Or, more politely: Climate change, and why we shouldn’t worry so much about what causes it and spend our efforts finding alternatives to fossil fuels instead.

Is the climate changing?

The first step when having a climate change discussion is, of course, to determine if the climate is changing or not.

According to NASA (see their Climate Webb for details) the following signs exist that something is indeed happening to our climate:

• The global sea level rose twice as much during the last decade, as it did during the last century.
• The Earth has warmed since 1880, most of the warming occurring in the last 35 years, with record temperatures after 2001. At the same time, the oceans have warmed since 1969.
• Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic regions are losing their ice sheets and glaciers worldwide is retreating. The amount of spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere has decreased the past five decades, and the snow is melting earlier.
• The weather is getting more extreme with increasing number of high-temperature events.

The Climate Reality Project supplies diagrams for most of the above claims and adds that the humidity is also increasing, and water vapor in the air contributes to the greenhouse effect.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists the following additional signs the climate is changing:

• Droughts are becoming longer and more extreme around the world.
• Tropical storms are becoming more severe due to warmer ocean water temperatures.
• Permafrost is melting, releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

If you want to find a similar list of reasons the climate is not changing… I can’t seem to help you. That information does not seem to exist.

However, the big discussion isn’t so much if the climate is changing or not, but if it is caused by human activity or not.

Did humans cause the climate change?

The climate could be changing due to human activity or, it could simply be a natural variation in temperature slated to coincide with the industrial revolution and our increasing consumption of fossil fuels and rising levels of CO².

If you need a graphical illustration of how extreme and unusual the change in temperature the last 35 years are, check out xkcd’s average temperature timeline.

A meta-study shows that 97% of all climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change in one way or another.

The coincidences are a bit too much to just dismiss, but if you are the kind of person that likes to dismiss anything that doesn’t fit with your predefined world view (this psychological deficit is called confirmation bias) I have a shocking new question for you (and everyone else, I am sure):

Does it matter what causes climate change?

People who want to feel they are in control will probably say: of course it does! If the climate change is caused by humans, we might be able to stop it.

The same goes for the oil/fossil fuel lobby. They also feel it is very important to prove that humans do not cause climate change, that the burning of fossil fuels and the increasing CO² levels have not been proven to cause climate change.

However, one factor alone shows that regardless of what or who caused the climate change, the path forward can only be one.

Fossil fuels, whose future are so furiously defended by the oil lobby, aren’t an endless resource.

How many years of fossil fuel consumption do we have left?

Fossil fuels were created a very long time ago (some 150-300 million years) and it will take a very long time for vegetation and animals that die today to become fossil fuel.

In all practical aspects what’s in the ground is all there is. The question is when, not if, the fossil fuel will run out.

Some estimates suggest that our currently known oil deposits will, given that our oil consumption stays the same, be gone by 2052. At that point in time, it’s reasonable to assume we’ll use gas and coal to fill in the gaps left by the depleted oil. But gas will only last another 8 years and coal will be depleted by 2088. (Source: ecotricity.co.uk).

All this assumes the consumption will stay at the level it is today. Which, of course, is wrong. With an increasing population, the demands will most likely go up, rather than stay still or go down.

Regardless of how effective we become at extracting fossil fuels from the ground or burning it in our cars and industries, it will run out.

The interesting aspect is that even if everybody became environment aware today and all old farts in the oil lobby keeled over and died, we wouldn’t be willing or able to change over to renewable energy much faster than the absolute deadline dictated by the diminishing fossil fuel reserves.

Can we replace fossil fuels in less than a century?

If the burning of fossil fuels causes climate change or not, we burn them, and they, as a limited resource is running out. It may take 50 years, with a lot of luck a 100, most likely somewhere closer to the former than the latter.

What happens when the fossil fuel runs out?

I think a climate change activist’s worst nightmare scenario will be bleak in comparison to what nations and individuals will do if our world runs out of power.

It doesn’t matter if fossil fuel causes climate change or not. They have to be replaced and the research for making this replacement must be fully funded right now today!

Update

Here’s a few sources that claims we wont be able to go over to renewable energy by 2050. Of course, that doesn’t mean the apocalypse will come… only that there will be an increase in nuclear power plants (and that is likely an apocalypse pushed into the far future, but who cares about those losers, right?)

• Phasing out fossil fuels for renewables may not be a straightforward swap
• Why Renewable Energy Cannot Replace Fossil Fuels by 2050

Header image: By LucAleria (Template:Turning the tide on climate change) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons (image has been edited)

The claim that the Swedish government is covering up immigrant crimes or Islamic crimes has appeared now and again in foreign media, from Fox News commentary on Ami Horowitz documentary to “comedians” like Pat Condell.

Pat Condell, in his video “Bye, Bye Sweden” states that the Swedish government covers up Islamic crimes, because there are no stats on the religious affiliation of criminals, and American commentators are baffled to learn that there are also no documentation of ethnicity, or as they like to call it, race, in crime reports or crime statistics.

