
The North Pole is 36 degrees warmer than normal - jorkro
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/17/the-north-pole-is-an-insane-36-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends/
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nwrk
Extremely scary.

Even junior sysadmin seeing chart[1] like this one in article would say
something wrong with the 'system'.

[1] [https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-
co...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-
content/uploads/sites/43/2016/11/meanT_2016.png)

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ghouse
Why not a simple revenue-neutral modest carbon tax? And for countries who do
not have a similar paradigm, an import tariff equal to the equivalent embedded
CO2.

It appears much of the world (other than the US) is now headed in this
direction.

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aetherson
Here's an article on Vox about a carbon tax initiative in Washington:

[http://www.vox.com/2016/10/18/13012394/i-732-carbon-tax-
wash...](http://www.vox.com/2016/10/18/13012394/i-732-carbon-tax-washington)

It's an interesting article and is worth reading in full. But my takeaway from
it is "environmentalists, and particularly wonky highly scientific
environmentalists, are junior members of the liberal coalition. Their role in
the liberal coalition is to follow policy and add support to it. Their
coalition members are not interested in narrow environmental initiatives like
a revenue-neutral carbon tax."

So liberals sink modest wonky proposals like a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Conservatives sink giant omnibuses that include environmental stuff in a
package with redistribution and social justice stuff. End result: no
environmental legislation.

I have a blog post going into more detail on the subject here:
[https://sandoratthezoo.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/scientific-e...](https://sandoratthezoo.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/scientific-
environmentalists-are-junior-coalition-members/)

~~~
rch
Thanks for the link and the blog post - the climate justice split is affecting
efforts in Colorado as well.

However, my impression is that the Washington initiative from the Vox article
would have performed well in Colorado, as it tends to lean more
pragmatic/conservative pro-environment.

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brandmeyer
Lest anyone claim that this is a short-term excursion, temperatures in the
arctic have been well above average all season.

[http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php)

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castratikron
I never thought I'd see a gnuplot graph in a mainstream news piece. Gnuplot is
seriously awesome, though.

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Benjamin_Dobell
Degrees _fahrenheit_... Probably don't need to start your doomsday prepping
_just_ yet.

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shitgoose
[http://weather-
warehouse.com/WeatherHistory/PastWeatherData_...](http://weather-
warehouse.com/WeatherHistory/PastWeatherData_NorthPole_NorthPole_AK_January.html)

paste the table to excel and chart first two columns (we are still to beat
warm winters of 1981 and 1985). what is insane it the wapo headline.

~~~
calibration263
These temperatures are for North Pole Fairbanks Alaska. It's not "The North
Pole", it's also not even in the Arctic Circle.In fact if you look at the
first picture in the linked article, you'll see how the deltas they're
referring to are not the case in Alaska. (And the temperature in the middle of
Alaska doesn't have much bearing on Arctic sea ice).

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shitgoose
damn google! i stand corrected:)

