A National First: San Francisco Counts Its Parking Spots - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/a-national-first-san-francisco-counts-its-parking-spots/

<comment><USER2> That's pretty cool.

But I wonder what would happen though if this sort of money was put into improving MUNI instead (rather than cutting budget/service like they did this year). Might even go towards solving the parking problem too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Video Summary:

San Francisco recently counted all of their parking spaces in preparation for the SFPark system which will dynamically adjust prices based on demand. There are a total of 441,541 parking spaces, 280,000 on street parking spaces, and 25,000 metered spaces.

The new parking system will have electronic parking sensors in each of the spots and will feed this data to an intelligent traffic routing system to direct drivers to the open parking spaces. During peak parking hours the system will increase parking prices to encourage people to run their errands during other times if their schedule is flexible. Also by making the parking data available online it will help people make better transit decisions and possibly take public transit if no parking is available. The goal is to make more land area available for urban living rather and less land wasted on parking.

[http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/san-francisco-counts-its- par...](http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/san-francisco-counts-its-parking- spots/)

<comment><USER4> > During peak parking hours the system will increase parking prices to > encourage people to run their errands during other times if their schedule > is flexible.

Doesn't this mean that people with inflexible schedules (i.e. people who are in _lower_ income brackets) will be charged more?

<comment><USER3> Driving is a luxury not a right. Parking should get more expensive to curb demand, lessen traffic congestion on the streets and make it more friendly for other modes of transportation. Public transit, biking, and walking are options to be considered.

<comment><USER5> Keep in mind that SF is highly gentrified. Lower income people get pushed out to Oakland and to the cities south of San Francisco. Additionally, lower income people have less options when choosing a place to live. Hence, a car might be the only viable option for some.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this video mostly ignores the real reason for the system: the parking control officers know exactly which cars are in violation, and can rush to ticket them before they move. At $53 (or $63) per ticket, this is going to yield millions more in parking ticket revenue.

</comment><comment><USER7> This city is a big rip off and is greedy. If they adjust the pricing, they need to do it across the board so that some of these garages don't have a license to steal. Personally I think it discourages commerce and freedom for the merchants and citizens. Everyone is for it probably already takes the bus or does not have a car. Everyone should be able to make their own choices without getting ripped off by this greedy city. They are already raising the meters which means a bundle so what they are doing is condoning greed.

</comment><comment><USER8> It sounds great but can't they get rid of the ugly meters too?

In NYC, there's a box on the block instead. Haven't used one in a while but I think you get a printed receipt. You probably don't even need a box. Everyone can just go to a web page and see the status for the block, including the meter person. Next, RFID in car talks to parking spot? :-)

<comment><USER9> If you can tell me how to secure the printed receipt in a motorcycle, I will agree with you that the "box on the block" idea works better.

Let's also not forget that with the muni-meter, you have to make an extra trip between your vehicle and wherever on the block the meter is to acquire the receipt and put it back inside your car, and also that if the meter is broken _you_ are on the hook to run another few blocks to find another, whereas with the individual meters you got a free spot for two hours.

<comment><USER10> There are prototype meters in some locations (mostly near the Embarcadero) that use central fareboxes instead of individual meters. They get around the printed receipt problem by having you specify the parking space number when you pay and keeping track of which numbered spaces are paid for instead of issuing a receipt to put in the vehicle.

<comment><USER9> This isn't a bad way to do it, but then a two wheeled vehicle is in the unpleasant situation of taking up an entire space, or not knowing which spot to pay for if between spaces.

<comment><USER11> How do you fix this with normal meters though?

Here in Aus I've seen all 3 types - the specify a parking spot ones seem the smartest though.

<comment><USER9> With individual meters you can usually find a spot between two meters, or on the border of a fire hydrant zone, where other cars cover all the meters and you get a free spot. The nebulous sphere of influence of the per-block meters compels you to pay no matter where on the block you park (even if it isn't clear what spot you're in).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <i>441,541</i> parking stalls private and public in the 49 square miles and how many registered vehicles? About 500,000 isn't it?

Buy a Fast Pass or learn to juggle.

<comment><USER5> 500,000 cars in what given area? People commute to the city from all over the Bay Area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did I detect a slight endorsement of drinking and driving in the video?</comment>


Audio Interview with founder of OkCupid and trained mathematician Sam Yagan - <AUTHOR> http://acmescience.com/shows/scc-shows/463 Show @acmescience some love on twitter, he only has 24 followers, despite having done some great interviews on Strongly Connected Components: http://acmescience.com/category/shows/scc-shows <comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to use the opportunity to give acmescience some publicity. He has done some great interviews on Strongly Connected Components: <http://acmescience.com/category/shows/scc-shows> His twitter is @acmescience, show him some love! :)</comment>


Ask HN: What to do about Pokemonium? - <AUTHOR>

Hey lovely HN audience.
I am one of the original developers of PokeNet. It was Pokemon multiplayer game written with Java. We released our source code under GPL and we never made any money out of the game. As we broke Nintendo trademark and copyright we got cease and desist about 2 years ago. Afterwards we stopped development of the game, but the source code spread like a fly around the Pokemon MMORPG community, especially at ragezone.
Well some time ago someone forked our source code and materials. Modified the game somewhat and created Pokemonium. They have currently about 40k accounts in the game about half of what we had when we got our C&D. They are making money from ads which we never did and they have just modified our game, actually made it even buggier than it was.
They are not distributing the source code so they are breaking our GNU Public License. They are also breaking Nintendos trademarks and copyrights. We have contacted the lawyers who sent us the cease and desist from millernash, but they don't seem to care much at all about Pokemonium. We have also contacted noalegal the legal team of nintendo.
So what can I do about them when Nintendo seems not to give a shit and they are not following our source code license?
http://pokemonium.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Yahoo! Pokemonium got DMCA'd. At least their MediaFire upload of the game is gone! File Removed for Violation.

I hope their website go down soon too.

<http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?u8c9acao554m1tl>

</comment><comment><USER2> You lawyer up or move on. It sounds to me a part of you wants to get even because Nintendo sent you a C&D and you want justice that Nintendo should do the same for these other guys. Putting aside the merits of right and wrong, its childish if this is actually the case.

You have a right to defend your open source project and if you really want to get these guys to follow the rules, enforce it. But don't expect Nintendo to do anything. If they do, its great. You did your part in reporting this (albeit you probably wouldn't if it wasn't your project specific maybe; I'm totally guessing on this part).

But if it bothers you that much, have an attorney send them a letter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well mostly we are annoyed that they do not follow GPL and because of that we have kind of tried to get Nintendo to shut them down. I do not have the money for lawyer and anyway the guy in control of Pokemonium lives in US and I live in Finland.

The stupid thing is I kinda find it nice that they forked our code, but I dislike them for not following GPL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If they are hosting the game online its not cut and dry that they have a legal requirement to distribute the source code under GNU Public License. I would read up on this more to get a better understanding as there is a lot written about this. See this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/539291/rebranding-a- gpld-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/539291/rebranding-a-gpld-app-as- saas) among many other threads. There is dispute about the term "distribute" as if its on online app they are technically not distributing the code to anyone but it remains on their servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well thing is. The PokeNet client source code is under GPLv3 and the server source code under AGPLv3.

They are distributing the client binary to everyone who want's to play the game and GPL requires to distribute the source code.

Then again AGPL requires them to distribute the server source code, even though they do not distribute the binary to the players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the homepage, "Pokemonium is an open source Pokemon MMORPG that is based off of the Pokenet server files. Coded in java this project is being developed by -DefaulT and the community of RaGEZONE. More to come later, for now enjoy this vast pokemon world online!"

At least you're getting attributed :p

<comment><USER5> Also, if they distribute the source on request, doesn't that fulfill the requirement? Maybe you just have to email them for the source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have tried that.</comment></comment></comment>


All JavaScript frameworks are terrible – A case study in confirmation bias - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mattburgess/all-javascript-frameworks-are-terrible-e68d8865183e <comment><USER2> As a CS student (pointing out my inexperience), VueJS was the easiest to dive in of them all, i can't do marvelous things with it (yet, maybe) but for simple things for personal use and for learning it's super OK.

