The Trump Presidency

There are other factors to climate change and CO2 etc. that are not usually discussed.
Current oxygen % levels in the atmosphere : 20.95% (data date unknown**)
Minimum Oxygen % required before human health condition deteriorates: 19.5% - 23.5%
This means that there is currently only a window of about : 1.45% before human start suffer Anoxia ( oxygen starvation) - assuming the current level is valid and not overstated

Increasing CO2/CH4 ( methane) in the atmosphere impacts directly on the safety window of 1.45%

As does increasing water vapor ( in a slightly different way) however the effect is similar.

** There is reason to be dubious of the figures so often referred to in publications - Example: in 1986 high altitude studies ( Jardin) demonstrated that the global atmospheric oxygen percentage was already reduced to 19.75% (suggesting a window of less than 0.25%)
The study was published and then quickly removed from the web ( I failed to download a copy in time, unfortunately) - perhaps they found it mistaken or alternatively wished to avoid full disclosure of atmospheric oxygen depletion.
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The reason this is relevant to this thread ( apart from being an aside) is that most world leaders would be well aware of what is happening to our atmosphere, Trump included.

Knowing this strongly suggests that to avoid Global mass hysteria the reality of climate change HAS to be minimized, distorted and other wise obfuscated ( destruction of credibility) to avoid global panic.

Trump recent very poor decision making regarding the tremendous fear he has of the USA being inundated with refugees and asylum seekers, IMO, is highly indicative of what he knows about climate change including short term predictions.

Example:
A reason he may not be interested in investing in Puerto Rico since the recent hurricane disaster is that he is probably expecting the region will have to be evacuated rather than be rebuilt.

 

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You greatly overestimate the man's breadth of knowledge and comprehension. He doesn't read, remember? He doesn't know anything he hasn't seen on Republican TV.
And you are searching for explanations for what is much more simply explained by the obvious - he's racially bigoted, he doesn't care about anybody except himself, he's always been wealthy, and he enjoys bullying people. He hasn't been making "decisions" about brown skin refugees, any more than he would be making "decisions" about dealing with cockroaches in one of his buildings. Seriously. There's no larger fear of geopolitical consequences operating behind the scenes in his decisionmaking.

That has never occurred to him. He has no fear of having to evacuate Puerto Rico - the evacuees would be going somewhere they don't bother him, to some other shithole country, anyway - and the only reason he isn't interested in rebuilding PR is that there is no profit in it for him.

 

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It's not that I disagree with you. It's just that I believe that the USA Intel community, scientific community have considerably more power than you grant them. Having a bigoted buffoon confusing every one is exactly what they would feel is necessary.

Like most people, knowing the truth and understanding the meaning of the truth are two very separate issues. Trumps emotional immaturity would ensure he would not be able to understand what the truth means and subsequently lead to denial, poor judgement and crazy decisions.
I personally have been living with the meaning of climate change truth since 1990 ( anoxia wb35degC, global famine etc) and even today emotionally it is extremely difficult to cope with at times. I have grand children that will probably suffer the most and the climate change rollercoaster ride to hell just keeps on going.
As for me, given what happened here last Summer and associated trends I will be lucky to be alive in 4 years. (Optimistically)
(M)

 

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But they aren't in control of this guy. He's the President. And he isn't confusing anyone who knew better in the first place. Nobody is getting their climate change info from Trump unless they were getting it from the Republican media feed all along.

Again: there is no need for any such explanation for Trump's supposedly "crazy" decisions. He is behaving exactly as predicted, completely in character, as long established.

 

The point that I was trying to make is that it really doesn't matter what Trump does or does not do. There simply is not time to be too worried about it....Minimizing panic and global hysteria is the priority IMO.
Trumps election is a symptom of that panic and hysteria IMO, unfortunately he was elected to POTUS when the world desperately needed someone capable of providing true leadership. We and the various agencies ( intel, scientific etc) just have to live with it until climate change it self forces us to seek an alternative. Trumps inability to lead through major national & international crisis will become obvious enough, soon enough IMO
basically "we ain't seen nothing yet" ....as they say...(climate change crisis)

 

So there's no point in even considering such unlikely and invisible possibilities as Trump having hidden motives behind the scenes - other than the grift and blackmail considerations already on the table.

