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

19. It has been estimated that up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation has been released into the ocean from Fukushima than was released during the entire Chernobyl disaster.

22. It is being projected that the entire Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than what we witnessed during the era of heavy atomic bomb testing in the Pacific many decades ago.

25. According to a recent Planet Infowars report, the California coastline is being transformed into “a dead zone”… If you haven’t been to a California beach lately, you probably don’t know that the rocks are unnaturally CLEAN – there’s hardly any kelp, barnacles, sea urchins, etc. anymore and the tide pools are similarly eerily devoid of crabs, snails and other scurrying signs of life… and especially as compared to 10 – 15 years ago when one was wise to wear tennis shoes on a trip to the beach in order to avoid cutting one’s feet on all the STUFF of life – broken shells, bones, glass, driftwood, etc.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:17 am

Mark, I wouldn’t exactly call Barrow AK the West Coast of North America, more like the North Coast of North America. And that this was the first cite in a laundry list of alleged calamities, makes me suspicious of the entire list – other than the fact that I live on the Left Coast, and no one else here is running with this. If the levels of radiation from Fukeshima was/is so severe, where are the bans on the taking/consumption of fish by sports-fishermen up and down the coast?
What the Hell is a “becquerel(s)”, and how does that compare to a Big Gulp?

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:35 am

10- … more….
This list is filled with ‘estimated’, ‘predicted’, and other language that we find in AGW reports.
Makes it all kind of meaningless, if you ask me. More Scare Science from researchers who need a new source of funding.

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:37 am

R.I.P. Daniel Keyes, author of the SF classic “Flowers For Algernon,” later filmed as “Charly” starring Cliff Robertson

Icy (eeaa5b) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:51 am

Here is some information – source MIT News. Radiation emitted by a radioactive source is measured in in either curies or becquerels. Radiation absorbed is measured by rad or grey. Radiological damage is measured by rem or sieverts. Since the original article used becquerels, the writer is either ignorant of the proper terminology or is trying to misinform the reader. askeptic is correct and mark should do some fact checking. Honor graduate – Seventh Army CBR NCO course in 1962 ( score 1996 out of 20000

Michael M. Keohane (1368cd) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:37 am

OOPs! Should read 1996 out of 2000. The missing 4 points were subjective – the grading instructor said I had failed to properly don the protective mask. He would not let me enter the gas chamber to prove that the mask was properly doned.

Michael M. Keohane (1368cd) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:39 am

The nomenklatura are in lockstep, comrades, the War on Oceans must be fought and won! Support this valiant effort, just do NOT sustain any wounds or disabilities!

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:02 am

Mark is quoting infowars and globalresearch.ca. No need to pay attention to that nonsense. Michael Snyder is a doomsday prepper whackadoodle.

As for saving oceans and helping veterans, um, why not do both? Environmental changes are going to be a military issue. They always have been.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:23 am

i’m not surprised about the difference in priorities vis a vis veterans and “the environment”…

after all, i’ve said for decades that the left’s motto on the subject of military personnel and veterans alike was “Nothing is too good for the troops, bue we have to give them something.”

they’ve never disappointed me yet.

redc1c4, 11H10 (abd49e) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:28 am

Radiological damage is measured by rem or sieverts. Since the original article used becquerels, the writer is either ignorant of the proper terminology or is trying to misinform the reader.

I’m totally prepared to have the information disputed and discounted since I, as a layman, can only rely on the veracity of the science and research behind what I’m encountering. But rebuttals to warnings about radiation contamination from the most severely damaged nuclear plant in history and a willingness to take counterclaims at face value makes me realize just how really unhinged (or foolish) the anti-AGW crowd truly is. Simply put, the science and stats behind CO2 as a boogey man aren’t a fraction as alarming as what I associate with Fukushima.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:01 am

If you’re looking for science and research, don’t go to globalresearch.ca or infowars. Simple.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:03 am

Environmental changes are going to be a military issue.

It’s ironic that you think a layer of do-gooder environmentalism should be on the laundry list of the US military, much less the VA (or at least propaganda espoused by some of their top employees), and you then dismiss a person for being a “doomsday prepper whackadoodle.” I only say that because I’ve noticed you sympathizing with liberals on occasion, and they’re the epitome of “whackadoodles,” but particularly when it comes to the type of environmentalism they’re trying to foist onto various branches of the US government, including the Nidal-Hasan-ized US military.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:11 am

12. Robert Silverberg just listed him in his column in the current issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction as alive, and 87 years old.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:46 am

That’s not actually an example of irony, no. You don’t agree that climate change is a military issue? When islands with airbases are underwater, that could be sort of a thing. Ditto food shortages.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:50 am

Face the Nation, Sunday, June 8, 2014: (before the capture of Mosul, Iraq)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-june-8-2014-feinstein-chambliss-rohde/8/

BOB SCHIEFFER: Tom Friedman is maybe the hardest working reporter I know. He is just back from Kurdistan where he delivered among other things a commencement address in addition to doing — in addition to doing some reporting there. He also interviewed President Obama recently on this issue of climate change for the ShowTime series Years of Living Dangerously. I want to play just a part of that interview that will air later on ShowTime.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (ShowTime): At least once a day you’ll see something on the national security side or domestic policy side that is impacted in some fashion by the possibilities of climate change. The area where we are most concerned is how climate change could end up having profound national security implications in poorer countries. We’re obviously concerned about drought in California or hurricanes and floods along our coastlines. All those things are bread and butter issues that touch on American families. But when you start seeing how these shifts can displace people, entire countries can be finding themselves unable to feed themselves. And the– the potential incidents of conflict that arises out of that, that gets your attention. There’s a reason why Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff identified climate change as one of our most significant national security problems. It’s not just the actual disasters that might arise. It is the – the accumulating stresses that are placed on a lot of different countries and the possibility of war, conflict, refugees, displacement that– that arise from changing climate.

