Thanks, Jac.
I wonder who will be the last person to think this wisecrack is an original observation? And yet, I think it should persist.
But then I've always thought the remark "Hot enough for you?" is funny. Now, I've never said it or heard anyone else say "Hot enough for you?" The first time I ever read it was in the 1960s in Mad Magazine. It was a Dave Berg comic strip showing one person after another say "Hot enough for you?" to a guy until he freaked out. (Would it kill Mad Magazine to have a website that let us search for old crap we remember from the 60s?)
Back then, I got the point the way a kid gets a point: So that must mean there are a lot of adults out there who keep saying "Hot enough for you?" and I need to know that's been said way too much before I ever say it or hear it. I was keen on figuring out in advance how not to embarrass myself.
And it seems everyone got the memo — if not from Dave Berg, then from somewhere. Whenever it was really hot, I thought about Dave Berg and how no one ever says "Hot enough for you?" and I got to thinking it really is pretty funny in the way that later generations might think it is funny to say "Could it be any hotter?" But I had to laugh to myself because no one ever said it.
So if you see me on the street some very hot day, feel free to say it to me: "Hot enough for you?" You don't even have to wait, you can say "Cold enough for you?" if you see me today. I'll be especially amused if you look like this:
Now, has it become clear why you should go ahead and keep up with the if-global-warming-is-real-then-why-is-it-cold jokes? They haven't gone away yet. They are at the stage in the life span of a joke where "Hot enough for you?" was when Dave Berg drew his comic strip. But, you may ask, doesn't that mean that people who don't want to be embarrassed should be getting the memo that these jokes cannot be told anymore?
No, I think we're at the stage where we keep up with the joke out of pure sadism to irk the folks who can't take it anymore. They are the earnest folk who want everyone to accede to scientific consensus and meekly swallow whatever remedies are prescribed. Taunt them!
Posts
214 comments:
1 – 200 of 214 Newer› Newest»White is black.
True is false.
Heat makes the planet cold.
Oh, I know, I know. Climate change makes the climate change. So any weather we experience is an effect of man's behavior.
What's really funny is that anyone ever takes these guys seriously. They've been peddling one doomsday scenario after another since I was a kid, and haven't been right once. But do people stop buying their books? No.
That's friggin' hilarious.
"If Global Warming Is Real Then Why Is It Cold?"
So we can throw boiling water into the air.
I don't really think it's a joke. It's a valid question. If the global temperature has been dropping every year since 1998, exactly how does that correspond with the earth getting warmer?
My recent purhcases at a Milwaukee used bookstore caused the old man behind the counter to remark, The Life of Samuel Johnson and MAD magazines from 1970. That's quite ...a...selection."
I could have protested that my high schooler reads MAD, but it's funnier if he thinks their both for me.
I always liked the way Don Martin drew feet.
Enough volume for you?
(Ideal gas joke.)
It was so cold today that I saw a dog stuck to a telephone pole.
It was so cold that O.J. led an armed raid to retrieve his stolen space heater.
It was so cold that I saw a politician with his hand in his own pocket.
It was so cold that the Iraqis were throwing snowshoes at President Bush.
It was so cold on that farm that the chickens were mugging the sheep just to get wool for sweaters.
We are being priviledged to watch the all time greatest PowerPlay in world political history. They [The UN boys] have complete confidence that they can run cartoon-like fantasies of a world that does not have 1% of reality in it and then tell us we all have to bend over and take it with no free speech allowed. These guys are really good at Control. Maybe they will take Obama off our hands and he can be called up to the Big- leagues
People still say "hot enough for you?" here in Vermont, especially in the more rural areas.
Man, I love this place. Where else do you hear expressions that went out of date in the 60's, when I wasn't even born yet. I grew up hearing that all the time.
Now, if I could only figure out how to get rid of all the out-of-state liberals, this would be my paradise. A cold, out-dated paradise.
It's not cold. It's 72 degrees out.
Whenever I hear someone say "It was so cold that..." I think of Johnny Carson saying "It was so cold today... in Central Park I saw a bird mugging a squirrel for his fur coat." I can't help it. I ALWAYS think of that one joke.
I remember that Dave Berg cartoon well.
