My god.

Check out the largest iceberg breakup ever caught on film.

The immensity of these structures, and the fact that they're destructing the way that are, and the idea of what it would be like if this happened to if a human were standing on objects this large, is just terrifying.

That movie's at my local art house right now, too. Maybe I should go see it...

Fox News in 2023 said Climate Change is a Hoax

And we all know how accurate and unbiased Fox news is.

If Fox News said that the sun was shining, I'd grab an umbrella and look out the window.

If he were living now, Josef Goebbels would no doubt find employment at Faux News.

A Youtube short exposed some ridiculous person who said that 2023 has been the hottest year in 100,000 years.
Um...nope.
Firstly, records of our weather only go back 143 years. Scientists mark the start of modern global record-keeping at roughly 143 years ago, in 1880. That’s because the earlier available climate data doesn’t cover enough of the planet to get an accurate reading, according to NASA. So 2023 may become the hottest year in 143 years, but only because it’s the hottest year on record.
Secondly, there were no civilizations 100,000 years ago going around measuring the weather like we do. Even the Mesopotamians go back just 10,000 years. Humans were practically cavemen back then, so 100,000 years is a crazy about of time to claim ANYTHING is known.

Nobody can deny there's something going on with our climate, but I, personally, blame it on the source-- the Sun, itself. Sure, we've polluted this planet, but we're specks of dust, mere molecules on this planet and our cities are mere pimples on it.
Whatever we're spewing into the atmosphere, it's not rising as high up even as the stratosphere, 50 miles over our heads, as far as I know. Look outside a window on a plane at 20,000 feet and you'll see what sure looks like clean air.
I'm just thinking that it's an amazing miracle that the Earth can orbit the Sun for millions of years and remain in that orbit. But, I don't believe it's in the same, exact, precise position, every single time over the course of millions of years.
No scientist is going to reveal that we're 100,000 miles closer to the Sun, which is causing our environmental problems, because there's nothing we could do to stop it. No sense having world-wide panic, so they go the easy way (and financially-beneficial way for them) and say it's global-warming caused by stoopid people.
I might be wrong about all this, but I'm just not buying it.
The Sun keeps us alive and it's solar flares are happening all the time and we have different weather each and every day. We're just living through a slightly more rougher period in our history. We have no proof this didn't happen 300 years ago or 747 or 1,340 years, 5 months, and 11 days ago.
Serious? Yes. Our fault? I don't think so.

Secondly, there were no civilizations 100,000 years ago going around measuring the weather like we do.

Indeed not, but there were rocks, plants, animals, chemical reactions happening everywhere, glaciers forming and melting, all of it happening in the general evironment of the planet at the time and preserving traces of that environment that geologists and paleontologists have learned to read and interpret. Those records allow them to know the temperatures prevalant in the past, and to go far beyond the 100,000 year mark.

I will agree that the statement is quite hyperbolic, the climate traces I just outlines will not allow one to know the precise temperatures in a given year, just averages over decades, but the numbers scientists get from that information are indeed alarming.

Also, it's not the pollution that's doing the damage, it's the carbon dioxide, an invisible odorless gas that stops heat from escaping directly back into space. The more of it in the air, the hotter it gets, and we are spewing a crapload of it in our atmosphere.

Steve, your post sounds like something the late Rush Limbaugh, and others that think like him, would say. That Global Warming is a myth cooked up by liberals/socialists/tree huggers/all of the above, to rein in big businesses (that Limbaugh and others like him back).

Surely you're not buying the Republican Kool Aid now.

Well, let me tell stuff from my own personal experience. ere in Ottawa, in four weeks, we've ad several tornadoes touch down. Several! When I was a kid, we got a tornado ere maybe twice a decade.

And last year we got this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2022_Canadian_derecho

Never in my life ad I seen such a storm (and i ope never to again). My apartment ad no power for nine days.

If I could, I would have invited people like Limbaugh to Ottawa and showed them the devastation. Was no "liberal myth" that did that.

And they say that, by the end of the century, things will be much worse. Only comfort to me is that I'll be dead by then, and won't have to experience it first hand.

I realize that this is an issue that has political issues, but can we keep the political arguments over in Political Musings please.

