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[smjjames]

Also, I was mistaken that it does not require Senate approval, the EPA chief does require senate approval. Already edited that part of my post out.

Edit: I looked at wikipedia and it would appear that, if confirmed, Pruitt would be the first one to have such massive ties to the oil industry. Not the first to complain about regulations however.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's a reason why all the people who are brought up to "not tow the party line" are atmospheric physicists, i.e. not climatologists. It's because they don't know what they're talking about but are in a related enough field that they don't sound like complete hacks off the bat, like a chemist talking about physics.

There is no fucking conspiracy, nor is there any informal demand of belief without justification. Denying climate change is equal to denying evolution or gravity.

What is the difference between an atmospheric physicist and a climatologist?

Atmospheric physicists focus on the physical atmospheric properties (how apropos) of Earth (and increasingly, other planets). Climatologists focus on the whole picture of our weather and the interconnected factors that make up Earth's climate. An atmospheric physicist, for example, would never have discovered on their own that dust picked up from the Sahara is blown across the ocean and is partially responsible for the fertility of the Amazon. Climatologists also analyze the relation of weather and climate concepts to the conditions they cause for life on this planet, while atmospheric physicists do not.

I don't want to disparage their field entirely, but when atmospheric physicists refuse to listen to their climatologist colleagues about climate concerns, you get people like in the video. Those are the genuine if misguided ones. Then there are the ones who deny because a think tank pays them to.


Edit: Donald Trump makes veiled threats that Saturday Night Live will soon be cancelled.

[Neonivek]

Donald Trump has ALREADY said he is changing libel laws to be more... Liberal so to speak.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He'd have quite the fight ahead of him: the federal libel law he says he'll "open up" doesn't exist. Only states have libel laws, and even conservative judges typically look down on them. And that's for private figures. Public figures like Trump are virtually unable to make use of libel laws.

[Neonivek]

He'd have quite the fight ahead of him: the federal libel law he says he'll "open up" doesn't exist. Only states have libel laws, and even conservative judges typically look down on them. And that's for private figures. Public figures like Trump are virtually unable to make use of libel laws.

Can't he pass a federal law that superscedes state law?

[smjjames]

He'd have quite the fight ahead of him: the federal libel law he says he'll "open up" doesn't exist. Only states have libel laws, and even conservative judges typically look down on them. And that's for private figures. Public figures like Trump are virtually unable to make use of libel laws.

Can't he pass a federal law that superscedes state law?

States rights, remember? Short of a constitutional amendment anyway. That's how states have legalized marjuana despite the fact that it's federally illegal. He'd have a heck of a lot of opposition, and then there's SCOTUS, the very SCOTUS (minus Scalia) that said 'money is free speech'.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That would require the cooperation of Congress and the further cooperation of the judiciary at both the state and federal level. All but the most extreme of the latter believe our current libel and slander laws are the only possible versions of them that are compatible with the Constitution, and the former want to keep their jobs.

I guarantee that Congress, regardless of favor or opposition to Trump, remember how many were thrown out the door over the original Patriot Act. And that didn't even get used to suppress people!

In addition, the President cannot propose law. Only Congressprites may propose laws. While not a huge obstacle to overcome, it does ensure he cannot literally determine the contents of any such proposition.

States rights, remember? Short of a constitutional amendment anyway. That's how states have legalized marjuana despite the fact that it's federally illegal. He'd have a heck of a lot of opposition, and then there's SCOTUS, the very SCOTUS (minus Scalia) that said 'money is free speech'.

That's not how that works, federal law both adds to and supersedes state laws. The reason for legal marijuana being tolerated is basically "don't want to fuck with it". The DEA has a lot of work to do and this is usually not worth the controversy, but people can and have been arrested under the federal statute in a legalized state.

That may be one of the severe difficulties for weed soon, as Trump has made statements to the effect that he will not tolerate legalization and may send the DEA to try and suppress it. Granted, this remains far beyond the scope of operations that the DEA is physically capable of.

[Rockphed]

1) The climate is always changing.

2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming.

3) Atmospheric levels of CO2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century.

4) Over this period (the past two centuries), the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit or one degree Celsius; but only since the 1960’s have man’s greenhouse emissions been sufficient to play a role.

5) Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made. The IPCC acknowledged in its own 2007 report that “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

*gnashes teeth* IT BURNS, THE STUPIDITY, IT BUUUURNS

1. And since I'm always jumping around, dropping me from the top of a skyscraper should be fine, right? Yes, it's always changing, that doesn't mean that long-term trend cannot be observed!
2. True.
3. True.
4. True but misleading. The CO2 levels correlate with the warming, and "slight and erratic" is not the kind of stuff I'd expect to hear from an expert. Of fucking course it's erratic! It's the fucking temperature!
5. It's complex, therefore IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW - what the hell, no! And I'm guessing that was quote-mined.

Look. Climate is chaotic, but it's not completely unpredictable. There are trends. Additionally, we have a decent understanding of how different factors affect the climate, allowing us to say things like "if we continue to add CO2, the Earth will warm more than it otherwise would."

You said you wanted data on "skeptics" who aren't frothing at the mouth crazy.  This was data from not-frothing-at-the-mouth "skeptics."