Side note: Pat Condell, claims that Sweden is the “rape capital of Europe.” He may be right in the sense that Swedish women are much more likely to report sexual assaults, and the definition of rape is so wide it might even classify Donald Trump as a rapist! The Local answers the question of if Sweden is the “rape capital” of Europe, or not.

You may already have understood why we don’t register religious affiliation or ethnicity in Swedish crime statistics, but if not, here’s a quick fresher on basic democratic rights:

Sweden has freedom of religion. This means that registering a person’s religious affiliation can only serve one purpose: infringing on that freedom in some way.

Swedish police should not care if a person is a Jew, Christian or Moslem. They should book the person, investigate them and if a crime can be proven, that person should face the Swedish court, which also should not care if the person is this or that religion.

The question of ethnicity is a bit more infested…

Slavery was formally abolished in Sweden in 1335, although there have been periods of slavery after that date. This means we don’t have the same kind of ethnicity based discussions some countries still have. We don’t think of people as this or that “race”. In other places where slavery is more recent, a neglect to keep ethnicity at the center of discussions of discrimination might be seen as a sign of discrimination in itself.

Even if Sweden have a substantial immigrant population, these people come from all over the world, from Chile and Turkey in the 70ies, to the former Yugoslavia in the 90ies, to Syrians, Afghans, and Sudanese people nowadays. Just to mention the major immigrant populations.

Further taking into consideration that, with family immigration, there is a spread in age, and that a single country can never be homogenous so a few people from all over that country will say very little about the population in said country. The statistical foundation simply becomes shoddy at best.

Having a representative sample when performing statistics are fundamental if any conclusions or other extrapolations from said statistics is ever going to be meaningful or significant.

Using an insufficient number of individuals to represent a whole nation is probably the very definition of insular bigotry and racism.

So we don’t do it.

Having a government that registers it’s citizens’ ethnicity or religious affiliation is a much, much larger problem than not having access to substandard statistics.

After all, justice is supposed to be blind. It goes for ethnicity and religious beliefs just as much as anything else.

Header image based on original works by Stux and Clker-Free-Vector-Images courtesy of Pixabay and CC0 Public Domain licensing.

Last Friday the following aired on Fox News (here’s a bit of a fact check on the “increase” of rape and violence in Sweden… and here is another produced in Sweden):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWcRY7ZI1XY

And then, in his Saturday speech, Donald Trump reiterated with the, now infamous words: “You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?”

On Sunday, John Oliver offered some theories on how a segment from Fox News made a reappearance in Trump’s speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5DAOeqkMU

Then on Monday, this happens in Rinkeby, a suburb of Stockholm:

Riots! Burning cars and stone throwing.

Was Donald Trump right?!

Did Islamic immigrants riot… just because… Trump? Or was it right-wing extremists that arranged the riots to make sure Trump was right? Or… was it none of the above?

Well, of course: No, no and we don’t actually know, but applying Occam’s Razor… ah never mind!

If you think about it, the first alternative would suggest Islamic immigrants would be so dumb, putting a leash on them and tying it to a tree would solve all problems. (OK, all you KKK-types: put the leashes down! Now!)

The second theory would, on the other hand, suggest that all conspiracy theories you’ve ever heard of are right and, argh we’ve all been body snatched by aliens (from outer space!) — OK. Now I’m exaggerating… a bit.

This is an ongoing police investigation. All we know as of now are that the police arrested (or attempted to arrest) someone for drug-related crimes, and some other people rioted.

The Swedish police are not likely to tweet and Instagram from the investigation room… the one with all the pictures on the wall — you know, like on TV? I know they have those! — will they? So, we don’t know. As of now.

But a competent guess would be, alternative 3…

I think the following report summarizes what actually happened in Rinkeby on Monday quite nicely (not to mention debunking some of the “facts” presented in the first segment on Fox News):

This week’s unrecommended word: Facerape

Facerape: The act of abusing someone’s Facebook account on a computer where they have left themselves logged in. (Urban dictionary).

So, what’s so wrong with this expression then? (I am sure someone “just has to ask.”)

Well, where I come from (Sweden) the combination of the words “Facebook” and “rape” took on a pretty different meaning just a couple of weeks ago when three morons allegedly live-streamed a rape on Facebook.

Or perhaps that is the meaning the expression “Facerape” should have?

And seriously, rape?

Whoever coined the expression “Facerape” either speaks English as a second language and doesn’t fully understand the meaning of the word “rape” or they haven’t even been near a discussion of rape, not to mention knows someone who has been a victim of rape, or been a rape victim themselves, or been anywhere near any form of sex involving more than one person at all… one might guess.

And of course the same goes for those who uses the expression.

The justice systems in most countries are already making good headway on watering down the meaning of the term rape.

They don’t need your help.