As for whether Rush did or didn't believe this or that. Years ago I was helping my dad with something and he was listening to Rush and Ruch made a joke. You could it was a joke from the context, the tone of his voice, and how silly it sounded. The next day the news repeated what Rush said, but their delivery was dead serious and devoid of context and they presented it as if it was something he truly believed rather than a joke. So unless you have an actual recording of Rush saying something, or from one of his books, treat it with a grain, or more, of salt.

As for weather not being like when you were a kid. Well, Earth is a dynamic system, things are always changing. There are known cycles of change, the 11-year sun spot cycles, the thousand of year Milankovitch cycles, and probably others.

There is an unproven hypothesis called Human-caused Global Warming, which people unfortunately shortened to Global Warming which cause problems since there is a pre-existing idea of Global Warming and confusing the two causes problems when discussing the issues.

For one the concept of Global Warming has been around for, I believe, hundreds of years, and has been well-defined by scientists to see if it is actually happening. It hasn't yet, a few warm years isn't enough, just as a few cold years isn't enough to prove Global Cooling, were talking in the realm of decades to centuries. Global Warming & Global Cooling are 'big picture' issues.

Human-caused Global Warming is what 25 years old, poorly defined, and when the activists got upset at people pointing out how HCGW didn't match the definitions of GW they just rebranded it with the weasel term Climate Change since it was a vague term, at best, before they claimed it as the new name and it could cover cooling as well as warming.

Just gonna leave this here.

I'm also gonna leave this here. It's in response to Steve's comment that we can't know what temperatures and other climate factors were 100,000 year ago because there was no one taking measurements at the time. This will spare me from writing a science essay that would most likely be far less accurate and less interesting than this video is.

*grabs popcorn*

Rodney, don't forget to get a drink to wash that popcorn down! Popcorn, like these preztels, are making me thirsty!

Francois, the youtube short was more my speed. I won't watch a 59 minute video about climate change, let alone Star Trek, so sorry about not watching it after you went to the trouble to find it.

Tim; "Steve, your post sounds like something the late Rush Limbaugh would say...Surely you're not buying the Republican Kool Aid now."

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! NONONONONONO. No.
I'm not agreeing with them at all, these are beliefs I've had on my own, without influence by any political party, American or Canadian.
The difference here is that I'm willing to listen, (but not for a 59 minute video about the weather), and am not saying, "I'm right and you can't change my mind, you Left-Wing/Right-Wing so-and-so!".
I pointed out that I believe the Earth's climate is changing in my post. Heck, do you guys remember seeing a news story last year that Egypt experienced snow?! EGYPT!!! SNOOOOWWW!!!
My personal experience, recently, are all the fires in Nova Scotia (where my sister lives) and Quebec and British Columbia. Never heard about so many wild fires, and although some are started by idiots and campfires, plenty, I'm sure, were caused by the Sun, in an excessively-dry forest.
Oh, look! I blamed the Sun there, just as I did in my first post!
I'm afraid age has made me cynical about people and motives, on the Left and the Right, and there'll always be people looking for a buck at the expense of naive people, or desperate people, or people experiencing life-or-death changes (like Covid).
So I can believe that people caused this problem and nasty, greedy people are taking advantage of the situation and I can also believe that the Earth is going through a natural change, not seen in hundreds of years, and nasty, greedy people are taking advantage of the situation.

Francois - "The more of it (CO2) in the air, the hotter it gets, and we are spewing a crapload of it in our atmosphere."
I'm not denying that. Toronto has factories, and I drive by Canada's 'steel town', Hamilton a couple times a month, and the amount of 'stuff' spewing up into the air makes me cringe. How do people even live there?
But, that's when I ask myself, "So what?", when I go to Google Maps and start off at street level in front of, let's say, the Rogers Centre (formerly the Skydome) where the Toronto Blue Jays play.
Then I back up, and keep on backing up little by little, until this massive building, which can seat 49,000 baseball fans, gradually becomes a mere white pimple compared to the entirety of my city, where almost 4 million people live. And the higher I go, the smaller Toronto becomes, until it's just a small blob in the province of Ontario, and the Dome, let alone massive factories, have disappeared from view and can't be seen. And finally, this 43 X 21 kilometre-sized city is just a pinhead compared to the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the Northern Hemisphere of the planet.
And somehow us human microbes can influence the weather with thousands factories and millions of cars that are mere grains of sand in the big picture?
I dunno. I think it's also a bit of human conceit to think that we can change the weather like this on our own....but, somehow can't alter it so that people living in incredibly hot places can also get a decent amount of rain.
Time to teach me something; shouldn't CO2 dissipate into the atmosphere like the smoke from a fire, and just be overwhelmed by the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere? Anybody know?

