American Politics Discussion Thread

[greenline]

Beyond the basic question of "Will it get be warmer the next year?", most climate models lack substantiative predictive power for determining weather patterns in the future. Beyond bellyaching like "The hurricane season this year was bad, so it must be global warming", there is little evidence of direct threats to human or American lives owing to global warming. Asking people or nations to put away substantial portions of their income to reduce CO2 emissions to influence the climate by a very unclear percentage is one of those vile things about the modern world that most people would be well suited to ignore. China made all of its current wealth by doing so.

The cost of building some kind of fence to impede climate refugees be far lower than the cost of trying to reduce climate emissions by the amount NASA or Greta Thunberg says is necessary. But then again, if there was actually a mass of climate refugees heading this way, your prior arguments say that you would be insisting on letting them in anyway, so why take your word for it?


The decline in the western military industrial complex is measured in relative terms. It is the most powerful force in the world today. It has 13 nuclear powered aircraft carries, and builds new ones at a rate of far less than one per year. In 1945, many new carriers were being laid down every single year. The current aircraft carriers are of course more capaable than their older cousins, but if they were to be attrited or destroyed in battle, there would be no way of replacing them, and the USA would have to go home in defeat.

[Mjmd]

I mean you can just look at current data. Was 2023 REALLY hot. Yes. What about the last 10 years vs all the rest of history. Now a very basic science knowledge leads you to "warm = energy". A lot of human society is built on these things called stable weather patterns. If you look back at human history any time there have been unstable weather patterns bad things happen. Or you know you could choose to believe 99% of the scientists who ACTUALLY study this stuff. But even if you don't there is plenty of simple observation to say "crap". The ocean temperature for 2023 to me is a big one. Another way to think about it is "lets say both sides are lying and the truth is somewhere in the middle". And mind you one side is funded by fossil fuel industry, but lets assume for some insane reason the truth is actually in middle; I'll give you half. It would still behoove us to do MORE. It would actually be cheaper.

On a fence or wall, to quote a genius "well unless they just get a taller ladder" (and yes that is a Trump quote). Or people can just cut through it. Not even to get people in, just if they want the scrap metal (already happened to portions built). People who are desperate with nothing to lose are hard to stop or dissuade. So we need better systems for our current number which is what I think the actual debate should be over, but even if we were to revamp to actually not suck, the numbers if multiple countries get destabilized by weather events is A LOT.

There are heavy infrastructure things like drydocks that tend to conform to how many are actually being built. They are expensive to develop; especially with increased size of vessels (I doubt any of the facilities in 1945 could have built a Ford class). So if you want to be able to build 3 at a time, you have to pay for infrastructure you aren't using. So you are right, but it is also understandable why we don't. The US doesn't export a lot of its ship designs, which is also part of what limits the number able to build. Again, understandable. There aren't many countries we would sell a full size nuclear carrier to and of those none would would want to buy one (countries like UK or France take pride in building their own smaller ones). I've said it before in this thread but I would love to hold the army budget stable or downsize it and actually focus more on navy and airforce all for the same overall budget.

[T-hawk]

Again I've been skimming but I'll jump in on one point:

So, lets look at Carbon emissions

1 - United States:
Per capita emissions in 2022: 14.44 tons of CO₂ per year.

3 - China:
Per capita emissions in 2022: 8.85 tons of CO₂ per year.

This doesn't mean China is good at reducing emissions or efficient per person. It means that half of China's population is peasants poor enough that they hardly use or consume anything industrial.

Like, someplace like Haiti is probably pretty low on per capita emissions too, but it's not because of green technology.

[Charr Babies]

Again I've been skimming but I'll jump in on one point:

So, lets look at Carbon emissions

1 - United States:
Per capita emissions in 2022: 14.44 tons of CO₂ per year.

3 - China:
Per capita emissions in 2022: 8.85 tons of CO₂ per year.

This doesn't mean China is good at reducing emissions or efficient per person.  It means that half of China's population is peasants poor enough that they hardly use or consume anything industrial.

Like, someplace like Haiti is probably pretty low on per capita emissions too, but it's not because of green technology.

Besides debating about carbon footprint. We can, if you are a man of science, all learn something by Google or Youtube on (mega) projects on engineering and technological advances in green energy.

Okay, lets pretend half of China's population produce no emission at all. 
China's per capita emissions (adjusted) is ~17 tons, on par with the US, and Canada

China is the manufacturer of the world. To be on par with China on emission is shameful when Canada and US produce practically nothing.

[Boro]

That's quite an off the cuff reply T-hawk, although given that the original poster probably just pasted the output of an "AI", it's rather fitting.