But reading articles about Front-End frameworks makes me frustrated. Should i pick Vue ? Should i abandon it for React ? Should i pick Angular 1-2 ? What is HNs' advice ?

<comment><USER3> I'd say define some side projects and try out different stuff for rendering the UI. Start out with a rendering library, not a framework. Check out stuff like react, preact, vue, inferno, mithril and pick the one which makes the best first impression. If you learn one of these, you can pick up any of the others pretty quickly. Because they aim to do one thing well, the learning curve is not too frightening. Pull in additional stuff (e.g. redux) once it becomes clear to you that you are running into the problem that it claims to solve. But not any sooner.

As for job opportunities, don't think too hard about it. The frameworks that you'll see listed in job ads are pretty much a time shifted image of what was hot three to five years years ago since a lot of projects will have bought into one framework or the other. These days I see a lot of angular 1.x jobs, and some react jobs. In a few years I expect more react. You need solid Javascript knowledge, a lot of curiousity, and just enough buzzwords to get over the threshold, and you'll be all right.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your comment, it kind of eases the frustration i feel right now. I will try and train my general JS skills for time being and re-jump to Vue or use it as a Jquery replacement as i have done until now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _It should be noted that unlike competitors, Ember has no corporate backer. Angular has Google in its corner. React is promoted and used by Facebook. Ember lacks this level of support._

LinkedIn has basically taken on this role as they've hired a lot of core Ember devs. Does Google even count if they don't use Angular internally for anything? (so I've heard...)

 _...opting for its own "Broccoli" build tool instead of industry standards like Webpack_

Maybe a good criticism but, no mention of everything being built into ember cli so you don't have to piece together your own mishmash of technologies for every project? This is a serious advantage.

Also, he dismisses the convention over configuration of Ember but doesn't mention the value in a new dev being immediately up to speed on how things should be done. Hell, knowing how things should be done for devs that have been on the same team for years is valuable. Ultimate flexibility just allows you to do things differently every time a new page is developed. This is SERIOUSLY annoying and detrimental to every project.</comment>


Bitcoin Is Back, But It Never Really Left - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/bitcoin-is-back-but-it-never-really-left/ <comment><USER2> Aside from a few bitcoin I bought before it exploded, I have had an uncanny ability to buy and sell bitcoin at exactly the wrong times. If you want to make a lot of money with bitcoins, my advice is to look at what I do and then do the exact opposite!

<comment><USER3> That "uncanny" ability is mostly a result of markets being much more sophisticated (in terms of price determination) than you think. It has nothing to do with bitcoins; it's just as true for stocks, bonds, or any other traded commodity. If you're a long-term investor and not a short-term, price- sensitive trader, you shouldn't worry too much about it.

<comment><USER4> if by sophisticated you mean ringed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amusing how there has been a spate of these 'bitcoin is back' articles after this recent little(by bitcoin standards) pump and dump. Because the last time bitcoin was here apparently was the massive pump and dumps in 2013.

So the criteria for bitcoin being somewhere is people getting fleeced and losing their shirts all for the promise of 'magic internet money,' no scratch that, 'winning the crypto lottery,' duly noted.

<comment><USER5> And another amusing little wrinkle to this is that this recent btc pump and dump appears to have been driven in large part by an actual admitted ponzi scheme with no pretensions of appearing otherwise.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mmm](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bitcoin+mmm)

[https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic- of...](https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic-of-bitcoin- cryptos-next-scandal)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_\(Ponzi_scheme_company\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi)

<comment><USER6> Though you love using the extremely incendiary term "pump and dump" in your numerous comments, you obviously don't even understand it. Look up a definition.

A pump and dump is type of fraud that cannot, by definition, be "driven" by any _true_ external factor, such as people buying bitcoins to invest in a pyramid scheme, as you've just suggested. Therefore your comment contradicts itself.

Though it's not impossible that the MMM ponzi affected the bitcoin price, your comments are mostly lazy mud-slinging and weakly-founded opinions dressed up as facts. That's better suited to reddit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We're somewhere between the _Trough of Disillusionment_ and the _Slope of Enlightenment_ within the industry-standard hype cycle, which is just fine.

<comment><USER6> FWIW, I think that hypecycle graph is almost totally garbage. Nobody knows where Bitcoin and the Blockchain are going. Maybe it's a false dawn, or maybe it's the future. But I think predictions are worth very little. Nobody knows. Predictions are usually just people trying to claim ownership on your brainspace.

That's opinion, so take it with a pinch of salt :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" In fact, last week, as the price of bitcoin topped $500, the usage rate reached an all-time high, after roughly doubling over the past twelve months. "The real usage is catching up to the hype," Armstrong says."_

That is a highly questionable claim, and considering the source, all the more questionable.

As this article mentions, the metric of bitcoin 'transactions,' is in no way equivalent to what would commonly be understood to be an economic transaction.

Anybody who has been even cursorily following bitcoin the past six months, or so, can look at that chart and know exactly what it is showing, especially those spikes this past summer, in the lingo, 'stress tests,' or 'spam attacks.'

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=stress+test&restri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=stress+test&restrict_sr=on)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=spam+attack&restri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=spam+attack&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all)

And since carrying out one of these 'stress test'/'spam attacks', simply involves writing a script to shuffle around some bitcoins and then running it on a server, it is pretty obvious that is where the majority of transaction volume is coming from since the block size increase proponents have an ideological incentive to do so.(I'm on neither side of the block size debate btw.) And anybody banking their livelihood on bitcoin has a financial incentive to paint a picture of increasing 'transactions,' and when painting that picture is as simple as flipping a switch on a server, it's pretty obvious that is what is occurring.

</comment><comment><USER7> > _Bitcoin Is Back, But It Never Really Left_

It also never really went anywhere. Remains, and will be for the foreseeable future, a curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER8> " _the ultimate aim is to turn bitcoin into something that anyone can use to more easily store, send, and receive money_ "

Please, tell how you do that with a currency whose value fluctuates so wildly. The problem with bitcoin, to put it simply, is that as soon as people start _using_ it, its value soars, making it unusable again. That's why it will never work in its current form.

<comment><USER9> This is what I have never understood about Bitcoin and its advocates (who I guess are just fanboys or early adopters holding bitcoins). I mean it's just like shares. Also, it's very skewed. Whoever got in first has got a lot of it with your chance of getting it at later stages not equal, actually extremely unlikely. And no sir, no, it's not the same case with "money" as we use it today. Bitcoin is broken in this sense if we talk of it from a traditional mean of currency point of view. It's just a glorified fad for geeks, fans, and early adopters.

<comment><USER5> _Bitcoin and its advocates (who I guess are just [...] early adopters holding bitcoins)._

Exactly. This is the fatal flaw of bitcoin, the distribution model.

<comment><USER10> What's your alternative distribution model? How do you propose to bootstrap an independent value store unattached to existing national currencies? It seems that bitcoin mirrors that quote about democracy in that way, "the worst form except the others that have been tried."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Meh, Bitcoin is boring.</comment>


The Peak Of Happiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.diamondcutlife.org/the-peak-of-happiness-and-its-causes/ <comment><USER2> I have no salary whatsoever and would place my happiness between 8-10, depending on the day and whether or not I'm feeling that annoying human desire for companionship (which I can happily report has receded as of recent).

I spent a previous week fulfilling some military obligations for which I was paid. That week my happiness was a 0, except for when they stopped paying me and I got to come home and work on the site. Although, I realized quite a while ago that happiness and money have next to no correlation to me.</comment>


Show HN: Supersimplesearch – Simple search widget for websites - <AUTHOR> https://getsupersimplesearch.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We were building a new feature for our FAQ-bot[1], that would allow us to perform search as a fallback, when the bot doesn't have an answer.