BOB SCHIEFFER: That interview airs Monday night–right, Tom–on ShowTime…

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:59 am

Look, slick, I hate to tell ya, but you don’t HAVE any authority in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You’re not King Neptune, ya loon.

Mojo (00b01f) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:25 am

When islands with airbases are underwater, that could be sort of a thing. Ditto food shortages.

Carlitos, you sound like a doomsday prepper whackadoodle.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:59 am

This is indicative of how deeply Obamaism has been embedded in government. Even after he leaves, these horrid leftist bureaucrats will remain to torment us and to further transform/wreck our country.

Patricia (5fc097) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:00 am

When islands with airbases are underwater, that could be sort of a thing. Ditto food shortages.

So what percentage of military spending should we spend to prepare for an event that MAY happen? What time frame do you predicate this possible event will take place? Should we prepare for a meteor hitting the ocean as well…I mean there’s a distinct possibility of NEO(Near Earth Objects) striking the ocean near one of our island airbases?!

Hadoop (7fc17e) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:07 am

Look, slick, I hate to tell ya, but you don’t HAVE any authority in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You’re not King Neptune, ya loon.

Mojo (00b01f) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:25 am

We are responsible for the defense of the Mariana Islands, Guam and American Samoa. Also Hawaii. 🙄

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:10 am

So what percentage of military spending should we spend to prepare for an event that MAY happen?

That’s what game theory and military planning is all about – preparing for events that may happen. Are you ok?

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:11 am

That’s what game theory and military planning is all about – preparing for events that may happen. Are you ok?

I’m good, but you didn’t answer my question regarding the spending you’d allocate for your game theory and military planning. The military has to prioritize spending, no? Where would it fall in your list of priorities?

Hadoop (7fc17e) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:15 am

Planning and game theory is probably a miniscule portion of the US military budget. Adding all “research” together is still less than 10%, and most of that is no doubt weapons research. Which is why this nonsense is a red herring. Maybe they could buy one less missile and fund a think tank for a year.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:20 am

Nils-Axel Morner apparently is not a doomsday prepper whackadoodle.

telegraph.co.uk, March 2009: [I]f there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.

Despite fluctuations down as well as up, “the sea is not rising,” he says. “It hasn’t risen in 50 years.” If there is any rise this century it will “not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm”. And quite apart from examining the hard evidence, he says, the elementary laws of physics (latent heat needed to melt ice) tell us that the apocalypse conjured up by Al Gore and Co could not possibly come about.

The reason why Dr Mörner, formerly a Stockholm professor, is so certain that these claims about sea level rise are 100 per cent wrong is that they are all based on computer model predictions, whereas his findings are based on “going into the field to observe what is actually happening in the real world”.

When running the International Commission on Sea Level Change, he launched a special project on the Maldives, whose leaders have for 20 years been calling for vast sums of international aid to stave off disaster. Six times he and his expert team visited the islands, to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. Before announcing his findings, he offered to show the inhabitants a film explaining why they had nothing to worry about. The government refused to let it be shown.

Similarly in Tuvalu, where local leaders have been calling for the inhabitants to be evacuated for 20 years, the sea has if anything dropped in recent decades. The only evidence the scaremongers can cite is based on the fact that extracting groundwater for pineapple growing has allowed seawater to seep in to replace it. Meanwhile, Venice has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising, says Dr Mörner.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:21 am

Radiological damage is measured by rem or sieverts. Since the original article used becquerels, the writer is either ignorant of the proper terminology or is trying to misinform the reader.

I’m totally prepared to have the information disputed and discounted since I, as a layman, can only rely on the veracity of the science and research behind what I’m encountering.

And you’ve just been informed of a way to verify the lack of veracity of what you’ve encountered. If the author is using the wrong units, that’s a sure sign that he knows nothing about the subject he’s writing about, and you can safely ignore anything he has to say on it.

But rebuttals to warnings about radiation contamination from the most severely damaged nuclear plant in history and a willingness to take counterclaims at face value makes me realize just how really unhinged (or foolish) the anti-AGW crowd truly is.

Srsly? False warnings should not be rebutted, simply because they’re about bad things (that aren’t happening)?! So if I warn you about a mummy on the rampage on your street, you should not rebut it by reporting that you’ve just looked out the window and there’s nothing going on?

Simply put, the science and stats behind CO2 as a boogey man aren’t a fraction as alarming as what I associate with Fukushima.

Indeed. A fraction of nothing is nothing. Neither Fukushima nor AGW should be alarming. The difference is that AGW was originally a plausible theory, that happened not to pan out. Ca 1985 it was reasonable to suppose that it might be true. Fearmongering about Fukushima was never plausible.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:23 am

Please, carlitos, don’t go giving the Pentagon goldbricks and their golf-buddies in the military-industrial complex any more ideas on how to waste taxpayers’ money. They’re way too much of a worthless drain as it is.

nk (dbc370) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:23 am

Nils-Axel Morner apparently is not a doomsday prepper whackadoodle.

OK. And therefore? What is your point, exactly?

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:25 am

Didn’t see your comment #31. I’d reprioritize the golf course money, myself. Why do we have golf courses on Air Forces bases, BTW? Why?!!!!

nk (dbc370) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:26 am

Fearmongering about Fukushima was never plausible.

Huh? I’m not sure if you’re trying to make a fear of CO2 sound either less stupid or less ridiculous than a fear of radiation contamination.

