ComradeKayAdams

It comes down to power differentials and leverage. Israel is a full-fledged nation with a bona fide military that the U.S. funds. Hamas is a comparably small band of psychotic and intransigent insurgents. The first step of negotiations is for the U.S. to get the far-right Israeli government to stand down. Steps down the line, we’ll need the Gazan populace to turn on Hamas. But the latter can’t proceed before the former. FYI: No one in this subforum condones the actions of Hamas, though a handful of us here do have a more complete and thoughtful understanding of why they occurred. Oh, IN THEORY, I totally agree with the distinction you articulate between MAGA and neocons! IN PRACTICE, however, my argument is that MAGA types tend to easily fall back into more comfortable realms of political tribalism and traditional conservative biases. In other words: they’re not very policy-driven after all. This current Middle East conflict has been a good case example of what I mean. MAGA people fashion themselves to be standing in great contrast to MIC-loving neocons like John Bolton, but a vocal majority of them have been in full support of Israel’s genocide while cheering on extremely aggressive provocations toward Iran, dating back to Trump’s reign (reneging on JCPOA, the Abraham Accords, Soleimani’s assassination, etc.). These provocations, of course, can quickly spiral into boots-on-the-ground internecine warfare a la the 2003-2011 Iraq War, which is great for the MIC and neocon politicians but bad for Americans and the world. MAGA types believe in American primacy to the point that our country’s own policy vacillations aren’t considered from Iran’s perspective, which is not only terrible diplomacy but also arguably deeply rooted in reactionary prejudices. I do really like your post, by the way! By linking neoconservatism with neoliberalism, you clearly understand what it means to be a “populist” fighting the corporate oligarchy (a.k.a. the true “establishment”). I agree that the European countries, through the web of NATO, operate as vassal state extensions of American imperialism. I also agree that our overextended military is helping to eventually bankrupt us and destroy the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Regarding Islamophobia: Fear of religious zealotry and religious nationalism is always rational, but that’s equally true for Christianity (see: Bible Belt abortion laws) and Judaism (see: Gaza genocide) as it is for Islam. The crux of Islamophobia is judging the character of individuals and prioritizing human life based on religious affiliation. What the Sam Harris types don’t get is that you can’t uncouple the current state of Muslim-majority countries from the influence of American and European imperialism. Once upon a time, the Islamic world was a nexus of human enlightenment while the Christian world was an intellectual backwater…so other factors are apparently in play. Good morning, sunshine! Yay!! You unblocked me! Springtime: a season of verdant bloom and floral ebullience, of new beginnings and rekindled friendships, of political revolution and Marxist subversion…welcome back, dear reader. That’s reasonable retrospective advice for Hamas and Iran, but I’m more focused on our own country’s involvement and what we, as a free-speech-loving democratic nation, can presumably control in this moment. I call balls and strikes with public policy, regardless of the administration in office, and especially given the gravity of what’s at stake. Such is the modus operandi of one Commie Kay. My perspective: Biden took the 100% right approach by helping to defend Israel from Iran’s attacks and then subsequently telling both Israel and Iran that the U.S. won’t participate in any retaliatory offensive. Conversely, Biden has been largely terrible since October 7 by not placing conditions on our aid to Israel (and by not threatening sanctions down the line, for that matter). It should be super obvious that Bibi has been working to undermine any hope of rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. His objectives are territorial seizure and broader regional hegemony, and Iran is the biggest impediment to these objectives. Drawing the U.S. into a war with Iran is the only way Bibi can achieve them. And yes, of course I’m staying mad about possibly getting sucked into another Middle East war!!! I guess I’m one of those crazy peace-loving hippy types that supports nuclear power plants, not nuclear weapons. I think Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane were pretty groovy, too. Oh, and fashion fads from the late 60’s and early 70’s? Yes, please. PEACE out, - Commie Kay

