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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 3670371 times)

Micro102

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45570 on: July 13, 2021, 12:10:30 pm »

Unfortunately, if global warming keeps going the way it is, the wet-bulb zone near the equator will grow. Deserts will grow. Sea levels will rise and destroy tons of cropland and houses, and this will cause mass migration to actual livable areas combined with a lack of food production. It will likely turn into a bloodbath.
Literally impossible for a planet to grow both warmer and more arid without like, blasting off huge chunks of the ocean and atmosphere into space*.

Deserts reach their largest extent during the peaks of ice ages, they retreat and disappear during the warmest parts of interglacials.


*smashing a large enough chunk of rock (or smaller chunk at sufficient velocity) would definitely raise the temperature of all locations near the surface while doing away with all that wet stuff nicely

The planet doesn't need to become more arid. It just needs to have the water redirected to somewhere else. If the heat rises in an area, water will evaporate faster. Plants will die. And when the plants die, the soil loses it's ability to hold water and resist wind. Plants can't grow in it as easily. So the edges of forests and jungles will slowly make way to desert.
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feelotraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45571 on: July 13, 2021, 01:00:28 pm »

Desertification is the term to search, it is one of the big (projected) trends with current climate change.

Isn't influenza always zoonotic?

Yep.  Don't forget measles and smallpox.  One of the big themes of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel is that (Imperial) colonisation was enabled by the spread of zoonotic diseases - Europeans having developed a large resistance, while still being active carriers, because of their sustained practices of animal husbandry.  Germs killed vastly more indigenous peoples than guns ever did.
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MrRoboto75

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45572 on: July 13, 2021, 01:34:28 pm »

Desertification is the term to search, it is one of the big (projected) trends with current climate change.

Not to be confused with dessertification, the over abundance of sugar in food over time.
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Dostoevsky

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45573 on: July 13, 2021, 02:56:44 pm »

(something like strategic petroleum reserve comes to mind in this instance - why aren't we using it?)

Oh, but we are planning to - just not in the way that makes sense. Selling SPR oil is currently being touted as one of the pay-fors of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as the SPR has become something of a piggy bank to raid from whenever extra money is needed.

More seriously, the statute that sets up the SPR authorizes drawdowns to be in the form of sales to the industry, so the impact would be across the industry as a whole as opposed to focusing on helping those who have more impact from rising energy prices. (Although there is a potential loophole that could allow giving oil away to certain non-governmental organizations, I don't think that could be in the form of giving vehicle gasoline to certain families.)


Separately, on desertification, it's not an area of climate change I'm well versed in but I thought part of the dynamic (re: total amount of water in the world system) was that more water is going to be tied up in atmospherics - that's what allows it to grow more arid and hotter at the same time. That said, desertification is a lot more than just the water dynamics.
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Vector

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45574 on: July 13, 2021, 04:13:04 pm »

Got my old posts from the Toad ^_^

I am going to scream if we pay for the COVID stimulus through inflation instead of raising taxes on the 1%.
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None

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45575 on: July 13, 2021, 04:30:53 pm »

I'm not at all versed in the intricacies of the oil trade, but I'd be really, really leery of basic aid to the needy based on its price, given that various oil distributors can cut prices and swallow poison pills as part of international negotiation (the whole Russia/OPEC thing back in 2020, as reference) completely outside of America's sphere, and would probably fall out in a hard lockdown if gas prices drop to under a buck again. But maybe that's me fundamentally misunderstanding the presented idea.

I'd reckon those that are critically poor are probably carpooling or using public transportation as available, given it's less feasible to live out in the boonies if you can't afford to drive. Also, as a metric, it kind of sidesteps any question about developing additional green energies.

Wish I had data points to offer here, but best as I recall, medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy, and making rent is probably where the paycheck goes first with medical bills aside. Besides the well-hashed push for medicare for all, I'm not sure what makes the rent easier to swallow except for getting wages boosted to be commensurate with the gains we've seen to general productivity in the last forty years. But, well, I think we've hashed these things over once or twice already.

--

I'm no environmental experts, but I did a few papers on the topic back in school. I recall water needs pressures cropping up in, say, China by year 2015 or 2025 (based on aquifer depletion), and stateside around 2050, particularly with the number we're doing on the Oghalalla aquifer. World hunger problems are water problems, since crops need water and water is heavy to move, food becomes effectively water in concentrate. Choosing crops better suited to climates may help alleviate the problem, along with a reduction in meat consumption, but our rate of consumption of groundwater and river sources was rather concerning. I don't recall where climate change figured into those figures- oughta revisit that, I reckon.
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Dostoevsky

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45576 on: July 13, 2021, 04:42:24 pm »

Got my old posts from the Toad ^_^

I am going to scream if we pay for the COVID stimulus through inflation instead of raising taxes on the 1%.