If push comes to shove, I’ll take my chances living next door to a factory that pours out lots of CO2 compared with living next door to a damaged plant in Fukushima.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:30 am

Fearmongering about Fukushima was never plausible

Because we had plenty of experience already with nuclear bomb tests, and two explosions in 1945.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:38 am

Daniel Keyes really died, Sammy. Promise!

Icy (eeaa5b) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:44 am

I received this copy of the magazine a few days ago.

And besides the deadline for the Robert Silverberg column was months ago.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:48 am

Because we had plenty of experience

I’m not sure what’s worse: Being a scaremonger about CO2 or believing (or feeling—because feelings — nothing more than feelings — count a lot in this day and age) that Al-Gore-ism is somehow less foolish than being a scaremonger about radiation contamination.

tokyotimes.com, (AP): The amount of radioactive cesium that has leaked from a tsunami-hit nuclear plant is about equal to 168 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, Japan’s nuclear agency said Friday. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency supplied the estimate at a parliamentary panel’s request, but it noted a simple comparison between an instantaneous bomb blast and long-term accidental leak is impossible and the results could be “irrelevant.”

The report estimated for each of the 16 isotopes released from “Little Boy” and 31 of those detected at the Fukushima plant but didn’t provide the total. NISA has said the radiation leaked from Fukushima was about one-sixth of what the Chernobyl disaster released in 1986.

The report said the damaged plant has released 15,000 tera becquerels of cesium-137, which lingers for decades and could cause cancer, compared with the 89 tera becquerels released by the U.S. uranium bomb. The report estimated that Iodine-131, another isotope that accumulates in thyroid gland, and Stronthium-90, which has a 28-year half-life and could accumulate in bones, leaked from the plant in amounts about equal to 2.5 of the Hiroshima bombs.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:51 am

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…Wildlife experts are studying whether fur loss and open sores detected in nine polar bears in recent weeks is widespread and related to similar incidents among seals and walruses. The bears were among 33 spotted near Barrow, Alaska, during routine survey work along the Arctic coastline.

Srsly? You see nine mangy polar bears, and immediately think radiation?! I immediately think…mange, or some similar illness. What is the usual rate for fur loss among polar bears? What about the other 24 who weren’t mangy? Weren’t they swimming in the same water? And why is there no similar plague of mange among all the people swimming in the Pacific? (This is all assuming the report is even true.)

2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…. At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die. It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”

And therefore? Again, assuming this to be true, so what? How unusual is this mortality event? And why do you immediately think of radiation, rather than any number of things that could cause such a slightly elevated mortality rate, such as a virus, or just random fluctuation?

4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.

They’ll do that if you stick a knife in their gills, bellies, and eyeballs. And I’ll bet that’s the only way they’re doing it. Again, where are the reports of similar symptoms in swimmers? It would be all over the news.

7. Experts have found very high levels of cesium-137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast.

How high is “very high”? Compared to what? How much higher than the usual rate? And even if it is significantly higher than usual, is it anything to worry about?

8. One test in California found that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima.

Where were these bluefin caught? 10 miles from Fukushima?

9. Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

1. How much cesium-137? Significantly more than the natural level? 2. Even if it is, so don’t buy Japanese fish; what’s it got to do with fish caught elsewhere in the Pacific?

10. Canadian authorities are finding extremely high levels of nuclear radiation in certain fish samples…Some fish samples tested to date have had very high levels of radiation: one sea bass sample collected in July, for example, had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

Leaving aside the fact that it makes no sense to speak of a fish having so many bq/kg of anything (and that cesium is certainly not measured in bq), I’d want to know how far from Fukushima this fish was caught, and how this alleged cesium level compares to the normal level and to a dose that might begin to be worrisome.

12. BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

And therefore? 18 times what was previously believed is still minuscule, when divided by the entire Pacific ocean.

13. An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

Again, so what? Is this a dangerous amount, if spread over a wide area?

15. At this point, 300 tons of contaminated water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

Do you have any idea how big the Pacific is? And how small 300 tons of water is? It’s a cube of less than 7 metres. Not to mention that the volume of water is irrelevant, what matters is the volume of contaminants in that water.

16. A senior researcher of marine chemistry at the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute says that “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

17. According to Tepco, a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

Compared to how much that’s in the ocean anyway?

19. It has been estimated that up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation has been released into the ocean from Fukushima than was released during the entire Chernobyl disaster.

Which was very little.

22. It is being projected that the entire Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than what we witnessed during the era of heavy atomic bomb testing in the Pacific many decades ago.

Who’s doing this projecting, and on what basis?

25. According to a recent Planet Infowars report

<sputter/> <spit-take/> Alex Jones?! That’s whom you’re quoting?! You have just discredited yourself for all time. Nobody who pays attention to Alex Jones is worth listening to on any subject whatsoever.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:58 am

Adding all “research” together is still less than 10%, and most of that is no doubt weapons research. Which is why this nonsense is a red herring. Maybe they could buy one less missile and fund a think tank for a year.

I just think there are more pressing issues needing to be addressed with regard to spending. The likelihood of the oceans rising affecting our island airbases doesn’t seem to be an event in the very near future, hence my question regarding priorities. Our military bases are being used to house illegal immigrants overrunning our southern border. And, like it or not, it looks like we’re going to be spending some big bucks in the ME shortly.

Hadoop (7fc17e) — 6/18/2014 @ 10:58 am

But what was the size of the buclear bomb tests in the atmosphere?

It’s not that it couldn’t have bad health effects – it is that you shouldn’t expect massive sickness and death among polar bears, seals, walruses, sea lions, and fish all along the west coast of Canada.

High levels of cesium-137 and strontium-90 in plankton, and in bluefin tuna, mackerel, halibut,
sardines, eel, cod and anchovies, and anything that comes from off the coast of Japan, is more plausible.