The protagonist complains about how everyone keeps saying, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
(This was NYC, after all.)
He says, “If I hear one more person say ‘It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity’ I’m going to scream!
So, of course, someone says it and he starts screaming.
The punchline is out of the mouth of a bystander who says to his companion, “You know, it’s not the heat or the humidity. It’s all that screaming.”
(Hey! Any chance I redeemed myself for that botched R. Taylor cartoon or am I now two in the hole?)
man-made global warming is one of the largest scams in history. The only ones left who believe in it are liberal politicians who see their houses of power and chance to enslave the masses blowing away with every record snow fall.
"It's not cold. It's 72 degrees out."
When I walked to work at 6 this morning, it was 25 below zero.
So yeah, plenty cold.
Thanks for Mad Mag reference. I've been saying that, like forever, but didn't know where it came from.
Those are v.v. funny.
This cold snap is evidence of nothing, except that it’s damn cold. Whatev. It’s winter. Funny how people tend to think it's all about them.
Salamandyr, it's my understanding is that the surface temps have been increasing.
Unfortunately, it will take the guvmint 10 years to catch up with reality. After they have spent us into oblivion sponsoring climate change projects, we will be lucky to own a warm coat.
No, it was not hot enough for me this morning.
26 below? Holy cow!
The TV weather folks have been all aflutter about this cold air heading down here, in New Orleans. Starting on Monday, we got warnings that THERE WILL BE A FREEZE later this week. It finally got here last night - down to 30 on the South shore and in the 20s on the North shore.
We have crops in the ground, so there's some real concern. The strawberries are just about ready for picking, and they're so damn good, you just don't want anything bad happening to them. There's some citrus growing, too. I pulled in my orchids and put sheets over the rest. They're fine.
The funniest news coverage was a new twist. Some reporter decided to warn us about the dangers of driving on ice. Now, it hasn't rained for days, and there's none in the forecast. So, as she's standing in some courtyard at night, there's a hand holding a running garden hose in the frame behind her to illustrate, I suppose, that you just never can know where water might come from.
Pogo, we love those feet at our house. You know how at the end of a long day, sometimes socks can get twisty and floppy at the end? We say, Look, I have Don Martin feet.
In the Twin Cities, it's the longest stretch of below zero temps in 13 years.
I didn't mean to imply that I personally have crops to tend. I have a porch full of plants, and a little container with garlic, shallots and fennel. The berries and citrus are out in the boonies, not in my small city yard.
The Mad Magazine staple I remember the most is "You know you're _____ when..." as in "you know you're a grown-up when..." Always funny, 'cause do you even yet 'know you're a grown-up?' or is it always a surprise?
I think in most offices people still say "Hot enough for you?" Weather is a big conversation topic in situations where people are politically, religiously, etc. diverse, because it's hard to find totally uncontroversial topics to discuss.
In academia, where people aren't diverse, there isn't the same need to talk about the weather constantly.
I prefer "but it's a humid heat".
"This cold snap is evidence of nothing, except that it’s damn cold"
My guess is most people here agree (I certainly do).
The problem is stuff like this:
http://www.climatehotmap.org/fingerprints.html
If heat waves are proof AGW is happening, then cold waves are proof it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
@Bissage: "(Hey! Any chance I redeemed myself for that botched R. Taylor cartoon or am I now two in the hole?)"
Oh, I probably botched it not you. But you've upset me now telling me that my memory of the David Berg cartoon is wrong. Perhaps, he semi-repeated himself.
Cold in in.
Taunt them!
It's worth noting that this sentence sums up the main strategy the right has taken in response to the global warming issue. As opposed to, say, an informed discussion of the actual issue.
@sean -- but I'm referring to my entire lifetime, and I've only been in academia for the last quarter century.
In academia, where people aren't diverse, there isn't the same need to talk about the weather constantly.
In August, when it's 99 degrees and 99 percent humidity here, on campus, the weather is a constant topic. "Hot enough for ya?" and "anything in the Gulf?" are ritual greetings.
"As opposed to, say, an informed discussion of the actual issue."
Well, it's a response to the true believers who don't want to have an informed discussion either. They simply say the time for discussion is over, there's a consensus among the experts to whom you must bow down.