If someone breaks into your Facebook account, changes a bunch of things, sends messages in your name, and/or changes your relationship status you’ve been exposed to something unpleasant, abusive, fucked up, sure, but for fuck’s sake, you haven’t been raped!

Being “hacked” is not the same as being raped.

Besides, if we were to continue this tradition of insane overcharging of meanings… what about:

• House rape – breaking and entering
• Car rape – someone nabbed your car stereo
• Pocket rape (ewww) – being pick pocketed
• Mind rape – copyright infringement (although, I can see the record companies wield that one…)
• Thread rape – when someone asks about the pros and cons of instant facelift serums in your “all my disks crashed and the computer is burning! help!”-forum discussion

No. A rape is a rape is a rape. Nothing can be used as a comparison.

Besides. I’m pretty sure no one would give a shit if you changed your Facebook settings back to what they were before you were “Faceraped.” And if they tried to sue you, it wouldn’t even be legal in fucking Arkansas!

The Fermi Paradox is, in essence an assumption (via for instance the Drake Equation) that, because our galaxy contains a large number of stars like our sun that are billions of years older than our sun, and that some of those stars have earth-like planets, and that those planets, in turn, might give rise to intelligent life, then the galaxy should, by now be overrun by extraterrestrial intelligent life.

One possible solution to the Fermi Paradox, as stated by Elon Musk in the following video would be that we’re living in a computer simulation:

In this clip, Elon Musk asks if he’s missed something.

Well, the argument (as can be heard in the video) goes that given enough time, we would also be able to create games indistinguishable from reality. 

It seems logical, except for a few things.

We’re talking about time as if the universe has been existing for a very long time.

Compared to the time we’re given, that’s right, however, there are stars today, that will exist for a 100 billion years. That’s more than 7 times the time the universe has existed so far. This could indicate that we’re in fact in the infancy of the universe.

What would that suggest?

Perhaps we’re among the first intelligent beings to exist in the universe? Or perhaps those that exist hasn’t reached the star travel potential yet?

On the other hand, how long does a civilization need to start travel among the stars? If it can be done, can it be done in a million years? If so we’ve had about 13 000 × a million years of time so far.

Perhaps we’re young among civilizations, but then we have to question some of our basic assumptions about how to contact extraterrestrial intelligent life.  Who says they’re using radio signals? Perhaps radio signals are as archaic a communication medium to them as smoke signals or cave paintings are to modern man?

Regardless, I think it’s a bit early in the day to throw in the towel and assume the Fermi Paradox must be answered with a computer simulation or we’ll all be doomed.

I feel a quote coming on, this one from Anteaus of the Nox in Stargate SG-1:

“Maybe one day you will learn, that your way is not the only way.”

Header image: used and modified under Creative Commons license thanks to Tony Werman

Tidbit

In November 2013, Jeremy Rubin, a 19 year old MIT student, developed a JavaScript program called Tidbit. This program was a concept/pilot, but the idea behind it was to use JavaScript to mine for Bitcoins.

It was thought as a replacement for advertisements. Instead of being overwhelmed by ads, a user visiting a site using this script would lend part of their processor cycles to mine for Bitcoins while surfing on the site.

In the case of Tidbit, the saga came to an abrupt end when in December that same year the New Jersey Attorney General’s office issued a subpoena to Rubin and Tidbit. All said and done, the Tidbit project was canceled. You can read more about it here.

The user must be in control

Now, I can understand what the Attorney General was up to. I wouldn’t like malicious JavaScript code to bog down my already stumbling computer, however, the basic idea of replacing ads with Bitcoin mining is intriguing. If it can be done in a way that puts the user in control.

This control could be by using HTML5 instead, putting the browser in control of who gets to mine Bitcoins and how many at the same time – in order to prevent every site from mining at the same time and making the computer deadly slow.

A user could potentially say no to mining altogether and get served ads instead.

The important thing would be, that there was a setting for this in the browser, and using JavaScript not utilizing this setting and/or any API would be illegal and classified just the same as any other malicious code.

A new way to perform online commerce…

In fact. Why stop at replacing ads with this kind of technology? In essence, it could be used to pay for online content of any kind. Even make purchases (however at that point we’re blurring the line between mining for bitcoins and having ones own bitcoin wallet).

…and perhaps a new way to decrease the power usage of bitcoin?

According to motherboard.vice.com the usage of 1 bitcoin could rake up as much as the whole power consumption for 1.5 American households, so decentralizing the mining might be one way to solve that problem.

However, others argue that the whole technical architecture of bitcoin won’t be able to handle such amounts of transactions, that in fact, the whole currency is doomed.

The same HTML5 API should, however, be able to do other decentralized work such as analyzing SETI data, process data for cancer research or any other distributed computing project.

The crucial question is, of course, if a browser based distributed computing platform could outperform other solutions on the capacity and electricity consumption scales.

Header image: used and modified under Creative Commons license thanks to BTCKeychain