A new US Republican thread 2016

[fohat]

I did not find her more corrupt or guilty than any other politicians.

Good lord ... how hard did you look?

For a Democrat, she is probably worse than average. Compared to most Republicans, she is probably better.
(just one example, below)

Again, cleanliness is the #1 reason why it should have been Bernie who took on Trump.

https://www.thenation.com/article/mitch ... g-company/

"The Republican Senate leader’s personal wealth grew seven-fold over the last ten years thanks in large part to a gift given to him and his wife in 2008 from James Chao worth between $5 million and $25 million (Senate ethics forms require personal finance disclosures in ranges of amounts, rather than specific figures).

The generous gift made McConnell one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, with a net worth averaging around $22.8 million, according to The Washington Post’s review of his financial disclosures."

[vivalarevolución]

I did not find her more corrupt or guilty than any other politicians.

Good lord...how hard did you look?

Not very, admittedly. Not like I did a bunch of academic research. I should qualify that by saying politicians that have been in the game for as long as she has. It's a dirty game. She came under more scrunity, and if the same was applied to all high level, long serving politicians, man, it would be interesting, to say the least.

[webwit]

So here it is how you have been gamed and brainwashed by Podesta the past 8 years:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/com ... an_how_to/

[vivalarevolución]

So here it is how you have been gamed and brainwashed by Podesta the past 8 years:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/com ... an_how_to/

Not really anything too shocking there, it is a political party planning and marketing for the future with their rich benefactors to obtain and maintain power for their agenda. It's their job, it's a political party. Obama clearly was a Democratic shill in 2008, not revolutionary change, but created the greatest marketing campaign of all time and rode it to victory. Trump got the media to do it for free this time around, using many of the same strategies in that memo, except his target was the entire political establishment.

Revolutionary change does not come from establishments and institutions like our political parties. That's why Bernie, a lifetime Socialist, and Trump, a lifetime egoist, were able to lead the charge of the populist movements.

[webwit]

Not really anything too shocking there

I knew someone would answer that and dismiss, just like that And, although you fell for it, you knew it all along, right? As everyone who have always known about the entirely unshocking Snowden documents, after the fact.

Not shocking that all the polarization is by strategic planning and design, and people are turned into extremists, nooo sir. Every time you see a republican and democrat voter bash each others brain in, it is because they have been set up to do so. Every time you have some Trump anti-rhetoric, you're aping what you're designed to do. You're used to get them votes and power. It is a filthy Bernays' style document. It's only mass indoctrination, through all their groups and the media and Soros, to corrupt democracy and set people up against each other.

If you can't snap out of it now and return some Trump or Bernie argument, you still don't get it and are lost. They are doing the same, and Trump won that game. It's the people against all of them, not a polarized part of the people against another polarized group of people. And our democracies have been captured by these kind of people worldwide.

[chuckdee]

^ You Get It (TM).

Most people that are a part of the process either don't, don't want to, or don't want to admit that they do. Instead of coming to the realization that there are two sides, and for all the electoral vote matters, he still got 50 million+ votes - so very close to half. It happens in most Presidential Elections, and whichever side loses blames the system, or blames the electoral college, or blames the 'stupid people on the other side', instead of looking a the fact that the system works- you just have work within the system.

For all of the talk of diversity and diversifying... well, everything, there is a good portion of the population that you are marginalizing and trying to get to feel as if they should have guilt about things that have come before, just as there is a large part that wants to enforce this guilt. And if you talk about this fact, you're labeled racist, sexist, or worse, when that is a misappropriation of the word to begin with. People are not as a whole racist (believe that by genetics that one race is less than another inherently) or sexist (same). What they are is bigoted or prejudiced. And by not engaging (blocking people on twitter, facebook, etc., or segregating into different outlets for news, entertainment, whatever) you're losing the opportunity to have rational discourse instead of what goes for reality TV or other mindless entertainment worrying about the Kardashians, and losing the opportunity to shape the discourse that will lead us into a better place. Trump catered to those people, and for all the "those are terrible ideals, people, etc", they're still people, still voters, and still, for better or worse, there.