What about those who want everyone to *understand* the scientific consensus, and still question what remedies are prescribed? For now it's a battle of ignorance, both parties fighting for allegiance irrespective of what's occurring or what's the best solution.
It's worth noting that this sentence sums up the main strategy the right has taken in response to the global warming issue. As opposed to, say, an informed discussion of the actual issue.
Yes, but an "informed discussion" is virtually impossible, since 99% of us aren't qualified to have an informed discussion about global warming, or virtually any other unsettled scientific topic.
It's worth noting that this sentence sums up the main strategy the right has taken in response to the global warming issue. As opposed to, say, an informed discussion of the actual issue.
An informed discussion? What kind of joke is that. The problem with global warming debates is that there never are informed discussions. No one can prove any global warming and everything is just a theory. Moreover, none of the existing theories that were created in the 1990s have matched or predicted any of the actual evidence. So to counter this, new models and new theories are created than haven't been tested yet. Then you end up with with arguments like:
"well we should do all this socialist stuff anyway because if global warming is true, it will be a disaster if we don't do it"
It reminds me Pascal's wager argument... its better to believe in God because if God turns out to exist than you will make it to heaven, whereas if God doesn't exist than it matters little whether you believed in him or not.
This is now the main argument for the global warmists. It's no different than a corrupt priest in the middle ages asking for more money before God sends another hurricane.
Global warming enthusiasts never want "an informed discussion of the actual issue." It's dogma and you are either with them and enlightened or against them and out to destroy the earth. Plus, very few people, pro or con, are sufficient informed to have an "informed discussion."
Well, it's a response to the true believers who don't want to have an informed discussion either. They simply say the time for discussion is over, there's a consensus among the experts to whom you must bow down.
Boy is THAT ever true.
Science has always been politicized. But there are few stands more hypocritical than the anti-Bush crowds cries of politics entering into science in the Bush administration.
Hello? My brother-in-law, a chemical engineer for one of the world's largest manufacturers, regales us with stories pulling the masks off of the "noble, politically impartial scientists of academia and government". Impartial your ass. Every bit of research is done with an eye on someone's political agenda.
And what is it with lefties always wanting to control the lives of everyone. Didn't the fall of communism prove anything to these people?
Reserved for a sweltering day...
Favorite Mad/Don Martin cartoon:
Man facing receptionist, who's desk is covered with "No smoking" signs.
Man: "Mind if I smoke?"
Receptionist: "Why, are you on fire?"
A better choice for today.
John Althouse Cohen said...
"It's worth noting that this sentence sums up the main strategy the right has taken in response to the global warming issue. As opposed to, say, an informed discussion of the actual issue."
Experience teaches that whether skeptics offer taunts or reasoned discussion (and both have been offered), they will all-but invariably receive the response your mom described above: "the time for discussion is over, there's a consensus among the experts to whom you must bow down." When two inputs produce the same output, the less costly input is the more efficient choice, and mocking the dolts with brutal sarcasm is both more fun and less time-consuming than carefully adducing evidence and reason in an argument with a brick wall. (Scott Adams makes a similar observation in The Dilbert Future.)
Yes, but an "informed discussion" is virtually impossible, since 99% of us aren't qualified to have an informed discussion about global warming, or virtually any other unsettled scientific topic.
It's Fortran to me!
Look, the time for argument is indeed over. We must DO SOMETHING!
This is where I really start to like folks like Bjorn Lomborg. In one talk I heard he imagines a conversation with a Bangladeshi 100 years from now. He says, "You know, I do thank you for investing so much in these last 100 years so that my country is not underwater now. But I think I would rather you have spent that money to provide more immediate assistance to my ancestors instead."
Yeah, Mr. Lomborg is basically proposing that we be prepared to pay Bangladeshi's and other at-risk peoples to move to higher ground. And that seems radical---but to me, so does geoengineering, so does the multi-trillion costs associated with other solutions, especially when none of them are certain to work.
Please mentally delete that inappropriate apostrophe above. :)
Favorite Don Martin cartoon, "The Early Riser": Alarm clock goes off, man sits bolt upright in bed, mouth wide open in a huge grin. After another frame or two of this, hatchet-faced wife reaches into his mouth and yanks out the coat hanger ("POIT!") that's been propping it open; says, "Sleepwalking in the closets again, Stupid?"
