[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] science

[Michael Alexander]

>From Shelly Lowenthal, earlier:
“Please tell us what the big impacts are specifically. Also for each, please tell us if issues are due to subsidence (for example, too much water extracted) vs rising tides or other human/policy changes (building in historical floods plains) outside rising tides.”
Okay:
• In Boston’s Seaport Zone, periodic flooding that surely was not part of the design plan.
•  Repeated destruction, during winter storms, on Scituate’s shoreline, which was not always the case.
•  Increased flooding in NY City subways during large storms, due to storm surges.
•  Infiltration of salt water into South Florida, particularly in the Miami area, threatening fresh water (groundwater) supplies (drinking water).
•  Destruction of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana (a combination of sea level rise and past oil company dredging operations).
•  Small island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, beginning to disappear because of sea level rise.  They’ve brought the issue to the United Nations, pleading for assistance (including, in the most severe cases, population relocation).
You can decide for yourselves whether any of these qualify as “big impacts”.  Moreover, you might contemplate ethical issues involved in Olympian decisions about what impacts are big enough to merit physical interventions, economic support, etc.
    – Mike Alexander



On Friday, July 29, 2022, 9:08 AM, Jerry Harris <jerryharri at gmail.com> wrote:

Frank, Jon, Thanks for the references. I've been deliberately using the term "disinformation", which aligns with your explanation. There is disinformation coming from people who support almost every position along the political spectrum - left, right, center. Unfortunately, engagement through enragement works on all humans and has become a profitable business model with the side effect of causing great polarization and division. 
Maybe it's naive, but I feel that on this list, in particular, we should use information sources that aren't in the business to profit through the engagement/enragement dynamic. Hence, my refusal to look at heartland.org and the other one. Perhaps we could all agree to this group policy? 
Peace, Jerry


On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 6:14 PM Jon Dreyer <jon at jondreyer.org> wrote:

  
I think I can compete with Frank in terms of lack of expertise on climate, but coincidentally I just read the article The Weaponization Of Doubt by my friend, author and philosopher of science Lee McIntyre, about the growing spread of disinformation (as distinguished from mere unintentional misinformation). It's worth a read, but a big idea is that doubt is increasingly being used as a weapon to discredit "inconvenient truths". The article references Oreskes and Conway's book Merchants of Doubt, which details the weaponization of doubt with respect to tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT. One tool we can use to evaluate information is the same one that's been used since antiquity to help solve crimes: Cui bono?
 On 7/28/22 5:51 PM, Frank Gens wrote:
  
 I’m probably the least expert on this email chain, but since I’ve invested time in reading it, I’d like to share my gut reaction to reading the arguments against the growing reality of climate change… 
  It reminds me of this similar-toned 1950 ad campaign from Reynolds Tobacco… 
 -- 
 
 Jon Dreyer
 Math Tutor/Compuer Science Tutor
 Jon Dreyer Music 
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