So therefore, you create the polarized society that you decry, and whichever one wins is based on the politician's ability to pander to their base and get them up in arms in the right areas. We create the game, and those that are willing to be realists and play it win. The same thing happened when the Democrats were the ascendant party- the Republicans wondered why, and blamed it on everything but themselves.

The difference with Trump, God help us all, is that he started as an outsider, manipulated his way inside, by hook or by crook, and then, with that leverage, combined the ones who he fired up to vote with him with the machine of the RNC to create a path to power. The DNC shot itself in the foot by being shown to be biased against the same kind of grassroots candidate this time around. They didn't do it to Obama even though he was the exact same kind of candidate... but I guess this time Hillary was heir apparent, so they did it to Sanders. And no matter how much they bought him for, those the constituents didn't fall for it. The Clown Genius was in it to win, analyzed the game, and won it, plain and simple.

[vivalarevolución]

Nice bait-and-switch tactic, I'll give you credit. Got me there, congrats! Feel good now?

I simply personally do not believe that the document reveals how I have been gamed and brainwashed. My concern with politicians always has been how those in power treat the people govern. So whatever you want to assume.

I'm well aware that the entire political game in the USA (and elsewhere, I don't know) serves to divide people with mostly the same interests by focusing on petty issues and personalities so they can win at their game. Shit man, our Civil War had brothers fighting against each other. In fact, it seems like the only way to win at this game. I've been railing against the political establishment since the first time I picked up a ballot, because they seek power over actual governance or solutions or anything we imagine a government should do.

But if your interest is just to trick people with little games, lob some personal insults and mistaken assumptions, I'm not very interested.

[chuckdee]

Who is that a reference to? Webwit? Or Me? Helps to quote

[vivalarevolución]

Who is that a reference to? Webwit? Or Me? Helps to quote

Webwit.

Although I do agree with many of the points both of you made. Good stuff.

[seebart]

OK off topic...normal hair...

Trump with his father, Fred Trump looking over NYC,1973

Donald Trump in the 1970s (11).JPG (128.43 KiB) Viewed 4650 times

http://www.vintag.es/2016/11/13-black-a ... .html#more

[vivalarevolución]

OK off topic...normal hair...

Trump with his father, Fred Trump looking over NYC,1973

Donald Trump in the 1970s (11).JPG

http://www.vintag.es/2016/11/13-black-a ... .html#more

Let's not make this funny again, come on, I'm just getting fired up!

[seebart]

It's not funny anyway, that's him with his old man in the 70's. Apparently Fred Trump was much more involved in "social housing" rather than luxury objects like his son.

On another note; folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote of his contempt for his landlord Fred Trump:

http://theconversation.com/woody-guthri ... ions-53026

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-d ... ps-father/

[webwit]

Snowden live, among others about the election:
https://www.startpage.com/snowden/

[vivalarevolución]

It's not funny anyway, that's him with his old man in the 70's. Apparently Fred Trump was much more involved in "social housing" rather than luxury objects like his son.

On another note; folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote of his contempt for his landlord Fred Trump:

http://theconversation.com/woody-guthri ... ions-53026

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-d ... ps-father/

Woody Guthrie, now there's a real hero.

Snowden live, among others about the election:
https://www.startpage.com/snowden/

Thanks, actually a reasonable voice among all the noise right now.

[Kurplop]

I know some others will disagree but I tend to find about the same amount of irrational thought, bigotry, close-mindedness, bull-headedness, and unkindness pretty evenly distributed among political groups. I think it has more to do with the individual than the side of the issue they take. The worst examples have preconceived notions of the "enemies" motives and even assume how they must be behaving before they even see it themselves.

I heard Sam Stein of the Huffington Post (both left leaning) recently comment on how shocked he was to see how decent and civil the people at a Trump rally were, after finally attending one himself. He had bought into a stereotype that had been fed to him by others in the media and expressed both surprise and regret for having labeled "those people" in an unfavorable way in the past.