We then realized that just having a quick and simple search widget on a website can improve user experience quite a lot. So we made it into supersimplesearch. For now we're using Bing as a search engine, but if there is enough interest, we'll look into building our own search engine around this, with additional comfort features like question answering or scroll-to- result. We just launched on product hunt today: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/super-simple- search](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/super-simple-search)

[1] [https://dialogbar.com/](https://dialogbar.com/)</comment>


AP says it will capitalize Black but not white - <AUTHOR> https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/ap-capitalize-black-white-71877134 <comment><USER2> What a diverse set of opinions. Some believe it should be capitalized so as to make it more difficult for whiteness to maintain its power, while others believe it should be lowercase, so as not to legitimize white identity.</comment>


Five Features of Sass That Will Make You Love CSS - <AUTHOR> https://levelup.gitconnected.com/5-features-of-sass-that-will-make-you-love-css-25e707253ea5 <comment><USER2> one reason why your headline is a turnoff</comment>


Engineers Are Leaving America for Canada - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-20/h-1b-workers-are-leaving-trump-s-america-for-the-canadian-dream <comment><USER2> The pay in Seattle for software developers is 100% more than in Toronto. Even second-tier US cities pay 50% more. If you're working in Toronto when you could be working in a US tech centre, I hope you have a good reason.

Market Average Annual Tech Wage Software Engineer (USD)

      Vancouver, BC — $60,107
      Toronto, ON — $62,365
      Atlanta, GA — $92,380
      Boston, MA — $103,979
      Washington, DC — $108,330
      New York, NY — $108,878
      Seattle, WA — $113,906

Source: [http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/02/...](http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/02/Vancouver-Amazon-HQ2-Proposal-Feb-2018.pdf)

<comment><USER3> My good reason is my wife not being able to work on my TN visa. Really what muppet during the NAFTA negotiations thought this was a good idea?

<comment><USER4> Why do you think it was a bug and not a feature? I.e., it is intentional as a disincentive for foreign workers.

<comment><USER3> Because visa agreements made before (H1-B) and after (E-3) this one, by Republicans no less, have included spouse's right to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought about this recently but based on the big cut I would end up taking it makes it basically not worth it. Living in Texas I have no state income tax on top of a tax ecosystem which is being cut I make out more just staying.

</comment><comment><USER6> An interesting life story and comparison of Canadian vs. US immigration. How many of those Canadian immigrants are former US immigrants, how many are engineers...? I don't see anything supporting the claim in the title.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, that means system works as intended. Good riddance. Hopefully our kids will get a chance to land a nice job without slaving for a bowl of rice.</comment>


What's deadly dull and can save the world? (Hint: We can't stand it) - <AUTHOR> https://decorrespondent.nl/4328/Whats-deadly-dull-and-can-save-the-world-Hint-We-cant-stand-it/350483811744-eac159e1 <comment><USER2> They should borrow from block chain. Let 2 people agree to defend each others land and let people sign one house at a time. The larger it gets the more people with consensus. That should get it big enough until enough people can contribute a small amount to register and a central registry can be created.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? That's your answer for people in Haiti with no electricity? Borrow from the blockchain? They live on less than a dollar a day and have no access to computers, let alone internet.</comment></comment>


UK Raises Its Terror Threat Level to 'Severe' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/22/world/AP-EU-Britain-Terror-Threat.html <comment><USER2> So. And?

Why are they telling me this? Can I call my boss now and take a week off because there's too much terror?

Is it so they can say "told you so" when something blows up next week? Is it to deter the terrorists ("We watch your every step, yes we do")?

I don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a guess, but: their economy is doing poorly and/or there is some political scandal, and their government wants people to think of something (anything) else.

Leave it to law enforcement to take appropriate precautions, but trying to scare your own population seems really bogus.

</comment><comment><USER4> yep. it's a politico-deflection tactic</comment>


Google may acquire Meebo for $100 Mn - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/05/12/google-acquiring-meebo/

<comment><USER2> Summary of AllThingsD. I didn't think Mashable could get any trashier considering "Meebo" is a link to their SEO spam, but apparently they can.

[http://allthingsd.com/20120511/sources-google-is-close-to- bu...](http://allthingsd.com/20120511/sources-google-is-close-to-buying- meebo/)</comment>


Best and Worst Case Scenarios for Four 3D Printers. - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2014/01/16/best-and-worst-case-scenarios-for-four-3d-printers/

<comment><USER2> Surprisingly amusing and perceptive for a mass-market publication like Time.</comment>


Nasa Happily Reports the Earth Is Greener - <AUTHOR> https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/nasa-says-earth-is-greener-than-ever-thanks-to-china-and-india/ <comment><USER2> From what I understand, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a massive greening effect on the Earth (plants love CO2). But it seems this fact is usually omitted so as not to complicate the intended message. I always found it ironic that the "eco" mode button in many cars is a leaf icon.

<comment><USER3> > plants love CO2

In artifical conditions in laboratory there is a significant effect, up to 20% when doubling pre-industrial CO2 concentration.

But, in practice for wild plants nitrogen quickly becomes the bottleneck, so the real gains are much smaller.

And even for farming plants (which have fertilizer providing additional nitrogen) the real gains diminish, and are more in 5-10% range. For some crops CO2 has very little effect at all (for example corn).

Additionally - crops grew with raised CO2 levels have less proteins and useful nutrients.

And then you have to factor in the harmful effects from global warming on crops (heat damage, dry soil, less farmland available) and the overall effect is likely negative.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the- experts-d...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does- rising-co2-benefit-plants1/)

<comment><USER4> I believe in global warming with all my heart but just to be balanced the heat also gives you a longer growing season and let's plants thrive in higher latitudes.

Edit funny the downvotes. I'm on your team guys! Just think we can't ignore counter facts.

<comment><USER5> For crops that tolerate the extra heat. Those which don't will need to be grown further toward the poles, which will reduce the length of growing season.

<comment><USER6> Reseeding a field with a new crop is technology known since thousands of years.

I don't think there is any risk of areas reaching temperatures too hot for _any_ plants?

> which will reduce the length of growing season

Why?

<comment><USER7> ...because plants that are overheated can't grow. Depending on how overheated they get they may merely become stressed, or they can die. But plants also need temperatures, particularly soil temperatures, that rise above some minimum before they germinate. So you need a period when the soil temperature is high enough, but the air temp is not too high. Figuring out the length of that window is very complicated.

Corn, for instance, can't grow when the temp is over 104 or so (depending on cultivar) and dies when exposed to temps over 110 or so. It maximizes its growth rate at around 86 degrees.

So: if you have a summer month when temps are regularly over 104, that's not really a growing season for corn. Thus you have to try to plant earlier and harvest earlier, and the window when you can do that successfully may be considerable shorter than it would if the temp stayed below 104 during the summer.

So then you try to go closer to the poles. But -- depending on temperatures and a lot of other factors -- that may not be a totally satisfying solution either. Corn needs specific amounts of rain, which may or may not coincide with periods when the temperatures are good. It also needs large amounts of soil nitrogen, which may or may not be present in arctic soils, and if the plant doesn't have it growth is slowed. Corn also needs the soil temperature to be relatively high to germinate (above 50 degrees, again depending somewhat on cultivar). In arctic soils, it may take a while for the soil to warm up that much in the spring, and that may reduce your growing season. So how all the factors play out, and whether those factors result in a longer or shorter growing season, are intimately connected to exactly how the climate changes.

I've used corn as an example, but of course other crops and wild plants all rely on complicated, interconnected conditions to thrive. The specifics are a bit different for every plant.

It all depends. There are a lot of factors that we won't really know until people start trying to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title says trees but I think it really means "greenness" from a satillite view. Reading around the bottom, while India and China have done substantial tree planting programs, it sounds like a large chunk of this may be driven by unsustainable use of farm land. I'm not clear on how their increased farm usage corresponds to greenness and whether that matters. Would be curious if anyone can chime in.

<comment><USER9> From the abstract of the study[1]:

> The greening in China is from forests (42%) and croplands (32%), but in > India is mostly from croplands (82%) with minor contribution from forests > (4.4%).

I can't comment on the sequestration effects of farms, though, beyond my ken.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0220-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0220-7)

<comment><USER10> The Chinese forest expansion is the most amazing piece of news I'd never heard of. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138993411...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934118302594)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to > a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in > the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for > instance. Now, with the MODIS data that lets us understand the phenomenon at > really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing."

