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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

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      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2016 edited
     
  1.  
    That's black.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Personally, I think we've already passed the point of no return. There is no appetite to make the huge changes that need to be made at whatever level,---sadly.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    If the curve is that clear, how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise, or even reversal?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Tom, I can't believe you are asking that question with all your scepticism about science and scientists and your hope of a new economy and undiscovered physics that the ancients knew all about :devil:

    Posted By: owlmanPersonally, I think we've already passed the point of no return. There is no appetite to make the huge changes that need to be made at whatever level,---sadly.
    There will be when it is bad enough. The resent flash floods and the unseasonal hot days do help get the message across. It just takes a generation or 3.
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Posted By: fostertomIf the curve is that clear, how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise, or even reversal?
    Because they choose to look at very short periods (a decades or a bit more) when natural variation dominates. You don't see much argument over longer periods because even they can work out they'll look silly trying it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaall your scepticism about science and scientists
    You seriously misunderstand - I respect science greatly, and what scientists do - until some of them so inclined shelter behind science as a rigid doctrinaire religion, in which they are the priests and the rest of us are supposed to shut up and wait to be told. I also claim a right to hold multiple, even contradictory, hypotheses (not as beliefs/thruths) simultaneouly - while Science is a great refuge for those who can't stand such uncertainty.
    Posted By: SteamyTeayour hope of a new economy
    Whatever right Scientists may have to know best about Science, that doesn't apply to Economics, which is not a science (even though it uses sophisticated numerics etc). In no other 'science' could Marx, Keynes, Friedman and Eisenstein use the same body of knowledge, same techniques, and come up with such radically contradictory conclusions, which don't supercede each other as scientific paradigms do, but co-exist and actually go to war with each other forever. Economics, like History and Politics, are not sciences, but vehicles for differing socio-political beliefs, which anybody can play in. There's no such thing as an Economics 'expert', any more than Teresa May is a political 'expert'.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    I'm sceptical ST; that even floods, heatwaves, you name it, have the desired effect on the average understanding.
    The human world demands ever speedier solutions, and that trend is accelerating and trying to get people to take the long view is a lost cause IMO. Whilst the "little" efforts are not to be sneered at; recycle here, insulate there, they make us feel good but are not going to make the massive changes needed. Especially when you accompany it with two or three foreign holiday flights a year, or one vehicle per adult, and all the million and one other things that we demand as of right, and which may negate all the other good thing we may be doing.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    It's alright, markets will save us.
    • CommentAuthorCX23882
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Ed Davies</cite><blockquote><cite>Posted By: fostertom</cite>If the curve is that clear, how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise, or even reversal?</blockquote>Because they choose to look at very short periods (a decades or a bit more) when natural variation dominates. You don't see much argument over longer periods because even they can work out they'll look silly trying it.</blockquote>

    But playing devil's advocate; isn't this graphic guilty of the inverse by ignoring the short periods? It's not a linear time scale, so due to the compression of the historic periods (for which we don't have actual data), how do we know that there weren't peaks and troughs, which have been smoothed out?
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016 edited
     
    Posted By: CX23882But playing devil's advocate; isn't this graphic guilty of the inverse by ignoring the short periods? It's not a linear time scale, so due to the compression of the historic periods (for which we don't have actual data), how do we know that there weren't peaks and troughs, which have been smoothed out?

    I thought that question was dealt with around 15,500 BC although admittedly I haven't checked the references but just taken it on trust.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016 edited
     
    Posted By: CX23882It's not a linear time scale
    It is!
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    I suppose you could say xkcd are still cherry picking dates by choosing 20,000BC. Maybe there were enormous temperature swings before then.
    • CommentAuthorCX23882
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    So it is. I was looking on my phone and didn't look closely or read its title and thought it covered a longer time period.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Posted By: gravelldMaybe there were enormous temperature swings before then
    You mean non-catastrophic ones?
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Posted By: gravelldI suppose you could say xkcd are still cherry picking dates by choosing 20,000BC. Maybe there were enormous temperature swings before then.

    Do you mean xkcd or the source references he cites?

    If you have better information, please do enlighten us!

    And PS yes, I believe there were enormous temperature changes before then and some we even believe we understand the reasons for, but we very much hope we're not going to encounter the reasons or conditions again.
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2016
     
    Of course I don't have better information! I was just thinking of another example for Tom:

    how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise


    These people will grasp at anything; the trouble is it doesn't require much intelligence to rationalise any point of view because any non-trivial or non-formalised point of view holds multiple vectors of attack. That's why conspiracy theorists believe... all kinds of bullshit.
    • CommentAuthoratomicbisf
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2016 edited
     
    Posted By: fostertomIf the curve is that clear, how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise, or even reversal?