I started questioning climate change after seeing how the film "An Inconvenient Truth" bent the "science" to almost breaking point.

I don't believe that nothing is wrong but I'm also not entirely certain we're at the doom and gloom status people think we are at.

But even if we aren't- what is wrong with learning how to manage our natural resources more efficiently?

Steve - And somehow us human microbes can influence the weather with thousands factories and millions of cars that are mere grains of sand in the big picture?

Didn't you hear? Humans are awesome... and evil. And for that matter we can affect temperatures on other planets as it was reported that Mars was experiencing global warming too. Man those SUVs can't confine their emissions to Earth!

it's the carbon dioxide, an invisible odorless gas that stops heat from escaping directly back into space. The more of it in the air, the hotter it gets, and we are spewing a crapload of it in our atmosphere.

Francois, you've nailed it. We've been belching this •••• into our atmosphere for nearly 200 years now. Mother Nature is merely pushing back.

That movie, The Day After Tomorrow, comes to mind ere. What was depicted in the film is really happening. Yes, the movie fudged some things, it wouldn't happen as quick as the movie depicted, but it is happening. Namely unusual changes in weather, such as tornadoes happening more often here in Ottawa.


And somehow us human microbes can influence the weather with thousands factories and millions of cars that are mere grains of sand in the big picture?

Uh, we "human microbes" CAN, and ARE influencing the planet. The area around Pripyat, Ukraine, will be uninhabitable for about 6000 years, because of us "human microbes". And we have weapons that can turn the entire Earth into a vast radioactive wasteland.


what is wrong with learning how to manage our natural resources more efficiently

And there lies the problem, Rodney. Orange Blunder, and people like him, see any attempt managing the natural resources as another attempt by those "evil liberals" to attack the American way of life. They will use their power and influences (namely by bribing politicians) to stop any attempts.

Of course, they might be singing a different tune, when the ice caps are gone and their precious Wall St. is under water. Of course, like us, the current lot, including Orange, will be dead by then. Perhaps that's why they don't care, as it won't be their problem.

Francois, the youtube short was more my speed. I won't watch a 59 minute video about climate change, let alone Star Trek, so sorry about not watching it after you went to the trouble to find it.

Too bad, she is very good at explaining that stuff, much better than I am. This is not a subject that lends itself well to the sound bite format, although the guy in the short does a fairly good job of it.

Time to teach me something; shouldn't CO2 dissipate into the atmosphere like the smoke from a fire, and just be overwhelmed by the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere? Anybody know?

It does dissipate, but it doesn't disappear. CO2 molecules will do their job whether they are all concentrated in one place or dispersed over the entire atmosphere. There are processes in nature that will remove it over time, but we are currently producing CO2 faster than these processes can deal with, so it accumulates and warms things up.

You don't need a great deal of the stuff to have a significant effect. Prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were about 280 ppm. This small amount was enough to raise Earth's average temperature from -20C to 13C, thus making our planet habitable. Now, that concentration is above 400 ppm, which increases the average temperature by 1.5C. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it does have a strong influence on water evaporation, dominant winds, jet stream trajectory, ocean currents and other climate factors.

And concerning the statement that we are microbes on Earth's vast landscape, consider this. There are now 8 billion of us on the planet. This means each human has 63938 m2 or 15.8 acres of the planet (land and ocean) allocated to them. It's a square of 253x253 meters. Each human needs that area to provide them with food, water, shelter, mineral resources, waste disposal and everything else they need to live and to sustain our technology, while at the same time leaving enough space for the rest of life on Earth to also exist and get what they need. Try and imagine how easy it would be for a human to ruin 15.8 acres of land and ocean if they weren't careful with how they manage that space.