That global warming may induce more agriculture, and forest growth, in the global North is something I'd like to learn more about. Anyone have any further reading to recommend?

<comment><USER12> I doubt anybody really knows.

It is well known that CO2 improves plants growth. It is also well known that plants grow better within a narrow band of temperatures.

Increasing both the CO2 contents of the atmosphere and Earth's temperature will have some complex results where on the places within that temperature band, plants grow slightly faster, on places that cross from too cold into the band plants grow much faster, and on places that cross from that band into too hot plants will grow much slower.

Also, solar incidence has a much larger effect than CO2 concentration, so the places with best growth rate can only cross into the too hot region, and polar places crossing into the good temperatures can't really compensate (besides, there isn't much area at the polar regions, unless you are talking about the hole Antarctic getting green).

And, anyway, water availability has a much larger effect than solar incidence, and this one is completely chaotic. So, good luck getting any conclusion.

<comment><USER13> These all seem like variables a robust computer model could account for, no?

<comment><USER12> Temperature is chaotic, but with a large predictable component. Except for black swans, a computer model can get on the ballpark, and the climatology people have many of them.

The specifics of how trees react to increase CO2 concentration varies from one species to the other. AFAIK, only a few species have been measured, thus the increase on rate of growth on that component is quite uncertain. That can be improved by empirical tests, that many specializations of science are currently working into. Of course, the big elephant in the room here is ocean plankton, that has a two sided relation with CO2, because it both participates on photosynthesis and increases ocean acidity. AFAIK, there is little known on how those react.

Solar incidence is completely predictable, and doesn't tell a good story for global warming.

And for humidity, I don't think there is any reliable model out there. None of those are my specialization, so I may be wrong, but I don't think we have anything nearly viable for predicting this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The map is kind of misleading. It shows Kerala one of the greenest States in India as as the least green while states like Rajastan where you can find hardly any greenary is marked as most green.

Edit: I know it shows the % increase in greenary. What I meant is the "greenary" shown in the map actually has almost no correlation with the greenery in the real world. Looking the map and expecting Rajastan to be a green area would be a bad idea.

<comment><USER15> Doesn't the map show the trend? So it's not about how green it is but how mucher greener it's become over the last decade.

<comment><USER14> Yup. It shows the increase. But I think the way its portrayed is kind of misleading. Most people looking at the map who is not aware of Indian geography is going to think places like Rajastan now has a lot of greenery due to significance increase in greenary which is far from reality. Would love to know what all factors where taken into consideration for deciding the greenery increase.

<comment><USER16> Yes this color choice is misleading. It would have been better to have chosen blue to represent this increase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The USA, EU and Mexico apparently also managed to increase leaf area significantly without any extensive greening initiatives. The larger version of the global map shows this clearly, even though it doesn't look noteworthy in the (somewhat ambiguously labeled "... Greening Due To Human Activity") bar chart:

[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/gl...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/global_tamo_2017_full.png)

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/science/climate-change- pl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/science/climate-change-plants- global-greening.html)

"Despite global greening, carbon dioxide levels have climbed over the past two centuries to levels not seen on Earth for millions of years. And the carbon dioxide we've injected into the atmosphere is already having major impacts across the planet."

The "global greening" effect, to the amount it can manifest itself, existed since the CO2 started to increase but we still see that the problems from higher CO2 increase and will get always bigger.

It won't save us from any problems made by global warming.

<comment><USER19> I kinda find it weird, though. Because we only know what prehistoric climate conditions were because of tree rings (and ice cores, but they're measuring different things).

So predicting future tree ring growth based on climate changes, when we estimate the historical climate based on tree ring growth, means we can make up any relationship we want.

<comment><USER18> That shows lack of understanding in purpose and use of the tree rings and it is not relevant to the topic. What I read from your statements is just that you don't understand how the past climates are scientifically reconstructed, and want to express the doubt in the results of all the work of all the scientist that agree (which is effectively all of them, minus the ones directly or indirectly funded by fossil fuel companies or motivated by political relations, if you have other impression, it's distorted by the intentional activity of said companies and political groups).

But we don't configure the current modeling systems at all using the "prehistoric" reconstructions, the models and the currently measured values are much more precise. The "prehistoric" reconstructions only give you something to compare the orders of magnitudes.

And comparing that, the warming is unprecedented. Which is not surprising giving that the humanity managed to extract and burn more then the half of all readily available oil from the Earth's crust in just 100 years.

That very oil in the crust is however a result of more than 4 billion of years of the Earth's existence.

If you're reading this in some country like US, given that the average US car weights around 2 tonnes, your existence alone is probably responsible for the CO2 mass equivalent to the weight of 7–10 cars every year, and to the volume of CO2 which corresponds to the volume of more than 3000 cars.

And the CO2, even if it's invisible for us, is actually "black" for something important: it's blocking the part of the spectrum that would allow the Earth surface to cool off. That's how small concentrations of it, compared to some other stuff in the air, produce such a big effect.

The physics is simple and undeniable, and it's known that there will be always more problems caused by the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere which increases the surface temperature of the Earth.

<comment><USER20> > And the CO2, even if it's invisible for us, is actually "black" for > something important: it's blocking the part of the spectrum that would allow > the Earth surface to cool off. That's how small concentrations of it, > compared to some other stuff in the air, produce such a big effect.

> The physics is simple and undeniable, and it's known that there will be > always more problems caused by the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere which > increases the surface temperature of the Earth.

Take a look at this graph of co2 vs temperature over a geological timescale: [http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale_op_712x534.jpg](http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale_op_712x534.jpg) (from [http://www.biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.ht...](http://www.biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html))

From this, there doesn't seem to be any relationship at all and the co2 has been much higher during much of the history of earth. At the very least, you can't say that the relationship is simple.

<comment><USER18> Take a look at who constructed the graph you quoted:

[http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2012/10/nasif-s- nahle-...](http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2012/10/nasif-s-nahle-google- scholar-and.html)

Not a scientist.

Now... anybody who is really interested in the real geological history knows that even the continents "weren't there" where they are now, when we look long enough in the past. Not to mention that, for the old enough times, not even _plants_ existed on the land!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_Earth)

In that context:

[https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past- intermed...](https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past- intermediate.htm)

"However, until recently, CO2 levels during the late Ordovician were thought to be much greater than 3000 ppm which was problematic as the Earth experienced glacial conditions at this time. The CO2 data covering the late Ordovician is sparse with one data point in the CO2 proxy record close to this period - it has a value of 5600 ppm. Given that solar output was around 4% lower than current levels, CO2 would need to fall to 3000 ppm to permit glacial conditions."

"(Young 2009). Rock weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere. The process also produces a particular isotope of strontium, washed down to the oceans via rivers. The ratio of strontium isotopes in sediment layers can be used to construct a proxy record of continental weathering activity. The strontium record shows that around the middle Ordovician, weatherability increased leading to an increased consumption of CO2. However, this was balanced by increased volcanic outgassing adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Around 446 million years ago, volcanic activity dropped while rock weathering remained high. This caused CO2 levels to fall below 3000 ppm, initiating cooling. It turns out falling CO2 levels was the cause of late Ordovician glaciation."

"So we see that comparisons of present day climate to periods 500 million years ago need to take into account that the sun was less active than now. What about times closer to home? The last time CO2 was similar to current levels was around 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene. Back then, CO2 levels remained at around 365 to 410 ppm for thousands of years. Arctic temperatures were 11 to 16°C warmer (Csank 2011). Global temperatures over this period is estimated to be 3 to 4°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. Sea levels were around 25 metres higher than current sea level (Dwyer 2008)."

You have to understand geology to be able to compare. If you don't, people with agenda will easily sell you worthless graphs. Worthless as in "CO2 was higher when there were no plants and animals on the land at all, just the naked rocks." Nice target you have.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the info. I'm sorry, you were right, that was a bad source.

