[DismalScientist]

I assume that carbon bikes are not allowed to participate.

[DismalScientist]

And his seat is too low.

[DismalScientist]

@LeprosyStudyGroup 190820 wrote:

Bike to event t shirts are unnecessary garbage made by massively polluting factories taking advantage of slave labor in third world countries – be glad you don’t have one – and let’s not even speak of the water bottles. The more we as a culture reject this kind of stuff the better.

I was going to say the same thing about integrated brakes/shifters. :rolleyes:

[DismalScientist]

Will there be cones?

[DismalScientist]

@lordofthemark 190734 wrote:

It seems possible that the modest difference in flood risk between the slow rise scenario and the fast rise scenario reflects that any reasonable low end estimate of global warming leads to a significant rise. Ergo, OP’s initial statement may not be at all misleading.

I sympathize that it is difficult to do the analysis to challenge the implications of the OP’s statement (not the statement itself, which is clearly true) – in that case it seems like the best thing would be to just leave the OP’s statement alone.

When I altered the size of the flood rather than its likelihood, my original “analysis” actually did assume zero rise.

[DismalScientist]

@lordofthemark 190731 wrote:

Wouldn’t you need to test fast rise against zero rise? Slow rise still assumes some global warming.

The website is very opaque on the assumptions underlying the different scenarios. I don’t know how to get predictions for a zero rise.

Here’s an interesting graph from the EPA:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level

My interpretation is that a zero rise null hypothesis might be inappropriate.

[DismalScientist]

@Steve O 190721 wrote:

Not sure who you are directing this towards, but I do not believe I accused you of denial. What I did accuse you of, based on your use of the words “settled” and “easily,” is that you don’t know much. And your faux discussion of urban heat island, that you are reading the wrong things.

That “scare statement” is actually based on some pretty solid science from NOAA, the National Climate Assessment, the IPCC and the Army Corps of Engineers among others. You can read about it here: https://riskfinder.climatecentral.org/place/washington.dc.us?comparisonType=place&forecastType=NOAA2017_int_p50&level=8&unit=ft

Thank you for that website as it proves my original statement. If you fiddle with the assumed level of sea level rise you will find that there is a 65% chance of an 8 ft flood by 2050 under a “medium rise” scenario. Under a “slow rise” scenario, that chance falls to 60%. Under a “fast rise” scenario, it is 70%. In other words, the chances that we see an 8 ft flood by 2050 is barely related to the speed of sea level rise, which was my original statement. What probably matters most is the “average” track of hurricanes and the probability of them coming straight up the Chesapeake.

You tacitly accused me of denial in post #21 when you suggest I might to want to purchase some land on the Eastern Shore since by implication I did not believe that sea levels were rising or land subsiding. (And it is interesting to search the internet for the relative rates of both.)

I only used the word “easily” in a sarcastic manner when characterizing how easily climate change has been called settled in light of climate being a complex system and the inherent difficulty obtaining a long enough time series of data to verify its predictions. I don’t think the word “settled” should ever be used in the context of any scientific statement. No scientific theory can ever be completely verified, but can only be consistent with data. In my view, scientists should always be skeptical. The essence of science is the testing of hypotheses, which is problematic if you have already settled on the hypothesis being true.

My only discussion of the heat island effect was in the construction of earlier inferred temperature data necessary to estimate the magnitude of global warming from a long time series of temperature data. This is simply a matter of proper statistical inference and not a function of me “reading the wrong things,” whatever the hell that means. I actually haven’t read any of these wrong things. It just results from the logical decomposition that any change in urban temperature is due to the aggregate change due to global warming and that due to urban heat island effects.

This brings me to you calling SkepticalScience a fact checking site. The website was explicitly set up to make counterarguments to global warming deniers. That said, the discussions in the comment sections of various pages on the site tend to be thoughtful and useful.

[DismalScientist]

I wasn’t suggesting thinking from the driver’s perspective as an act of empathy, but rather as way to avoid being hurt.

As far as the equal rights and responsibilities stuff, do you think of pedestrians being vulnerable relative to cyclists? If so, you should have problem with a law assigning all blame for cyclist/pedestrian collisions on the cyclist even if the pedestrian stepped off a curb out into the cyclist’s path.

[DismalScientist]

Sorry, I apologize, but I still think Bikesnob’s statement is counterproductive. Judging from Streetview, this looks like a substandard sidewalk only going south from the intersection.
I suggest one thinks of this from a driver’s perspective. To make a turn from a side street (right on red or not) and be perfectly safe, one has to look both left and right simultaneously. One might need to pull into the crosswalk to get the proper sightlines down the sidewalk. If you are travelling at a significant speed, either as a jogger or cyclist, you are at risk of not being seen. My take on this, as a defensive cyclist, I will not ride on sidewalks at any significant speed, particularly near intersections. I will always try to make eye contact with any driver’s that might hit me.