[misko27]

1) The climate is always changing.

2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming.

3) Atmospheric levels of CO2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century.

4) Over this period (the past two centuries), the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit or one degree Celsius; but only since the 1960’s have man’s greenhouse emissions been sufficient to play a role.

5) Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made. The IPCC acknowledged in its own 2007 report that “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

*gnashes teeth* IT BURNS, THE STUPIDITY, IT BUUUURNS

1. And since I'm always jumping around, dropping me from the top of a skyscraper should be fine, right? Yes, it's always changing, that doesn't mean that long-term trend cannot be observed!
2. True.
3. True.
4. True but misleading. The CO2 levels correlate with the warming, and "slight and erratic" is not the kind of stuff I'd expect to hear from an expert. Of fucking course it's erratic! It's the fucking temperature!
5. It's complex, therefore IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW - what the hell, no! And I'm guessing that was quote-mined.

Look. Climate is chaotic, but it's not completely unpredictable. There are trends. Additionally, we have a decent understanding of how different factors affect the climate, allowing us to say things like "if we continue to add CO2, the Earth will warm more than it otherwise would."

You said you wanted data on "skeptics" who aren't frothing at the mouth crazy.  This was data from not-frothing-at-the-mouth "skeptics."

I feel like both of you missed the point where you assumed that the environment is necessarily friendly to human life, or not.

One could totally buy the temperature is rising purely due to natural reasons, but that does mean that it isn't a problem. In fact, we have even more of a problem, since we can't stop it! If C02 was just warming up sunny beaches no one would give a shit who was doing it. I challenge you to explain why it is not a problem.

[Reelya]

Atmospheric physicists focus on the physical atmospheric properties (how apropos) of Earth (and increasingly, other planets). Climatologists focus on the whole picture of our weather and the interconnected factors that make up Earth's climate.

It's similar to the difference between a chemist and a biologist. Biology is just complex chemistry after all. Or the difference between studying how neurons operate, and clinical neuropsychology. Basically, there's a gap in knowledge (filled in by still-poorly-understood disciplines such as complex system dynamics and chaos theory), making many of these things separate disciplines, even though the complex systems are "just" the lower-order system with more components.

So no, knowing in detail about the chemical composition of the atmosphere doesn't make you a credible commenter on how the climate/biosphere feedback loop operates, because climatology is a cross-disciplinary science that deals with complex system dynamics, whereas physicists still tend to treat things as individual point masses etc, and that kind of reductionist logic doesn't scale up at all.

[Loud Whispers]

I thought chemistry was complex chemistry and biology was simple chemistry

[Strife26]

Libel law at a federal level would be fairly easy to implement, just on the basis of the general congressional review process. Federal laws are then able to be used, provided any sort of interstate commerce has occurred. Fortunately, during the Obama Administration, we have some beautiful precedent that allows pretty much everything to totes count as interstate commerce, epitomized by the idea that using a pair of scissors from another state in the course of committing a crime qualifies the crime for Federal status.

Federalism ain't strong these days, nor are our fundamental rights, nor are our checks and balances.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

Atmospheric physicists focus on the physical atmospheric properties (how apropos) of Earth (and increasingly, other planets). Climatologists focus on the whole picture of our weather and the interconnected factors that make up Earth's climate.

It's similar to the difference between a chemist and a biologist. Biology is just complex chemistry after all. Or the difference between studying how neurons operate, and clinical neuropsychology. Basically, there's a gap in knowledge (filled in by still-poorly-understood disciplines such as complex system dynamics and chaos theory), making many of these things separate disciplines, even though the complex systems are "just" the lower-order system with more components.

So no, knowing in detail about the chemical composition of the atmosphere doesn't make you a credible commenter on how the climate/biosphere feedback loop operates, because climatology is a cross-disciplinary science that deals with complex system dynamics, whereas physicists still tend to treat things as individual point masses etc, and that kind of reductionist logic doesn't scale up at all.

This is well-documented by the esteemed Randall Munroe:

I thought chemistry was complex chemistry and biology was simple chemistry

What does that post even mean?

[Dostoevsky]

Federalism ain't strong these days, nor are our fundamental rights, nor are our checks and balances.

To be fair, the interstate commerce clause has been pretty darn strong since the great depression. In fact, many would argue that the Court's interpretation of the clause has actually been on a bit of a decline.

If I remember my Con Law right (and it's quite possible I don't, admittedly), back in the 30s if you grew wheat on your farm, for your own use, your economic activity was considered to affect interstate commerce and thus federal laws relying on the clause could tell you not to grow so much.

I thought chemistry was complex chemistry and biology was simple chemistry

Back when I was a biochem undergrad student my academic advisor told me that biology was going to be obsoleted by advances in chemistry within a decade or two. I actually believed him, though I suppose it's only been one decade so far.

(Edit: obsoleted as an academic field, I mean. Not entirely.)

[Sergarr]

So this is apparently a thing. Newt Gingrich is praising Imperial Japan for "professional brilliance and technological power" allowing them to carry out a "widest surprise attack in history". Authoritarianism is running strong among the Republicans, I see... I wonder when they'll start revering Stalin, heh.