What panic and hysteria would that be, strong enough to override the obvious factors common to his voting base?

 

I cannot make sense of a lot of things criticized by Sokal and Bricmont, and in my communications with Tiassa there is a similar communication problem. Feel free to explain to me what he is talking about if you have understood it.

Volatility is of course negative. On average. But if you compare volatile water supply with no water supply, even volatile water supply is positive.

My list was about what leads to no agriculture at all, not to some not that productive agriculture.

And? I do not blame science for alarmist headlines, but the popular media. The news itself - that volatility increases with temperature - is no news at all, all the alarmists use it every day. It changes nothing in my basic argument, namely that we have for any change costs of adaptation, but beyond this, there will be some region where a linear approximation is good. And that means either warming or cooling will be positive. This point includes all effects - in particular, the negative aspect of more volatility too.

Garbage dumps are, I would guess, also delicate ecosystems.

The sea level is rising at a temp measured in mm/year, 3 or so The territory lost for agriculture in such a way in the whole world would be how much per mm ocean level increase?

Berlin. It was under ice in the ice age. Thanks for the compliment.
.

 

Maybe a re-look at an old Obama video is appropriate... Listen in particular to the language used.
eg. "The Pentagon says climate change poses an immediate risk to our national security"

there are other videos by Obama since he left office....

and then compare with Trumps performance.... bah!

 

The world of things you have failed to make sense of is large and varied - the presumption that they share any common features except conflict with your presuppositions has no evidentiary support.

Nobody said anything about "blame". What you have done, repeatedly, is project your unsupported evaluations of bias in mass media unto the science and scientists the media reports. Thus, your assessment of alarmist bias in the media was your evidence for alarmist bias in the pressures on climate scientists, the IPCC, and so forth. From that you concluded that the alarming findings of research were products of bias in the conduct of the research itself.

That is simply wrong. There is no such region, there will be no such region, and you have no idea how to set up or employ a "linear approximation" in this field anyway. (Start by attempting to label your axes - you will screw up immediately).

And the topic was harm to agriculture - the fact that current research has established that AGW will harm agriculture, that there will be a negative rather than positive average consequence of the extra warmth, rain, and CO2. On average.
And that this average harm will include - contrary to your claim made in ignorance - currently productive and important agricultural regions made useless for agriculture and possibly for human habitation.

The research findings so far have indicated that the warming will be negative. Correct your model accordingly.

If you compare it with current water supply, the predicted volatility is negative on average.

The sea level rise is accelerating. It also varies by locality.
Every river delta farming region within a meter of the local sea level is due to flood, salinate, and be rendered useless for agriculture within 50 years unless the acceleration stops. There is a large probability that this will also be true for most farming regions within 2 meters of the current local sea level.

Managing the water supply of intensive agricultural regions is of course the standard example of basic government function. That would include, in this case, mitigating and slowing AGW, as well as handling the problems of refugees, floods and droughts, production resources with Hardin Commons problems, and land usage changes. That Trump's administration, or any US Republican administration, is incapable of doing that, is a basic and central characteristic they share with other fascist political organizations.

 

I find this rather entertaining... you do realize, of course, that "some not that productive" agriculture is, largely, pointless in terms of the breadbasket areas of a country suffering desertification... right? If suddenly the world were only able to produce, say, 1/5th the food it currently does... well, what do you imagine the result would be?

It isn't hard to guesstimate - there would be a lot of dead people, from a combination of starvation and bloody conflict for resources.

 

Is it possible to know which is the greatest reason for anger/despair between the antidemocratic character of the Trump regime (good descriptive term?) or the antiscientific character of its attempt to weasel out of its responsibilities when it comes to man made climate change?

I find the latter more deplorable as this may be a one way street whilst is is conceivable that the former can be combatted in some kind of a timeframe.

 

In other words, you don't even try to explain to me what Tiassa has failed to communicate to me, and used this for yet another cheap attack. If one uses "to make sense" meaning to give some text some meaningful interpretation, not that this interpretation is also the correct one (which is something I cannot be sure about), I seldom fail to make sense of texts. Tiassa is essentially the only one here where this has been problematic. For all others, this sometimes happens for particular phrases, but does not suggest a communication problem.