It would be good to get actual numbers, and some impartial evakuation of how bad that is.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:00 am

Fearmongering about Fukushima was never plausible.

Huh? I’m not sure if you’re trying to make a fear of CO2 sound either less stupid or less ridiculous than a fear of radiation contamination.

Panic about CO2 was and remains stupid and ridiculous, but mild concern was not; it was a plausible theory that just happened not to pan out. It was worth studying just in case it turned out to be true. The fear of radiation on the other side of the Pacific from Fukushima was always stupid and ridiculous. There is no plausible theory under which it would become dangerous.

If push comes to shove, I’ll take my chances living next door to a factory that pours out lots of CO2 compared with living next door to a damaged plant in Fukushima.

Next door, sure. Across an ocean? You’re nuts. But then we already know you’re nuts because you quote Alex Jones’s site as an authority.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:03 am

I received this copy of the magazine a few days ago. And besides the deadline for the Robert Silverberg column was months ago.

So why did you even mention it? Why did it cast any doubt in your mind on a report of his passing?

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:05 am

But then we already know you’re nuts because you quote Alex Jones’s site as an authority.

Milhouse, I’m not sure if you were formerly a big devotee of Al Gore, because methinks you protest too much.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:07 am

The amount of radioactive cesium that has leaked from a tsunami-hit nuclear plant is about equal to 168 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima

And what damage did that bomb do, outside the immediate blast area? Damn little, that’s how much. And no discernable long-term damage.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:08 am

Milhouse, I’m not sure if you were formerly a big devotee of Al Gore, because methinks you protest too much.

Why on earth would you think that? Oh, that’s right, because you’re the kind of insane person who thinks Alex Jones’s site is worth quoting.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:09 am

Milhouse, you’re acting way too defensive, like a former heavy smoker—or someone who still feels a bit — just a bit — squishy about anti-AGW. There’s no bigger anti-smoker than an ex-heavy smoker.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:14 am

SF: I received this copy of the magazine a few days ago. And besides the deadline for the Robert Silverberg column was months ago.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:05 am

So why did you even mention it? Why did it cast any doubt in your mind on a report of his passing?

This was kind of a shock, or irony.

Of course it didn’t cast any doubt – Icy puts up these notices when the news of the death becomes public.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:17 am

you quote Alex Jones’s site as an authority.

To be fair, it was the author at globalresearch.ca who did that. But yeah. globalresearch.ca and Alex Jones are both not only conspiracy theorists and doomsday profiteers (with gold, survival kits, colloidal silver and what-not), but they are 9/11 truthers. Hardly worth considering at all.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:28 am

you quote Alex Jones’s site as an authority.

To be fair, it was the author at globalresearch.ca who did that.

But Mark quoted that author quoting Infowars. Which means he himself thought that claim was credible and needed answering, instead of dismissing it because it was Infowars.

globalresearch.ca and Alex Jones are both not only conspiracy theorists and doomsday profiteers (with gold, survival kits, colloidal silver and what-not), but they are 9/11 truthers.

Oh, I didn’t know. I knew about Jones, but I don’t think I’d ever heard of globalresearch.ca until today.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:34 am

Just for fun, globalresearch.ca also publish pro-Kremlin propaganda. Not a very reliable news source. I know someone (online) who publishes there, and it is not well-sourced.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:36 am

Once Drudge started linking Alex Jones, I kind of lost my faith in humanity.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:37 am

Hardly worth considering at all.

Keep that in mind if you believe the US military should take even a bit seriously the theory that the oceans are rising and pose a threat to our well-being and safety.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:37 am

Which means he himself thought that claim was credible and needed answering, instead of dismissing it because it was Infowars.

I never said that, milhouse. I remain open to the data that’s out there and observations about such matters. After all, I’m the one who doesn’t feel even a bit of wiggle room — going back to day one — regarding the idiocy of the perils and pitfalls of CO2.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:41 am

Hardly worth considering at all.

Keep that in mind if you believe the US military should take even a bit seriously the theory that the oceans are rising and pose a threat to our well-being and safety.

The military should take such theories at least a little bit seriously, and look into them before dismissing them, if they come from plausible sources. But not if they come from known crackpots like Jones or Phelps or that globalresearch site you cited.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:41 am

Which means he himself thought that claim was credible and needed answering, instead of dismissing it because it was Infowars.

I never said that, milhouse. I remain open to the data that’s out there and observations about such matters.

Sure you did. You cited it and posted it to be answered. That means you claimed it was data rather than garbage. And treating a claim from Infowars as if it were data that needs addressing makes you a nutcase.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:43 am

what exactly is the connection between declaring 782,000 square miles of earth to be the sole province of the neo-fascist american state and the temperature of the planet ten twenty fifty years from now?

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:44 am

None. But 0bama will be out of office by then anyway (and in fifty years he’ll probably be dead) so why should he care?

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:50 am

For the children?

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:50 am

makes you a nutcase.

Milhouse, once again, you’re the one who’s squishy enough to say that a fear of AGW, at least at the beginning, deserved to be taken seriously. I happily, strongly discount giving even that much benefit of the doubt to that controversy, and I also happily say that the data provided by Alex Jones and infowars can be discounted and therefore they’re paranoid and fools too.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:53 am

The military should take such theories at least a little bit seriously

Milhouse, only because I’ve seen your ideological leanings in the past, I don’t think you of all people should be discounting the common sense and basic wisdom of others, even more so since you’re still insisting that the gibberish of AGW should still be given even a bit of consideration by the US military.

Mark (7b4a56) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:57 am

How could the DOD “game this out” when apparently they haven’t even gamed out the possibility that Iraq would collapse?