Yup. Sadly, I fully expect Israel to escalate. The time of their response probably depends on the time that they plan to initiate the Rafah offensive in southern Gaza. Having to manage a war on multiple fronts (including the Hezbollah one), with a sagging economy and limited manpower and strained international relationships, COULD hopefully convince them to abandon a retaliatory response altogether. However…Israel’s motivations for bombing the Iranian consulate building in Syria were fairly transparent. A regional war for them accomplishes the following: 1. Further delays Israel’s calls for elections, thereby allowing the domestically unpopular Bibi to maintain power and avoid facing corruption charges. 2. Sinks Biden’s own domestic popularity possibly through November. Trump is likely viewed as the more reliable ally to Israel who will let Bibi do whatever he wants (which is not to say that AIPAC-controlled Genocide Joe has been a shining beacon of morality, but it’s obvious which side in American politics faces more anti-Zionism pressure from its constituents). 3. Bolsters wavering U.S. motivation to continue supplying Israel with weapons that, in turn, can also be used (illegally) for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 4. Distracts from the Gazan genocide. 5. Provides the means and justification to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities (Israel’s ultimate objective with Iran). Quick Angry Kay Side Rant: What’s so amusing to me are all the MAGA types criticizing Biden for his dovish stance on Iran. Whatever happened to being anti-war, anti-establishment, and anti-MIC?? These alleged right-wing “populists,” blinded by their political tribalism and latent Islamophobia, are essentially American supremacists and closet neocon imperialists…intellectual children whose minds exist in a dichotomous world of good guys vs. bad guys, like some bad Hollywood action movie. Some of these MAGA-ts also have significant financial investments in military contractor companies, yet no children of their own who would be sent to fight and die in another stupid Middle East war. Ugh! Angry Kay is angry!

Wow! So 24 hours later and no responses from the pro-Zionism crowd?? Not even a perfunctory eyeroll or mock laugh emoji reaction? THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING. Moving on… Let me address the “intent” component of Israel’s genocide. Political analysts fixate on the overly retributive self-defense explanation, as well as an explanation imbued with religious directives. Both are obviously true to some extent, but in my opinion Jared Diamond-esque geopolitical explanations are far more instructive. Israel is a modern-day case study in settler colonialism, so this is more about geography and the age-old motivations of land grabs and natural resource seizures for the purposes of wealth and power aggregation. In three ways this appears to be true: 1. Gaza: It’s at a strategically situated position on the Mediterranean, with potential for a far greater seaport, prime coastal real estate development, and untapped offshore natural gas fields. Ethnic cleansing removes the indigenous people in the way; genocide thins the herd and expedites the cleansing. 2. West Bank: Its western geographical limit is as few as 12 miles away from the Mediterranean Sea coast at Tel Aviv. The western frontier of the West Bank also features a bunch of hills perched above the lowland bottleneck of Israel’s middle section. A military strategist might argue that this is a natural military “choke point,” and that losing sudden control of it would easily cut off Israel’s two halves from each other. This is likely a big reason why Israel is accelerating its illegal settlement encroachment into this particular area of the West Bank, while the slaughtering continues unabated in Gaza. 3. Negev Desert: It’s an extensive region of land that still remains significantly underutilized, in terms of desert agriculture methods and natural resource extraction. Israel understands that a two-state solution with a non-contiguous Palestine (or a non-contiguous Israel) can’t relieve certain levels of tension (partly due to national transportation logistics), and that contiguity may likely require relinquishing this connecting region between Gaza and the West Bank (a region, by the way, that contains Israel’s critical nuclear weapons facility near Dimona). It’s in Israel’s interest, therefore, to remove Gaza from the entire equation of negotiation. Summary: I think geopolitical explanations are more fundamental. Retributive self-defense and religion are what settler colonialists tell others and each other to justify their horrible behavior. Thoughts?? Am I right? Wrong? Can I at least get an eyeroll acknowledgment, pretty please?! Thank you.

In their partial defense, Justice, they’re being fed a steady dose of Zionist propaganda from corporate media and/or independent far-right media. Most here are likely unaware of the recent settler rampages in the West Bank. Now seems like a good time to update my post on the ongoing genocide (page 183 of this thread; March 4). As a reminder to the readership, systemic reckless indifference to civilian casualties can constitute legal proof of genocidal intent. We don’t need to wait for Bibi to hold up a sign that states, “Hey everyone! I am officially committing genocide!” We don’t need a particular minimum number of casualties. We don’t need to see red-soaked, red-handed IDF hands holding Hutu-fashioned machetes. Not every genocide looks the same. Further evidence of genocide: 1. The aforementioned systemic heedlessness toward civilian casualties: Euro-Med HRM can’t report as often because virtually all aspects of societal order in Gaza have collapsed. Nevertheless, the latest update on April 3 reports 37,676 civilian deaths and 3,280 combatant deaths for a historically unacceptable 9.86:1 civilian casualty ratio (for comparison: the overall ratio for WW2 was no worse than 2:1). This is the numerical consequence of indiscriminate bombing and AI programs like “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy.” There are also numerous reports of Gazans being killed despite waiving white flags. 2. Weaponizing famine: significant delays and restrictions (~70%) to food convoys, cancelling UNRWA, widespread destruction of Gazan farmland, and of course the World Central Kitchen murders that fit within this larger pattern of similar behavior. 3. Targeting health care workers: Never mind the near-complete eradication of Gaza’s hospital infrastructure; a frightening number of reports have been coming out of hospital staff members being deliberately targeted, such as those at Gaza’s critical Al-Shifa Hospital. The IDF have also destroyed most Red Crescent vehicles in Gaza, in addition to the Palestine RC Society headquarters in Khan Younis. 4. Suppressing war crime coverage: Al Jazeera was recently banned throughout Israel. Gaza has now set the record for the most journalists killed in one location within one year. There are also numerous reports of IDF bulldozers burying bodies before Gazans can get to them. Poopiness…gotta get ready for work…later today or tonight, I want to post additional thoughts on the “intent” component behind Israel’s genocide. I’m sorry your people are experiencing this, Justice. I wish I could do more to help than write super lengthy posts that no one reads, in a sad politics subforum of a perennially disappointing pro football team.

