Gobal Warming would this work to fix it?

[Gen. Volkov]

Well I am sorry for that. But everyone has their limits, and of the two things I got from my mom's side of the family, one was the Irish temper. (The other is nosiness, though thankfully me being a guy just means I'm nosy for a guy, not like my mom, who is nosy about everything.) My mom's natural mode of discussion is loud arguing. I'm rather quick to anger, but I cool off pretty easy as well.

[The Beatles]

I know all that, my dear chap. Otherwise you wouldn't be a moderator.

[Devari]

Exactly.

[Tetigustas shadowson]

no striping of titles needed, it was an angry text retal, My frustration getting the better of me........

I am re-researching where I got my stats from, mean while i did find this in the process.
my only question is why do they let em continue with out fixing the prolem.

on coal based electricity production.

U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, Lethal Legacy, A Comprehensive Look at
America’s Dirtiest Power Plants, October 2003
• Nationwide, the 548 dirtiest plants emitted 10.1 million tons of SO2 in 2002. This is about
64 percent of total SO2 emissions (about 15.8 million tons) from all sources in the United
States in 2001. Of this pollution, 70 percent (7.1 million tons) was “excess,� or could be
eliminated if the plants met modern emissions standards.
• Nationwide, these 548 plants emitted 4.4 million tons of NOX in 2002. This is nearly
20 percent of total NOX emissions (about 22 million tons) from all sources in the United
States in 2001. Of this pollution, 62 percent (2.7 million tons) was “excess,� or could be
eliminated if the plants met modern NOX emission standards.
• Millions of tons of soot- and smog-forming emissions each year will go unchecked. This
pollution will cause as many as 400,000 asthma attacks and 20,000 premature deaths each
year.

Abt Associates, The Particulate Related Health Impacts of Emissions in 2001 from 41 Major
US Power Plants, November 2002• Power plants were responsible for about two-thirds of the SO2 emissions and one-quarter of
the NOX emitted in the year 2001.
• Between 4,800 and 5,600 premature deaths in 2001 are associated with emissions from
41 major power plants.
• Over 3,000 hospital admissions or emergency room visits, 930,000 work loss days, 111,000
asthma attacks, and other health effects are associated with the emissions from the
41 power plants.
American Lung Association, Electric Utilities, April 2000
• Nationwide, electric utilities produce 66 percent of all SO2 emissions and 29 percent of all
NOX emissions.
• The 50 dirtiest power plants are responsible for 78 percent of all SO2 emissions produced
by the electric power industry.


taken directly from an epa report
(if it is that bad, why is it still being allowed)

[Gen. Volkov]

Alright then, I'm sorry for getting on your case. I'm glad you are re-researching your sources.

About the plants.. two reasons I think. One, retrofitting the plants is expensive. very expensive. And they can't afford to shut them down. And two, there's no public outcry that would make funds available. The general public perception is that the problem is fixed. The media got tired of pollution stories, so no one realizes how bad it still is. My state, Indiana, is 95% coal powered, and alot of the oldest and dirtiest plants operate here. As a result Indiana has some of the worst air quality in the nation. The media doesn't run the stories on it though, so no one knows or cares. This is why I dislike our current system of news generation. It's all owned by corporations who are molding public perception so that they can keep doing what they are doing with no one the wiser. This is the reason for brain-killing shows like American Idol.

[Tetigustas shadowson]

ha ha ha........... and I was making up a plan for one called "american slacker or slackers" but any how thats what i figured would be better than "american fake idol"

if we strive for change and keep looking for a alternatives, things will be quite different when my grandkids, kids have children of thier own.

[Gen. Volkov]

if we strive for change and keep looking for a alternatives, things will be quite different when my grandkids, kids have children of thier own.

One can hope so anyway, me, I'm not particuarly hopeful for humanities future. Maybe if they can make us live longer, then we'll worry a bit more about the future.

[The Beatles]

Many people have never been hopeful about humanity's existence, but it's still here. I think it's due to those who do believe in its future. I don't mean that in a disparaging way, Volk, I know you are a good citizen at heart.