We all have a right to our own opinions, but even if we didn't, just try not to have one. My recommendations are twofold: first to base them on your own observations and reasoning, not something you heard online or from a source with an ax to grind. And second, to recognize that an improper response you receive from another may have as much to do with their reaction to your bad attitude.

I confess that I voted for Trump. He was a bad choice, but in my opinion, the best choice of the two. Because of my close friendship with several people with alternative lifestyles, my understanding and appreciation of the struggles of the illegal immigrants (yes, I said it) I've gotten to know, as well as the many friends I have of different races, I have to chuckle at the statement "Everyone that voted for Trump is a homophobic, xenophobic, hateful, bigot. By first impulse is to get defensive and draw certain conclusions about anybody that would say that, but I'll try not to.

[jacobolus]

Kurplop, it saddens me deeply that older white men in America are voting for hate, violence, wantonly inflicting suffering on {women, racial minorities, immigrants, children, the poor, the disabled, those with health problems, transgendered people, gays, victims of corporate malfeasance, ...}, and especially the destruction of the planet. It’s heartbreaking that you would join up with a tribe which has made destroying my friends’ marriages, denying my friends their voting rights, letting my friends die when complications threaten their pregnancies, cutting off my friends’ medical care because of a nonsense technical mistake filling out a form decades ago, putting my friends through forced torture, expelling my friends from the country, defunding my friends’ career research, dismantling my friends’ dearest institutions, et cetera an article of faith. But even more important and irreversible than all of that, a tribe which wants to force us to remain on a path of fossil fuel use which will drive us over a cliff, the largest mass extinction in the history of the world, and possibly the non-viability of human civilization, within the next couple centuries. The window during which we may act is narrowing fast, if it hasn’t closed already, and Trump has promised to accelerate us full throttle. May whatever god or gods you believe in have mercy on your soul.

[Kurplop]

I do appreciate your good wishes for my soul but I do think you're mistaken in categorizing all of those who voted for Trump with violent haters. We have different philosophical perspectives about solving most of the same societal ills. Although I disagree with some of your solutions, I share many of your concerns. I hope you will consider the possibility that my motives and wishes are good.

[jacobolus]

People can rationalize almost anything. Motives are important, but not sufficient. Actions matter.

My friends who are climate scientists are in mourning. After Tuesday they have almost completely lost hope that we can stave off a literal apocalypse.

See what’s happening in the Arctic today: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/image ... ot-a-hoax/

That’s based on delayed reaction to CO2 emissions from decades past. Just imagine how it will go if we push our response back by decades, and blithely allow the world to continue burning fossil fuels at record rates for into the indefinite future.

Our best hope at this point may be for Trump, a man who has almost never kept a promise in his life, to stay true to form and break every promise he made during the campaign.

[Kurplop]

Yes, we can always hope.

[jacobolus]

Oh great, https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ransition/

[Wodan]

After more than 100 years of industrialization, two world wars, countless nuclear tests the invention of man caused global warming about 15-20 years ago ... the Netherlands are still afloat.

I take everything I hear from a climate scientist with great caution. The whole hysteria about climate change (man made!) and global warming is pretty certainly the only reason he has a job! Those people would be out of a job within 1-2 years if they didn't have new scary news for us on a weekly basis. It's their job to keep us concerned about the climate because we wouldn't be spending to much money on their research if we weren't.

Is the climate changing? No fucking doubt ... but not NEARLY at the pace that we are being scared with. I have not seen ANY significant changes to google maps or a correction of a nations land mass due to the rising oceans so far and that's in the last 100 years! Half the Netherlands is below ocean level and they are still relying on dams from the early 20th century in some locations.

Then again ... long before mankinds ability to influence climate, half of Germany was buried under a kilomete thick galcier, the whole reason why nothern Germany is so flat. That is the kind of shit that is happening without mankind moving a finger.

And now you all believe we are causing the apocolypse ... ongoing for almost two decades ... and nothing happens?

I got scared about the climate and global warming when I was in my teens. I grew up believing that my kids would never know what a TREE is because that is what the Green party made me believe. They put that shit into kids books! That's their scare tactics to make me go vote. Forrests are doing fine, climate is doing fine, my kids love to eat apples from the apple trees in my garden.