Francois - "This means each human has 63938 m2 or 15.8 acres of the planet (land and ocean) allocated to them."
I can accept the part of that regarding some of the needs (food and water), but wouldn't an individual's totals for other things (shelter and some resources) be much smaller, when, for example, a family of 4 lives in the same home? They're sharing the electricity and hydro and food in the same household, so my math says we can't ALL need 63938 m2, if they're living in the same place.

Greta Thunberg a few years ago said that we were doomed by 2023.
I'm still here. I'm about to have my fish and chips for dinner in my 'doomed future'.

Tim - "And we have weapons that can turn the entire Earth into a vast radioactive wasteland."

That's a different topic, but something has always bothered me about nuclear weapons; how many times have the US and USSR and others tested their nukes by detonating them? Dozens of times? Hundreds? Where did the radiation go? After all, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are alive and populated to this day, so what happened to the radiation?

I don't deny the power of nuclear weapons altering landscapes and environments, but we're talking weather here, altered by our cars and factories, which is a very, very slow influence compared to dropping a bomb.

I guess I'm also being influenced by reading about astronomy, and realizing how big the planet is, until you compare it to the Sun, which has a diameter 109 times larger than Earths, and could hold 1,300,000 Earths inside it.
Yeah, I'm thinking this star 96 million miles away has alot influence on our planet, and has to be considered.

Of course, this whole discussion could be for nothing if we go the spiritual way and just say that this is all God's doing, and maybe we shouldn't be taking credit for His work!

Just one more thing that confuses me...

Francois - "...which increases the average temperature' by 1.5 Celsius. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it does have a strong influence on water evaporation, dominant winds, jet stream trajectory, ocean currents and other climate factors."

Okay, I understand 'average temperature, but here's the next week's forecast for Toronto;
Tuesday - 21 C
Wednesday - 25
Thursday - 25
Friday - 24
Saturday - 27
Sunday - 26
Monday -26
I was hoping for more variation in next week's temperatures, but here goes.
You say an increase of 1.5 degrees, but there's a 6 degree difference between Tuesday and Saturday, and I know life will continue. That natural variation will affect what you say it does, with or without human interference.
Weather changes, temperatures can drop drastically in October, for example, then we get a bunch of warmer days, then October begins to feel like October. It's always happened, when I was a little boy in the '60's, and before I was born. 365 days in a year, 365 days that are not the same.
So how does this 1.5 degree increase even exist when normal weather patterns always involves rises and falls of the temperature?
And the skeptic in me would challenge anybody to really tell the difference of 1.5 degrees. 21 Celsius feels like 22.5, 27 feels like 28.5 (or Fahrenheit-wise 54 feels like 57 and 90 feels like 93).
Not trying to be argumentative, I'm just venting here and I appreciate everyone's comments. It's not exactly a topic to debate at work or home, and I'm learning stuff here.

Average temperature is about what is meant to be the average temperature over a month- combining all the daily maximums and arriving at a figure.

What that stat is saying is that over time those average temps have risen by 1.5 degrees which, again, doesn't sound like much but it is disastrous from the ecology of the planet.

Indeed it is.

I can accept that.
But 24 to 28 Celsius is normal for Toronto in August, and always has been, being one of the hotter summer months.
A better month to see weird temperatures might be October or November if we don't have enough chilly days.

Not saying climate change doesn't exist, that humans aren't responsible for air and water pollution, but the Earth is a magnificent creation, and can fix SOME problems itself.
Here's a Youtube Short explaining how the Earth can fight against human-created carbon dioxide;

https://youtube.com/shorts/di6aN1-lywY?si=1IdtU7jomkyGtTgL

The polar caps are melting, that is fact.

People that cause climate change, like Orange Peel, are one day gonna see their precious Wall Street underwater.

"The Earth can correct man-made climate change, so we don't need to bother changing our ways" is the same level of nonsense as "Herd immunity will solve covid-19" with the same result: people end up dead. Just look at the multiple wildfires, floods and "hottest day on record" we've had this year.