[Gen. Volkov]

Oh, I don't mean I'm not rooting for humanity, and that I won't do what I can to ensure it's survival, but I'm just not all that hopeful that we will survive for very much longer. The fact that we are living right now, means that statistically, this is highest number of humans that will ever be alive at one time. At least according to one theory. It maybe a bit crackpot, but the logic in it is not faulty. I'm not sure if I suscribe to it, but it certainly jibes with our current course.

[The Beatles]

Actually, that argument is rather cute, but it does have a logical fallacy. Suppose you started with 99%, instead of 95%. Let me rewrite the article:

Now, we can say with 99% confidence that f = n/N is within the interval (0.01,1]. In other words we are 99% certain that we are within the last 99% of all the humans ever to be born. Given our absolute position n, this implies an upper bound for N obtained by rearranging

    n / N > 0.01

to give

    N < 100n.

If we assume that 60 billion humans have been born so far (Leslie's figure) then we can say with 99% confidence that the total number of humans, N, will be less than 100·60 = 6 trillion.

Assuming that the world population stabilizes at 10 billion and a life expectancy of 80 years, one can calculate how long it will take for the remaining 5940 billion humans to be born. The argument predicts, with 99% confidence, that humanity will disappear within 47520 years. Depending on your projection of world population in the forthcoming centuries, your estimates might vary, but the main point of the argument is that we are likely to disappear rather soon.

Et cetera ad nauseam. To get full confidence on humanity's extinction, you have to say "we will disappear in at most an infinite amount of time", which is tantamount to saying "we may exist forever". The sooner you want to bring humanity's demise into the picture, the lower the confidence in your statement has to go. In other words, the Doomsday argument is bogus and says nothing whatsoever meaningful about humanity's future.

[Gen. Volkov]

Moving it from .5 to .1 would not change the certainty from 95% to 99%. And there's a variation that says, if one person has equal chance to be born and live at any specific time, then the time with the highest population is the most likely for him to live in. So the fact that you and I are alive right now means that this is the most likely time for any one person to live. Which means that this is the highest, or close too the highest, population humanity will reach at any one time.

[The Beatles]

It would: think about it.

The problem with the Doomsday Argument is it inherently assumes that humanity's extinction is inevitable, then waves its hands in the air to say when it will happen. It's just clever enough to hide that inherent assumption from the layperson, but someone with a bit of a statistical background will spot it, as I have.

To rebutt your variation: What if there will be 100 billion humans in 50 years time? How do you know this is the time when most people have lived? All you have to look at is the past, so your picture is deficient.

[Gen. Volkov]

But humanity's extinction is inevitable. On a long enough timescale, the probability of our survival goes to 0. Whether it be 100 years or 20 billion, at some point there will be no more humans. It's as inevitable as the heat death of the Universe.

Not really, think about it. If there are going to be 100 billion humans on 50 years time, isn't it more likely that we would be alive then instead of now? The most likely time for any one person to be alive is when the population of humanity is highest.

[The Beatles]

1. Of course, humanity's extinction due to entropy is inevitable, but that has little to do with the Doomsday Argument, which completely ignores the physical world and imposes no theoretical upper bound. If you want to entrench yourself in the physical world, then you can't use the DA, and must resort to actual observations on our chance of survival. Personally, I believe humanity will survive until shortly before heat death, if God doesn't end it earlier. (You don't need to involve God in this discussion though.)

2. Yes, it is more likely. We just happen to be here now, and not in 50 years time. So it's not valid to say that this is probably the most populous time, as anyone so far could have said that and been perfectly wrong.

[Gen. Volkov]

But those people aren't alive now are they? We are alive now. It is, statistically speaking, more likely for us to be alive at the point of highest population than at any other time. Since we are alive now, that means that this is the point of highest population. Besides, how do you know that the people who came before you, who didn't die in your lifetime, ever actually existed as anything more than a statistic?(And actually I'm just playing the devil's advocate here, I see the same holes in the theory that you do, but it's a very hard theory/idea/hypothesis to refute, because the future is unknowable.)

You can use the DA in the physical world as there is not theoretical upper bound to the human population. Or rather, it's an unknown quantity, because the number of habitable planets in the universe is unknown. But currently, given the size of the universe, the upper bound is so high that it approaches infinity. And I think we are going to wipe ourselves out much sooner than the heat death. Or something will wipe us out before we get off this planet.