Don't get me wrong I am totally FOR a good protection of the environment but I am so sick of the enviromentalist scare tactics. It might be especially daramatic over here in Germany where the eco-Übermensch is at home. I am happy that our rivers and lakes have recovered from being waste dumps in the 70s/80s and that the air in many industrial regions has improved. I've been member of the local nature preservation club since I was a kid but we spent our time collecting trash in the woods, cleaning out birds nest before nesting season and maintaining small preservations.

[seebart]

One very easy and clear way to tell that the climate is changing:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/luxury-crui ... 1462872605

[jacobolus]

https://xkcd.com/1732/

[cookie]

After more than 100 years of industrialization, two world wars, countless nuclear tests the invention of man caused global warming about 15-20 years ago ... the Netherlands are still afloat.

I take everything I hear from a climate scientist with great caution. The whole hysteria about climate change (man made!) and global warming is pretty certainly the only reason he has a job! Those people would be out of a job within 1-2 years if they didn't have new scary news for us on a weekly basis. It's their job to keep us concerned about the climate because we wouldn't be spending to much money on their research if we weren't.

Is the climate changing? No fucking doubt ... but not NEARLY at the pace that we are being scared with. I have not seen ANY significant changes to google maps or a correction of a nations land mass due to the rising oceans so far and that's in the last 100 years! Half the Netherlands is below ocean level and they are still relying on dams from the early 20th century in some locations.

Then again ... long before mankinds ability to influence climate, half of Germany was buried under a kilomete thick galcier, the whole reason why nothern Germany is so flat. That is the kind of shit that is happening without mankind moving a finger.

And now you all believe we are causing the apocolypse ... ongoing for almost two decades ... and nothing happens?

I got scared about the climate and global warming when I was in my teens. I grew up believing that my kids would never know what a TREE is because that is what the Green party made me believe. They put that shit into kids books! That's their scare tactics to make me go vote. Forrests are doing fine, climate is doing fine, my kids love to eat apples from the apple trees in my garden.

Don't get me wrong I am totally FOR a good protection of the environment but I am so sick of the enviromentalist scare tactics. It might be especially daramatic over here in Germany where the eco-Übermensch is at home. I am happy that our rivers and lakes have recovered from being waste dumps in the 70s/80s and that the air in many industrial regions has improved. I've been member of the local nature preservation club since I was a kid but we spent our time collecting trash in the woods, cleaning out birds nest before nesting season and maintaining small preservations.

You just spoke out my mind!

[Halvar]

Sorry Wodan, while I agree with you on much of what you said about the German green party, your post shows that you're not really that well informed about climate change and what has been happening. As a start, the curve that jacobulus posted leaves pretty much no doubt that the effect is human-induced:

http://xkcd.org/1732/

Also, just basically thinking about the fact that humankind has dug up a large percentage of the oil, gas and coal reserves of the earth, formed by the plants of millions of years, and essentially burned them all during the last 150 years (a blink of an eye in the history of the planet) makes it clear that humans are doing something fundamentally new and disruptive to the atmosphere.

The curve from xkcd is also the answer to your "not much happened so far" argument, that frankly, you really should think twice about. It makes clear that the effects of what humans already did are just getting started. Even if you think that the chance of it being human-induced is small, do you really think we should wait out what will happen to the netherlands? To get a picture of what is happening right now google "ice caps" and "glaciers" or watch a few minutes of this documentation by National Geographic:

https://youtu.be/codqzJ4onGc?t=1113

Also, the job security of a few scientists who also always depend on their scientific reputation is kind on an ridiculous argument if you consider the financial and political power of the other side. The oil industry, especially in the US, have a proven track record of funding the denial of climate change, whether by funding scientists or by funding GOP politicians. That's why the USA is pretty much the only industrialized country left in the world that has been denying the problem in recent years. The fact that we have got the Paris agreement in spite of the opposition of some of the richest industries in the world speaks for itself.

