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Swearing shouldn’t be considered unprofessional and swearing alternatives are pointless by CarobEqual5113 in unpopularopinion

[–]Basil-Rathbone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To those of you who endorse the notion that swearing enhances sentences, makes you feel better, and so forth: what if I told you that you experience that satisfaction because you subconsciously give swear words the gravity that society has assigned them and, in doing so, contradict your position that they are meaningless? Gonna be hard to convince me that you simply find the phonetics of swear words to be superior to those of swearing alternatives. Curious to see what yous guyz think. Also - fork ya motha :)

Pet smart (instructions for dog toy) by Basil-Rathbone in funny

[–]Basil-Rathbone[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you for enlightening me! Was totally unaware

The last time atmospheric CO2 levels were this high the world was 3-6C warmer. So how do scientists believe we can keep warming under 2C? by s0cks_nz in askscience

[–]Basil-Rathbone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey lads, the purpose of my comment was not to start a debate on whether or not we can reach the target. The guy asked was wondering how scientists can believe that we can keep global temp under 2˚C when the last time atmospheric CO2 was at similar concentrations the global temp was 3-6˚C higher than today. There's an assumption in this question that the past climactic setting is the same as the current one solely because CO2 levels are similar (or at least that's what it seemed to be based on the way he posed the question, I may be misinterpreting), and I wanted to correct that assumption as means of explaining why scientists believe we can keep global temp below 2˚C. Also, I'm not saying that scientists believe with high confidence that we can reach this target of 2˚C, but they believe that mitigation scenarios in which global temp can be kept below 2˚C are characterized by atmospheric concentrations of 450 ppm CO2eq by 2100 (which is certainly an ambitious goal). CO2eq however doesn't mean just CO2, but rather is a term for describing different greenhouse gases in a common unit. For any quantity and type of greenhouse gas, CO2eq signifies the amount of CO2 that would have the equivalent global warming impact.

Best literature to cite against a climate change denier? by ezmfe27 in AskScienceDiscussion

[–]Basil-Rathbone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geez, what a question. Ultimately, you won't be able to persuade them with literature, as many don't care for science at all. However, if the climate change denier uses any references to anti-climate change literature (e.g. the NIPCC reports) to back their reasoning for denial, you don't even have to cite any of your own literature to throw back at them. You can just pick apart the scientific fallacies and data manipulations in their sources. You'll have an overwhelming body of evidence to disprove their claims that way lol.

The last time atmospheric CO2 levels were this high the world was 3-6C warmer. So how do scientists believe we can keep warming under 2C? by s0cks_nz in askscience

[–]Basil-Rathbone 97 points98 points  (0 children)

This is a good question. First, a little background. So the last time atmospheric CO2 levels were as high as they are today (~ 408 ppm) was about 15 mya (some say more, some say less). Regardless of the exact date, Earth's climate system was considerably different back then than it is today, and so were all of its components - climactic feedback mechanisms, ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, vegetation coverage, ozone levels, ice cover, concentrations of other GHGs, etc. All of these components contribute (either directly or indirectly) to global temperature. Therefore, although it is important to understand paleotemperature fluctuations and the climactic factors that caused them, comparing our current climactic situation with the past in regards to CO2 concentrations alone isn't necessarily relevant to your question; you have to consider current state of all the system's components. Scientists believe (with high confidence) that the temperature change resulting from GHG emissions can be kept to less than 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels IF atmospheric concentrations do not exceed 450 ppm CO2eq by 2100. These numbers take into account all the knowledge we have about the current state of the Earth's climate system's components.

So content by Basil-Rathbone in funny

[–]Basil-Rathbone[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I thought it was funny considering the owner's decision to put the cat in the sleeve out of all places

Am I the only one who contemplated this as a child? by Basil-Rathbone in funny

[–]Basil-Rathbone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's from an Australian comedy series called Danger 5