(Yes, I realize that most cycling options in that area suck.)

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 190640 wrote:

“The whole “same rights and responsibilities” thing is a load of crap, and the few remaining vehicular cyclists who espouse it are the advocacy equivalent of those weird cats who use the toilet.”

Thanks for the gratuitous insult. Perhaps one should ask whether reducing cyclist responsibilities will help or hurt driver/cyclist relationships.

[DismalScientist]

You should really read my posts before ranting about how I am denying climate change.

I originally compared the consensus value of sea level rising with the scare statement in the original post. Some politicians these days are saying that the world will be wiped out in 10 to 12 years because of climate change. You people complain that too few people care about climate change as an issue. Perhaps the problem is not with me, a non-denier that you claim “denies science,” but rather with all the alarmist rhetoric that does not actually reflect the published scientific consensus. Perhaps you are your own worst enemy.

[DismalScientist]

Scientific “truth” is not determined by consensus, but rather by not being found false through experimentation or other relevant empirical observation.

Once again, I have not stated my personal opinion on global warming as it would be irrelevant; I have neither the time nor inclination to go through all relevant theories on how humans can affect the global climate nor the empirical work on these effects. I do note, however, that empirical work must necessarily be done with one observation over a significant time period. Relevant empirical work would need to distinguish rural and over-water temperatures changes from urban changes (which reflect urban heat island effects, which are by definition not global). Currently, early rural and over-water temperature data appear to be predicted based on contemporary “urban” data. Using these data to determine how global temperatures have changed over time may determine underlying global warming or it may only determine the method by which earlier rural and over-water temperatures were backcasted.

[DismalScientist]

@accordioneur 190489 wrote:

Bravo on this fallacy of relevance. Sea level rise and coffee both involve warming liquids, but that’s about as far as the similarity goes.

I don’t understand what point you’re making. Is it that one should never take action absent a perfect ability to predict the future? Is it that if two scientific studies do not come to exactly the same conclusion, then both should be assumed to be completely invalid? [n.b., in this case we are comparing not scientific results but rather journalists’ simplified restatement of scientific research].

My point with the effects on coffee on health and climate change is they are analogous. Coffee consumption is a simple input into the complex system that is the human body. Human activity is an input into a complex system that is the global climate. Somehow research is generating changing results as to whether coffee (or eggs, or fats in general, or saturated fats, etc.) or good or bad for your health. No one seems to claim that the science is ever settled on this. Human activity leads to CO2 production that theoretically leads to global warming. Particulate emissions theoretically leads to global cooling. Human bovine raising leads to increased methane production, leading to global warming. Humans killing off the buffalo populations reduced methane, leading to global cooling. Etc, Etc Etc… However, the science is settled in this case.

I haven’t stated my views on the validity of any analysis in this whole thread. I have not proposed taking or not taking any action.

All I pointed out was that the original statement that there a 65% chance of 8 foot floods in the next 30 years has very little to do with rising sea levels because that predicted rise is so small in comparison with 8 feet. Likely the only cause for 8 foot floods in downtown is a hurricane whose path takes it right up the Chesapeake Bay. I have no idea whether there is a 65% chance of that in the next 30 years. Likewise, excessive rain in the Potomac basin could also cause flooding (although 8 feet sounds high after the river passes through the Mather Gorge), but this also is not related to rising sea levels.

If two scientific studies come up with mutually inconsistent results, (at least) one must be wrong. Similarly, if two theories are mutually inconsistent, at least one must be rejected. The essence of the scientific method is the rejection of empirically falsifiable theories.

What I find most offensive are statements that the science is settled, particularly when there is an active literature debating opposing theories (see research on the effects of climate change on cyclonic frequency and intensity). These statements are simply political bullying. Calls to ignore content in publications with a different point of view is simply burying one’s head in the sand and just reinforce your political biases.

My profession, economics, has long been corrupted by politicians wanting a “scientific” imprimatur to their favored policies. This corruption has clearly been migrating to the physical sciences.

I am growing more of the opinion that good science can only be done by the disinterested. Unfortunately, these disinterested scientists are becoming rarer and rarer and increasingly hard to identify. As a result, I tend to be very skeptical of all studies. I still, however, am able to judge the logical consistency of statements made by proponents and opponents of particular scientific statements.

[DismalScientist]

@Steve O 190471 wrote:

Looks like you could get a pretty good deal on some nice real estate! All those suckers leaving town based on fake science.

Ah… A discussion of the application of the scientific method and statistical analysis on public policy issues at its finest…:rolleyes:

[DismalScientist]

So does the latest research say whether coffee is good for you or bad for you?

[Author]

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