As usual, only in your fantasy. I have always said that scientific articles are much less influenced by political pressures than mass media. Mass media openly lie, if there is at least some minor pressure. Scientists usually don't lie, they only hide to some degree unwanted truths. So, the media bias is not evidence for some bias in science, but an indication, suspicion, that it may exist. With the consequence that to find out what science really tells, you have to dig deep.

And this is already completely wrong. I did not make any particular conclusions about any particular issue.

It follows from very general principles. And there is no difficulty to label the axes - the abscissa is the average temperature and the ordinate is what after adaption to this temperature the agriculture gives. Of course, with all the conceptual problems typical for numbers used, say, for other economic data about the production of agriculture.

These are your claims. It would follow that a decrease in temperature would be positive. (Or you simply count the adaption costs as consequences of warming). I doubt.

Of course, more volatility is in the average negative. The question is how relevant is this negative effect in comparison with the positive effects of more water in desert regions and higher temperature in cold regions.

Indeed. I was quite surprised to learn that it is, in some places, even decreasing. Which suggests that there are other things behind it, plate tectonics or so, which influence the results.

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If one takes into account the difference between the rates over the world, from -6 to 9, I doubt that data about an acceleration are very reliable.

I remember my childhood, on the Baltic beach. To have a nice big beach, they regularly pumped water out of the nearby ground of the sea on the beach. The water flows back, the sand remains on the beach. The beach became much wider, you could see it live, I was impressed at that time. Even poor Eastern Germany could afford this technology, for such luxury as a nice wide beach, in the 60's of the last century. The Chinese now build essentially artificial islands starting from a few rocks looking out of the water. By the way, do all these alarmists take into account all the materials which come down with the river, and tend to sediment in the deltas? Don't forget, this is the process which created the deltas. If one puts all those sediments which appeared nearby using the same simple technology described above, so that the fields near the river become higher, this will even increase the sedimentation at the places where you have taken them.

In general, those who paint alarmist scenarios, need some real horror. The easy way to create a horror scenario is to extrapolate something and leave everything else unchanged. And this for climate change, thus, something in the 50-100 year range. But who sits down 50 years doing nothing if something becomes a problem? Even people without big resources react and adapt. But even these normal, cheap, ways of adaptation to new conditions are simply ignored by the alarmists. We have seen above the simple known ways to adapt to more volatility in precipitations like dams and wells. Here, some simple ways to adapt to increasing sea levels are also ignored completely.

Of course, my proposals are quite naive, last but not least I'm a mathematician, the reality is more complex. But, sorry, whatever the problems with rising sea level, if it is about adding 1cm of Earth per year to all the fields one uses, this would be something affordable even for the poor. And this would be a necessity only for those near the river. Away from the river, the Netherlands show that one can nicely live below zero. So, do it in the brutal way, take the Earth somewhere from the mountains, drive it to the delta with trucks, put it on every field near the rivers, so that they all gain 2cm in height per year. What will be the costs? Unaffordable? I bet not.

I know, as a true left-libertarian, you want the government everywhere. Regarding the incapability of fascists to build some useful infrastructure I would not be that sure remembering the German Autobahn.

If... It is the alarmists' scenario where this happens. As I have already argued, much of the negative effects of more volatility can be compensated by simple age-old measures like dams and wells. Note also that the very point was about changing the crops is a quite simple, cheap, and universal way to improve agriculture if the climate changes, which is ignored by the alarmists, because taking it into account would heavily decrease the horrors. It is, btw, a really cheap one. Most farmers buy seeds anyway, so the main problem is lack of education by the local farmers about those crops which, given the new climate, become now more efficient. Really? Not if the change happens over 50 years and the knowledge itself is for free on the internet. Yes, there are extremal cases where no changing crop no longer helps. But how much will be of this type? From QQ's horror scenario these would be places too hot and too wet for humans to live and plant there something without air condition. Fine, a place for tropical forests, natural reservations.

No doubt, there could be some regions where it makes no longer sense to do agriculture because it is too hot or to wet and too hot together. Or even some local regions will become even more arid or colder given a changed pattern of the precipitation in the new climate. But this will not be the whole world. There will be large regions in Siberia and Kanada where agriculture makes no sense today, which could be used then. Or some deserts where the increase in precipitation makes at least some agriculture possible. Other regions where it can be intensified, from one to two crops per year, or from simple pasture or wood to something better.