However, the rebuttal surprisingly leaves out a graph that directly shows temperature against glaciation, solar output and co2, but rather just talks about the comparison, without showing it. I don't find that particularly convincing of anything. Just because

> _" Around 446 million years ago, volcanic activity dropped while rock > weathering remained high."_

it doesn't follow that

> _" This caused CO2 levels to fall below 3000 ppm, initiating cooling. It > turns out falling CO2 levels was the cause of late Ordovician glaciation."_,

especially given that this simple graph of all 3 influences mentioned (sun output, glaciation, and co2 levels) against temperature isn't included. Do you know of a source that shows this?

> _" So we see that comparisons of present day climate to periods 500 million > years ago need to take into account that the sun was less active than now. > What about times closer to home? The last time CO2 was similar to current > levels was around 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene. Back then, CO2 > levels remained at around 365 to 410 ppm for thousands of years. Arctic > temperatures were 11 to 16°C warmer (Csank 2011). Global temperatures over > this period is estimated to be 3 to 4°C warmer than pre-industrial > temperatures. Sea levels were around 25 metres higher than current sea level > (Dwyer 2008)."_

Again, it's hard for me to take this seriously without seeing the comparison between the different forces that are identified against each other and temperature. It's like someone was peering at something through binoculars and said they saw an elephant. They offer as proof by stating, "I see a trunk, and a tail, and its tusks..", but they won't let you look through the binoculars yourself. (Also the Csank 2011 link gives a 404)

The best I could find was [https://www.co2levels.org/](https://www.co2levels.org/), which if you click the buttons in the top left, can be massaged in displaying co2 vs temperature for the last 800k years. And even in this period there are a few the temperature decouples from the co2 levels and mostly the temperature rise precedes the rise in co2, which makes one think that co2 entering the atmosphere is a effect of climate rather than a cause.

> You have to understand geology to be able to compare. If you don't, people > with agenda will easily sell you worthless graphs. Worthless as in "CO2 was > higher when there were no plants and animals on the land at all, just the > naked rocks." Nice target you have.

I'm not saying the earth was the same as before. Just that the idea is that co2 is causing irreversible warming and that's that, isn't supported very well by the evidence I've seen. At best what you have given me shows that the co2 causing warming isn't entirely disprovable.

I guess what I'm worried about is that the news often simplifies complex topics to, "it's a disaster!", or alternatively, "it's a hoax!" I don't think things are that simple, yet I haven't heard from anyone, scientist or no, that things are not either a "disaster" or a "hoax".

<comment><USER18> > Just that the idea is that co2 is causing irreversible warming and that's > that, isn't supported very well by the evidence

But it is, it's the topic of physics, not history. The historical remains are by nature very incomplete and geology is extremely relevant when you try to interpret the historical proxies, but all that doesn't matter if you want to understand how warming works: physics is undeniable, and all effects are known and are part of the models:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the- wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)

Once again: it doesn't help to say "it was warmer n millions years ago" if the continents weren't the same and there were no humans. Our civilisation depends on many very fine tuned balances.

<comment><USER20> > But it is, it's the topic of physics, not history. The historical remains > are by nature very incomplete and geology is extremely relevant when you try > to interpret the historical proxies, but all that doesn't matter if you want > to understand how warming works: physics is undeniable, and all effects are > known and are part of the models:

> [https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the- > wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)

There are no sources in this link. There is nothing about physics in this link. It simply describes a bunch of other forces and declares they are not applicable, therefore co2 is the only thing left and it must be the culprit. Forgive me, but science isn't a game of "Clue". Putting up a bunch of straw men and tearing them down doesn't mean that "the butler must have done it with the wrench", or in this case, co2 must have increased the temperature.

And wasn't your link from the your last post primarily referring to the history of the earth as evidence of co2 production? So which is it? The case for undeniable physics, which you have not provided a link for, or from the evidence from geologic history, which you have abandoned.

In the same spirit as your link, here is Leonard Nimoy talking about Global Cooling from the 1970's: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei- _SXLMMfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei-_SXLMMfo) . It has about the same amount of evidence. You can also check out [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling) to see the history of this.

> Once again: it doesn't help to say "it was warmer n millions years ago" if > the continents weren't the same and there were no humans. Our civilisation > depends on many very fine tuned balances.

Where did I say that "it was warmer n millions years ago" proves that increased co2 is not going to increase the temperature? I'm just saying you haven't shown it will. You are vehemently asserting, times were different then, so all I can conjecture is that you mean that we can throw that data out. I don't necessarily think so, but I also don't think that doing so proves your point. I can't prove co2 hasn't increased the temperature, but it's difficult to prove a negative. To wit, maybe an extreme example, but I can't prove the earth wasn't created 4000 years ago as per the Christian Bible, yet that doesn't mean it's true.

I'm am saying that what you've shown doesn't prove that increased co2 is going to warm the earth to a significant degree, and the current situation isn't caused by other factors.

To that point, it shares all the hallmarks of mass hysteria. A single central idea is put into the public consciousness, and each and every event is then linked to that event.

I also ask you to respond point to point to what I've written rather than simply try and attack a single statement. I wish you'd have responded to what I wrote concerning the lack of transparency of your link from skepticalscience.com or the graph from co2levels.org. Why won't you address this?

<comment><USER18> > There are no sources in this link

Of course there is, in the very page:

"Researchers who study the Earth's climate create models to test their assumptions about the causes and trajectory of global warming. Around the world there are 28 or so research groups in more than a dozen countries who have written 61 climate models. Each takes a slightly different approach to the elements of the climate system, such as ice, oceans, or atmospheric chemistry.

The computer model that generated the results for this graphic is called "ModelE2," and was created by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which has been a leader in climate projections for a generation. ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, and is run on a supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, Maryland."

"GISS produced the results shown here in 2012, as part of its contribution to an international climate-science research initiative called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase Five. Let's just call it "Phase-5." Phase-5 is designed both to see how well models replicate known climate history and to make projections about where the world's temperature is headed. Initial results from Phase-5 were used in the 2013 scientific tome published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

> The case for undeniable physics, which you have not provided a link for, or > from the evidence from geologic history, which you have abandoned.

The link is the summary of what calculating which physical formulas gives, as I've quoted. It's you who "doubt" in the "tree rings" and I've given you the context: tree rings are just a small piece of he whole picture, and what we know, including the levels of confidence from that part of science is still good enough to have a good picture of what is happening and what has happened before. But once again: not any single historical proxy is directly used when the physical formulas are applied.

> In the same spirit as your link, here is Leonard Nimoy talking about Global > Cooling

That's a joke, right? I'm presenting you the results of the NASA's best computer models, and you are giving me a link to... what actually? Since when are TV shows a proof for anything?

> I'm am saying that what you've shown doesn't prove that increased co2 is > going to warm the earth to a significant degree, and the current situation > isn't caused by other factors.

And what you are saying is simply untrue. What I've given you is the result of a lot of precise calculations using the physical formulas and the values obtained by all the scientific work we have. And nobody ever has found any meaningful error in the physics we use.

If you don't understand physics, I can imagine that it's hard to you to believe in something you simply don't understand, and I don't know your background to help you. What I can give you is a personal page maintained by one English PhD in Chemistry, Dr Jack Barrett, which was known as the "global warming skeptic" in the 90ties (you can Google his name, at the time the other person mentioned on his page was also active in "denying", this other guy was a reasonably famous face in Britain, but also uninformed at then). But then Barrett tried to learn the physical processes, relevant for climate, which he missed while pursuing his career in chemistry. And if you read his newer material, he is now completely convinced that the physics is absolutely valid and confirming the warming:

[http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com)

Everybody who has enough knowledge to be able to check the formulas and who has enough integrity to admit what he didn't know, and who doesn't have some hidden agenda would have to come to the same conclusion. Read the pages on his site. It's the most honest outcome of a former "doubter" I know of. There are still some "old" page from the time when he "was not convinced" but if you are really interested in the formulas and science behind all this, you will find enough there, I believe he updated most of his site to that what he knows and understands now (edit: I've checked, he still just updates the "news" pages, i.e: [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page4.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page4.htm) and [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page5.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page5.htm) )

It's about the formulas and measurements. Note: I'm not saying "take that guy as a reference." I'm saying: he's the guy who didn't know enough but was willing to learn and made enough notes, so if you are actually interested in some formulas "for beginners" you can find them there. If you'd want something even "more serious"... you'd need at last university level material, which of course exists too...