You can interpret that video in a couple ways, and one way is to say, "Great, the trees and plants are helping. Imagine how bad things would be if THEY weren't fighting to absorb the CO2 for us"

M Crane, you misquoted me. I didn't say;
"The Earth can correct man-made climate change, so we don't need to bother changing our ways"
I said;
"...but the Earth is a magnificent creation, and can fix SOME problems itself."
I specified 'SOME' in capital letters no less, but you ignored that, which I knew would happen. You DARE to suggest anything else other than what you hear on the news and you're attacked like a piece of chicken in a piranha tank!
My point is that we can help the Earth and the Earth can help us. And I said that in posts above this one that I believe in climate change, but I blame the actual Sun that's burning our forests as much as the garbage in the air is weakening the ozone. OBVIOUSLY, we need to try and fix this problem, but we're NOT alone in it. Science proves climate change, but science also proves the Earth is trying to repair itself. Earth is a living planet-- Mars is a dead world, by comparison.
Also;
"Hottest day on record" we've had this year."
Can't dispute that.
Except according to Google;
"The oldest continuous temperature record is the Central England Temperature Data Series, which began in 1659, and the Hadley Centre has some measurements beginning in 1850, but there are too few data before 1880 for scientists to estimate average temperatures for the entire planet."
1880 was the time of my great-grandparents. Without records from 1844, or 1786 or 1522 or 1467 or 2001 BC, who is to say we didn't have years as hot as this because of that star we're orbiting? It caused forest fires and created deserts before humans even numbered a few million people on this planet.

Tim, please don't lump me in with the Orange Dork. You know I'm firmly on your side where that hockey puck is concerned. As for New York and Wall Street drowning, got this from ChatGPT;
"If all the polar ice caps were to completely melt, it would have a significant impact on global sea levels, including in New York City. According to some estimates, sea levels could rise by as much as 216 feet (66 meters) if all the ice on Earth were to melt. This would cause severe flooding in many coastal areas, including New York City, which is located on the coast. However, it is important to note that the complete melting of all the ice caps is not a likely scenario and is not currently forecasted to occur in the near future. Additionally, it's important to note that the effects of climate change are complex and multi-faceted, and that rising sea levels are just one of the many potential impacts."
Note the line "If all the polar ice caps were to completely melt..."
For that to happen, the Earth would have to change orbit. No amount of pollution would be able to alter such an intrinsic element of the Earth rotating on its axis and orbiting the Sun. Never gonna happen. Hell, I'll even bet you a nice new $10 if it happens and New York becomes the next Atlantis. After all, I'll be up here in Toronto and you're even safer up in Ottawa.

So, for the record, I DO BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE, but I DON"T believe that humans are the scum of the Earth and deserve to be wiped out by revenge-seeking eco-warriors for their crimes against Mother Earth.

For that to happen, the Earth would have to change orbit

Actually, no. There have been many times in the geological record when there was no ice at all on the entire Earth, also times when Earth was completely covered with ice. During none of those times was Earth's orbit significantly changed. These changes were caused by varying amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, this is all that's needed. We are pumping out large quantities of such gasses, have been for more than a century now, and showing no sign of slowing down in that department, so things are going to get worse before they get better.

but I DON"T believe that humans are the scum of the Earth and deserve to be wiped out by revenge-seeking eco-warriors

No, we are not. We in fact have technologies that could end the danger and reverse the damage. But there are some humans who are scum and have a literal vested interest in keeping things going as they are. Large sums of money are at stake and, sadly, we don't have a good record when it comes to dealing with that sort of problem.

But there are some humans who are scum and have a literal vested interest in keeping things going as they are.

Orange Peel is one such person.

"But there are some humans who are scum and have a literal vested interest in keeping things going as they are."

No argument there! They're the same kind of people that don't fix other problems just for the almighty dollar.

"There have been many times in the geological record when there was no ice at all on the entire Earth, also times when Earth was completely covered with ice. During none of those times was Earth's orbit significantly changed."
Since nobody is alive when that happened it's really a theory by geologists. I trust them, but you can't say for sure that our orbit didn't change a bit back then. There's no way this planet, or any other, is travelling the exact same path down to the foot. For proof of that, we need only note that the Moon is moving away from the Earth, according to NASA, by 3.8 centimetres a year. That means it's about one metre (or one yard) further from us than it was 21 years ago in 2002, and is about 9 feet further from us than where it was when I was born.