This is such a good idea that I’m guessing Democrats have already been planning to do so immediately before their Congressional summer recess. It might be more politically strategic to have the Comstock Act become a major topic of debate leading up to the national party conventions. A few other thoughts on this topic: 1. Abortion is exposing multiple cracks in the Constitutional edifice that probably shouldn’t have been left unrepaired for this long. One of these cracks is the failure of the Bill of Rights to more explicitly protect the right to privacy. At the moment, this right has been left vague enough and piecemeal in the First, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. An all-encompassing right to privacy should specifically mention a right to “sexual” privacy, thereby preventing ridiculous state laws like 6-week abortion bans and no protections for rape cases. I realize that such an amendment won’t realistically pass for at least another generation’s time, but Democrats in the meantime can put this goal in their official party platform while stridently advocating for a federal codification of Roe v. Wade (with clarification on temporal limits, exceptions, and who adjudicates the exceptions). Another Constitutional crack in need of repair is articulation of the Supreme Court branch. It should be democratized with limits on term, limits on number, codes of conduct, and a better federal system of oversight. 2. National poll trends continue to show independent voters shifting to the pro-choice side since Dobbs (June 2022), regardless of Trump’s messaging obfuscation on how to proceed (Tenth Amendment argument vs. federal ban) or on who to blame (Jackson WHO vs. himself and his SC Justice nominations). I count six swing states: Arizona (11 EC votes), Nevada (6 EC votes), Wisconsin (10 EC votes), Michigan (15 EC votes), Pennsylvania (19 EC votes), and Georgia (16 EC votes). Everywhere else, Trump holds a narrow EC lead of 235 to Biden’s 226 (source: 270towin.com). We all know what happened in Arizona recently. We all know how badly Republicans have been underperforming polls recently in elections with abortion referendums. At this point, Trump’s only way out of this catch-22 issue will be to simply ignore and deflect, focusing 100% on Biden’s cognitive health or the mishandling of the genocide in Gaza or perhaps…oh, I don’t know…the scourge of communist Marxist atheist “trannies” illegally crossing the border so to participate in women’s sports (a.k.a. the resonating right-wing social crisis du jour)??? Eeek!!! 3. Women stuck in red states should be made aware of The Brigid Alliance, a national nonprofit organization that addresses the financial and logistical challenges of those seeking an abortion over long distances. I liken them to the Underground Railroad of the post-Dobbs era because their services are most pertinent in the South. Every Bible Belt state now has some sort of draconian abortion law.