I don't know if it really matters that much what cars we drive or what kind of lighbulbs we use or not. But politicians need to be able to see the facts, conclude that their countries need to burn less carbon, and take sensible action to achieve that goal. Actions that can be discussed or fought about in detail. But the way of the GOP has been to write off the facts as a hoax for fear of having to take action, and for a political party, that's naive, irresponsible and unrealiable. Which accidentally also sums up three personality traits of the new president.

[Wodan]

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Spoiler:

Oh wow ever since we started taking reliable temperature records the temperature started changing much more violently than in the times before that we can only roughly estimate ...

And just taking a direction on a graph and doing a linear extension to prove we will be out of fossil fuel by ... long ago ... has failed before. We've only got reliable data for a microscopic window (late 1800s for the Western World, much worse for the rest of the world) and are shocked by our mesaurements. We all know that the world was A LOT hotter in the earlier days but your graph conveniently begins in a VERY cold. How about a bigger window:


But a perfect example how someone with an agenda can take readily available data, extend a peak in a graph and make it look like we're about to die.

I am not doubting that climate changes, glaciers rise and retreat. I'm just saying it's not the apocalypse and it's not nearly as man-made as we are made to believe. Use common sense ... has the spike in this graph you linked had ANY effect on the world other than some shipping routes that can occasionally be used without ice breakers? That's just a local phenomena that is credited to global warming while it totally contradicts the claim the gulf stream will slow down/stop and freeze northern Europe ...

I'll break down the day the Netherlands are flooded ... Sea level is probably more stable than the Prototype Meter in Paris:

[Wodan]

The curve from xkcd is also the answer to your "not much happened so far" argument, that frankly, you really should think twice about. It makes clear that the effects of what humans already did are just getting started. Even if you think that the chance of it being human-induced is small, do you really think we should wait out what will happen to the netherlands? To get a picture of what is happening right now google "ice caps" and "glaciers" or watch a few minutes of this documentation by National Geographic:

We're humans, it's in our nature to believe that we, ME, cause stuff.

It's hip to believe in climate change and it's very unpopular to doubt some of the hysteria around it. I've taken the hard road and challenge what I am hearing. I don't even follow/read any global warming critics or studies, everything I linked is from neutral sources. Twenty years ago we all went mad about the ozone layer and now it's CO2, it's the new thing!

I cannot help it but be a sceptic deep inside of me and everything I am being told I mistrust and try to come to the same conclusion. And in this case I can't help it but come to the conclusion it's all a big hype. Climate is changing, globally, inevitably. Are we responsible for this? Well otherwise we'd have to accept that our existance on earth is pretty much irrelevant. It's much better to take measurements, extend the graph where is suits you and turn it into an agenda. Accepting that climate changes without us having a great effect on it also makes us feel helpless so many people get on a mission to DO SOMETHING ... make graphs, spread the word, buy a battery powered car ...

It becomes something like a religion where you see signs everywhere and you truely believe in it because if it wasn't true, you'd be giving up control. You'll find that many of the big global warming people consider themselves proud atheists because they don't need anything to believe in.

[webwit]

Half the Netherlands is below ocean level and they are still relying on dams from the early 20th century in some locations.

Takes some work though to keep stuff up to date.
http://www.sandandgravel.com/news/article.asp?v1=23480

[Wodan]

Half the Netherlands is below ocean level and they are still relying on dams from the early 20th century in some locations.

Takes some work though to keep stuff up to date.
http://www.sandandgravel.com/news/article.asp?v1=23480

Sure preparing for a "superstorm averages 1 per cent in 100 years" is surely worth investing in a 10km dam. You've had some VERY bad flooding a century ago if I'm not mistaken ... not only the WW1 flooding.

Generally speaking the Dutsch coast line hasn't changed dramatically over the last 100 years and they still have enough land to train for the next world cup ...

[jacobolus]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opini ... eptic.html

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
By RICHARD A. MULLERJULY 28, 2012
Berkeley, Calif.

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.

Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.

The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening” of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.

Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little.

How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.

It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.

Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.

The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online at BerkeleyEarth.org. That site also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.

What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years.

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.