"...also times when Earth was completely covered with ice...These changes were caused by varying amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere,"
Again, not our fault. That was because of the Sun and the Earth. Humans didn't cause any Ice Age, nor did we warm up the planet to get us out of the Ice Age.
In other words, NATURE! We can definitely take some of the blame for what happens with our atmosphere now, but I'm just saying that the Earth is fighting against us every day to get back to normal

"Orange Peel is one such person."
Oh, Tim, that's such low-hanging fruit! (Pun!)
Why do you always bring that guy up into other conversations? Can't we veer away from him so that we can temporarily forget he exists? The Pudgy One is more involved in real estate rather than polluting factories. The Doofus didn't create pollution and climate change, he didn't fix the problem, and it'll be around long after he expires.

One video I saw (don't have a link unfortunately) made a point that yes, the Earth's average temperature has gone up and down over the (many millions and billions) of years. Also that we're nowhere near the maximum temperature Earth has ever been.

However, it also made a the point that the increases take place over thousands of years if not more. What we're seeing now is an increase happening in a century that should have taken a thousand years, if not more.

Yes, it's a process that is natural and has happened many times throughout the Earth's history. However, it's happening a lot faster then is normal.

The planet can adapt and recover to normal changes. However, when it happens this fast (other examples could be global disasters like asteroid strikes) is when you get into mass extinctions. Nature can't adapt to climate change when it's happening this fast.

The planet can adapt and recover to normal changes. However, when it happens this fast (other examples could be global disasters like asteroid strikes) is when you get into mass extinctions. Nature can't adapt to climate change when it's happening this fast.

This is the important bit! We've had temperature/climate changes happen in the 200 or so years since the industrial revolution that previously have taken tens of thousands of years!
Steve, you seem oddly fixated on the idea that we can't know what the climate was like back when there weren't people with thermometers and clipboards taking notes? But we have multiple sources such as lake sediments (with pollen grains etc), tree rings, and ice cores (with trapped bubbles of atmosphere from thousands to millions of years of history). We do, in fact, have scientific proof of how the climate has changed, and that the latest changes are out of all proportion with any of the natural cycles. Yes, including the 'the sun is currently a bit hotter than before'

I'm just saying that the Earth is fighting against us every day to get back to normal

A fight that Earth is, unfortunately, losing.

It might seem like I'm 'oddly fixated' on that, but to me it seems like even though scientists could be correct about what they estimate Earth was like through examinations of lake sediments, tree rings, and ice cores, it's still seems like a guess to me, because nobody was there to witness it. It's no different than when scientists look at images of the surface of Mars, see ridges that logic tells us would be created by flowing water if it was seen on Earth, and then say that's the reason. Maybe they're right, but maybe, just maybe, the ridges were caused by something else.
Okay, those things supposedly tell us what happened, but can they tell us that for 6 or 7 years in the 12th century the environment went out of whack?
I love dinosaurs and I'm fascinated with the concept of what the Earth must have seemed like millions of years ago with them dominating the world, but can we really say the Triceratops lived between 66 and 83.5 million years ago, and not 25 to 26 millions years? I don't know how something can be dated so accurately from so long ago, but that's just me.
Earth is losing the fight, Tim? Then I hope you're not contributing to the inevitable death of the Earth by driving or using public transit, because that would make you as much of a part of the problem as the rest of us!

Tim - A fight that Earth is, unfortunately, losing.

No, Earth will be around long after we're extinct. We are not the end all and be all of Earth's existence or even of all the different types of life on it.

One thing studying paleontology teaches one. We are nothing. At best a blip in the history of life, at worst just an arrogant species that thinks it's more powerful than it really is.

We can turn this planet, as the Doctor put it, into a radioactive cinder.

Well, the parts with humans anyway. Most likely the missiles are aimed at capitols, big cities, and military bases which leaves quite a bit of area uncindered.