But we’re doing so much more than mere guessing! The theme of these climate science discussions should be “data confluence.” The confluence of data is what gives us our confidence in the consensus science. With respect to the stratosphere topic, we have all of the following support: 1. Predictive theories based on very well-established physics subfields (mostly stat mech and a/m/o physics, mixed in with some fluid mech at the troposphere below, plasma physics at the ionosphere above, and a delightful dash of basic quantum mech throughout). 2. Computational models whose guiding equations are based on the aforementioned theories. 3. Tabletop experiments of the atmosphere layers, analogous in spirit to what aeronautical engineers do with scale modeling in wind tunnels. 4. Direct measurements taken from air balloons and satellites over the past century, which NACA and later NASA recorded. I’ll argue that the structural simplicity of the stratosphere is what further increases our confidence. At steady-state conditions, it’s basically an altitude-dependent thermodynamic system of temperature, pressure, and gaseous composition (nitrogen, oxygen/ozone, and a few trace gases). There’s very little water vapor, carbon dioxide, or air turbulence to complicate things. You have typical transient behavior and diffusion at boundary layers, but nothing that can individually explain a global temperature variation trend sustained on the order of several decades! So there’s nothing wrong with extrapolation when your assumptions are so strong. Historical behavioral extrapolation comes down to two basic cases, each unassailable without some sort of paradigm-shifting explanation from physics or atmospheric science: 1. Uniform temperature growth in each atmospheric layer, due to solar activity. 2. Inverse temperature growth, divergent at the stratosphere-troposphere boundary, due to major volcanic emissions or life-induced (i.e. plants, microbes, humans) changes to atmospheric composition that, in turn, alter the greenhouse effect. P.S. Your apology is kindly accepted, though it wasn’t necessary to offer one! The prerequisite for PPP subforum participation should be a thick skin. All of us here have failed the mantra of “attack the message, not the messenger” from time to time. It happens often enough that the subforum moderator** has given up moderating personal attacks. P.S.P.S. The Finger Lakes were likely ancient river valleys. Glaciers from the most recent ice age likely carved them further into their current form. (P.S.) x 3: I trust government and politicians about as much as I do private corporations. Trust is earned with proof over time, buttressed with systems of oversight and power checks/balances. ** - His moderating presence, in fact, is so light that some have suggested he’s not even technically a moderator!! << Commie Kay shockface emoji >> But um…I’ve already said too much, lest I be banished to an even lower Dante-esque forum circle of heck than PPP, with nothing but a red stapler in hand. EDIT: Additional notes on extrapolation case #2: “Major volcanic emissions” was more a reference to Earth’s volatile early atmospheric history, not to random individual volcano eruptions. Effects from isolated cases of meteorites and major wildfires can be similarly transient. Certain human-generated industrial air pollutants can actually mitigate the stratosphere cooling effect from greenhouse gases.

I’ll get to your ad hominem attacks in a second. But first: 1. You think satellite data is necessary to understand historical ice sheet size?? El. Oh. El. As I’ve repeatedly explained, we have WAY more than 30 years of climate science evidence for the troposphere and for the oceans. Extrapolation is necessary for understanding the historical stratosphere, but even for all the upper atmospheric layers we can make strong educated guesses based on other indirect evidence like from ice sheet gas bubbles (particularly from migratory ozone concentrations). You hate extrapolation probably because you have ZERO understanding of molecular physics and statistical thermodynamics (plus plasma physics, if analyses include the layers sandwiching the stratosphere from above). And again…if you hate extrapolation so much, then at least offer your own explanation for WHY THE STRATOSPHERE IS COOLING WHILE THE TROPOSPHERE IS WARMING. Tell us why we should believe your garbage science instead of consensus science. And again…three decades’ worth of data points are sufficient to quantitatively define a climate. This is a mathematical/statistical/graphical argument and not a completely arbitrary definitional one. One thing you got right here: deforestation practices do threaten rainforests way more than climate change (even though I never argued otherwise…but whatevs). 2. Agreed! Too many Luddites on the political left oppose nuclear fission power plants. 3. What kind of nonsensical argument is this?! Yes, of course civilization will adapt to a dystopian planetary environment because we will technically have no other choice. But do you properly understand how much money and human suffering it will cost along the way to adaptation?! Damages to global food supplies, coastal city alterations, natural disaster relief, increases in the spread of infectious diseases, vulnerable island nations, mass population exoduses from newly uninhabitable regions (such as large swaths of the Middle East)…we should try to minimize or avoid what we can of all this. 4. Okay…and perhaps these environmentalists were making reasonable predictions, depending on the specific assumptions of petroleum engineering tech advancements and geo-exploratory land/sea availabilities with which they were working?? That was my point. How is this relevant, anyway, to the topic of anthropogenic climate change from the perspective of professional climate SCIENTISTS?? 5. My point here was that the U.S. government intervened and enacted meaningful change to the specific problem of North American acid rain. Yes, I’m fully aware of the general pollution problems with China and India. Acknowledging that reality doesn’t justify neglecting other problems over which we have some degree of control. Now regarding your doubts of my education: If you have a BillsFans.com account, it shouldn’t take you too long to find my LinkedIn and Instagram profiles. Go ahead and evaluate my STEM credentials if you’d like. I’m wearing a blue sleeveless pencil dress in my LinkedIn pro pic and an “earthy-colored” hippy-looking bell-sleeved skater dress in my Instagram pro pic (background: the Long Island Central Pine Barrens, my absolute favorite place in our beautiful state of New York!). Regarding my nuttiness: Dude...bruh…I’m a Slavic-American girl from Western New York who has endured a 17-year playoff drought and now an ongoing 13-year one. You were expecting sanity?? EDIT: Forgot an “s” in BillsFans.com. Great site! Former TBD PPP’er, Foxx, is the owner over there.