 

You continue to post arrant, idiotic nonsense dreamed up in complete ignorance. Unless you learn to obtain information before typing your latest goofy daydream, you will never be anything but an American propagandist's parrot in this matter.

A lot of effort put into what has always failed in the past? No thanks. One benefit of not claiming you're stupid - which I don't, contrary to your claims - is that I can rest certain tasks on the appropriate shoulders.
One thing Tiassa has pointed out, that you have avoided completely, is that this entire digression of yours into climate change here functions as a deflection. You were cornered on Trump and Putin, and suddenly climate change is very interesting to you - but not Trump's or Putin's dealings with it, not as an example of Republican Party misgovernment and disaster. Nothing about Trump's presidency at all, in your posting.

Of course. But I claimed you got the direction - not the degree - wrong. I said that very clearly, many times. That's different.
And you once knew that - you defended your error, explicitly: not the degree, but the direction, was your focus as well. You had chains of reasoning by way of grant funding and insecurity and so forth, remember?
So what are we to make of these dissembling attempts at changing the subject, especially when framed in language such as "your fantasy"?

Again you change the subject. I said you drew conclusions about the direction of bias overall. And that blunder has been your basis of argument about climate change ever since.
Besides: you did. You drew conclusions about the relative frequency of good animals and plants spreading vs diseases and pests, about the effects of greater warmth on agricultural productivity, about sea level rise, about whether linear models were adequate and informative, about all kinds of things of which you are ignorant, based in the beginning on your presupposition that the media reports had revealed to you the direction of bias in the scientific research. So you argued, anyway.

In point of fact, that argument is almost certainly bogus as well. There is another obvious influence on all your posting, especially clear in this matter; the indicated and evidence-supported and clearly displayed origin of all your claims, approach, focus, presumptions, and specific language on climate change: American rightwing corporate media feeds, Republican propaganda. You function as a parrot, in this particular matter - almost no independent thought at all.

And that is my best guess as to why you omit Trump from this digression entirely, despite the thread topic - he's not a highlighted part of that media feed, despite his importance in both American and global response to the situation. He and his Republican administration and its media operations don't fit easily into this world of corrupted science, of bias and globalization and insecure scientists bowing to the "mainstream", that a guy like he is supposed to be would clean up. Under the spotlight, Trump doesn't look like an agent of cleanliness and straight dealing. The scientists do.

 

The first thing you have to understand is that rainfall, temp/humidity data that is older than a couple of years is effectively useless. Your 2012 image is obsolete and no longer relevant except for purposes of discussing "ancient" history.
Your post indicates that you are unaware of the sheer volumes of precipitation involved in the last couple of years stats. Volumes of a magnitude that make any dam or water containment system vulnerable to collapse. Even the severity of landslides alone, enough to wipe out villages, small towns has had a significant uptick in the last 12 months.

The gradual change that you are presuming as a premise is non-existent. The change in dynamics curve (other than a steady and relatively slow upward trend in average temperatures) is almost vertical, rapid, accelerating and increasingly devastating to infrastructure , agriculture and international cohesion.
Late last year was the first time "Insurers risk" started to make headlines in our print media. Likewise Banks are no longer agreeing to finance new fossil fuel developments ( oil exploration/ development etc) and not for some ethical or moral reason, but purely based on financial risk assessment. Even major oil companies are seeking alternatives to fossil fuels. Classic example is demonstrated by changes in Saudi Arabia and the somewhat desperate pursuit of diversification away from oil.
I would imagine buying storm and tempest insurance in Puerto Rico, for example, would be effectively impossible meaning that infrastructure and other rebuilding is unable to be financed. If another hurricane hits Puerto Rico this season the nation will probably have to be evacuated and abandoned as being unable to sustain any significant population centers.

If you really wish to explore the reality of climate change truth, start with the money risk industries (banks, insurers etc) and use recent data and not obsolete data as you have been demonstrating with your posts. ( keep in mind that the risk industry reaction is lagging by about 4 months due to damage/liability assessment time required)

 

The greatest political problem the USA faces is that at the moment there appears to be no serious challenger for POTUS.
From here there appears to be no alternative POTUS and from a political point of view the Democrats are in deep shit. IMO
Especially when you consider that Trump would normally be an easy target to challenge...
Do you see any serious challengers for POTUS from over there?
You do realize of course that with out a serious and credible challenger to the POTUS, Trump will probably gain a second term with a Republican dominated Congress, with out a problem don't you?

