Ken Fabian

I know that I am willing to accept that the assessments of the validity of climate science by eminent scientists within the worlds most prestigious and scientifically conservative institutions like the US National Academy of sciences on trust. That is not a matter of faith but of trust. I have trust - not faith - in the systems, institutions and methodologies and by default and in the absence of credible scientific doubt - which I don't believe NortonH has provided - the science based conclusions of experts working within those systems and institutions should be taken seriously. It is exactly the right way of it that those conclusions be accepted as the default position, even by other scientists who may both have the expertise and resources to genuinely seek to review and critique those conclusions; they can submit their criticisms and alternative conclusions - which, if substantive, will be welcomed and disseminated for reviewed and critiqued in turn as science circles closer to what is actually true. Norton is not "just asking legitimate questions", he is refusing to accept the answers he gets and that others have gotten before him to essentially the same questions. None of the questions are new or have gone unanswered. I see spurious appeals to purity of scientific methods and the importance of ongoing, active scepticism concealing a lack of willingness to accept the use of scientific methods that don't fit his narrow preconceptions along with unwillingness to actively apply scepticism to them. I am not prepared to accept NortonH as having any kind of relevant expertise or special insight - none is evident. Goodbye NortonH.

NortonH - If your unwillingness to accept that the mainstream expert advice from climate science is valid is grounds for you supporting opposition and delay of actions based on that advice, then your position becomes a practical and political one. Do you want emissions reductions efforts stopped, limited or delayed while you wait for climate science to provide conclusions that can be accepted by you? I would be very interested to get an answer to this question. Do you want or expect people in positions of trust, responsibility and power to stop or delay actions based on that same basis? Ordinary citizens can choose as they like but for people in positions of power and influence I don't think that is reasonable; on the contrary I think such people will be negligent in their duties if they fail to apply due diligence and take the consistent expert advice in matters where they have no personal expertise seriously, especially where potential for enduring harms to persons and property is at issue. After more than 3 decades of intense, modern, scientific inquiry giving essentially the same answers again and again - a convergence of evidence from multiple independent lines of enquiry - I don't think fence sitting can be a justified any longer as some kind of legitimate holding out for greater certainty ahead of precipitous actions. Action and inaction are inverted in most discussions of this; delaying action to address excess emissions is actually the continuation of strong climate changing actions (unconstrained continuation of emissions) that make delay a serious choice with serious consequences. GHG driven climate change is cumulative and it's impacts are effectively irreversible so that means delaying for more certainty - or entirely different scientific conclusions - is not a reasonable, sensible, risk averse course. It has become a choice that embodies significant known risks - risks that are at levels considered highly likely and are approaching that unreachable certainty that many people seek. Not a mere possibility but a strong likelihood. Ordinary people can accept the expert advice or not and believe or not believe the consequences are serious as they choose - that is freedom. People holding positions of trust have an obligation to take expert advice of high likelihood of serious, irreversible harms seriously - that is responsibility.

NortonH - Sorry to hear you feel like you are unfairly being piled on. Whilst an idealised application of scientific methodology could look like this - - it does not always have to look like that in practice. Failure to do it like that does not make it invalid. Popper, along Popper's thinking on empirical falsification, which this looks like, did not yet exist when people like John Tyndall explored - measured - the properties of various atmospheric gases and how they passed visible and blocked infrared light, from which Arhennius calculated the significance to global climate of CO2 - and doubling CO2. A lot of good science was and still is done without overt application of that kind of methodology, yet even if not set out in such terms, scientists and their peers were and are serious about seeking ways that they might be wrong and their conclusions can be found to be false. That was and still is basic quality control procedure in science, and whilst there is the embarrassment of retractions as motivation - it will all be documented and disseminated - most of all, in every way that counts, most scientist know that getting it right is what matters most. One of the fundamental things about the practical engagement in science is the extent of documentation - the peer reviewed and published papers and the responses and critiques and debates as well. Mistakes do get noticed. Mistakes are corrected or it's a fast descent into archived irrelevance. Or perhaps can live on in the forums and blogs. If a teacher is trying to manoeuvre students - your son - into concluding climate science is wrong, because they will struggle to neatly fit it into such a format then that teacher is setting the students up to misunderstand actual climate science and reach a false conclusion. Raising CO2 levels warms the world is the null hypothesis. Better people than any of us here - people with true skills and expertise - have tried to falsify it's fundamentals. And failed. It gets to be counted as accepted, mainstream science fair and square. It surprises some people that I think the scientists trying hardest and doing their best to find flaws in climate science are it's leading scientists, but it should not be a surprise; that people who excel in their fields have got to where they are by honest striving to get it right - and have done so within a system where everything gets documented and disseminated, dissected and discussed - should be the default assumption. Not accepting the CO2 and climate connection requires rejection of a rock solid understanding of the basic the properties of atmospheric gases. Science that goes back to the early and mid 1800's and that has been affirmed and reaffirmed since is rejected and ignored. How that fundamental climate connection change plays out year to year, decade to decade, century to century with human CO2 concentrations, within such a complex system, with other phenomena in play, interrelations and feedbacks in play - making projections and predictions out of it as scientists are being asked to do - are active areas of research with plenty to argue about. No-one should be surprised that smart, hardworking people should have made serious inroads at getting it right.