What unavailable raw data are you talking about?! Stratosphere temps? Just use the most recent decades of data that NOAA and NASA-GISS have made publicly available. To reiterate: we’re looking for an explanation of HOW THE STRATOSPHERE IS COOLING WHILE THE TROPOSPHERE IS WARMING. And yes, I do believe that government-directed money allocation can influence planetary climate to some extent. That’s pretty much one of the main realized corollaries that come from acknowledging greenhouse effect physics! Probably more accurately: I believe that private industries, through technological innovations based on government-funded research, will play a bigger role than various carbon pricing strategies (carbon tax, cap-and-trade schemes, etc.) meant to modify human energy consumption behavior. (100)/(1 billion) = (10^2)/(10^9) = 10^(-7) = 0.0000001 = 0.00001%...so you were missing a zero…but point taken lol! Your question is a really good one: do we have sufficient data from a large enough time span to make such definitive climate science claims? I would say we do. For one thing, if you look at scatterplots of temperature data versus time and analyze the regression lines (the relative positions and the slopes) which describe the climate behavior, you’ll quickly see that a rule-of-thumb minimum of about three decades is perfectly reasonable for defining a given region’s climate. Moreover, we’re looking for the following criteria to give us scientific confidence: 1. A logically reasoned hypothesis that is experimentally falsifiable. 2. Reliable methods of data collection with sufficient precision. 3. Statistically large enough sample sizes of data. 4. A consistent data signal trend that is well above thermal noise. 5. A process of elimination for all other explanatory factors. The latter-most criterion is what distinguishes surface temperatures and (to some extent) ocean temperatures from stratosphere temperatures. With surfaces and oceans, we have plenty of pre-Industrial Revolution earth science evidence, with confluence, that so far rule out all known natural explanations for climate change. For stratosphere temperature data, we’re mostly relying on the strength of the first criterion I listed. But fortunately, the stratosphere is a lot less complicated than the troposphere in the sense that there are way fewer feedback control system inputs to understand. And even before the days in which air balloons and airplanes and satellites were routinely traversing the stratosphere (even before we knew of the stratosphere’s existence, really), tabletop experiments were performed of the energy absorption/emission behavior of molecules like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, ozone, and whatever else might finds its way into this atmosphere layer. So basically, geophysicists already had well-articulated predictions of how an atmospheric layer sitting above another layer of increasing carbon dioxide density might cool and contract. Modern temperature data from satellites simply confirmed this strong hypothesis. But if the anthropogenic climate change skeptics have an alternate explanation, then by all means… Regarding temperature recordings: official ones are always taken in the shade. The purpose of the recording is strictly to measure the air’s temperature, which is just a single aggregate number that quantifies the average energy of the air molecules. So to accurately measure this, the air sample needs to be isolated from any additional energy coming directly from the Sun (in the form of electromagnetic radiation). Actually, all that I told you about the ozone was that its well-studied behavior can’t explain the observed cooling and contraction of the stratosphere. But since you brought it up lol…yes, it’s in much better shape since that 1987 Montreal Protocol which banned the international use of certain industrial chemicals. Yay government intervention!! A rare victory for Mother Earth over laissez-faire cultists! Addressing the rest of your post content: 1. Climate change fatalism is a completely unacceptable philosophy because of the potential triggering of climate change tipping points (ice sheets, permafrost, ocean currents, coral reef health, rainforests, boreal forests, etc.). 2. It would have been helpful if our country had planned much earlier for an electric car economy and a modernized electrical grid. In this regard, I mostly blame the festering culture of climate change denialism and government-hating libertarian fanaticism. 3. What constitutes a global population limit is subjective. What’s the expected quality of living? Land, freshwater, and food are finite resources. Tech advances in agriculture have pushed back the more alarming overpopulation predictions, but there is a limit. A certain percentage of Earth’s land must also be reserved for forests (preferably old-growth ones), if you’re at all concerned about climate change. Also: go vegan to reduce land usage and reduce greenhouse gas footprints! 4. I don’t know who exactly has been claiming that we’ll run out of oil or when they made these claims, but it is still technically a nonrenewable energy resource. Technological improvements in extraction and refining, as well as places that have become open for resource extraction, are pretty significant variables that have allowed for an enormous range of predictions. 5. U.S. Clean Air Act amendments dramatically reduced acid rain! It’s one of the best examples, in fact, of the potential of cap-and-trade schemes.

