Posts by ckot

Official: America now a nation of broadband whingers

What a load of whinging about whinging

The article is basically a whinge about people in the US wanting more. The truth is that most of us, in the US and Europe, are annoyed with out broadband options because things aren't nearly as good as they would be if the last mile wasn't controlled by monopolies that have no incentive to bring down prices or provide the speeds that are possible.

Given how expensive building out a new fiber infrastructure would be, we're probably stuck being reamed by these guys unless wireless can start to offer competitive speeds/volumes and/or powerline becomes feasible (seems unlikely at this point).

Global warming still stalled since 1998, WMO Doha figures show

1998 was exceptionally warm - the warming trend is very real

1998 was an exceptionally warm year, so if you look only at 1998 to 2012, you don't see much of an increase. However, if you look at just about any other year in the last 50 years, you will see that things are consistently getting warmer.

I can't believe this idiot is allowed to publish this stuff on The Reg.

Swedish boffins: An Ice Age is coming, only CO2 can save us

Interesting research - Deceptive and biased reporting

"Unfortunately if you believe that isolated events prove theories, you would pretty much have to accept that global warming has stopped: ten to fifteen years of flat temperatures, or even a few very cold winters - both of which have just happened - are a lot more significant than one storm (and they atill aren't significant enough to mean anything much in a climate context)."

This kind of bias has no place in a publication that purports to provide any level objectivity or useful science reporting. Most of the media has pointed out that there has been an increase in severity of weather events lately and has asked anyone they can get on, from scientists to insurance eggheads, whether it is related to Global Warming; most have said "we don't know for sure".

In this case, the fluke that it was exceptionally warm for one year 15 years ago is used to distort the fact that that global temperatures are rising on a consistent basis. If you look at the past 10 years, 20 years or 50 years, temperatures are rising; it is only when you use 15 years that you get a flat "trend".

As others have pointed out, this research posits that man made climate change is real, but that there may be offsetting factors that mean it could be keeping us from going into an ice age. That is a big supposition, and based on reading of the geological record that can also be interpreted in very different ways.

If we are driving up temperatures so fast that we cause major sea rise and weather disruptions over the next 50 years, it really won't matter if the natural trend would have been going the other direction (over a period of hundreds of years); the economic and human welfare disruptions will be massive.