<comment><USER20> > Of course there is, in the very page:

Those aren't sources.

>"Researchers who study the Earth's climate create models to test their assumptions about the causes and trajectory of global warming. Around the world there are 28 or so research groups in more than a dozen countries who have written 61 climate models. Each takes a slightly different approach to the elements of the climate system, such as ice, oceans, or atmospheric chemistry.

This isn't a source. You need to provide the actual studies, and point out where it proves that global warming is caused by co2, and have a coherent argument. Right now seem to be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at me in an attempt to win the argument.

> The computer model that generated the results for this graphic is called > "ModelE2," and was created by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies > (GISS), which has been a leader in climate projections for a generation. > ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, and is run > on a supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, > Maryland."

500,000 lines of code? Oh wow, then, must be accurate! NASA did it, must be correct, right? That's how you prove things, you get NASA to sign off on them.

> The link is the summary of what calculating which physical formulas gives, > as I've quoted. It's you who "doubt" in the "tree rings" and I've given you > the context: tree rings are just a small piece of he whole picture, and what > we know, including the levels of confidence from that part of science is > still good enough to have a good picture of what is happening and what has > happened before. But once again: not any single historical proxy is directly > used when the physical formulas are applied.

When did I ever say I doubted tree rings? All I'm saying is that I'm not sure that co2 is a significant cause of global warming.

> > In the same spirit as your link, here is Leonard Nimoy talking about > Global Cooling

> That's a joke, right? I'm presenting you the results of the NASA's best > computer models, and you are giving me a link to... what actually? Since > when are TV shows a proof for anything?

Actually, you're right, it was a joke, but you missed the punchline. You give me a link of a news reporter trying to interpret and regurgitate what scientists say now, and I give you an actor doing the same for what scientists said in the 1970's. You don't see the similarities?

> If you don't understand physics, I can imagine that it's hard to you to > believe in something you simply don't understand, and I don't know your > background to help you.

I do understand some physics. And what I don't I'm willing to learn. Do you? Why is it that all you do is regurgitate quotes from websites, or give arguments of authority?

> It's about the formulas and measurements. Note: I'm not saying "take that > guy as a reference." I'm saying: he's the guy who didn't know enough but was > willing to learn and made enough notes, so if you are actually interested in > some formulas "for beginners" you can find them there. If you'd want > something even "more serious"... you'd need at last university level > material, which of course exists too...

You still haven't addressed my concerns the lack of transparency of your link from skepticalscience.com. You also didn't address the graph from co2levels.org. I was hoping you knew or would be able to say why temperature increase precedes co2 rising in the graph from co2levels.org. I was hoping you'd be able to show the sun output, the glaciation, the co2 levels against temperature, so I can see the relationship between them. At this point, though, it seems you're not interested.

I thought I was talking to someone who knew what they were saying. You're telling me to read this guys entire website, but I know all I'll be left with a bunch of conflicting data and further questions, and probably still not have my questions answered.

The reason I was talking to you in the first place was that I thought _you_ had some understanding. But by now, I'm pretty convinced, you don't.

Believe it or not, I'm on the fence about whether co2 is the primary cause of global warming or not. I simply was refuting the original poster's assertion that co2 being the primary cause of warming was basic physics and the relationship is undeniable. Talking to you, it seems that you don't know much about the topic, but instead believe that arguments from authority are good enough. You can't find information that directly answers my questions, but instead point to just reams and reams of data that has nothing to do with what I asked, along with snide comments (ex. me "doubting tree rings", although I never brought this up).

I'm on the side of "Question authority" and you seem to be on the side of "Accept authority". That's fine, but I'm not interested in taking conclusions as gospel simply because NASA says so, no matter how many models nor lines of code were used.

<comment><USER18> > I'm on the side of "Question authority" and you seem to be on the side of > "Accept authority". That's fine, but I'm not interested in taking > conclusions as gospel simply because NASA says so, no matter how many models > nor lines of code were used.

I never said that. What I've said was:

> Everybody who has enough knowledge to be able to check the formulas and who > has enough integrity to admit what he didn't know, and who doesn't have some > hidden agenda would have to come to the same conclusion. Read the pages on > his site.

So no, it's not easy. If you are able to check the formulas, you can see they are right. If you aren't, you can claim that "it's not enough" and it will of course never be enough because it demands certain capabilities of the reader. You have to go slowly, formula after formula, and do simplified calculations, for which you don't need a supercomputer.

Once you understand formulas, and you understand that they are right, you could say "OK but I'd like to know what the more precise calculations would bring, if I'd apply these formulas separately on every small point of the earth, and then see how the parameters dynamically change through the time." Note: You don't need that to verify the validity of the warming physics, you need that "only" to know how your part of the Earth would typically behave through the time, including all the oscillations, ups and downs.

Then you would have either to write one another model, just like 63 models written by the scientists worldwide. Or you'd simply understand "from the inside" how the existing models work, and be able to accept that what is presented on the Bloomberg page I've linked is real (because once you have enough knowledge of what is in the program you don't have to repeat every step to see that the results do follow from the calculations).

The scientific paper about the computing model used on the Bloomberg page was also linked on that same page:

[https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/mi08910y.html](https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/mi08910y.html)

as well as the measurements:

[https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/](https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/)

So you surely had enough references even before.

Like I've said, the physics is real and there are no errors. If you can't understand the physics, then you are unable to be able to "check" anybody. And the physics is not simple as pre-school math:

If you can't understand this:

[http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page20.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page20.htm) [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page21.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page21.htm)

and this:

[http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm)

just don't ask me anymore for the proofs, because you are either incapable or unwilling to work it through. You have to do a lot of work, if you haven't before, and based on what you answered up to now, it's effectively sure you haven't, otherwise you'd ask about some detail in some formula, if you missed only that.

That is if you want to work through the formulas. If you don't but you want to see everything worked through, the shortest version is the Bloomberg article I've given you, and the longest the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report:

[http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FI...](http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf)

[https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR...](https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-PartA_FINAL.pdf)

[https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR...](https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-PartB_FINAL.pdf)

[https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_w...](https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_full.pdf)

[https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR...](https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf)

(all from: [https://archive.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/](https://archive.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/) )

In the IPCC is effectively the summary of everything all the world scientists know about the topics, together, the result of the consensus of all the world scientists qualified enough to be able to work on the topics. It's long and complex, and long exactly because it addresses many different details.

And all that is full of references (which aren't lacking on the pages of the former skeptic too). So you can work through it as much as you want. Don't trust, check the formulas, really go through them yourself. The former skeptic did it too (he had the background in spectroscopy, luckily for him) . I've done it, I've did go through the points for which I didn't accept "it is said it's so" (and I, luckily for me, have enough background in physics). Every student of these sciences does it, every year the new ones. It is doable.

<comment><USER20> >> I'm on the side of "Question authority" and you seem to be on the side of "Accept authority". That's fine, but I'm not interested in taking conclusions as gospel simply because NASA says so, no matter how many models nor lines of code were used.

> I never said that.

You did quote bloomberg "ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, and is run on a supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, Maryland." that line. If you don't think it was important, why quote it to me? Maybe I was misinterpreting you, but..

> What I've said was:

>> Everybody who has enough knowledge to be able to check the formulas and who has enough integrity to admit what he didn't know, and who doesn't have some hidden agenda would have to come to the same conclusion. Read the pages on his site.

Everybody with enough knowledge has to come to the same conclusion, huh? That's a lot of hubris.

> If you can't understand this:

> > [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page20.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page20.htm) > [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page21.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page21.htm)

> and this:

> > [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm)

> just don't ask me anymore for the proofs,

I read through these, and I do understand them.