No, I did not state that much of the data is DERIVED from computers. All of the data collecting and data PROCESSING is done with computers because it can be. Interpolation and numerical integration techniques have been around since the days of Newton and Liebniz. Or are those now considered part of the grand climate science conspiracy?? Direct temperature readings of the stratosphere and oceans have been extremely thorough and precise for at least the past few decades. Exactly how many more years of data collecting here are necessary before consensus inferences can be accepted?? I suppose we could discuss rising ocean temperatures here, if you insist, but it won’t be overwhelmingly convincing to the “skeptics” crowd because the factors contributing to its rise are far more nuanced than they are for the stratosphere. So let’s get back to the stratosphere, in relation to the troposphere. Direct temperature readings for the stratosphere have been collected since the first satellites were launched, but we can focus on the public data compiled from the past three decades. What is a “skeptical” person’s explanation for the consistent drop in stratosphere temperature (along with its physical shrinking), well above thermal noise variation, in parallel with the consistent rise in troposphere temperature? A simple physics-based or earth science-based explanation is all that I’m requesting. L Ron and Tibsy and 4th-y and I, however, do demand a peer-reviewed scientific research paper citation if you’re going to suggest ozone variations because that explanation has already been thoroughly analyzed. My commentary on Al Gore’s movie and on Climategate haven’t changed since we last had those discussions ~2 years ago here.

So you’re referring to the GLOBAL mean surface temperature, which I think is currently ~59 degrees F. It’s calculated by taking the average of enough LOCAL mean surface temperatures across the planet. These local data points are about equally spaced from each other and form a spherically symmetrical pattern. The number can be calculated manually, but most computers trivially find it with numerical integration techniques. Each data point representing each local mean surface temperature is similarly found by calculating local temperature averages across equally spaced time increments, over the course of a full year. The annual delta of Earth’s mean surface temperature is what tells us the net heat trapping from the greenhouse effect. You can never rely on local mean surface temperatures to give you the full story because global warming is never uniform. Western New York could be experiencing an unusually cold year under global warming conditions, while Florida and Brazil and the Middle East and Russia and Antarctica could all be experiencing unusually warm years. If you’ve ever seen global annual heat maps, you’ll see a mix of hot and cold spots but overall much more heat. But that’s just the surface temperature. There are also temperature measurements for the ocean and for the different layers of the atmosphere. My new challenge to all the anthropogenic climate change skeptics here: explain why our troposphere is heating up while our stratosphere is cooling?? Throughout most of Earth’s history, we know that climate has been dependent on interactions with the Sun: either from solar weather variations or from the periodic peculiarities of Earth’s motion about the Sun. The exceptions have been geothermal activity like volcanoes and related atmospheric composition changes. So if the current observed global warming is related to planetary interactions with the Sun, then the atmospheric heating should be uniform. But it’s not. Why is that?? FYI: for those who want to suggest cloud coverage, keep in mind that cloud effects vary greatly by type, height in the sky, and time of the day (reflective during the day and insulating at night). Climate data indicates that these effects can quickly cancel each other out, so evidence for any longstanding cloud-related positive feedback loop that initiated global warming is highly unlikely.