"The lack of a credible challenger is ....."

 

Here in Aus. the leaders of all main parties are constantly publicly challenging each other.
Hardly a day goes by when there isn't media coverage of the political bun fight between the leader of the opposition party (Labor -Shorten) and the leader of the party in Government (Liberal/National -Turnbull)
It provides the electorate a great opportunity to know who we are going to vote for at the next election.

 

At the moment, the presidency is not up for election. What are you talking about?

 

At the moment there is no leadership in opposition to Trump.
From what I see, Trump is the leader of the Republican party.
The Republican party has it's main public face via Trump.
There should always be a nominated opposition contender for the role of POTUS. There currently is none.

Imagine, the DNC has a credible contender for POTUS already providing opposition to Trump's methods, policies etc. and providing credible alternatives.
The media would just love it and DNC would be on the front page critically assessing the POTUS's decisions in a more credible and formal capacity.
Every time Trump did something stupid (which is often) it could be capitalized upon, well before the POTUS elections. Building and reinforcing a credible alternative to the current regime.
At the moment Trump has carte blanche, with out any real fear of opposition simply because there really isn't any...There is no real political reason for him to moderate his actions.
There is no credible alternative being offered so.. people are already voting in their heads.

I was just thinking this morning, how crazy the USA election process was and this stuck out like a ..... well you know....
For the Democrat Party to be successful it HAS to provide and most importantly market a credible alternative now and not just during the POTUS election campaign. IMO

The political focus is on the Presidency in the USA system, it appears that everything else is secondary.

 

the level where water turns into steam and then into air vapour(using simple words so non sciency folk can grasp the idea)

that level between the liquid water of the sea and the air that we breath...
that layer is coming up toward where humans live and is probably going to be a cause of issues like asthma and flu & pneumonia etc etc etc...

a-side from issues around high rise building foundations becoming unstable from water saturation as the sea level gradually rises.
there is a potential for bugs that like high precipitation to potentialy live a little longer thus extending the infection cycle for humans.

 

No, it has nothing to do with deflection - I do not have such aims. In fact, it would be much easier for you to corner me in the climate field, where you have some knowledge about the literature. I have simply the bad habit to answer almost everything. So, once somebody starts to make nonsensical claims, like "you've been fooled in the climate change discussion" or so, I tend to answer.

Correct. And this is the reason for me to classify you as an alarmist. Note, I use this simply classification - by my classification, an alarmist is somebody who claims IPCC is underestimating the danger. I'm open to discussing this, in principle, they may be right.

Of course, I defend my position. Which you framed as "your error". If you think it is a bad behavior to use such framing, fine, I would agree - I tend to use such things only on the "tit for tat" base, and would never use it in a civilized discussion.
But I don't attempt to change the subject - I react to what is written in the replies. If you all stop to object to what I wrote about climate, this side issue will disappear immediately.

Of course, in this case, I base my evaluation of the bias of the media on my own theories about reality. (One can use also other criteria, like the use of loaded, moral language, to identify a bias, but in this question, climate gives not much, one can write a lot of horror stories without at the same time attacking evil coal companies or so.) And I have chosen a quite simple question, namely the very existence of positive effects of warming, and the failure of the media to give any information about them, to identify this bias.

You see a different bias, ok, feel free to defend it. With arguments.

Of course, I argue. I like to argue. Arguing and drawing conclusions are quite different things. Of course, I see that in the media only the bad animals and diseases spread, and the good animals are harmed. Which completely forgets that the good animals and plants have the powerful support of a species named homo sapiens behind them, which tends to spread them, completely circumventing natural barriers like the sea, mountains, deserts which can often prevent the spread of animals and plants without such support. There is no need for any conclusions about what distributes faster. The only conclusion I need is that the good animals and plants can easily distribute too. So that we have some positive effect here, which is silenced away by the alarmists and the media.

Which is simply a defamation. Which can be easily seen, if one looks at what is the main discussion between AGW deniers and alarmists - it is about is there a warming at all, and is this warming anthropogenic. I don't even consider them.

Try this: I answer the arguments proposed. If I agree with what is written about Trump, I do not answer this part.