I found though that despite all that, china has an insane amount of cement production (4-5 times as much as second place India), and more than half of global steel / aluminum production too, far ahead of the US, and those are very energy / CO2 intensive industrial processes.

[Charr Babies]

That's quite an off the cuff reply T-hawk, although given that the original poster probably just pasted the output of an "AI", it's rather fitting.

Yes, the figures in quotes are AI output. If you have better fact checked data, please post them, or debunk the AI data.

[greenline]

I mean you can just look at current data. Was 2023 REALLY hot. Yes. What about the last 10 years vs all the rest of history. Now a very basic science knowledge leads you to "warm = energy".

Did you paraphrase this from some idiotic Huffington Post article?

The worst case scenarios floating around for global average temperature increases often point to around 4C. Climate models for the Jurassic period estimate a difference of 3-4C. The Jurassic period indeed had more 'energy', and the result in the fossil record shows a large amount of life thriving nonetheless. Of course, these are only models and fossils we have to look at, and there is no way of truly knowing the past without a time machine, but what about these scenarios is supposed to be immediately dangerous because there was more total energy involved in the system?

A lot of human society is built on these things called stable weather patterns. If you look back at human history any time there have been unstable weather patterns bad things happen. Or you know you could choose to believe 99% of the scientists who ACTUALLY study this stuff.

A year or two back, there were some unusual back to back ice storms in Texas, leading to one infamous picture of frozen wind farms being passed around.

Before this happened, did 99% scientists predict in their models that this would occur?

Now that it has, do 99% of scientists say that more heating will make Texas get even colder during the winter? Will it continue to stay the same amount of cold that it was recently? Will it backtrack and get warmer again?

Just forecasting the weather for the next day has a significant range of error. Day to day weather is an immensely complex, chaotic system with thousands of fluctuating variables that can never all be accounted for. Go forward a week and forecasting becomes unreliable, in a month it becomes useless.

The only reliable climactic forecasting is the most general - CO2 goes up, it is correlated with temperature increases, and average temperature consistently goes up. But this does not provide any definitive answers for - "How how will it be here in so many years?" Or, "How much will rain increase or decrease here?" A climate model that can not answer these questions is not providing any specific threats, and there is no accurate climate model doing so.

On a fence or wall, to quote a genius "well unless they just get a taller ladder" (and yes that is a Trump quote). Or people can just cut through it. Not even to get people in, just if they want the scrap metal (already happened to portions built). People who are desperate with nothing to lose are hard to stop or dissuade.

A fence alone is simple to bypass, yes. Combining a fence or a wall with sets of armed men makes this much more difficult. Unorganized crowds, even desperate ones, are loathe to charge armed guards, lacking military discipline and the threat of blocking units in the rear. Armed guards manning a fence would do wonders to dissuade crowds of refugees, whether climate motivated or not.

There are heavy infrastructure things like drydocks that tend to conform to how many are actually being built. They are expensive to develop; especially with increased size of vessels (I doubt any of the facilities in 1945 could have built a Ford class)...

Manufacturing isn't solely gated by currently operating drydocks - it is also gated by the ability to build new drydocks when the situation demands it. During the World Wars, a significant amount of American ship manufacturing was commandeering the civilian capacity to build merchant marine ships, and to expand and build new facilities for building ships without too much effort or expense. Back then, the USA was the top steel and shipping manufacturer. Today, the top dog in both spots is China, which should give pause to any would-be armchair general.

[Mjmd]

You know there are scientific peer reviewed articles you could read that answer a lot of your questions right? I know you wouldn't believe them, but they do answer your questions. So things like the polar vortex being more erratic is actually expected yes. Our world and civilization did not evolve in the Jurassic, I think this is important to note, because some people seem to forget we rely on these things called crops.

Ah yes lets spend tons of money putting armed guards on the entire border and build a wall rather than try to solve any issues. So much better of a "solution".

So do you know who the next 5 slots of ship building are? They are all US allies. Again for people who like to just compare US and China there is a larger picture and that includes the historical worlds largest alliance network that some people just want to throw away because nationalism? This is amplified when looking at long range missile capacity, submarines, ect. There is a reason alliances are important.

[greenline]

You know there are scientific peer reviewed articles you could read that answer a lot of your questions right? I know you wouldn't believe them, but they do answer your questions. So things like the polar vortex being more erratic is actually expected yes. Our world and civilization did not evolve in the Jurassic, I think this is important to note, because some people seem to forget we rely on these things called crops.