I hope you had a happy Easter, Muppy, and I’m glad you were able to spend it with your new granddaughter! The black velvet maxi turned out to be a little too risque for the speaker event LOLOL! In an auditorium with about 60-70 other chicas, my outfit was easily showing the most skin. I was so self-conscious about it that I ended up wearing my outdoor jacket for the entirety of the indoor event. But the auditorium was refrigerator-level cold, so it was no big deal. Live and learn! On the bright side, I missed that Sabres game because of this speaker event…ugh…Lindy Ruff for coach?? Okay okay, time to return this thread to the proper subject at hand. I can sense the PPP denizens getting restless…see ya around, Muppy, both here and at BillsFans.com! Yes, indeed! It is quite odd, in the year 2024, to be having a debate on the scientific merit of anthropogenic climate change. And yet here we are… So my brief review of “Climate: The Movie,” in outline form: 1. A barrage of scientific truths that were presented in non-sequitur form: climate is always changing, Earth’s atmosphere has had much higher levels of carbon dioxide during its history, Earth has had much warmer epochs throughout its history, Earth has experienced much greater climate temperature variations in its past, plants have a Brawndo-like craving for carbon dioxide, blah blah blah. 2. Examples of garbled scientific logic and cherry-picked data: the part on the temperature vs. carbon dioxide relationship was completely incoherent and included chicken/egg causality sleights of hand. The part on extreme weather events was consistently (and deliberately) unclear on the details of factors like geographical locations of inquiry, timeframes, number of events, and severity of events. 3. Examples of scientific lies by omission: the infamous urban heat island effect was presented, but the film neglected to mention that this well-known effect has already been quantified and universally accounted for in the climate data. The cosmic ray theory was cute, too: as solar magnetic field activity increases, more cosmic rays are deflected as they approach Earth, cloud formation (due to the ionizing effect from the cosmic rays in the atmosphere) decreases, less incoming solar energy is then reflected due to the decrease in cloud coverage, and so the planet surface warms. What the film conveniently didn’t mention is that none of the aforementioned (besides the warming planet) have been measured to have occurred at any appreciable extent over the past several decades! Moreover, this theory is undermined by observations of both comparatively greater nighttime warming as well as stratosphere cooling (FYI: this stratosphere cooling is essentially the smoking gun of anthropogenic warming causality…as opposed to a natural solar warming causal explanation…but of course that still won’t stop the right-wing skeptics…). 4. Social commentary on climate change: oh em gee…so much movie time was spent covering all possible groups of people who may stand to benefit from the climate change emergency. Ironically enough, there was no mention of the people who are funding the people funding this right-wing propaganda film. 5. Polemical libertarianism: fearmongering of Marxists, communists, socialists, big government, any critics of laissez-faire capitalism, etc…the movie clearly has a predetermined economics conclusion and works backward to make the scientific narrative fit. This Ayn Rand-inspired economics conclusion is that curmudgeonly misanthropes who hate the social contract and hate paying taxes don’t want to be held accountable for their negative externalities.

Oh, well yeah it’s definitely very close to his argument! Piketty’s critiques stem from the Marxist family of economic philosophies, which all call for wealth redistribution to correct inherent flaws in unfettered capitalism: namely, the return of labor-based wealth stolen from workers. This is something in which I very much believe: laissez-faire capitalism inevitably leads to gross wealth inequalities, oligarchies, and massive social instability. It somewhat boils down to passive income vs. active income (time is money, as they say, and is quite limited), as well as all the major themes you’ll find in Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent.” I’m not well-versed in international economics history, nor have I carefully read Piketty’s two books, “Capital in the 21st Century” and “Capital and Ideology.” What I can confidently say, however, is that we have excellent American economics data at least since the World Wars. The Neoliberal Era (~1980-now) and Piketty’s golden outlier era, ~1945-1970, do at least seem to support his thesis that inequality skyrockets when capital investment growth outpaces technology-driven macroeconomic growth. Right before the Progressive Era, we also know that the Gilded Age had absurd levels of wealth concentration, poor labor relations, terrible worker conditions, and rampant business/political corruption. In my layman’s opinion, for what it’s worth to you, I do find the solutions component of Piketty’s argument to be seriously lacking. Estate and inheritance taxes don’t do much to lift socioeconomic mobility. Combined with Piketty’s extremely progressive income tax proposals, all of this diminishes the capital resource pools we know can be critical for rapid macroeconomic growth. I’d rather focus on what’s happening at the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder: improving labor negotiating power, addressing education and housing costs, eliminating medical debt, various consumer protections, etc. See clarification #1 in my follow-up post. We are technically not disagreeing with each other on the definition. Contemporary first world socialists, however, do emphasize mandatory worker cooperative models way more so than government ownership models. The exceptions are select economic services, such as health care or (often) energy, to which every citizen is supposed to have equal access and collective ownership. In other words, most contemporary socialists don’t advocate for the government owning and micromanaging the widget company; they’d rather the collective workers at the company be in that position. Also, be mindful of the distinction between ownership and control/management (see: dirigisme market economies as an example). In conversations like these, also be mindful of the distinction between private property (company buildings, production machines, tracts of land, raw materials, etc.) and personal property (such as the various economic goods you own in your house). Lastly, I would qualify the capitalism-to-communism transition component of socialism’s definition as a historical anachronism. While it CAN be true, most contemporary socialists are not aspiring communists.

