OceanStWx

Because fossil fuel extraction is famously to surrounding environment. There is plenty of wasted space for solar farms. Seems your own evidence supports that: In the absence of state programs that prioritize the reuse of dormant gravel pits, capped landfills, contaminated brownfields or other industrial sites, many projects are being proposed in rural parts of the state, on underutilized farm fields and in unprotected woodlands.

Think through what exactly? We've been thinking for three decades now. Is there waste from some green energy, yes. But I think the benefits outweigh the costs. If we had started the glide path of transitioning off fossil fuels when I started college it would be much less drastic to get to a 1.5 or 2C warming scenario by 2035. But here we are. Another 10 years thinking about whether waste from solar panels is worth it or not isn't going to make that transition any easier in my opinion.

Honestly I think there are some clever plans out there to kick R&D in the ass. Warren as part of her plan if she were elected would be to turn the military green. As CinC you have much more latitude with the military than you would passing bills through Congress. And when the military needs something, industry will innovate it because $$. That tech always spills out into the public. Just look at the space race.

I'm not the one making the plans Steve. But I think anyone advocating for decarbonizing our grid and electrifying as much as we can is on the right track. And weather related deaths may be down because of better forecasting, I can't imagine deaths attributable to climate change are down.

Straw man again. Like fossil fuels don't have awful byproducts. It's not just emissions, it's toxic waste that goes into groundwater. Fracking pollution is terrible for surrounding communities. I think the benefits of solar energy far outweigh the costs of disposal.

I think the shift in thinking will come when the costs outweigh the benefits. Right now most people don't think of disaster relief as a cost. But we pay for it, and the costs are going up, and climate change can measurably increase damage from weather events. We're going to pay one way or another. I personally would rather pay for mitigation/adaption rather than rebuilding.

I find that a weird way to live. The media are there to report on goings on. So if there were no media the information would never reach the vast majority of people. Saying agenda is media driven is a talking point to discredit what the media are reporting on. But you do you.

Kev I don't have any hair

Climate change isn't that issue though. You either believe we need policies to address it or you don't. There is no middle position.

Spare me with the don't infringe on my ideals stuff. What you mean is don't infringe with anything you don't agree with. There's an agenda for business as usual too. I'm not sure what your point is. To do nothing because there might be people that are extreme about climate change? I'm sorry you cynically believe everyone is out to get you, but I choose to believe there are actually folks are trying to fix problems. I'll support the people, policies, and organizations that match the fixes I care about.

I think climate communication is probably better than it's ever been, the problem is there is a firehose of BS that spills out into the airwaves too. And the public is generally not very receptive to statements that we don't really know a lot about sensible impacts. We have the warming trends pegged pretty good, but we don't know how those feedback into every day weather well. That's a hard concept to grasp for many, and gives the sense that scientists don't know what they are talking about. I also struggle with the flip side articles that blast use of RCP8.5 by arguing we'll eventually come up with a solution. Well that seems pretty pie in the sky too given the current state of affairs. I mean the latest budget has millions in it for research into geoengineering (spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to block insolation) and wait until the chemtrail crowd gets a hold of that!

I really feel like it popped up this past year or two out of nowhere really. Are emissions from flying important, yeah 10% is a pretty large number on the transportation pie. But it really felt more like an effort to curb climate scientists from attending conferences and traveling for research than actually trying to limit emissions. Faux outrage in my opinion.

Teaching climate change is schools? What a novel idea. RCP8.5 is a business as usual emission curve that is unlikely to totally apply to the future, but the fact of the matter is that until I see any concerted effort to curb emissions (which have gone up in the last two years in the US) I don't see why it's any less ridiculous to rely on emissions scenarios that show mitigation applied. And somewhere between those two scenarios is still pretty bad.

This is the perfect straw man argument Steve. People will make money off making solar panels and wind turbines? Then we can't transition to those energy sources. Fossil fuels companies make more money than they know what to do with, yet the same complaints about money in that industry don't apply. You flight shaming me for taking a vacation is another good one. Individuals taking vacations are not contributing to carbon emissions. The New Yorker that travels every week for work to SFO does. Shaming people into taking small individual actions is a great way for the largest emitting industries to shirk responsibility. Domestically we're talking about 10% of transportation emissions from flying. Non trivial, but whistling past the graveyard when it comes to car/truck travel (especially when the current administration is trying to reduce regulation on car emissions/fuel efficiency - which by the way will not save anyone any money in the long run except for car companies). Do plastic straws contribute to pollution of our waterways? You betcha. My wife and I use metal straws to do our part, but we don't shame anyone if they choose not to. Because in the end straws are a fraction of the plastic pollution out there, but it is a convenient smokescreen to mask the larger contributors. And good luck with China? Yeah, good luck if we aren't the shining city on a hill to point towards when it comes to clean energy policy. Alaska being cold one winter out of a decade is not really a newsy story. Nor are the Dakotas being cold in winter. The magnitude is, and it has been covered, as I pointed out. Dismissing coverage of warmth as agenda is disingenuous at best. This is a topic I care a lot about. I do my research and stay up to date on it, I make my individual actions, and I vote primarily based on who has the best policy ideas to tackle the problem. I'm really not sure what moral high ground you are claiming to call others who believe/care about this lemmings.

I see you skipped past all the national media articles about the polar vortex.

Right.

It's a state thing. Typically an environmental or health agency determines unsafe air quality and requests that we highlight the product. This definitely isn't our first winter AQA this season. For trapped wood smoke as you've said. Summer is typically build up of ozone (from sun breaking down car exhaust) or onshore flow sending pollution from the big cities back towards the coast.

Get yourself into the Pemi watershed and we can daisy chain some toasters together and catch Dendrite on down into NE MA.

Yelling at random strangers as they walk to the bathroom.

Congrats Hubb

Kind of a weird year with a gap between the N MA/S NH higher zone that barely extends into PWM and the mountains. Climo says that fills in over the next two months.

I mean you're not wrong.

Well if it's for work I don't pay out of pocket for one. AMS SLS at Stowe was $1000 week and 3 vacation days...

Now that I'm edging towards the middle of my career I find I rarely have time to learn anything new. It's hard to keep up. So it's nice when the learning something new is part of work instead.

I'm (hopefully) applying to a boatload of Hazardous Weather Testbed and Spring Forecast Experiment opportunities at OUN this spring, so let's rock. They're doing a radar applications course on new tornado and meso detection algorithms, a satellite applications course, a course on probabilistic warnings, and then the Spring Forecast Experiment which is more of a research to operations.