Cap'n Refsmmat

Now you need to explain the leap from guesswork to politics. This would be neatly resolved if you accepted that Suzuki was using rhetoric. Regardless, I think you're overstating some of the uncertainties here. You're describing the situation with climate modeling, but I think that it's a near certainty that "greenhouse gases" really do what they're believed to do -- it's the extent of the damage that's uncertain.

Okay. Now prove that there's a political aspect to the acceptance of climate change. And no, I don't mean acceptance by politicians. I mean acceptance by mainstream climate scientists. This does not necessarily apply to climate science, where sources of error can be identified and accounted for in the final results. Is this because of your uncertainty of the anthropogenic portion of climate change, or because you may believe that climate change "remedies" won't work? Just to be clear.

I don't know which one of you to fault for it, but I'd rather not see this escalate, please.

Don't give up. Read over what others have said here -- if you can keep up the As, you're still in good shape.

Prerequisites There's only so much I can do: I'm assuming that you've got a solid basis in algebra, and I will start from about the level of maths GCSE. I assume that you will understand the concept of a function (e.g. [math]f(x) = x^2[/math]) and understand various concepts such as graphing techniques. For the later stages, I assume some knowledge in the area of trigonometry, mainly the sine and cosine functions. For the more advanced calculus, I will be working in radians instead of degrees for the measurement of angles. There is one other thing: GRADIENTS - know that the definition of a gradient of a straight line between two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) is [imath]\frac{y_2 - y_1}{x_2 - x_1}[/imath]. (Some people know gradients as "slope." They're the same thing.) Table of Contents Here's a list of the topics covered in the rest of this tutorial, with links to those posts: The basics of limits Introduction to differentiation Differentiation shortcuts The product rule The quotient rule The chain rule Calculus with trigonometric functions Logarithmic differentiation Applications: Finding the maximum and minimum values of a function Lesson 1 - The basics of limits So what actually is a limit? It's a very hard concept to define in layman's terms (although relatively easy from a strictly analytical point of view). I think the best way to think of it is in terms of sequences. Imagine you have a sequence of numbers that goes like this: 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, ... and so on. If we call the nth number an, then it's fairly clear to see that a1 is 1, a2 is 1/2, and so on. The mathematical definition for the nth number is obviously an = 1/n. Now we look at what happens as we get bigger and bigger values of n. We can notice that each term in the sequence gets progressively smaller as we increase the value of n, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that as we get really big values of n, we get excruciatingly small values for an. Eventually, with incredibly huge numbers, an will be almost 0 (but it never will actually be 0). So we can say that the "limit" of an is 0 as n gets really big (i.e. as n tends to infinity). Don't start crying just yet over how complex this all is; it's an abstract concept to understand, and it'll take some time just to understand the idea, let alone how it all works. A quick remark on this: we won't be using limits that tend to infinity much in calculus at all, I just used it as an example. A very important idea to understand is the fact that we're not actually saying that the sequence will ever hold a value of 0 - what we are saying is that if you were to go on and extend the sequence forever, then you'd be continually getting closer and closer to zero. Quickly, some notation. You won't be using this every day, but it's handy to know. The situation described above could be represented like this: [math]\lim_{x \to \infty} \frac{1}{x} = 0[/math] meaning that as we put bigger and bigger numbers in to [imath]\frac{1}{x}[/imath], the answer approaches 0. Remember, if you need help understanding any of this, you can just ask in our calculus forum.

If I were you, I wouldn't be worried about one or two pounds. Your body gains and loses weight day-to-day depending on how much water you drink, how much food you ate that hasn't been through your system yet, and so on. If you continue to gain more and more weight (and you're not getting taller), you can be worried -- but a pound or two is not a problem.

I know that. But scientists don't think like politicians. I don't believe you can offer a political explanation for the widespread acceptance of global warming because scientific acceptance is not political. Link to the thread in question? Because people might die. Stop attacking the conclusion of Suzuki's argument when you really want to attack its premise. A simplistic version of the argument goes something like this: Allowing the deaths of people (or the loss of their property) to occur willfully is a crime. Politicians are allowing global warming to kill people and/or destroy their property. Politicians are committing a crime. You surely do not disagree with the first premise, but you disagree with the second because you do not believe global warming will kill people. So your real problem here is that Suzuki believes GW will result in the deaths and you don't. Those are both your opinions. Perhaps you'd like to argue the evidence with him. Please stop torturing the word "faith." It's inhumane. I believe that was your purpose in bringing up this thread, and I still don't see how it follows from any of the evidence you have (or have not) brought. You cannot generalize our views of Suzuki as easily as that. You have no evidence to suggest that we think the way you believe we do.

Oh, right, I should have thought about that a bit before writing. So it's four hydrogen to one helium. I'm trying to oversimplify to make this all easier to understand -- 5th grade in the US is about age 11.

It doesn't turn into light, really. When you heat it you put energy into it. Some of that energy turns into light. Think of a light bulb. You put energy (electricity) into a light bulb and some of that energy turns into light. However, if you've ever touched a light bulb, you know they're really hot (don't touch one to try it, please). That's because some of that energy is turned into heat, too: energy can be in many different forms. Heat and light are two of them.