Right. As I wondered many posts above, 2 bombs exploded in Japan and both cities are alive with people now. And there's also all of those nuclear tests the Nuclear Powers detonated.
The blast range of a nuclear bomb has a limit and doesn't burn the whole planet like on TV shows. There'll be plenty of land and animals left for them to take over from us humanoids.

"At best a blip in the history of life, at worst just an arrogant species that thinks it's more powerful than it really is."
Here, here! Sitting in our living rooms with our laptops we think we're so important and Godlike. Go up in an airliner and look down at those smudges we call cities and towns and you'll see humans for the amoebas we really are. From 30,000 feet you can only see 200 miles to the horizon, which is a mere 2.5 percent of Earth's 7,917-mile diameter.

The blast range of a nuclear bomb has a limit and doesn't burn the whole planet

Yes, but that because it's not hundreds of those bombs going off at once.

Another chance to...Teach Steve About Climate Change!
Question 1:
If all these forest fires are caused by emissions and factory pollution (and not that big ball of fire we're orbiting), why do they only seem to happen out in the wilderness? Why aren't these spontaneous fires igniting at the sources, inside cities like Toronto and Montreal and Boston and London and Berlin? Instead of fires starting in remote areas, shouldn't they be starting at the focal point, the source of the pollution?

Question 2:
The terrible fires that forced people out of their communities in the Northwest Territories were extremely bad, but how could they be caused by man-made pollution and not natural causes? The population of the entire NWT is barely 45,000, and Yellowknife is about 1500 kilometres north of Edmonton, Alberta, so pollution from cars and factories really can't be a cause. Because, to be frank, I'm sure the water and air way up there is a lot cleaner than big city air and water. There's no way there's pollution in those remote communities.
I'm still blaming the natural heat of the sun (and idiots with campfires), since Yellowknife, according to Google, only gets about one foot of precipitation a year.
There you go.
Have at me.

Answer 1. Major fires happen in the wilderness because that's where combustible stuff is mostly located, and because there are very few people out there to spot the starting fires and put them out before they do much damage. Btw, fires do start often in inside cities. That's why cities have fire departments. And those fire departments are the reason cities don't go up in flame much anymore, the way they did before those fire departments were created.

Answer 2. Climate change modifies rain patterns. This causes droughts in many places where such droughts didn't exist before. This dries up local vegetation which then becomes ideal fuel for large scale fires, thousands and thousands of square kilometers of tinder dry trees and brush who only need a spark to start a conflagration. Most of the fires in NWT happened after such prolonged periods of unprecedented drought. The fire that nuked much of Maui was also the result of drought drying up the invasive grass species humans brought to the island, a double whammy of less than stellar environmental stewardship.

In California, most of the fires seem to start because the power companies (*cough*PG&E*cough*) don't bother maintaining their lines, so they spark. That's what causes the big fires in CA.

Before this year, because of the drought, there was tons and tons of dry fuel. This year, because of the heavy rains, there's even more fuel.

In the spirit of fairness, the Maui disaster cannot be blamed solely on climate change. There was a hurricane passing south of the island at the time, and though it was too far to cause damage directly, its strong peripheral winds did hit the island at the time of the fire and fanned it into a much worse inferno than it otherwise would have been.

Steve keeps lobbing these posts at us and we keep knocking them out of the ballpark.

I wouldn't call it 'out of the ballpark' if it's just repeating what some man-bunned eco-warrior wrote on his blog.
You've given me somethings to consider, but you'll never convince me that people on the Left aren't as manipulative and agenda-driven as the Right are. Both sides will make a buck and control people at the expense of our hopes and fears.
Neither side is going to convince me that the world is going to end by melting icecaps or Kim Jung's threats.

