Disney CEO Bob Iger resigns from Donald Trump's advisory council

seascapeJun 06, 2017

You are right, the person who pays the bills get the results he or she wants. This works both way though. The Government wants results which show man made global warming and the industry wants results showing its something else. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, more likely more towards pollution doing some damage but how much? That is why I say to err on the side of the environmentalists but with a clear understanding they could be wrong. The solution is to have a plan that treats everyone the same I believe American Business can and will do better than others. The big issue is the pollution and who pays for it. I say the consumer of the product should pay and not the country where the pollution is caused because pollution does not follow boarders and we should not be able to pay China or India to take our pollution. That is the problem with the Paris Accords is they are designed to build up the economies of China and India at the expense of their population. They gain the jobs but also get the pollution. We get lower prices and cleaner air to breath but the CO2 levels will still be too high and lead to all the other problems. What is needed is a new deal that correctly allocates the cost and benefits to the problem and makes those who cause the problem pay the real costs associated with it. There is no debating the fact that Paris does not allocate the costs correctly. That is a fact. It is beyond dispute because it does not reduce consumption, only relocate the production and manufacturing. The consumer is the real problem not the manufacturer. If the consumer did not use the product there would be no pollution associated with it. The consumer needs to pay more, so they use less. Or come up with a way to manufacture with less pollution. Stop believing you can use all you want and put off the expenses to someone else because you can't.

MerlinTheGoatJun 06, 2017

As the saying goes- "Follow the money", and no one is excluded from that rule. Subscribing to either government OR corporate propaganda is dangerous. The two entities are also inherently interconnected anyways (in Trump's admin it's the fossil fuel industry). Look into Dr Lindzen outside of this video (which doesn't even provide any sources) and you'll find he has been consistently supported by fossil fuel companies. One of his speeches (Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus) was underwritten by OPEC... And a trip to speak before a senate committee in 1991 was paid for by Western Fuels. He was reported to be accepting consulting fees of "$2500 per day" in the mid 90s from fossil fuel interests. An analysis of Peabody Energy (largest private coal company in the world) court documents have also revealed that they have backed Dr Lindzen. Dr Lindzen did an interview with a Boston Globe journalist in the 2000s admitting that he had accepted $10,000 in expenses from fossil fuel interests in the 90s, but claims he "has taken none since". In another interview in Newsweek however he claims to have been funded purely by the government and "has never received funds from fossil fuel interests". It would be unwise to take him at his word regarding his monetary ties to fossil fuel interests. Including the full extent of the money he actually got (or possibly continues to get).

Andrew CJun 06, 2017

21stampsJun 06, 2017

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking weather forecasts.. everything I've said has been light hearted. I've just seen a lot of "wrong", but most of the time I'm grateful for it. We were supposed to get hit with a blizzard last year, never happened, and there were a ton of memes of "I survived the blizzard of '16" with a ruler and sprinkle of snow on pavement. I'd much rather be prepared, have food and water and necessary precautions, and not have one hit.. rather than the alternative of an actual storm. Same with hurricanes. I've been in a direct zone that didn't get hit, and I'm grateful. I've also evacuated or stayed somewhere that wasn't supposed to get directly hit, and did- those times are a little aggravating. The only time I get highly annoyed is when schools are cancelled because of an impending snow..and then- no snow/light snow, wasted day off.

October82Jun 06, 2017

This is the wrong way to think about it. Storm trajectories have an associated uncertainty, which is what the "cones" represent. The cone represents that bounds of that uncertainty. Your uncertainty estimate isn't about "protecting your prediction", but about making quantitative estimates about what is likely to occur. I'll probably leave things here since this discussion is pretty ancillary, but since weather prediction is vitally important, there is a huge literature on how well our predictions do. In a quantitative sense, they are very reliable.

21stampsJun 06, 2017

I laughed out loud. Literally lol.

LuvtheGoofJun 06, 2017

I was under the impression that when a chance of rain is given, it is for a particular area, so when they say 30% chance of rain, that means that 30% of the coverage area will have a 100% chance of rain, and 70% will have a 0% chance.

21stampsJun 06, 2017

I don't get mad when it's a 30% chance of rain and doesn't rain.. sometimes it's been a lot higher, or snow predicted but it doesn't snow, bad winters that never come, blizzards that aren't even a 1/4 inch of snow... Hurricanes they protect themselves with the giant cone, but they're often wrong on the direct hit prediction. I take the forecasts as a guideline of what will 'probably' happen. And I'm happy when they're wrong.

October82Jun 06, 2017

As I said, I appreciate that people's experiences lead them to underestimate the accuracy of weather forecasts. These are good examples. The perception that rain forecasts are not accurate comes from the fact that they are usually presented in a way that isn't intuitive. There is a reason why you see things like a "30% chance of rain", and not simply "rain". The error rates on precipitation are, in reality, small. I am less familiar with hurricane forecasting, but in terms of trajectory, there are again reasons, some related to presentation, why perception doesn't fit with the statistical accuracy that these forecasts have.

21stampsJun 06, 2017

I've seen rain predicted and not happen and hurricanes turn away from their intended path..within 24 hours.. I'll keep my paycheck ;)

October82Jun 06, 2017

Yes. Weather prediction is difficult. However, as I mentioned in that post, single day and short term weather forecasts generally are "accurate". There are many reasons why most people underestimate the reliability of weather forecasts.

21stampsJun 06, 2017

You would bet your paycheck on tomorrow's forecast being accurate? Really?

October82Jun 06, 2017

I appreciate the skepticism that many feel towards the politicization of this debate (and by extension, the federal government). I work in research, and I have many friends and colleagues who work directly on climate science. Often in these discussions, there is the claim that scientists are manipulating their results for some sort of financial gain. I don't find those claims plausible, it's easy to say that when they're not people you know and work with. I know that for many science is not something that one has direct experience with. Scientists don't do a good job of explaining to the public how science works, including when the public has questions or concerns about scientific funding. It's hard for people to understand that scientists do not benefit financially from publishing certain results over other ones, or that the vast majority of scientists are not associated with some government agency. Scientists simply do not have a motivation to mislead the public. It's also important to understand the reason that we know climate change is happening is not dependent on facts or arguments that only scientists know. The reasons that we know about climate change are based on very simple physics and chemistry, first worked out several hundred years ago. The scientific consensus on climate change is the result of tens of thousands of people working over many decades, and their conclusions have not been dependent on the political climate. Although the funding process is apolitical, independent of a democrat or republican president and congress, the scientific results have been the same. It's difficult to respond in text to a linked video, but if you have specific questions about comments made in that video, I would be happy to address them. I will end by addressing your comment about weather prediction. I highly recommend, again, reading the last several pages of this thread since this specific topic was discussed recently. Weather prediction and climate modeling are not the same thing. We can talk more about this if you'd like to learn more, but it turns out that predicting the weather is more difficult than predicting the climate. In general, we are able to predict short term weather (over a few days) very well, long term weather (over the next week) poorly, intermediate weather (months) reasonably well, and climate (years, decades) extremely well. As someone who knows how weather prediction and climate modeling are done, I would feel completely comfortable "betting my paycheck" on it.

21stampsJun 06, 2017

But the rise of extreme weatherman/women during hurricanes have been great entertainment..lol