Patricia (5fc097) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:07 pm

Milhouse, once again, you’re the one who’s squishy enough to say that a fear of AGW, at least at the beginning, deserved to be taken seriously.

It did. The greenhouse effect is real and undisputed. The idea that it might lead to runaway warming came from serious scientists, and was plausible given the state of our knowledge at the time. It deserved looking into, and it was looked into and found wanting. The concern did not come from known crackpots, and did not contradict known facts. If it had come from Jones or the like, then it would have been stupid to invest even one cent looking into it.

The possibility of sea levels rising should be of concern to the military, which should assign somebody to keep an eye on it. It might even be worth assigning someone full time to this task, just in case something ever develops in that area. As Carlitos pointed out, it’s the military’s job to game all sorts of scenarios, however implausible they look now. The Pentagon probably has and regularly updates plans for invading Canada, just in case they should ever be needed. Plans for dealing with a sudden rise in sea levels make more sense than that.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:07 pm

How could the DOD “game this out” when apparently they haven’t even gamed out the possibility that Iraq would collapse?

I’m sure the DOD did have plans for that eventuality. But they’re not involved any more.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:09 pm

Forward projections of more than a couple years are just never much good. Doesn’t matter if it’s retail sales, population growth trends, hegemony of nations, weather, climate, etc. etc. etc. There is just too much unexpectedness that can dramatically alter and intervene in what transpires on this planet and beyond. War, natural catastrophes like volcanic eruptions or asteroid strikes, global health epidemics, economic crash(es), new inventions, etc etc. Man constantly changes the world in which we live, and the earth and oceans and sun constantly change themselves, too, as they have for millions of years largely irrelevant to what man does or does not do.

In my opinion there is a special arrogance in people that posit man today can change what will happen on a global scale in 50 or 100 or 1000 years to anything beyond a minuscule degree. Yes, stupid man eradicated the passenger pigeon and nearly killed off the buffalo and caused the dust bowl because of poor farming practices. Yes, man should try to learn from mistakes. Yes, man should not waste precious resources. Man should protect the world’s water and food supply. Yes, man can and should clean up the toxicity from individual rivers and waterways. Yes, we should recycle raw materials whever possible.

But the sheer arrogance of the AGW crowd is staggering. We can “fix” the world’s climate? Really? The God of all must be laughing at us.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:37 pm

elissa, don’t you just hate it when people change their behavior due to external influences?
It’s enough to give Static Analysis a bad name.

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 12:44 pm

The 15 000 tera becquerel (TBc) should really be cited as 15 petabecquerel (PBc)if we’re going to do the prefixes correctly. A becquerel is a very small unit. 1 TBc ~= 27 curies, so 15 TBc ~= 405 000 Curies. A banana (did you know bananas are radioactive?) is about 15 Bq. So this is approximately a petabanana (1 000 000 000 000 000 bananas.)

htom (412a17) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:00 pm

Opps. Should have said 15 PBc ~= 405 000 Ci.

htom (412a17) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:02 pm

there is a special arrogance in people that posit man today can change what will happen on a global scale …

Your incredulity, as sincere as it may be, is not an argument for or against anything.

htom – At an average daily picking rate, how many tally-men would be needed for a quadrillion bananas? Would they need protective gear? Can Harry Belafonte be heard in space?

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:07 pm

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” Obama told the Chronicle.

A large swath of the Atlantic Ocean could soon be used to generate electricity, as a U.S. agency proposes opening more than 1,000 square miles of ocean to wind energy projects. The area is off the coast of Massachusetts, which has been working on the proposal with federal officials.

poor people hardest hit

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:09 pm

Cape Cod.
Nantucket.
Martha’s Vineyard.
What poor people?

That’s going to take some ‘splainin during this summer’s stay on the Vineyard.

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:15 pm

Carlitos — Many, many, many.

htom (412a17) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:18 pm

“Incredulity”? I guess I’m not getting why you think that particular word applies to my comment, Carlitos?

How is “for $159.95 we’ll show you how you, too, can halt the rise of the oceans in two hundred years” any different than “for just $159.95 we’ll show you how you, too, can lose 40 pounds and gain 40 IQ points in only six months”?

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:21 pm

very nice formulation elissa

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:23 pm

Incredulity is incredulity. You can’t imagine how man can raise carbon levels and warm stuff up. Therefore it must not be possible. It’s not an argument.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:26 pm

==You can’t imagine how man can raise carbon levels and warm stuff up. Therefore it must not be possible.==

Carlitos, I don’t need or want to get into a verbal match with you this afternoon or any other time. But perhaps you can point to a sentence or phrase in my earlier comment that said anything akin to the “thinking” that you’ve just attributed to me and are chastising me about.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 1:38 pm

Another time, elissa. Too beautiful of a day, and a sox win.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 2:20 pm

Yes. We’ll always have ~~Paris~~ the Sox.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 2:55 pm

This chart may help

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:06 pm

elissa,

Why don’t you understand that this past harsh winter means global warming !!!?? (Oy vey.)
It sounds like our friend carlitos has “lost” the emails—as well as the argument.
Or something.

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:11 pm

Elissa, in principle there’s no reason why we can’t fix the world’s climate, should it ever need fixing. We don’t really know how to right now, but in the near future we probably will. Which is yet another reason not to impoverish ourselves by cutting carbon emissions now. Even if all this sea-level rise stuff were true, by the time it became a problem we would know how to solve it. Especially if we don’t impoverish ourselves in the meantime. Even if we were 100% sure that this will be a problem in 100 years, we’d be better off leaving it for our grandchildren to solve in 75 years’ time. The resources we will bequeath them by not cutting carbon emissions now would be greater than whatever it would cost them to solve the problem then. (And really, for the sort of rise the IPCC is now predicting, dikes would be a sufficient solution for most affected areas, and we already know how to build those.)

