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Austin, TX Founded on Mar 5, 2019

Public eventAnyone who has access to the group can see the event, description, location, comments, photos, and RSVPs. Sunday, Sep 15, 2019, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM CDT

Political discussion

Sunday, Sep 15, 2019, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM CDT Add to calendar
Austin Central Library, Austin Public Library 710 West Cesar Chavez Street Austin, TX, 78701 Room 531 -- near the elevators on the 5th floor
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CATEGORIES (some with topics)

. MEDIA WATCH
- Andy Ngo smeared in several left-wing outlets
- New Republic pathetic coverage of Straight Pride Parade https://newrepublic.com/article/154921/boston-police-straight-pride-anti-lgbtq-attacks-increasing
. NATIONAL POLICY
- NRA: is it still the main reason nothing significant happens?
. DEEP QUESTIONS
- is Andrew Yang right that it's too late to stop climate change? Should we move some low-lying settlements to higher ground? And is the public ready to hear it? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/andrew-yang-urges-americans-to-move-to-higher-ground-because-response-to-climate-change-is-too-late-2019-07-31
. CULTURE WARS
. THE PRESIDENCY
- has DT gone insane? "King of Israel"?
- Democratic debates in Houston (9/12): who won? who lost?
. POLITICAL VIOLENCE WATCH
- Boston: 36 protesters arrested, 4 police injured during Straight Pride Parade
. FREEDOM OF SPEECH
. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
- how's Boris doing?
- the trade war: who will win and how long will it take?
. OPEN MIC (what is on your mind?)
Sep 5, 2019, 8:52 PM
Bernie Sanders wants to phase out nuclear power plants. Is that a good idea?
Sep 8, 2019, 8:08 PM
Beto said he's coming for your assault weapons. Was this a wise thing for him to say?
Sep 14, 2019, 3:12 PM
The meeting is on! Thanks to those who RSVP'ed. See y'all tomorrow at 1.
Sep 14, 2019, 9:30 PM
An interesting talk on how CO2 may not be the key factor in climate change: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UFHX526NPbE
Sep 15, 2019, 6:37 PM
Thanks, Lincoln, for the link to the talk by Patrick Moore. He’s a polished presenter, and I agree with him on several points. For example, like Moore I’ve dropped my support for Greenpeace (my reason was their adamant opposition to nuclear power).

On the other hand, his talk makes the point that CO2 is not a toxic pollutant and is essential to life on earth. That’s true, but the same can be said about water. In both cases, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

I haven’t had time to check his many facts and figures, but I suspect that like many climate-change denials it depends on a lot of cherry-picking. Moore is not a climate scientist, and he’s up against a solid consensus of climate experts. A highly regarded source of information contributed by many real climate scientists is Skeptical Science: Getting Skeptical about global warming skepticism https://skepticalscience.com .

As I mentioned in our brief conversation after the meeting, there’s a new method for dealing with nuclear waste—Deep Isolation, which eliminates the need to transport nuclear waste long distances https://www.deepisolation.com .

Finally, a good case for nuclear power is made by Joshua Goldstein and Steffan Qvist in their book, _A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and Others Can Follow_ http://www.brightfuturebook.com.
Sep 16, 2019, 10:52 AM Edited Edited on Sep 16, 2019, 10:54 AM
I investigated one of his charts (appearing at 9:45, claiming that there had been no warming for the last 18.5 years) and found this: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/17446/did-uk-met-office-claim-in-2012-that-global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago

It does appear very much like a case of cherry-picking. The Met Office published this in response to related cherry-picking in 2012: https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

"The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.

"As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. If you use a longer period from HadCRUT4 the trend looks very different. For example, 1979 to 2011 shows 0.16°C/decade (or 0.15°C/decade in the NCDC dataset, 0.16°C/decade in GISS). Looking at successive decades over this period, each decade was warmer than the previous – so the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s were warmer than both. Eight of the top ten warmest years have occurred in the last decade."

So it's comparing Ninos to Ninas, basically.
Sep 16, 2019, 6:04 PM
In case anyone is interested in reading more about the vaping topic I brought up. https://onezero.medium.com/juuls-master-plan-to-win-the-vape-wars-afc3b0c930bd
Sep 19, 2019, 10:39 PM

About the Group

Political discussion group

Political discussion group

Austin, TX Founded on Mar 5, 2019

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