And for the THIRD TIME, here's another 'lob' that I'm still waiting for an answer to;
WHERE is radiation from all those nukes exploding and being tested if Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still populated? Did the Earth absorb it and cleanse itself or what?
(Hiroshima population in 2015; 1.194 million, Nagasaki population 429,508 in 2015)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were airburst explosions, which means there was little radioctive fallout produced and most of that was sent high up in the stratosphere where it was dispersed and diluted all over Earth's surface. There was a lot of radiation burns and sickness among the survivors due to exposure to the direct radiation from the explosions, but that left no trace behind after those people either died or recovered. What little radioactive dust did settle on those cities was washed away by rain, blown away by wind, buried in topsoil, etc. Today's radiation levels in those locations is no greater than anywhere else. Most of the radioactive isotopes produced in nuclear explosions are also short lived, they quickly decay into non radioactive and mostly harmless ones. Those who last longer are also dispersed over large areas and present little danger.

So, to answer your question more directly, the radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all the nuclear bomb tests and the major nuclear disasters in Chernobyl and Fukushima has mostly decayed into harmless forms, and what still exists is dispersed and diluted all over the world to a level that makes it detectable only by sensitive scientific instruments.

You've given me somethings to consider, but you'll never convince me that people on the Left aren't as manipulative and agenda-driven as the Right are

Watch this video carefully. It is on a different subject, but it illustrates perfectly the difference in outlook and strategy between the Right and the Left, at least in the USA. I will concede that both sides could be equally manipulative and agenda-driven, but what they are aiming for is vastly, and I do mean vastly, different. Also, I am obviously talking about the leadership of those sides here, not the ordinary people who align themselves to one side or the other.

Btw, again in the spirit of fairness, Joe Manchin is a Democrat Senator in West Virginia, and therefore nominally on the Left. However, he overwhelmingly votes for right wing policies and against left wing ones, so I consider him to be on the Right. Actions speak louder than words.

People like Putin and Orange Peel are the real danger.

To quote Reagan “There ya go again…..”

Orange Peel makes one long for the days of Reagan.

Take it to Political Musings, Tim.

Fine.

But it's no liberal myth that we're currently getting July like temperatures in October.

And with that, I've learned enough, thank you everyone.
We'll just agree to disagree on some issues, before this becomes pages and pages of circular arguments..

Tim - But it's no liberal myth that we're currently getting July like temperatures in October.

Really?

The 1st - cold and rainy.
The 2nd - dry and warmish.
Today - cold and rainy.

Not that July-like around here.

It is around here (Québec city). Where are you located?

In Ottawa it's gonna hit 30C (that's 86 to you Yanks*). We should NOT be getting this kind of warmth, this time of year. Not here.

This is not propaganda by the Left or Right, this is fact.


*Why won't that silly country go Metric? The rest of the world, including Canada, converted decades ago.

A video on the history of the USA trying to go metric (and failing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqnViQPd8mo

Excuses, excuses...

Francois - It is around here (Québec city). Where are you located?

Western Washington state (the wet half of the state).

Tim - We should NOT be getting this kind of warmth, this time of year. Not here.

Blame the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption, it blasted an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the stratosphere.

*Why won't that silly country go Metric?

We'll go metric when they pry the yardsticks from our cold, dead fingers! ;-)

Me; Don'tgetinvolveddon'tgetinvolveddon'tgetinvolved! Don't start up again, just donnnn't!
Whew.
Fought the urge.
Go with KAM's last comment,nice and safe, yeah...

Ironically, Keith, although we'll see and hear things like the media use litres, kilometres, and metres, NOBODY says someone is 120 centimetres tall and weighs 77 kilograms. We'll still say 6 feet and 170 pounds. Gas is sold by the litre, but cars are still advertised by how MILES per gallon the car can get.
We're like that in Canada, just like Star Trek TOS, where miles and kilometres are mentioned in the same episode (ie. The Immunity Syndrome).

And in England they still use pounds for money, not kilos. ;-)

NOBODY says someone is 120 centimetres tall and weighs 77 kilograms. We'll still say 6 feet and 170 pounds.

120 centimeters is 3 feet 11 inches. Just sayin.

Trek went Metric from TNG onward.

"120 centimeters is 3 feet 11 inches"

I think I just described Charlie Brown! Oops!

Good grief!

Auuuggg!

What's so terrible about Fox News ?

Late to the party again I see, Winters. We last discussed Fox News, in his thread, in March.

To answer your question, Faux News is nothing more than a propaganda machine for Orange Peel and his followers.

A Josef Goebbels for the 21st Century.