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:14 pm

Elephant Stone, Carlitos is not arguing for AGW, so I don’t know what your comment means.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:14 pm

“Fix the World’s Climate”

Now you’re firmly into Maroon territory.

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:15 pm

milhouse,

carlitos has long mocked those of us who “deny” global warming.

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:22 pm

Askeptic, have you never heard of terraforming? We can’t do it now, but there can be no doubt that we will be able to in the near future. And the first planet to terraform is — Terra!

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:23 pm

I’m just going on what he’s written in this thread, which has been very reasonable. The case for AGW has collapsed, but climate does change all the time, and it’s only prudent for the Pentagon to have someeone, or even a few someones, keeping an eye on it in case it ever becomes relevant.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:25 pm

milhouse,

Whatever, dude.
This is not the IRS—clearly stated positions in past threads don’t go down the rabbit hole at Patterico.com.
We’re allowed to cite them.

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:39 pm

priorities, priorities;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/06/18/who-purged-the-veterans-administrations-wait-list-records-we-have-a-name/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

narciso (3fec35) — 6/18/2014 @ 3:57 pm

Carlitos, doing “something” about global warmening when even the EPA projects that shutting down coal-fired power plants would have an extremely negligible effect is nothing more than a feel good, self-administered pat on the back. Meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:06 pm

Another time, elissa. Too beautiful of a day, and a sox win.

carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 2:20 pm

Just think of the carbon footprint left be everything associated with that meaningless baseball game.

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:08 pm

Be = by

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:08 pm

Colonel, it’s kinda like when Vegas hosted a global warming conference several years ago, and a bunch of the gasbags flew there in private jets rather than flying commercial.
They want us to carpool, but they won’t even planepool.
Or whatever.

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:31 pm

As Instapundit says, I’ll start taking their claims seriously when they do.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:37 pm

Milhouse–so despite your entire paragraph at 84 that sounds as if you are preaching to me as a child, apparently you are mostly agreeing with me, then, that we should not rush into anything based on uncertain and highly questionable “projections” that quite probably will never happen. By the way, I’ve spent time in China which is why I don’t think we can ever “fix” the climate if in fact carbon is a danger to the planet–so I do think you’re wrong about that part. My friend Carlitos on the other hand is a firm and vocal AGW supporter, is the one who is arguing “for the children” and suggested I am hopelessly incredulous because he says I can’t imagine man raising the carbon levels which he says warms things up. Look, I don’t mind having a spirited debate, but can we not use straw men and instead at least argue about what people actually said and think, not what we think they said?

P.S. thank you Elephant Stone. You do have the players straight and the cards counted correctly.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:40 pm

I think I’ll go out into the back yard and continue that Terraforming I started last week.
Global Warming to end in about 90-120 days.

askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:41 pm

The White Sox give me pleasure in this mad, sad, corrupt, out of control world, Colonel. What can I say?

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:45 pm

Dear elissa,

Major League Baseball has lost the boxscores of the White Sox’ games for all the past three months. Therefore, none of their victories will count toward the standings.

Signed,

~~The IRS~~

The Commissioner’s Office

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:56 pm

The way I heard it, it was that it’s the Cubs’ boxscores that are lost and there are no records of their wins this season. Oh wait ! never mind. There weren’t any wins anyway.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 5:07 pm

The Cubs are last in their division with .429 and the Sox are second to last in theirs with .486. Nonetheless, the Cubs are 11th for attendance and the White Sox are 28th. I don’t even ….

nk (dbc370) — 6/18/2014 @ 5:27 pm

Nice try nk, but the Cubbies are 12 games out of the division lead. The Sox are 4.5 games out. BIIIIIG difference.

elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 5:40 pm

Milhouse–so despite your entire paragraph at 84 that sounds as if you are preaching to me as a child,

I didn’t mean to do that, and I’m sorry you
read it that way.

apparently you are mostly agreeing with me, then, that we should not rush into anything based on uncertain and highly questionable “projections” that quite probably will never happen.

Absolutely. Where we seem to differ is that you seem to believe it’s impossible in principle for us to deliberately engineer the climate; I believe that while we can’t do it now, advances in climate science and in engineering will make it possible in the future. In that same future we will also have a much better idea of what changes, if any, are desirable.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:07 pm

I would like to know what the optimal temperature of the Earth is, and are we no I g towards it or away from it?

Carlitos – I thought Teh One had stopping the oceans rising all taken care of.

JD (08d44e) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:12 pm

here is a good reminder of just how butt-ugly fascist obama-style climate change policies are in real life

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:21 pm

Fair enough, Milhouse. Of course if our domestic and foreign policy continues in the path we’re on, engineering the climate may well be the very least of grandchildren’s problems.

elissa (62e211) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:21 pm

milhouse,

Is it possible that you watch too much of the SyFy Channel ?

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:23 pm

engineering the climate, arrogant much,

narciso (3fec35) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:27 pm

The only “engineering” of a climate is on a Hollywood set.
And that famous (fake) snow scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” was filmed in Encino in July. When it was a hundred degrees outside.

Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:32 pm

‘no entiendo’ actually I do understand actions, that if undertaken by a foreign power, would be considered an act of war.

narciso (3fec35) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:00 pm

xbox is way better anyway

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:03 pm

I would like to know what the optimal temperature of the Earth is, and are we no I g towards it or away from it?

Probably a degree C warmer than it is now, and at the moment we seem to be standing still or going away from it.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:22 pm

Is it possible that you watch too much of the SyFy Channel ?