Basically "[http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm"](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm") is modeling a outside radiation source penetrating an outer atmosphere layer which allows 100% of it go through it. Then the earth radiates back to the layer which absorbs and reemits it, half back to earth, and half into space. The forces have to be in balance for the temperature average to stay in equilibrium. The conclusion is that the absorption/emission of the atmosphere at 0% would mean the earth would be a lot cooler 253K, and at 100% would be a lot hotter, 302K, so it must be somewhere inbetween. Therefore there is a greenhouse effect.

I never argued against the fact that there is a greenhouse effect, so although interesting, I don't see how it affects anything at all.

I looked at the other two links from that site, and see that co2 blocks a certain wavenumber band. Fine.

Lets take a look at page 28, however: [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page28.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page28.htm)

"The intention is to show the logarithmic nature of the relationship between CO2 and surface temperature, i.e., the temperature rises non-linearly with every successive addition of CO2 causing smaller effects. "

So here is the answer to something I suspected. The amount of co2 in the air becomes saturated at greater amounts. If you look at the graph, from 400ppm today, it will take up to 1000 ppm of co2 to increase the temperature effect as from 200ppm to 400ppm. So for we're only talking about a degree or two.

I think that scientists have made a lot of progress modeling the atmosphere because its so simple but the rest of the earth is much more complex and their models are, to put it bluntly, crap. The author agrees with me:

From [http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page48.htm](http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page48.htm) :

"There is an absence of nits to pick in the physics of the greenhouse effect, but there are many incorporated in the various models. The fact that the twenty or so models all claiming to incorporate the same physics produce different results for temperature changes, cloud cover and rainfall indicates that something is wrong. These are early days in the development of climate models and it is expected that they will become more believable in the future. "

So what seems to be happening is that because they have this small effect from co2 modeled pretty well, and since it's not enough to explain the larger fluctuations of temperature through earths history, they try and find a way to make it seem as a lever to affect a larger change. I think they are subconsciously doing this... since it is the path of least resistance to finding an interesting, measurable formula by incorporating another rock solid one into it.

I also found an answer to my same question on that page about why temperature seems to precede co2 increases, not the other way around for the last 800k years at least, from co2levels.org . You've been ignoring me on this point for 3 replies now, so I doubt you'll respond, but just to let you know:

"Our comment: There is considerable misunderstanding of the ice-core records that do show that ~800 years after a temperature rise following an ice-age the concentration of CO2 increases. Not even the possibly exaggerated general circulation models can explain the ending of an ice-age by the appearance of large amounts of CO2. They end by various possible mechanisms. A change in the Earth's orbital characteristics might increase the value of solar input to the Earth. Volcanic activity could deposit material on the snow/ice coverage that alters the planet's albedo; the fraction of solar radiation reflected by the system. If this is the case the planet would warm up and this would have the consequence of releasing CO2 from the oceans and increasing the amount of water vapour in the lower atmosphere. This would, in consequence warm the system by the greenhouse effect and release more CO2 and water vapour… "

So the author explains it away with volcanos, sun spots and earths distance from the sun. Hmm... sounds a little vague for such large fluctuations, don't you think? Could it possibly be, that even with their complex and conflicting models, scientists don't actually know what caused these fluctuations back then? And further, that a small change in temperature due to co2 does not have a lever effect causing the larger change needed for these disastrous predictions? I suppose it so.

Now, couple that with all the "adjustments" to historical temperature data. Yes, they have excuses, measurements being taken at different times of day from before, older inaccurate equipment, change of environment, etc. I'd accept that if they changed it a couple of times, but they seem to have done it a lot. And there are a lot of other suspicious stuff going on. Why is there a temperature station now between the runways of a heavy trafficked airport (see the first link)?

[https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/new...](https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/new- yorks-temperature-record-massively-altered-by-noaa/) [https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara- hollingsworth/g...](https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara- hollingsworth/german-scientist-accuses-nasa-massive-alteration-temperature) [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/23/australian-met- office...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/23/australian-met-office- accused-of-manipulating-temperature-records/) [https://realclimatescience.com/2017/01/systematic- destructio...](https://realclimatescience.com/2017/01/systematic-destruction- of-the-temperature-record-since-2000/)

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but the temptation is there. Along with the general attitude of trying to suppress skeptics by the liberal media, liberal college bias and liberal institutions.

Anyway, barretbellamyclimate.com is a lot better than I first thought. So thank you for that.

I don't know why you think I need to understand the models that are not predictive in order to form an opinion. I will go through the rest of that site, but I don't think I need to delve deeper into theory that creates models that conflict with each other in order to form opinion on the predictions of the scientists who use those models as their basis.

<comment><USER18> > Anyway, barretbellamyclimate.com is a lot better than I first thought.

So you do understand some physics at least. Then...

Buy his book, and try to find any error: he confirms there that IPCC is right:

[https://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Contribution-Jack- Barr...](https://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Contribution-Jack-Barrett- ebook/dp/B0083IOWPU)

It's less than 200 pages, much less than IPCC report, and also concluded without the use of the supercomputers. Human released CO2 is what is warming the Earth right now, at least at the speed as calculated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Exactly what I've told you that anybody who honestly approaches the topic should do.

Prove yourself that you don't listen to authority, especially not Watts authority who is effectively a liar and the authority only to those who want to delude themselves or the others and who you obviously read.

You saw yourself what was Barrett's starting point on the pages that you like. You delightfully quote what he wrote _before_ he checked everything himself. Then see how he was able to come to the conclusion that IPCC is actually right. There's no error: he was just able to repeat what the whole world can repeat and repeats everywhere every day... except the people who read Watts and such, which blocks them to see for themselves that IPCC is indeed right.

I already understood it is against your political sympathies to say that IPCC calculations is right. Well... it's time to prove that you don't listen to "authorities." You can confirm yourself and still have the political sympathies that you have. I definitely do not consider any of the two big parties or their voters even behaving consistently sane, but believe that in some topics one are right, in some topic another, and in some topics even neither. You are allowed to do that too. That can be a better chance for a real change, different than the pre-election slogan pseudo-change.

Don't support scientific illiteracy.

And most important: don't run searching for the false instant excuses by watts et al, search for the real sources yourself, check yourself what is real. Then once you are yourself sure compare what you've learned with what watts writes... and it will finally click how he distorts the truth. I don't care what his motivation is, his goals don't justify his means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for the good newss, didn't know about that. News tend to be biased towards the bad and the good is left it. Bookmarking that site

<comment><USER22> I wouldn't bookmark this site. The writers of this article did not do their due diligence in their research or in their presentation of this article. Check our the other comments here, which do a good job of explaining the nuances of the "greening".

<comment><USER23> Skepticism is always good, but so is a modicum of good news bias, especially if announced, to counter the predominance of bad news bias.

If the world was in fact getting less green, and this was presented as bad news, would you hold the reporters to the same high standard of including all relevant silver linings?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Apparently the earth was super green when the atmosphere had double the current CO2 content [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfWFDcXut4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfWFDcXut4)

<comment><USER25> And why not, photosynthesis requires CO2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The China government has been working on tree planting project for decades, which contributes 42% forest greening.

</comment><comment><USER27> Serious question from a non-climate scientist: would an increase in global temperatures due to climate change ultimately cause more greenery, due to new growth in previously too-cold areas?

<comment><USER28> Well, I don't know about temperature, but we do know that plants grow faster in the presence of excessive CO2. But that's a double-edged sword, because their nutritional value per unit mass goes _down_ , in terms of trace nutrients - with abundant CO2, they can use more air to build more empty carbs, but that means the critical nutrients they pull from the soil are present in lower concentrations.

<comment><USER29> You can easily see this effect on Highways (in Europe where trees are planted just at the edge of the road). The trees there are the first ones that turn green (and get greener much faster) while the trees in the farmland are still without leaves.

<comment><USER30> I wonder if that's due to CO2 levels, warmer temperatures (asphault captures a lot of heat) or human selection for "pretty" trees along the highway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > It's called the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, and > its high-resolution data provides very accurate information

So is the resolution high or moderate?

<comment><USER32> This is a fun question, and as an occasional user of MODIS products, I've asked it (to myself) also. Although I've never asked anyone on the MODIS team, who I see from time to time.