Looking from outside, I don't expect gun control to be introduced in the USA in any meaningful way. Rebellion as a last resort is always implicit, irrespective of legality, but I've never thought an explicit right to overthrow tyrannical governments has ever been a necessity - most democratic nations with high levels of personal freedom do quite well at avoiding tyranny without it, which suggests the essential ingredient for avoiding tyranny isn't an armed populace but relies on things like an independent judiciary and honest and courageous news services. But it seems like it's a widely held belief that US democracy depends on ordinary people being armed - and for many of them the prospect of access to arms being restricted is sufficient evidence of tyranny to prompt a call to arms. Not a good circumstance for attempting to introduce gun control. I'm not sure a repetition of the War of Independence, with similar, clear goals, clear enemy and potential for decisive and ultimately positive outcomes is reasonable; even if it worked once those who put this 'safeguard' in could not foresee the full range of consequences. I doubt a rebellion could be carried out effectively in a modern USA without making things worse and would have a high risk of replacing it with a different kind of tyrannical government. Empirically - looking around at examples - armed freedom fighters (where they are not acting as the tools of outside interests) leave horrendous, intractable messes from their battles with tyranny in their wake. It makes me think armed insurrection is less than ideal solution; rebellions rarely win decisive victories against professional armed forces and it is usually when those armed forces change sides that resolution becomes possible. With a high likelihood that military dictatorship - differently flavoured tyranny - will be the result. I think an armed populace as the essential bulwark against tyranny is illusory but a lot of Americans appear to take it seriously.

Touch is a mixture of different sensations felt by different means - pressure, vibration, heat, cold etc. As is too often the case the sensory function of hairs get no specific mention in the "map" of relative skin sensitivity - yet W.Montagna ("Evolution of Human Skin", 1985) pointed out that in humans their nerve rich follicles make them "the principle anatomical unit of skin sensibility". Sensitivity of skin has most often been measured by means like poking the skin with thin rods - but the poking method tends to bypass the hairs. My own experience tells me bugs small enough to not be felt on truly glabrous (hairless) skin can often be easily felt via hairs as they bump the hair shafts. ie hairs provide a lower minimum threshold for detection than direct contact with skin. (sorry, this is a bit off-topic but the "body hair is a useless evolutionary leftover" claim is a commonplace myth that irritates me, most especially when it quietly makes it's way into scientific studies as an underlying assumption, such as when assessing and measuring skin sensitivity. I'd be interested to know how they did the measuring behind this graphic, but I strongly suspect it was by means that did not assess the hairs/follicles contribution. As another example - this school level experiment for assessing skin sensitivity actually begins by removing the hairs!) How old is the sense of touch? I don't know but it seems to have arisen very early within early animals, so as long as that. The ability to respond to touch doesn't appear to require a nervous system; micro-organisms of various kinds that lack nerves seem to, as do some plants such as Venus Fly Traps. The pathways in microorganisms may be biochemical - perhaps they are a combination of touch and taste.

The technological capabilities that would get humans to the planets of other stars ought to be sufficient to be capable of building space habitats independent of planets. Such colonising would not be about securing the long term survival of humanity, it would be based on more base human motivations. The only thing a planet would have that cannot be produced artificially is the alien life such a world would contain - and for breathable atmosphere there must be life. That uncontaminated alien biology - I think - would be the most valuable resource the planet could have. The ethical issues I see are not so much about the long term survivability of humans on such a planet - the ability to reach such a world implies the ability to leave again, although a seed population (which I think still needs to be a large population) will be easier than a whole planet's worth - but about the ethics around shorter term survivability of native, alien life with the enduring presence of humans - with their surprising combination of shortsightedness and ability to find justifications for whatever activities they find desirable. Like replacing useless and nuisancy alien lifeforms with something more familiar, useful and in keeping with a fashionable colonial lifestyle. If terrestrial life is compatible with life on a planet within human reach then it seems to me it is more - not less - at risk of displacement and extinction than alien life with incompatible biochemistry. I don't think ensuring long term human survival via seeded colonies is a viable motivation - self reliant colonies will be an emergent outcome of enduring, economically viable space based commercial activities occurring within a larger Earth based trading economy. I think the minimum threshold for true self reliance, wherever high levels of technology are essential for basic survival, is a very large population and broadly capable, advanced industrial economy.