Bzzt. I watch hardly any TV at all.

engineering the climate, arrogant much,

How does “arrogance” come into it? If we can make the world better suited to our needs, why shouldn’t we do so? To whom does it belong, if not us? We’ve already radically changed the earth with agriculture; with improved knowledge and engineering we can do much more, and if we can we will.

The only “engineering” of a climate is on a Hollywood set.

You desperately need to read more science fiction. A lot more. If you did you’d be more familiar with terraforming, what it’s likely to be able to do, and the cases for and against it, and you wouldn’t speak of it with such apparent ignorance.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:29 pm

it’s writing checks we can’t cash, dealing with primordial forces, we should be humble before,

narciso (3fec35) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:37 pm

What are you some sort of Gaianist?! The world belongs to us, it exists only for our benefit, it has value only to the extent that it benefits us, and it is our manifest destiny to change it to suit our needs. We’ve been doing so for thousands of years, and we will continue to do so to the best of our ever-increasing capability.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:45 pm

Animals cower in caves, and adapt themselves to suit the world; humans adapt the world to suit us.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:46 pm

If you’re the sort that needs Biblical authority, see Genesis 1:28 and Psalm 115:16

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:50 pm

i moved a chair

over by the window

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:52 pm

i’m just saying we should be a little humble, and as a starting principle ‘do no harm’

narciso (3fec35) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:05 pm

The precautionary principle?! If we kept to that we’d never have made any progress at all. We wouldn’t be here on the net, because we’d have no computers, and no electricity to run them on, and no energy to hold abstract debates after back-breaking work in the fields all day, if we weren’t already dead of some loathsome disease or starvation, and if we knew that we could have lived better than kings but some prat said “no progress until you can prove it’s not harmful”, we’d find that prat and kill him, or dig him up and pee on his bones.

Shorter version: Consciously choosing not to improve things is doing harm. Or at least, forcibly preventing someone from improving things is actively doing harm.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:34 pm

97. elissa (433a2d) — 6/18/2014 @ 4:40 pm

By the way, I’ve spent time in China which is why I don’t think we can ever “fix” the climate if in fact carbon is a danger to the planet–

We could counteract it. No reason that the remedy has to be NOT doing, or attempting to undo, what has been done. Futile also, when what has been done issimply the sum total of what everybody has been doing, at an accelerating rate, since about 1750, or maybe 1860.

We know a few things already. If heat is the problem, spew sulfer dioxide over the Arctic. If carbon dioxide in the atmospher is a problem, you can get more of it into the oceans and into plant life by fertilizing the oceans with iron. Except that the environmentalits are trying and to some degree succeeding, in closing these “loopholes.”

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:00 pm

If hurricanes are the problem, there’s ways to stop them too.

If the sea level is the problem, you can build dikes – a lot cheaper than trying to indirectly affect it, and more certain.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:02 pm

The possibility of sea levels rising should be of concern to the military, which should assign somebody to keep an eye on it. It might even be worth assigning someone full time to this task, just in case something ever develops in that area.

Milhouse, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth (you and Carlitos too). You claim that AGW is a bunch of crap — and rightly so — then discount in even harsher terms the issue of Fukushima and radiation contamination. Yet when all is said and done, you go right back to being touchy-feely about (gasp!) sea levels rising, which presumably means you’re still buying just a wee bit into the idiocy of AGW. So let’s face it. If Alex Jones is a scaremongering sensationalist nutcase, you and your ilk are merely a few yards (or a few inches?) behind him.

carlitos has long mocked those of us who “deny” global warming.

That’s because he’s apparently a doomsday prepper whackadoodle.

Mark (d1fb37) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:19 pm

Alex Jones is like Charles Johnson and that Pamela G- whatever chick

you just don’t

happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/18/2014 @ 9:30 pm

Yet when all is said and done, you go right back to being touchy-feely about (gasp!) sea levels rising, which presumably means you’re still buying just a wee bit into the idiocy of AGW.

It means nothing of the sort. But sea levels can rise. They have done so in the past, and they may do so again. We don’t really know enough about the ocean to be sure why, which makes it all the more difficult to be sure it won’t happen soon.

What we do know is that if a lot of land-based ice from Greenland or Antarctica were to slip into the ocean for any reason it probably would raise the sea level significantly. And while most of Antarctica is getting colder and putting on ice, there’s some warming on the peninsula, probably caused by geothermal activity, which has caused the occasional massive ice slip.

On top of that, there’s always the chance that the sun will go into another hyperactive phase as it did in the ’90s, and warm us up a bit more. We know it was warmer in the 13th century than it is now, and we don’t know why, so who’s to say it won’t get that warm again?

In any case, the prospect of a significant rise in sea level is enough that the military should keep an eye on it, and have contingency plans for it, just in case. It’s only prudent.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/18/2014 @ 11:45 pm

Milhouse is slaughtering strawmen. Again. Stand back.

JD (32f6f0) — 6/19/2014 @ 6:28 am

So we’ll add to the list of agendas all the possible contingencies the military must prepare a plan, regardless of how far in the future the possibility exists. Separate housing for the inevitability of transgendered bomb-sniffing dogs will be next on such a critical list.

Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 6/19/2014 @ 6:51 am

But sea levels can rise.

It remains ironic that you’re encouraging the US military to wring its hands over that aspect of “climate change,” and, at the same time, trying to sound so disdainful of the idiocy of AGW (which presumably would be the trigger of oceans rising?), then — and this is what’s peculiar — express even more dismissiveness about the issue of radiation contamination.

