# XKCD's Climate Change Comic **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 12, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786 "2016-09-12T20:34:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/61 "2016-09-13T23:33:19Z")
Those times when she sits on his face and tells him that she loves him. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/62 "2016-09-13T23:42:44Z")
FWIW, another interesting and alarming graphic. [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/files/2016/09/tempanoms\_gis\_august2016.gif](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/files/2016/09/tempanoms_gis_august2016.gif) ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/63 "2016-09-14T01:33:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > _North American_ Pokemon. The ones we have here now are an invasive species from Asia. Oh sure, if you selectively begin your timeline _after_ the end of the Pleistocene epoch: [Why did Pokémon die out in North America?](http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2012/11/29/why-did-horses-die-out-in-north-america/) With regard to Milankovitch cycles and Earth’s temperature you can’t really have an intellectually honest discussion without citing the exhausive work of Stanley, Simmons, Criss, Frehley et al. in the 1970’s: [100,000 Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7CqaQlbvy8) [Hotter Than Hell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmaDZHVLaCo) [Cold Gin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC9A8wjojzY) Oh baby, yeah! Keepin’ it real in **Café Society.** ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/64 "2016-09-14T02:32:57Z")
Given this a lot of thought. I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker’s cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn’t let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards. Well I wouldn’t become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/65 "2016-09-14T03:59:45Z")
This thread got very strange for the last four posts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/66 "2016-09-14T04:15:44Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This thread got very strange for the last four posts. This Cafe Society, you need to refresh on your Monthy Phyton: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL5mAqFJds) What **Ken001** is citing, the Architect Sketch. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/67 "2016-09-14T04:49:52Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > um… the ice’d have to pass through Wisconsin first, I think. Just sayin’. > > Also, nice Spinal Tap reference. I liked the Nine Inch Nails graffiti on the Lascaux cave, done by a cavewoman. 😛 There’s a section of (mostly) Wisconsin where the glaciers never came, known as The Driftless. Very interesting, and mostly uninhabited, area. Incredibly, even though I am a lifelong Midwesterner, I had never heard of it until I drove through it earlier this summer. > **[Driftless Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area)** > > .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct,.mw-parser-output .geo-inline-hidden{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}43°30′N 91°00′W / 43.5°N 91°W / 43.5; -91The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country and the Paleozoic Plateau, is a topographical and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprise Ne... ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/68 "2016-09-14T06:18:08Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Okay. > > So deniers/conservatives/Republicans/Trumpskis can be selective in how they present information, and it’s a crime against humanity, but when it’s done on our side, it’s just making sure everybody understands. Got it. It’s a bad thing when you selectively omit information that _would undercut the point you’re trying to make_. The point of this comic seems to be: “At the rate we’re going, we could see nearly as much net warming in the next 100 years or so as we did in the last 20,000 years (and that would be a huge problem for the civilization we’ve developed over the course of those millennia).” Do you agree that that’s the basic point? And if so, in what possible way would that point be undercut by noting that things were as hot 100,000 years ago? I’ve never heard anyone actually argue “Climate change is bad because it will be hotter than it’s ever been”. That’s a total strawman. What people are saying is, “If we heat things up that _quickly_ over the course of the next century, we’re screwed.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/69 "2016-09-14T07:08:30Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Maybe this is a stupid question, but if there was such a spike of 50-100 years duration, 50,000 - 400,000 years ago – would it show up for sure in some geological record, or would it be too short to be detected? It would show in tree rings, the problem is finding the tree. I know a guy whose PhD involved using tree ring measurements to study rain and temperature variations, but the oldest living trees around aren’t more than a couple thousand years old and while there are fossilized trees well, they reach the specific period they reach. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/70 "2016-09-14T13:28:13Z")
You can still patch together a much longer tree-ring record by matching the long-dead trees to not-quite-as-long-dead-trees, and match them up to ones slightly more recent, and so on until you get to the still-living trees. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/71 "2016-09-14T14:31:21Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > There’s a section of (mostly) Wisconsin where the glaciers never came, known as The Driftless. Very interesting, and mostly uninhabited, area. Incredibly, even though I am a lifelong Midwesterner, I had never heard of it until I drove through it earlier this summer. “Mostly uninhabited?” Maybe by NYC standards. It coves 16000 sq miles of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. There are tons of small and medium sized towns in there, about the same as the glaciated areas of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. My home you are talking about. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/72 "2016-09-14T15:04:06Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Every time someone points to some new hurricane or natural disaster as being a confirmation of global warming they are being just as stupid as the people who cite snowstorms or the occasional unusually cold spell as proof that it’s not. I didn’t know you were a BothSidesist. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/73 "2016-09-14T15:24:30Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > “Mostly uninhabited?” Maybe by NYC standards. It coves 16000 sq miles of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. By NYC standards _all_ of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota are “mostly uninhabited”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/74 "2016-09-14T16:09:37Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It would show in tree rings, the problem is finding the tree. I know a guy whose PhD involved using tree ring measurements to study rain and temperature variations, but the oldest living trees around aren’t more than a couple thousand years old and while there are fossilized trees well, they reach the specific period they reach. No so great a problem. For instance, dead trees from several thousand years ago have fallen into peat bogs, [and been preserved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog-wood), their rings still readable. I dare say there are other natural ways they have been preserved. It happens often enough to give us an unbroken story of the climate for the [last 13,900 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/75 "2016-09-14T16:30:21Z")
Oh, and even if we had a preserved tree that was so old that it didn’t fit into a continuous tree-ring record, it would still show the presence of such a spike, even if we couldn’t determine precisely when that spike was. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/76 "2016-09-14T16:52:59Z")
Yeah, but (just to play Devil’s advocate for a moment) there would be a small chance that a spike might happen in a missing section. Not likely, but it could happen. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/77 "2016-09-14T17:23:44Z")
> [@eunoia](#): > > With regard to Milankovitch cycles and Earth’s temperature you can’t really have an intellectually honest discussion without citing the exhausive work of Stanley, Simmons, Criss, Frehley et al. in the 1970’s: That’s also bullshit, because they didn’t even make Resident Evil until 2002, and it wasn’t until Resident Evil Retribution in 2012 that she road a motorcycle, so I don’t see how these crusty turds from the 70s have anything pertinent to say. I even think Dazed in and Confused was set in 1980, so it can’t be that. My favorite Milankovitch movie though is The Fifth Element. I think she’s really hot. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/78 "2016-09-14T17:35:12Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > It goes out of its way to show a relatively short-term temperature spike while omitting even the most recent of such regular spikes. You know of a previous spike of several degrees over the course of a few decades? Do tell, and let us know how you do at picking up hot Swedes on your trip to Stockholm. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/79 "2016-09-14T17:46:24Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > You know of a previous spike of \*\*several degrees \*\*over the course of a few decades? Do tell, and let us know how you do at picking up hot Swedes on your trip to Stockholm. About 1 degree, by the chart. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786/80 "2016-09-14T17:46:54Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I think she’s really hot. The point is, she wasn’t hot for the first 20,000 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcds-climate-change-comic/765786.md?page=5)