The link between Maunder Minimum and large changes to global and even regional temperatures is tenuous - the correlation is there, but so is the correlation with the volcanic activity preceding that cooling. Changes to solar intensity can and will have an influence on global temperatures but, on close examination it doesn't have enough to change global temperature evolution by enough to explain that European cool period on it's own. The volcanic activity hypothesis - ejection of aerosols from more than one eruption, in close succession, sufficient for some decades long cooling feedbacks to come into play does have appear to enough influence and looks more compelling to me; low solar intensity probably made it just a little bit cooler than it otherwise would have been.

Being able to work safely without holding on - and without a permanent tether - seems like a necessary threshold for serious construction work in space; much too limiting of work potential otherwise. I don't see that booted feet are that much use for holding on anyway. NASA added them to space suits (Manned Manoeuvring Units) , although they discontinued using them, because of that drifting off issue I suppose. I don't think the issues are insurmountable, whether with single person "capsules" or space suits. I still think that anything less than independent movement will limit a space worker's efficiency and effectiveness - and given the high costs of getting them there as well as the innate difficulties of working in zero gee anything that improved their effectiveness is surely important. Easily avoided - use soft jawed grabbers. Although I do wonder if serious in-space construction work would be best done within some kind of enclosed safety barrier, to prevent both workers and materials drifting away.

I don't think an astronaut would use feet as well as hands on a ladder (why a ladder at all?) in zero gee - and I'm not suggesting a capsule that is much more massive than a space suit, that could not be pulled around by hands. But would much movement be done physically like that? I would think micro jets would handle most movements and do so more easily than clambering around. I read somewhere that most manual tasks in zero gee take about 2.5 times as long as in gravity - just on the basis of efficiency of movement jetting around would beat clambering.

Swansont - I was thinking gyroscopic stabilisers for maintaining orientation - I would expect space suits to have those too - as well as grabbers of some kind to anchor with and give resistance to work against. I don't doubt there would be situations where booted feet would work or spaces would be too tight for even a smallish capsule - not that suits aren't bulky and awkward too - but wondered if it may be a requirement for being able to operate inside a space vessel, if only for emergencies, that has a real necessity for legs. Yet most outside work wouldn't need legs and working for long periods ought be easier and more comfortable in a "pod" or capsule, even if it's only just enough room to pull arms back in and deal with body's needs.

Wouldn't a small capsule - that has external arm/gloves - be more practical for working in free fall than a space suit with legs? Seems like legs are mostly not used on space walks and having space suits with them adds complications that serve no real purpose. You could pull your arms back inside a capsule and scratch your bum - do all those necessary things like eat, drink, piss, blow your nose or wipe off sweat. Also you could have access to the essential hardware, in case. A capsule wouldn't have to have a lot of internal space. It would also be possible to have mechanical grabbers and tools operated by internal controls. Any designs for such a thing out there?

Why the exception for pronouns? Anyway, usage is the final arbiter.

Neighbour - which is often spelt missing the "u" - always had me struggling. I use "it's" when I'm informed it's supposed to have no apostrophe - ("it's apostrophe being both wrong and superfluous"). I dig my heels in and use it anyway, in line with apostrophe as indicator of belonging to; perhaps common usage - and I'm not the only one - will end up making it correct.

Thank you. I've been pleased with the end results - and have enjoyed the learning process involved. I'd wrongly imagined that style of woodworking would be intrinsically easy and was surprised at the challenges it presents. I began with what grows on our own land, harvesting the poles - more demanding than it sounds to preserve the natural surfaces without bruising or blemishes. I was making the tenons with draw-knife and spoke shave, moved to using hole saws and cutting away the excess around - having to grind down spade bits to get the right fit - and only much later discovered there were such things as a tenon-cutters and forstner bits, which are like giant pencil sharpeners and clever hole cutters for larger diameters. Whatever you have in mind, it's likely there will be some kind of specialised machine or tool out there. Yet there is a lot of satisfaction working with hand tools - which is good because I've found myself needing them again and again.