Since various “doomsday prepper whackadoodles” (in the words of pro-AGW alarmist Carlitos) along the lines of Al Gore and the deranged people in the White House appear to be prioritizing things in a similar way — and since I do recall in the past your voicing at least a few comments that did make me think you’re ideologically squishy — I’m not totally sure what’s behind that. Perhaps since dealing with problems like the following won’t command (and force daily behavioral changes on) the entire public and won’t as clearly affect just about every angle of the economy, the whackadoodles (just about all of them of the left) don’t find them as easy to propagandize over.

foxnews.com, December 2013: When the USS Ronald Reagan responded to the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, Navy sailors including Quartermaster Maurice Enis gladly pitched in with rescue efforts. But months later, while still serving aboard the aircraft carrier, he began to notice strange lumps all over his body. Testing revealed he’d been poisoned with radiation, and his illness would get worse. And his fiance and fellow Reagan quartermaster, Jamie Plym, who also spent several months helping near the Fukushima nuclear power plant, also began to develop frightening symptoms, including chronic bronchitis and hemorrhaging.

They and 49 other U.S. Navy members who served aboard the Reagan and sister ship the USS Essex now trace illnesses including thyroid and testicular cancers, leukemia and brain tumors to the time spent aboard the massive ship, whose desalination system pulled in seawater that was used for drinking, cooking and bathing. In a lawsuit filed against Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plaintiffs claim the power company delayed telling the U.S. Navy the tsunami had caused a nuclear meltdown, sending huge amounts of contaminated water into the sea and, ultimately, into the ship’s water system.

Nathan Piekutoski, 22, who served aboard the USS Essex, which was in the same deployment as the Reagan, said sailors had no choice but to trust what they were told. “They did say it was safe at the time,” Piekutoski said. “We had to take their word for it.”

Piekutowski says he suffered from leukemia and, while he is currently in remission, doctors have told him that he may need a bone marrow transplant. “Within a few months I started getting all these weird symptoms,” he recalled of the months following the disaster response. “Night sweats. Not sleeping. I started losing a lot of weight.

“It’s one of those things,” he added. “You’re angry that it happens but we had to go. It was our duty. I joined the military to help people in need.”

Mark (d1fb37) — 6/19/2014 @ 7:13 am

The sea level has been going up at about the rate one inch per decade for more than a century. About one inch of water is now in reservoirs.

Sammy Finkelman (95e288) — 6/19/2014 @ 7:17 am

Why is it “Ocean” singular? This isn’t 300 BC.

Bud Norton (29550d) — 6/19/2014 @ 7:27 am

Carlitos – I thought Teh One had stopping the oceans rising all taken care of.

JD (08d44e) — 6/18/2014 @ 6:12 pm

“We are the ones we have been waiting for” 🙂

carlitos (c24ed5) — 6/19/2014 @ 7:27 am

Milhouse,

You may not have realized it, but the genre “science fiction” contains the word fiction in it.
Like “Star Wars” and “Space 1999” aren’t real.
I’m not joking.

Elephant Stone (5c2aa0) — 6/19/2014 @ 4:38 pm

So we’ll add to the list of agendas all the possible contingencies the military must prepare a plan, regardless of how far in the future the possibility exists.

Um, yes. Exactly. That is the Pentagon’s job. They have plans for invading Canada, should it ever become necessary; this is probably more likely.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/19/2014 @ 4:51 pm

You may not have realized it, but the genre “science fiction” contains the word fiction in it.

Um, yes. Of course it does. And you may have noticed that it also contains the word science. SF consists of very intelligent and well-informed people brainstorming
about the logical consequences of what we know about the world today; what contingencies we can expect, what developments are likely, etc. You know, exactly like all those think tanks do. Nobody who doesn’t read SF can consider himself at all equipped to think about the future. And there can be no doubt that terraforming is going to be established technology in the near future.

Like “Star Wars” and “Space 1999″ aren’t real.

They also aren’t SF.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/19/2014 @ 4:58 pm

Milhouse,

You and Sammy should compare family trees—I think you two must share some branches.
Or something.

Elephant Stone (5c2aa0) — 6/19/2014 @ 5:08 pm

Elephant Stone, if you don’t read SF you’re probably not qualified to talk about the future, or really about anything science-related. It really is almost as simple as that. Without SF one may as well be poor old Ted Stevens with his “intertubes”.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/19/2014 @ 9:46 pm

“Nobody who doesn’t read SF can consider himself at all equipped to think about the future.”

– Milhouse

What about someone who reads history instead?

Or are you one of those types who gets misty-eyed over the ambition of the Foundation series?

I think that anyone who understands the past or the present can draw a pretty good bead on the future.

Leviticus (1aca67) — 6/20/2014 @ 11:07 am

“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.”

– Milhouse

Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/20/2014 @ 11:11 am

Reading history is important, but it’s constrained to what has already happened. It produces thinking that is inside a very narrow box. Alternative history expands the mind by encouraging one to game different historical scenarios — and alternative history is a branch of SF. But the science part of SF is necessary too. To have any idea at all about the future one must have basic scientific literacy, and familiarity with what developments are likely, and how likely they are. And only SF gives that, and lets one game plausible futures.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/20/2014 @ 11:34 am

I think that anyone who understands the past or the present can draw a pretty good bead on the future.

The future is not going to be just like the past or present; that is certain. Modern technology really is a new thing under the sun, and it’s getting newer all the time.

And no, the Foundation trilogy isn’t particularly useful in this regard. It’s good SF for its time, but very dated.

Milhouse (b95258) — 6/20/2014 @ 11:36 am

Re: SEA LEVEL

http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/378757/miamis-new-science-museum-will-be-flooded-global-warming-greg-pollowitz#!

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 6/25/2014 @ 3:19 pm

6/17/2014

Using His Authority And Leading The Fight To Protect

142 Responses to “Using His Authority And Leading The Fight To Protect”

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