That's pretty cool, but did the one in the basement get any light? Roses die if they don't get light... I remember reading some stuff like this, though -- apparently plants do react to music, I think. I'll look for what I read and see if I can find it for you.

You're heading on the right track here. Good work. Yes, as pressure goes up the heat does too. That's how diesel engines (like trucks have) work: they squish the air and gas together until they're hot enough to ignite. When something is hot, that means that all of its atoms are moving around really really fast. (Cold things have atoms that move more slowly.) So the atoms in the thermosphere are moving fast enough that they push each other apart and get space in between them. Yes. You understand this better than a lot of people I know. Two hydrogen atoms combine together to make helium. Helium weighs a little bit less than two hydrogen atoms because some of that mass was turned into energy -- you can figure out how much energy by multiplying the missing mass by the speed of light squared ([math]E = mc^2[/math]). The energy is light. Yes, light is pure energy. Light acts like a wave, but it also acts like matter (or a particle). Nobody is really sure what light is; it's just something that acts like a wave sometimes and acts like a particle other times. There isn't nuclear fusion in the Earth's core. The Earth's core stays hot because gravity squishes the Earth together so much that the core's pressure goes up and it gets hot. Heat from the Sun travels as light. That's why when you stand out in the Sun you feel hotter. The light is energy, remember, and the energy can be changed from light energy to heat energy. Hope that helps some!

Evidence or just doubt? There's a significant difference between establishing that it's not humans and pondering the magnitude of human forcings. Any evidence that any of this has actually occurred, or is this just another manifestation of your desire to politicize everything? Because I frankly don't listen to the majority -- I listen to the evidence, which doesn't care how many people agree with it. You also have no evidence to suggest that Suzuki participated in or condones the purported "demonization" and "funding cutoffs". Because their inaction may result in our deaths? Non sequitur. Nobody's abandoning the truth as irrelevant. Suzuki believes his opinion is the truth, and that there is no peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary. I'm sure if the politicians wanted to engage him in a war of evidence he'd be glad to dig up peer-reviewed studies to support his claims. But they don't want to do that. They're too busy saying "dude" for the Rick Mercer Report. (Yes, really.) Nice touch. I hope Suzuki doesn't mind you shoving all these words into his mouth.

There you go. Enjoy your user title

That's Canada, last Thursday. The rest of the world has not come up with anti-global-warming evidence for the past 20 years. (I realize you're talking about the chilling effect. But Suzuki does have a point: the world has not found evidence against GW and they're still sitting on their hineys.) You're still begging the question. I stated that Suzuki means that apathy is to be punished -- hence the "intergenerational crime" (allowing global warming to continue) bit. That has no relevance to what a scientist may publish, only what a politician fails to do. That is the real issue at hand here.

And how is that related in any way to swansont's point?

Since when do politicians do that?

If he meant what I think he meant, he's not giving people that perception at all. I'm not saying "he didn't mean it." I'm saying that he meant a different "it" than you think. He's not trying to suppress open investigation. He's trying to suppress apathy.

Yes, I believe it's still used.

Then perhaps I didn't fully qualify what I said before. What I stated in my last post still stands. And this still has no relevance to Suzuki's statements. So every threat must be specified before the government can act upon it? The relevance of the answer to that question is about nil anyway, because Suzuki would probably agree that if no government agency has the responsibility to do something, the legislators should be faulted for not doing anything about it. That's because of the great disconnect between politicians and scientists.

Depends on if their dissent has evidence. There is, as swansont said, a dearth of evidence in peer-reviewed journals against global warming, so the answer to your question is "no." Do they need to have the specific duty and authority? They already have the authority to regulate emissions, which is a significant portion of what needs to be done. As for the duty, their mission is "to protect human health and the environment." Clear enough? So does that mean the government should continue ignoring it or that they should figure out who should be the agency to fix the problem? Any particular reason to disagree, or are you just doing it on principle?

You are begging the question. You assume he meant what you believe he meant, and that I am suggesting an alternate meaning, when the point is that he didn't mean what you believe he did. Re-read my post, carefully this time. If you still believe that is what Suzuki suggested, you are ignoring my point.

The trouble with your point is that it misses the point. As swansont said, "It's somehow not OK to use rhetoric in public speeches anymore?" Suzuki is not proposing that anti-global-warming dissent should be "silenced." He is proposing that people who ignore the issue should be punished. This is a major distinction: "global warming isn't happening" vs. "I don't care, I'm not going to anything about it anyway." As for your point: We're ignoring the issue because it's a non-issue in this case and there is no dissent being demonized. Apathy in the face of overwhelming evidence is being demonized. The Environmental Protection Agency? It isn't. It's their responsibility to take action when something endangers the lives and/or well-being of thousands of citizens (and the real-estate market of coastal cities).

That might explain a few things...

Well, your answer is right, except for the detail Atheist noted -- there are two solutions.

Penguins? I was under the impression they used ceramic pineapples...