Making the claim that "the polar vortex will be more erratic" is very general, and thus useless. An erratic polar vortex could lead to more ice storms in Texas, or New England, or Canada, or nowhere at all, or all of them at once. Again, where are the substantive, specific, accurate predictions from climate forecasting? Beyond merely pointing out rise in average temperatures and demanding funding for research grants, of course.

Some crops would not fare as well in a Jurassic modeled climate. Others would thrive. Maize, one of the most commonly grown cereals today, is well nourished by warm temperatures and a CO2 rich atmosphere. So cheap mitigation efforts for average temperature rise might include investigating more variants of maize.

Ah yes lets spend tons of money putting armed guards on the entire border and build a wall rather than try to solve any issues. So much better of a "solution".

To someone who believes letting infinite masses of refugees is a problem, armed border guards are a solution. The guards scare away the refugees, and they do not come in. Just as I predicted, you actually do not believe climate refugees themselves are a problem, because if they were on the scene you would be clamoring to let them all in.

So do you know who the next 5 slots of ship building are? They are all US allies. Again for people who like to just compare US and China there is a larger picture and that includes the historical worlds largest alliance network that some people just want to throw away because nationalism? This is amplified when looking at long range missile capacity, submarines, ect. There is a reason alliances are important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co...ip_exports

The disparity between China and the European allies is quite noticeable. South Korea and Japan would, in the meantime, have to hope that their own manufacturing capacity would be unimpeded by China and North Korea threatening retaliation right next door. It's also very questionable if European countries would feel inclined to commit any substantial forces to a war in the Pacific, especially if they begin suffering losses.

[Mjmd]

This is the problem with climate deniers. Here is this peer reviewed scientific article. "ITS BIAS" Never mind that the actual bloody fossil fuel industry is on the other side of the argument. But lets try to logic through something simple shall we. Warmer = more melting. Can we agree here? So the warmer it gets the more ice and permafrost melt. The more ice melts the less sun is reflected the warmer it gets. The more permafrost that thaws the more trapped Co2 is released. Can we agree there a lot of cities and people living on the coast? Can we agree that it would be expensive to deal with this? There is a reason under 2 degrees is preferred. Once you get pass that you go from centimeters of rise to multiple meters. Sure that part is you know actual science based, but you can logic through the rest of it. More ice melt = more water. You don't need to be a climate scientist, just a logical human being. Obviously more water = more cost to deal with.

So its about weather patterns not just warmer. Certain areas may get too much rain and some areas drought. This winter in Wisconsin the farmers were starting to worry because we hadn't had snow (until Jan). Snow actually helps keep the ground warmer in areas that get really cold that way the melting snow soaks into the ground come spring thaw. This is such a little thing, but it shows the complexity we rely on even before we get to flood and drought situations. So sure we can probably to some extent shift our practices, methods, and even growing areas, but this is all a cost. And the cost increases the more floods and droughts occur. I'm trying to get you to think of the cost of us dealing with all these issues. These very simple predictable issues. And then you compare the cost of preventing and you start to wonder, wait this is so much cheaper.

So preventing this from happening isn't a solution? I mean I do think there is a limit. We are no where near it now. But a US that is already struggling itself from climate change plus an actual large influx. But seriously compare the cost of putting guards on the ENTIRE border and building a wall with just you know implementing some green policies.

Let along the other costs I've pointed out above. Or any of the costs I haven't mentioned. Its just cheaper to limit the rise in temperature than to deal with results of not caring. And again, if for some odd bloody reason we put the true costs halfway between fossil fuel industry "nothing bad will happen" and actual bloody climate scientists its pretty clear the preventative costs are so much cheaper. And that is just in terms of $$$ let alone human suffering (which I know you don't care about so just focusing on the $).

Let me try one more argument. I know the I'll give you we are half wrong argument should be good enough, but lets try one more argument. Lets say me and all the climate scientists are wrong. The worst that can happen is that we waste some money, but there is still some nice cheaper solar that comers out of it and you know when we eventually run out of fossil fuels in a couple hundred years we closer to dealing with that. The worst if you and the fossil fuel industry are wrong is catastrophic. So do we side with the actual scientists and if they are wrong its still fine or do we think the fossil fuel industry and their surrogates are telling the truth (which we have evidence of them know about climate change since the 50s) and if they are wrong we face horrible consequences. Its not really a tough choice to me.

I mean the same logic applies to Chinese capacities being so close to US allies. Again, to me the best way of preventing war isn't to have a balance of powers, its to make sure your opponents know that in no way shape or form would it be equal. That is why strengthening our relations with Europe is important so they would factor in (even if its just with economic sanctions ect; you just want to increase the perceived guaranteed cost).