The 'ARP' (or 'arp' as I call it) back in March was pretty much not paid for so is debt and maybe some inflation.

The bipartisan bill that was announced a few weeks back is pretty much entirely funny money pay-fors at this point, including the SPR sale and other even more ephemeral topics. There is theoretically increased IRS enforcement as a pay-for, but Republicans are getting more cagey about that one (of course). Bottom line is that it may claim to be paid for, but absolutely is not.

The big ol' reconciliation bill that will include the rest of infrastructure still has a giant question mark. Possible lots of debt, possible tax increases to cover part of it, nobody really knows at this point.
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scriver

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45577 on: July 13, 2021, 05:06:45 pm »

Uh... Christianity doesn't have any obligation to observe Kosher food traditions. Acts and Peter and the "don't call what I have made clean, unclean" vision from God stuff.

I know. That's why I called it a "lazy transposition".

Iirc Christian theology used to have a pile of food rules too, though they've fallen out of use in all three major denominations as far as I know. Could find lots of fuel for lazy transpositions there probably.


They're gonna have to wrap lab-meat up in some fancy and market tested name for it to succeed
call it Beyond Beyond Meat or something like that

TWO MEAT ENTER! ONE MEAT LEAVES!


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulations-texas.html

I can foresee this ending in tragedy, and a lot of fraud.

Wow, that.

Is the idea to kill clinics by death of a thousand court costs, you think?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45578 on: July 13, 2021, 05:14:56 pm »

More like a simultaneous attack from every possible angle. Abortion clinics get as much support as they do opposition, so destroying them requires overwhelming effort. That's why people are so obsessed with cutting federal Planned Parenthood funding - when it stands, blue states can effectively fund the clinics in red states, no matter how hostile the local environment.
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da_nang

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45579 on: July 13, 2021, 05:30:30 pm »

Is the idea to kill clinics by death of a thousand court costs, you think?
*Firearms industry has entered the chat.*

I don't foresee abortion clinics receiving the same kind of protection from civil litigation that firearms manufacturers enjoy.
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nenjin

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45580 on: July 13, 2021, 06:31:30 pm »

Is the idea to kill clinics by death of a thousand court costs, you think?
*Firearms industry has entered the chat.*

I don't foresee abortion clinics receiving the same kind of protection from civil litigation that firearms manufacturers enjoy.

Yeah, only the for profit Abortion Industry exchanges lives for money!

Wait.......
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None

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45581 on: July 13, 2021, 06:36:37 pm »

Did Texas also pass law allowing them to prosecute people traveling states to get abortion? I forget if that was in discussion or not.

Quote from: article
He said people wanted to sue as an expression of their deeply held belief that abortion is wrong.

Gonna need a lot more than that to base the stuff of lawsuit on, but perhaps this is just a way of subsidizing social pressure and lawsuit as leverage against the have-nots.

Really troubling to ask the people to secret-police people who are having an awful time about their own bodily autonomy.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2021, 06:42:50 pm by None »
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Max™

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45582 on: July 13, 2021, 07:04:53 pm »

Incidentally, I don't know why they call it "lab grown" or "cultured" or "vat" meat, didn't they learn from the whole grown diamonds thing?

Synthetic diamonds? Nah, son, those are bloodless diamonds.
Cultured meat? Pfft, like it has a monocle and cane or some shit, hah, that's cruelty-free meat right there.
Unfortunately, if global warming keeps going the way it is, the wet-bulb zone near the equator will grow. Deserts will grow. Sea levels will rise and destroy tons of cropland and houses, and this will cause mass migration to actual livable areas combined with a lack of food production. It will likely turn into a bloodbath.
Literally impossible for a planet to grow both warmer and more arid without like, blasting off huge chunks of the ocean and atmosphere into space*.

Deserts reach their largest extent during the peaks of ice ages, they retreat and disappear during the warmest parts of interglacials.


*smashing a large enough chunk of rock (or smaller chunk at sufficient velocity) would definitely raise the temperature of all locations near the surface while doing away with all that wet stuff nicely

The planet doesn't need to become more arid. It just needs to have the water redirected to somewhere else. If the heat rises in an area, water will evaporate faster. Plants will die. And when the plants die, the soil loses it's ability to hold water and resist wind. Plants can't grow in it as easily. So the edges of forests and jungles will slowly make way to desert.
...you're describing parts of what happens when a planet becomes more arid.