I enjoy working with round poles, only rarely sawn or dressed timber -

I'm not sure vertical ethanol farming would manage 3 acres per floor. Maximising the area exposed to sunlight would mean limiting the area to that which allows sunlight to penetrate. Where vertical farming makes effective use of sunlight it makes equivalent large areas that are shadowed; you can't pack them too closely or they shade each other. Light will penetrate mostly from the sides rather than above; no light coming from above will reach the floor below the top one. Ultimately no more sunlight is available than with horizontal farming. Replacing sunlight with artificial lighting would introduce a major energy input in a process intended to maximise energy output - and even if the lighting is high efficiency, plant conversion of light to energy is not - more than 2% of the sunlight converted is considered very good. That may be improvable by selection, breeding and genetic engineering - but enough? Artificial lighting is not so good; it has to use sunlight as it's principle energy source to deliver more energy than it consumes. The innate usefulness of biofuels has been based on the fact that ones like wood just grow, often on agriculturally marginal land, without cultivation and with minimal processing. I suspect the much higher efficiency of Photovoltaics combined with electrically driven chemistry has greater potential to produce transportable liquid (or gas) fuels. How well they can compete with (still improving) batteries will probably be revealed over the next decade or two.

I think space is a lot harder to colonise successfully than people like Pr Hawking are saying. I also don't think "preserving the species" or preserving our civilisation is a motivation that will work; colonies will arise as a flow on consequence of economically viable exploitation of space resources by a successful, not a failing, Earth economy; those economic activities have to be the enabling motivation and some form of self reliant colonisation may, in time, be an emergent outcome. Outposts are one thing - everything they rely on is a product of a large, successful, resourceful Earth economy. Self sufficient colonies are something much larger and more comprehensive - they need to be the large, successful, resourceful economy. If they aren't then they won't be able to make the high tech essentials survival in such places requires and they won't thrive. If they aren't economically viable outposts - and I don't think there is any resource on Mars that cannot be mined, refined and delivered to customers more easily and cheaply here on Earth - then they won't become the successful economy they need to be to survive without support. And I wonder if even a multitude of space colonies would still be more at risk of extinction than people on Earth and besides being reliant on a lifeline from Earth, there is a strong likelihood they could end up calling upon Earth for rescue; we cannot ignore just how extremely harsh and unforgiving the destinations on offer really are. Unlike the historic examples of colonisation, this grand dream relies on exceptional, purpose built - yet to be achieved - technology, rather than the thoroughly proven sort that was in every day use. With some extraordinary technological leaps, perhaps the economics of using space resources will shift from being prohibitive to become compelling but I'm not sure it's something that can be achieved incrementally; the giant steps require a huge pre-investment and that level of investment is unlikely without the compelling economics of a compelling business plan.

Any presumption that climate scientists are incompetent and that the science linking greenhouse gases to global average temperatures and climate is fundamentally flawed is going to fail - because they are not incompetent and there is no evidence they dismiss or reject any genuine and demonstrable influences on climate. Take care that you do not fall into the mistake of dismissing out of hand any genuine and demonstrable influences - like Greenhouse Effect and atmospheric aerosols and surface albedo changes in order to support your hypothesis, which you have not yet demonstrated to be a significant, let alone more significant influence than they are.

Perhaps it's a cunning plan - fan the flames of conflict around the world in order to fix the US deficit by increased exports of military hardware.

Of course the doctor tells the patient; if the PSA levels are indicative of potential prostate cancer then it's important that follow up tests are done. To withhold such information would be negligence/malpractice. I suspect anyone who has gone through the sex change thing would be well informed about the medical implications, including the ongoing potential for prostate problems.

Well, I wouldn't hire Zeno as a running coach! "See where the competitor in front is? That's your finish line... no, where he is now! Dammit, he keeps moving! Where he is now, Now! Now, now, no-, n-, n- ... Oh, you've passed him! And I thought that wasn't possible!" I never thought it was much of a paradox - more an example of a mis-stated problem leading to a mis-taken conclusion.