    I think you underestimate the ability of people to fool themselves and others if they have a financial/political/ideological/religious motivation to do so.

    They do so by cherry picking a small part of the data that shows what they want to show and excluding the bigger picture that shows the opposite. For example they show only a few years of the global temperature record (bit difficult now that 2014, 2015 and 2016 so far were each in turn the hottest on record) carefully chosen to start on a warmer year and end on a cooler one. Or cherry pick a small part of the world that isn't warming as fast as the globe as a whole (I believe a relatively small part of the north Atlantic near Iceland has actually shown cooling). Some go as far as selecting a single month of the year for a single region that doesn't show warming, when all other months do.

    Many don't even go for anything that sophisticated and allege a conspiracy or use logic on the level of "it's cold outside, the earth can't be warming!"

    But if you look at all the evidence, the whole temperature record, the whole world, how sea levels are rising, ice melting, species ranges shifting, coral bleaching etc etc the picture is unfortunately clear.

    Ed
    • CommentAuthorGreenfish
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2016
     
    The climate/weather is a mathematically chaotic system i.e. deterministic but small changes in starting conditions result in great divergence later on making it hard to accurately predict outcomes. This is unfortunate as it always leaves space for discent and debate.

    The mental/emotional state of an individual, and the opinion of society (state of lots of people) are also mathematically chaotic. This is fortunate, and there in lies our only hope. It means that it is possible for popular option (and actions) to change dramatically in unforeseen ways.

    So although the "little" things we can do personally may seem futile, a candle in the wind etc., keep doing them. Any one of us could be the tiny perturbation that results in the sea change that the world needs for disaster to be averted. Perhaps we are the band playing on the Titanic as it sinks, it sure looks that way, but perhaps not.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2016
     
    V gd
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2016
     
    Posted By: fostertomYou mean non-catastrophic ones?
    Who says there haven't been catastrophic ones even within that 22'000 year history? Not globally catastrophic, of course, but certainly so for people in certain areas. E.g., the formation of the Sahara and the drying out of southern Africa in the mid Holocene. Maybe the drying of the Sahara contributed to kicking off ancient Egyptian civilization in the Nile valley (dunno, I'm not sure if that's an extrapolation too far) so in the long run maybe was good for humanity but at the time it must have been a bit of a hassle for those who found their hunting and gathering not working well on empty sand dunes.

    Or, more recently, the fall of various civilizations on the west coast of pre-Columbian South America (Peru, etc) resulting from changes and anomalies in the El Nino cycle. Ages since I've read about it (Thin Ice by Mark Bowen) so can't remember the details but it was reading that book that got me from wondering if climate change was just a curiosity to thinking it might really be a serious problem.

    Or the late 19th century droughts in India resulting from El Nino wobbles which, combined with British misrule, resulted in millions of deaths and a lot more people having a pretty miserable time.

    Obviously those were natural variation [¹] but the airy dismissal by some that “climate's always varied” fails to account for the fact that those natural variations have caused a lot of problems in the past. It's a bit like saying that natural fires have always occurred so it's OK if I stuff a lit Molotov cocktail through your letter box.

    [¹] Though credible scientists, e.g., William Ruddiman [²], think that humans have affected climate for much longer than the industrial period, from the beginning of agriculture and more recently. E.g, the black death in Europe or the depopulation of the early post-Columbian Americas resulting in reforestation which took up enough CO₂ to cause cooling [³]. AIUI, many other scientists are intrigued by these ideas but not entirely convinced: they're neither mainstream nor loony.

    [²] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruddiman

    [³] http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv106/sv106-ruddiman.pdf
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2016
     
    V interesting Ed
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeOct 19th 2016
     
    Posted By: fostertom: “If the curve is that clear, how come there's so much scope for sceptics to point to figures that show next to no apparent rise, or even reversal?”

    https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/breaking-bad/

    (Worth noting, though, that the big uptick of the last couple of years is expected to stop pretty soon as we move to La Nina conditions.)

    He's done a few good posts relevant to this recently. Two I particularly like:

    https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/by-request-adjusted-satellite-and-surface-data/
    https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/by-request-validation/
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeOct 21st 2016
     
    I was just going to post Tamino's breaking bad post as it was very relevant, but Ed beat me to it :-)

    So yes, that. That's what fake skeptics are doing when they say 'no warming for n years' or 'recovery in Arctic ice'
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