Thanks! I’m glad you liked! A few clarifications: 1. In my definition of “socialism,” bottom-up management structures like worker cooperatives can also be substituted with top-down ones managed by the government. The operative phrase in the definition is “owning the means of production.” Who has ownership of the enterprise? Who is collecting the profit or who is benefiting from the enterprise’s services? Under socialism, it should be the collective workers or the inclusive citizenry. 2. Marx’s labor theory of value obviously doesn’t hold up to any quantitative rigor in modern economics, but the “spirit” of the theory endures. Over the past four decades of neoliberalism, we know that labor productivity has increased (based on GDP, hours worked, and other metrics from the BLS and the BEA) while inflation-adjusted wages have remained relatively stagnant (especially for the working class) compared to that of the wealthiest 1%. 3. When I say capitalists “steal” labor-based wealth from workers, I’m not necessarily making a moral judgment. Unless we return to the days of strictly barter economies, some degree of labor exploitation is needed to run any profitable enterprise…no matter the type of economic system. But what’s the distinction between a “theoretical” definition and an “actual” definition?? I’m using definitions that will help you communicate in places, such as Europe, where actual socialists are elected with regularity. If you choose a “practical” definition for use in the United States and among right-wing communities, then you’ll need to make non-arbitrary distinctions between government-driven or government-mandated solutions that are to be called socialist and those that are not. Upon doing so, you may find that many or most Republicans end up classified in some way as socialists, too. And if everyone’s a socialist, then no one is a socialist! Also, good luck getting everyone to agree on a common definition outside the academic one…and without agreed-upon definitions of words, society inevitably descends into a kind of human sacrifice/dogs-and-cats-living-together form of mass hysteria…eeek!! FYI, there are models of socialism in which effectively no government authority exists. Libertarian socialism and social anarchism are two such examples.

I think much of this is incorrect. A socialist is simply someone who advocates for an economic system in which the workers own the means of production through mandated worker cooperatives, with the implication here being it to be true for a large majority of industries, if not the entirety of them. A democratic socialist is a specific type of socialist who wants to achieve this type of economic system peacefully, often gradually, and from the bottom up…i.e. via democracy. Under this definition, we don’t see a single socialist in the U.S. government at the national level. Bernie and The Squad are social democrats who occasionally use democratic socialist rhetoric for strategic reasons. Liz Warren is a liberal, not a progressive…let alone a socialist. Hmmm…perhaps I should go over a few more definitions?? A liberal is someone who believes in the necessity of wealth redistribution under the auspices of the social contract, but that this redistribution should come via taxation and free market-based solutions. A social democrat differs from a liberal in that more aggressive and direct intrusions into free market capitalism (and its guiding political system) are argued to be necessary so to achieve this wealth redistribution. A social democrat will therefore advocate for full nationalization and/or forced market interventions into industries related to the welfare state (health care, housing, education, etc.). The two main features distinguishing a social democrat from a liberal are probably advocacy for universal health care and not accepting corporate/big-money campaign donations. In terms of the political spectrum line: you can think of social democracy as the extreme right-wing limit of socialism, but it is not traditionally considered socialism unless industries beyond the social safety net are to be nationalized (such as energy industries). Social democracy, democratic socialism, all other types of socialism, and communism (so basically everything to the left of liberalism) are all technically subsumed into progressivism even though progressivism is considered synonymous with social democracy in the United States vernacular. Social democracy politics are considered far-left in the United States but center-right in many European countries. All of the aforementioned differ from American right-wingers (classical liberals, libertarians, laissez-faire capitalists, anarcho-capitalists, etc.) in their belief that, at least in some very general sense, Marx’s labor theory of value has merit. That is to say: capitalists inherently steal labor-based wealth from their workers in order to turn a profit, as the theory goes, and so at least some degree of wealth redistribution is needed to return at least some of that wealth. Glaring example: any successful CEO with his or her low-wage employees subsisting below the poverty threshold. Colloquially speaking, I guess you could say many of these dividing lines are arbitrary. All nations in the West have embraced mixed economies of some varying form. Moreover, nearly all right-wingers believe in nationalizing service industries like a national defense, police protection, fire protection, a postal service, and civil infrastructure usage. As others have already mentioned, by the way: Social Security is not an example of socialism. There really isn’t even a wealth redistribution element to it…it’s more like a specific kind of government-mandated wealth management.

Eeek…private sector wage drops and those super high poverty rates will make it really tough to generate service consumption. The main risk with Milei’s economic shock therapy strategy comes from those deflationary death spirals that lingering debt troubles permeating the economic landscape will exacerbate. No doubt that this is the most interesting macroeconomic experiment in the world today. Milei has accomplished the easy part of chopping down the government budget, even though some of those government services shouldn’t have been deemed wasteful. He seems way more fixated on political dogma than practical problem-solving. Many of Argentina’s biggest problems with its government were reported to be basic cases of internal corruption. Hopefully Argentina leans into their agriculture industry and their renewable energy industry potential, coupled with the elimination of some unnecessary price controls and regulatory red tape.