Increased evaporation on land means increased evaporation over the oceans, increased temperatures brings an increase in moisture moving through the atmosphere unless you get rid of the oceans somehow while reduced temperatures result in a lower ability for the air to hold and transport moisture. Similarly when it cools far enough you get things like glaciers expanding, growing ice caps, AND less evaporation over the oceans meaning less water vapor to start with, which is less likely to linger in the colder air, and is more likely to end up stuck locked up in ice once it falls back out of the air.

In order for a warming planet to become more arid with larger deserts we would have to be at an improbable maxima for the water cycle NOW, and at no other points, we know deserts expand during the coldest parts of ice ages, and we know the sahara turned green last time it got significantly warmer than today.

If someone claims it is going to get drier if it gets hotter, they are either making a reasonable sounding but incorrect assumption based on the idea that deserts are hot, so a hotter planet is going to be more like a desert... or they're deliberately misinforming you because they should goddamn well know better.

Antarctica is a desert, that might sound strange until you note that a desert is a result of precipitation falling below a certain level year round, not temperature ranges.

I don't personally understand why someone would want to actively mislead others by claiming global warming is going to make deserts expand, perhaps they assume that sounds scarier than the actual effects and they're so concerned they'd rather sacrifice the truth in an effort to motivate others?

I can only guess this is similar to the claim that a warmer planet would have more intense and frequent storms, which sounds scary, and at first might seem plausible, right? Summer sees tornado and hurricane season kick into high gear, so the logical leap there seems fine, but it's the difference in temperatures between the warmer areas near the equator during summer and the much cooler polar regions which produce such intense storms so often.

How would a reduced temperature gradient from the poles to the equator IMPROVE the efficiency of this process so vastly as to enable it to extract more energy than it already does? How would this not end up violating the fucking laws of thermodynamics actually? Same goes for the whole "are we going to need category 6 and 7 for hurricanes in the future" scaremongering, the maximum windspeed and dimensions of a hurricane are set by the height of the freaking troposphere and rotation of the planet, while the energy available for these big whirly heat engines to transport from the equator towards the poles is--you guessed it--highest when the difference between them is greatest. Reducing the average gradient in their path is going to reduce the energy available per season, so the only possible way you could get comparable storms is if the lower categories are less frequent, which might happen, sure, let's say it will... that still doesn't change the pre-existing physical constraints on their development which are due to things like the size+roundness of the planet, density+lapse rate of the atmosphere, and the rate it rotates.

Just saying, I have no motive beyond a preference for accurate information, so I try to help if I see something incorrect pop up in a post. Prior to learning I was on the spectrum I never understood why this always results in a weird backlash as people get defensive and insulted like I'm trying to attack them or like... get one over on them or some shit? Now though, I am aware that many beliefs are reinforced within certain groups and even become structural parts of that group identity, and accordingly it can seem like I'm seeking to damage one group to improve the status of another group or something... I am not part of any group though, my interest in social interaction is largely from a confused distance, but it remains difficult when I see someone sharing false information with others to simply ignore it.
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Naturegirl1999

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45583 on: July 13, 2021, 07:19:02 pm »

Thank you. I used to think both of those things, that deserts would spread and that hurricanes would be more powerful. Weirdly I got the warmer water makes more powerful hurricanes thing from school. It is possible I missed temperature gradient info
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Lord Shonus

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #45584 on: July 13, 2021, 07:20:28 pm »



I don't foresee abortion clinics receiving the same kind of protection from civil litigation that firearms manufacturers enjoy.

The "protection from civil litigation" is largely myth. Everything you can sue any other company for, you can sue a gun manufacturer for. The special protective legislation simply states "so long as the manufacturer followed all applicable laws, you can not sue them for the actions of their customers". Or, in other words, you can't sue Beretta because your brother got shot with a M92, unless Beretta somehow gave them that gun in violation of some law. No other industry has such a specific protection because nobody would even consider trying it - if you tried to sue Ford because some dipshit ran your brother over with a F150, there isn't a lawyer in the country that would not laugh you out of their office.

The law exists because of exactly that sort of case - gun control groups were openly adopting a "we know we don't have a case, but fighting us will be expensive! So we use our nigh-unlimited funding to sue until we get a de facto ban because nobody will dare do business again!" strategy.
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