I have always supposed that they wanted to leave the door open for actual high (spatial) resolution observations in the future. The driving design requirement was for global coverage every two days, so this meant a wide field of view of the downward-looking optics (2200 km wide FOV) which in turn meant "moderate" spatial resolution.

It was designed in the early 1990s. If you look at the original MODIS design papers (e.g., The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Science and Data System Requirements, IEEE TGARS, Jan. 1991), you read the design was inspired by instruments like AVHRR and HIRS. The "VHR" in AVHRR stands for "Very High Resolution" and it was 1km! And the H in HIRS stands for High- resolution and it was > 1km, as much as 10km (!!). So calling it "Moderate" seems like a corrective message to the community.

Why would you need more? Many of the MODIS products are 1000m X 1000m, which is too coarse for many "field-scale" applications, where you want to get down to the health of individual fields of crops, or mixed suburban/rural areas, or biomes where vegetation types are mixed at local scales.

For instance, transpiration from broad-leafed trees is very different from grasses, and "mixed pixels" of these two types can confuse models. Or scattered parking lots at the fringe of suburban areas impinging on vegetation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The dirty secret is that plant growth is most optimal around 1200 - 1500 ppm CO2. Likely because plants evolved in in epochs of much higher level. If levels were to drop below 120 ppm, I believe we would see mass plant die off. Pre-industrial levels were already around 180 to 200 ppm I believe (All these numbers are off the top of my head). So even if we can stabilize around 400 ppm now with renewable, AND start to sequester back to pre-industrial levels, we would need to also make sure we can turn that sequestration OFF at some point. It bugs me to see future nascent industrial applications that want to pull CO2 out of the air for products. We could very well get into a situation in the future where we are begging industry to STOP pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere for fear or crop failure, instead of pumping it out. It may take 1000 years, but levels will come down a bit naturally if we can stabilize. That stability will only come from technological advances like electric cars, planes, trucks and lab grown meats. No amount tax or cap and trade is going to make any sense unless India and China are also on-board.

<comment><AUTHOR> We could always go back to burning wood to increase the CO2, if your scenario were to happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> On a related note, here is a discussion about how many trees it would take to solve climate change: [https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2639/how- ma...](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/2639/how-many-trees- would-i-have-to-plant-to-solve-global-warming)

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's an up-to-date study and discussion of that question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248716)

The number of trees needed (1.2T) is pretty close to the estimation of the accepted answer in your link (1.5T). The difference is, the up-to-date study has found that there _is_ enough space for the trees. Now we just need to plant them :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> >The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world, which is dominated by India and China, does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia.

So is it a net gain or not?

<comment><USER36> It is, although replacing forests with pastures should not be indicative of CO2 sequestration, but the opposite.

In Brazil there's a biome called cerrado[0], characterized by low trees and shrubs, from the sky might seem brown but there's a lot of biodiversity and flora. Replacing it with soy fields should not be a net gain in my book.

0 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerrado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerrado)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Would it be possible to turn a desert region into a rain forest? For example if Nevada decided to plant trees in the dessert is it possible with enough irrigation or would all the trees just die?

<comment><USER38> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI) I watched this talk a while back, TL;DW Yes, you can.

<comment><USER39> it was a little mystifying that he answered the question about how they bootstrap the process with "we've never had to supplement feed" alongside "no grass in sight for 100 miles"... does anyone have a longer answer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Don't let anyone twist this news into an excuse for climate-apathy. First, making the Earth greener will require human cooperation, specifically towards the goal of reversing human-created changes as much as possible.

And second, the Earth might get greener as a result of climate change, and that those changes might not necessarily be what is best for Humanity.

</comment><comment><USER41> Nothing brings me more joy than seeing a greener Earth, especially the greener part is taking place in China!

</comment><comment><USER42> It was actually identified that most of the green areas are now farming land/cropland and NOT forests.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't see how this addresses the issue of deforestation in places like the Amazon.

The effect that this "practice" has had on the environment is irreversible at this point.

But to each his own. Any positive news regarding the environment are always welcome.

</comment><comment> lota-putty LPG/LNG have made their impact on cooking fuel sources in these two massively populated countries; this was a positive consequence?

</comment><comment><USER44> I need help learning this stuff, i am new to this, and i want to help the community

</comment><comment><USER45> I like how America didn't spend billions of dollars for them to do this. Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER46> Or maybe just the resolution of the satellite images have just improved resulting in what appears to be a more greener earth.</comment>


Show HN: Roboroast – upload your photo and get a funny insult - <AUTHOR> http://roboroast.tk/ <comment><USER2> Works but doesn't seem to make any comments that relate to my photos, also talks a lot about American only known Celebes?

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't appear to be working on Android Mobile at least not in low bandwidth environments.

</comment><comment><USER4> It will be interesting to see with whom you have matched , as currently it looks a bit random .

<comment><AUTHOR> You can append ?r=1 to the URL to see who you matched with.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Social Network for Learning - <AUTHOR> name idea: "qanda"
Social network for learning or "Twitter for multiple choice questions"
Pre-MVP:
* Create multiple choice questions
* Presentation page for multiple choice questions
* Rich-text editor for multiple choice questions

    * MathJax

    * Image upload
 * Vote question quality (like or dislike, can't be retracted)
* Only logged out (no auth in Pre-MVP)
* Show bar chart plot of percentages of users who got it correct/incorrect
* Tag questions (non-existing tags can be created on the fly)
MVP:
* Fork questions
* Share question on twitter
* User sign up
* Twitter OAuth
* Profile with bio
* Follow other users
* Feed (chronologically ordered)
Vison:
* Post type: coding challenge questions
* Post type: flash cards <comment><AUTHOR> [https://qandahq.herokuapp.com/](https://qandahq.herokuapp.com/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://imgur.com/HT7ysXX](https://imgur.com/HT7ysXX)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think only one correct answer should be possible, I dislike questions with multiple correct answers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> sOftWarE aRchITEcTurE

`rails g scaffold questions question_text:text answer_a:string answer_b:string answer_c:string answer_d:string like_count:integer dislike_count:integer correct_answer:string correct_answers_received:integer incorrect_answers_received:integer`

<comment><AUTHOR> and + `tags:text` ofc</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's up with this "unknown or expired link" on HN?  - <AUTHOR>

So a few minutes pass by when I open HN page, and if I press the 'more' link at the bottom, it shows me a blank page with the above mentioned error message. Same happens when I write some comment on any news article and some time goes by before submitting that.
Why would HN do that? Why can't you show "more" news items when some time passes by? What gets invalidated in that time? There might be some valid reasons, just that from usability perspective I don't find it quite good ...
(Edit: I didn't spend too much time typing this question, and when I pressed submit button it again showed me the same message. I had to go back, refresh the page and submit again) <comment><USER2> Previously (including a response from pg):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3098756>

This has been discussed many other times:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22unknown+or+expired+link%2...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22unknown+or+expired+link%22)

<comment><AUTHOR> Humm ... Thanks, and sorry for posting without searching. I don't understand most of the technologies discussed there unfortunately. All in all I believe for the end user it's a stupid thing to do, even if it is using some revolutionary world changing technology at the core - and thus should be fixed.</comment></comment>


GitKraken 1.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.gitkraken.com/release-notes <comment><USER2> WARNING: It will send the email address taken from your git user.email to their servers right on the openings screen

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's a part of their registration process and you cannot bypass it. :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I am not mistaken this is built off of Atom or something else like that. That disappoints me a bit. I hate apps that pretend to be native when they are really just wrapper around a web app.

<comment><USER5> It's built on Electron, same as Atom. Why is that disappointing though?

It's not a wrapper around a "web app". It does not load content via HTTP. It interacts with local file system and runs git commands. There are no "Waiting for gitkraken.com to respond.." type behaviors.

Like Atom, it works as you'd expect a "native" app to work. Things like responsiveness and right-click menus are identical to native.

I am curious what you think the benefit would be as a user if it was done natively?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This app gets stuck on Step 4, "Leave Your Mark", when I start up it for the first time in OS/X El Capitan.</comment>