TenOz - I'm not serious in the sense that I doubt anyone who has any actual responsibility in this is interested in or will be influenced by my 2c worth. I freely admit to a lack of relevant expertise and, usually, I prefer to defer to experts who know a lot more than I do. No doubt there is an element of Dunning-Kruger in my simplistic alternative solutions - that if I knew a lot more maybe I might see why they can't or won't help. And yet it doesn't take an expert to see there is an enduring absence of expert solutions that do work. Where there is a high level of disagreement amongst experts I suspect there are things that are, if not overlooked are overshadowed - most of all that there are competing and incompatible motivations at play; retaining power and keeping up appearances internally are not the same as securing enduring solutions. Kim Jong-un's posturing is for internal consumption, as is Donald Trump's. I suppose helping North Korea economically in order to ease them towards more normalised international relations is too counter-intuitive despite the regime having come to depend on the existence of outside enemies for legitimacy and solidarity. I doubt there is any genuine plan to attack the US or, with the exception of South Korea, it's allies - although I suppose passing on WMD's to crazies that would use them is a real possibility - yet that threat would also be reduced by improved economic circumstances and more normal relations.

The concerns about climate mitigating actions have always been much broader than those directly involved in fossil fuels. The prospect of more expensive energy motivates all kinds of ordinary people and business leaders to oppose strong climate actions - Tar's winter heating for example. A whole new range of regulatory requirements around emissions motivates all kinds of ordinary people and business leaders to join in opposition to emissions regulations - without any direct consideration of the validity of the science on climate. Those concerns flow through business associations and lobbyists to political parties and politicians and through their own workforce as fears for job security within businesses with rising costs and reduced profitability. The concerns about energy costs and reliability as well as government regulation in an area formally free of it are shared by those with no direct involvement with fossil fuels. These mostly economic concerns tend to have more direct and immediate impacts on choices than longer term and broader concerns about climate consequences, no matter that over the longer term the accumulated and irreversible climate impacts will include significant and accumulating economic costs. Studies of the relative costs seem to agree that prevention, even with more expensive energy is more cost effective than adaptation. It's never been up to environmentalists or manufacturers of solar panels to solve the climate problem - that has tended to happen by default, by the failures of more mainstream influences to lead and act decisively. And I think to some extent perceptions of climate change being a "green" issue has been created and reinforced through deliberate efforts to discredit legitimate concerns by associating the issues with extremist ideology and irrationality that has tended to be viewed as impediments to economic growth and the benefits that delivers. That climate change has serious and enduring economic consequences, affecting long term prosperity and security is a truth that can always be put aside in the face of more immediate business and living cost concerns. Except that it does have consequences and costs. Those associated with political environmentalism or who are optimistic about the use of solar power do not have a monopoly on solutions. What I often see is disagreement with the solutions some offer as reason to reject strong actions to reduce emissions - including by misrepresenting the fundamental science about climate change and expert consideration of the consequences - rather than as reason to strongly promote alternative solutions.

Rather than dropping bombs maybe we should be dropping aid packages. Rather than closing off trade maybe we should be dumping low cost consumer goods into their economy. If changing this enemy's mind is the objective then anything that changes their mind can be considered a weapon. Not that I am being entirely serious or expect anything I say will change any minds but I can't help but think that it's the sense of being a state under siege that unites the North Korean people behind it's leadership and ennobles their hardships and sacrifices , so actions that reduce that siege mentality should deserve consideration. Action to deal with them look like the exact opposite of that. I do remain sceptical of the long term effectiveness of instigating insurrection and arming insurgents as a solution, as I do with enduring interference by outside powers in the internal affairs of nation states; the legacy of doing so in the Middle East does not fill me with optimism about the outcomes.

I have reservations about massive global expansion of use of nuclear around the world as a primary emissions reductions strategy but that's for another thread; enough to say I think the dominant environmental, security and weapons proliferation concerns won't apply to use at a moon base. Or the same level of concern over cost. Safe and reliable launch would be important. I believe the USSR put 40 or so small fission reactors into orbit over the years. There are probably some still up there, but dumping them back into Earth's oceans when done isn't something I'd like to see emulated but that wouldn't apply to this. It would also not be up to me! I don't know about the waste heat issue - it would be a serious consideration during 340 hours of continuous sunlight, where temperatures can get over 120 degrees C, with another 340 hours of night with temps down to minus 150 C. But I'm not sure it would be insurmountable. If radiative cooling is directed to open space and it is shaded and insulated from radiant heat from sun and surrounding sun heated lunar surface that might be sufficient. Building them on site seems problematic - these are complex technologies with exacting standards. It's unlikely they even can be built entirely or even mostly with locally obtained lunar materials - I would expect modular reactors, probably purpose built to handle the changes from Earth gravity to high G acceleration to zero gee to, finally, low lunar gravity. But we are discussing a base or outpost, not a colony expected to be able to make it's own equipment.