The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

If we were to shed Babylonian debt slavery, would there be a deflationary alternative up and running on the world's largest compute cluster to take up the slack?

The immense energy Bitcoin consumes comes from competition among the miners. Without the investment in proof-of-work, the blockchain could be resolved on a single device. That's why I like proof-of-stake.

I just listened to a good Rubin Report podcast where they discuss bitcoin. While I severely underestimated the investment potential of holding bitcoin, I still don't think it's sustainable. We cannot have transactions that take ever more computational power. Not only is it a waste of energy, it's a waste of time. Bitcoin is only capable of processing a finite amount of transactions.

I believe currency will decentralize and ledgers will be distributed eventually, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't require ever more computational power. The incentive to host a ledger and validate transactions should be something other than creation of new e-currency.

[Xist]

Wasn't it last year when people kept asking [not necessarily seriously] "How come we are having all of these blizzards with global warming?!"

"That is how global warming works, you idiot!"

Is more than northern Arizona experiencing a heat wave? People have told me it is normally twenty degrees colder and snowing.

Which way does global warming work?

[I imagine the average temperature is an infinitely better indicator]

[NeilBlanchard]

Warmer global average temperature is the best overall way to track climate change. But there are several other major affects - one being increased evaporation. And more water vapor in the atmosphere then leads to more precipitation, and also increases the warming, because water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

Another major affect of adding more carbon into the atmosphere, is that more carbon is absorbed by the ocean, and this becomes carbonic acid. The pH of the ocean had dropped from about 8.2 to 8.1 - which doesn't sound like much; but pH is a logarithmic scale, and this is a significant change. It makes it harder for every lifeform that has a shell. Plankton in particular is critical to the food chain, and so lower pH is having a big effect.

Ocean water also absorbs a majority of the heat energy, as well as most of the carbon. And what happens to the dissolved gases in water, as water warms?

It releases gases back to the air. So, initially the ocean has been absorbing carbon dioxide, and now as it warms - it will start to release it. So, there is another amplifying effect that will accelerate the warming.

What we used to call "permafrost" - is now melting. It is now releasing more and more methane and carbon dioxide, from the organic matter that was frozen. If there is oxygen available as it melts, it releases carbon dioxide, and if there is no oxygen, it releases methane.

There is a lot of methane ice (aka clathrates) on the ocean floor. If this melts, then all bets are off.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by Xist

Wasn't it last year when people kept asking [not necessarily seriously] "How come we are having all of these blizzards with global warming?!"

"That is how global warming works, you idiot!"

Is more than northern Arizona experiencing a heat wave? People have told me it is normally twenty degrees colder and snowing.

Which way does global warming work?

[I imagine the average temperature is an infinitely better indicator]

It does the job.

[redpoint5]

I'll point out that methane is relatively short-lived (12 years by one source). While it is a potent greenhouse gas, it likes to turn into water and carbon dioxide.

[freebeard]

What I'm trying to wrap my head around the last few days is the idea that electrical charge is drawn down from the ionosphere by atmospheric lows and regurgitated from telluric currents by atmospheric highs (unless I have it backward, that being entirely possible).*

While I severely underestimated the investment potential of holding bitcoin, I still don't think it's sustainable. We cannot have transactions that take ever more computational power. Not only is it a waste of energy, it's a waste of time.

Bitcoin as an organic investment was a one-shot deal in early days. Now the leeches are trying to implement Bitcoin futures. It's proven sustainable every time it tanks and rebounds, a Ponze scheme would crash to zero. Equilibrium may be in the range of US$100K. At US$10K a single Satoshi (quantum) is 10¢.

Understand Bitcoin is a proof-of-concept that escaped into the wild. A [possibly] more mature cryptocurrency is Ethereum. Ether resolve 4x as fast, and currently trade at 1/4 the value, of a Bitcoin. Up 5000% year-on-year.

*(S0 News Dec.4.2017 @ 1:54)
sciencedirect.comoes solar activity affect human happiness?

[sendler]

This fatalist likes to talk about the "clathrate gun".
.
https://youtu.be/C8w5_t7r6lw?t=24m1s
.

[freebeard]

I'll bet he's a lot of fun at parties.

OTOH I looked at a quote of your post and see how to jump to the middle of a video, so

[sendler]

Fatalism and denialism of ecological conservation are effectively the same.

[freebeard]

I'm having trouble parsing that. Can you state it without '-isms'?