Yes, but no. The optimistic version would be that they try something and the missiles just don’t do anything. However failure can be far more than just a non-event, it could happen as it launches, midway, almost to target, even not heading towards the target but elsewhere, etc. A badly maintained Russian arsenal doesn’t mean it couldn’t ruin a lot of people’s day.

That being said, I think Putin is a lot of hot air. The issue now is which kind of cornered animal will he act like when called out? Let’s hope it’s just crying and fetal position and not one that tries to take everyone with them.

No, no, it was the Deep State government, not Trump. And that might be controlled by the Deep Deep State. It’s deep all the way down.

Strong evidence.

Setting a hard limit (true or not) may have hurt more than helped. It introduces the “well, we’re not there yet so have some time to act”. When the news starts using 2.0 as a new limit, everyone will sigh in relief because we have more time to continue. Except we never did have that time.

There was a lesson, but it hasn’t been taught yet. This is just the trailer of the film, coming in January. Title: “Oh no.”

We do as a collective states/country try to make voting hard to do, while declaring it as one of the fundamental rights and duties of citizens. Some things should invalidate a vote, others seem there as hoops to jump through to restrict them while not being obviously relevant to legitimacy. Even going back to the shitshow of 2000 with hanging chads and how ridiculous some of the “experts” would carry things to argue the “intent” of a voter.

I see why Trump would like him. Ticked all the boxes.

Hey, water vapor is a chemical.

And it isn’t a hard rule the President has to nominate a VP, although that makes some things more difficult.

Not great. Not terrible.

Left out the Last March of the Ents.

Some of that didn’t age well. Did you read it? I’m curious what you think Trump had to do with this? Aside from stamping his name on things, which is what he does.

You’re right, I can’t think of anything worthwhile he’s done. So why expect anything now?

Correct, in the 1930s, I saw someone post about it recently. I don’t know the motivation then, but the tactic will be used this time to target any group. Maybe even used for “other activities” when deportation becomes logistically difficult.

That’s still the lowest end of RCP8.5. Many are projecting that we could be on RCP4.5 once we reach where the pathways would diverge (2050), the problem with that is it assumes some large scale CCS and a flatlining of emissions (net zero). If those happen, then 3 degrees might be a top end and we’ll only have a small amount of catastrophe(?!).

My disbelief is a number of things - human nature to change is a big one, I can’t see us changing much without a huge motivational reason (read major disasters and/or population decrease from impacts). Another is the physics of CCS, the scale needed for any large effect is just beyond anything we can do, and I think it might be far more than just the energy requirements, so say a fusion breakthrough may not improve the abilities. Lastly, the feedbacks that will be set off as we go into 2 degrees will take over the path the Earth’s environment changes towards, and we can’t stop them.

We need to continue to talk about heavy reductions in emissions, which also means lessening consumption and growth of everything. Not only to reduce the future results, but to prepare for living in a harsher world where that kind of society can’t exist. We’re in an extinction event, and we better pre-adapt before it’s necessary otherwise we’ll be one of the species. That may already be a foregone conclusion, but it will be a certainty if we continue how we’ve been going.

Buzz Lightyear: “Fascists! Fascists everywhere!”

I haven’t seen the show yet, but the hard stop at technology does make sense. It’s one part of Paul’s vision, to break out of the stagnation that humanity has put themselves in. I can’t say if the timing of that makes sense with canon sources, but from my understanding things were already slowed in progress and set in stone by the time of the Butlerian Jihad. Spice was a thing, it just wasn’t centered for space travel until the loss of AI.

I think the loss of human progress is a very common theme in these long range scifi stories. Star Wars, Dune, Foundation (both before and after the fall), Warhammer, even the Bladerunner/Alien universe.

The scary ones always end with a hopeful “but if we can start to do something…”

I’m actually encouraged by the negative trend of articles recently. The first step is always acknowledging the problem. The happy endings downplay the facts, so they have to stop.

My prediction though is that we’ll set 2.0 C as a new limit. I seem to remember long ago 1.0 C was warned as a point we didn’t want to cross, but 1.5 C was the mark when it became mainstream news all the time. Turns out 1.0 C was always the real limit…

Hypothetically, what would trigger you guys? Just asking questions…

It’s possible the idea that they ran a “not Trump” campaign is true enough, and that was part of the failure vs. being more to the left or vocal or any number of other things suggested. But the very fact that “not Trump” made people not show up and throw the election to him, or worse vote FOR him, says a lot about the state of the country.

I get it, people are hurting economically and somehow get blinded into promises that magic will happen. But Trump? Anyone voting this time around was around when he was in office the first time…are we that short memory? Yeah, we apparently are…repeating the same thing over and over expecting different results. And that can be applied to both sides, but one of them was the same guy.