Well, it's a response to the true believers who don't want to have an informed discussion either. They simply say the time for discussion is over, there's a consensus among the experts to whom you must bow down.
Do two wrongs make a right? If conservatives feel that liberals are pressing a firm conclusion when actually further inquiry is needed, the response should be to actually engage with the issue on a scientific level and explain specifically what they're concerned about. But for the most part, conservatives don't do that; they just take pot-shots at Al Gore, environmentalism, blah blah blah.
I'm not criticizing this blog post or any of the jokes. I'm just saying conservatives have a strategy of scoffing at instead of engaging with real problems. It's fine to make fun of Al Gore and global warming, just as it's fine to make fun of Bush or McCain or anyone in politics.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment). That's one of the reasons I see conservatism and the Republican party as a non-starter. The liberals might not get everything right, but at least they're trying. (Note: making lists of supposed inaccuracies in Al Gore's movie isn't good enough. There may be flaws with certain things said by Al Gore, but that wouldn't mean liberals aren't basically right on the global warming issue.)
It's Fortran to me!
Fortran I can handle. Climate models, not so much.
(sorry for the use of "actually" twice in one sentence)
I bet Al Gore is sitting alone somewhere utterly crushed.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment).
No, they do not. Being serious is not the same as taking the issue seriously. The latter requires rational response.
Breaking this down to conservatives vs. liberals misses the point. The relevant categories are scientists and non-scientists, and even more to the point, climatologists and non-climatologists. I find it amusing (and therefore taunt-worthy) to listen to non-specialists argue forcefully for one side of the GW debate or the other. Who are they kidding?
No, they do not. Being serious is not the same as taking the issue seriously. The latter requires rational response.
Er, I would have to just repeat what I said, which is that I don't assume they're right on everything, they might be too dogmatic, but just pointing out that "Hey, they're too dogmatic!" doesn't do much good. Both sides independently have the burden to analyze the issue correctly and propose compelling solutions. Liberals at least try to do so, maybe with mixed success. Most conservatives don't even try.
Theo Boehm said...
"Look, the time for argument is indeed over. We must DO SOMETHING!"
The politician's mantra: "something must be done, and this is something, ergo this must be done."
I'm not a skeptic or a believer as to AGW; as with so many other things, I'm a moderate. A reasonable person on the sidelines. I'm not persuaded that we must do something, still less that, assuming that we must do something, that compels me to agree to doing any particular thing.
And I do find it interesting that the people who shout the loudest about how we must do something are, by sheer coincidence (or not) telling us that the solutions to this problem are the same policies that their ideology has been telling us to implement for decades. If you're a liberal telling me that you've found a new problem that means we have to have massive, draconian federal regulation and intervention in the economy, that federalism and so forth must give way to meet the needs of the day, you're not telling me anything that liberals weren't arguing in favor of decades before global warming became the fad. This undercuts the force of the argument: It all starts to look like a solution in search of a problem, which only amplifies skepticism.
The chances that, by sheer coincidence, a massive new global challenge has appeared, and the same old tired, discredited dogma of the left provides the only solution, are nil. A genuine crisis does not follow party lines. Why, then, is the following not the correct response: When liberals and progressives start proposing policy responses to global warming that don't look an awful lot like the same policies liberals and progressives have been proposing for a century, I will take seriously the claim that something must be done. Until then, it's too obviously an excuse. When the people who are most aggressive in demanding action be taken start taking the problem seriously, they will have a right to ask other people to.
Original Mike said...
"Breaking this down to conservatives vs. liberals misses the point. The relevant categories are scientists and non-scientists"
Of the scientists who signed the IPCC report, what percentage of them do you suppose vote for left-of-center parties?
liberals aren't basically right on the global warming issue.
The problem here, JAC, is that there most likely isn't a problem here at all.
There are many good men and women in science who dispute the basic existence of what the left calls "global warming": man-made causes of rising global temperatures.
And that definition is highly in dispute. It is disingenuous to say that one side must propose a solution for a problem that for many of that side is difficult to believe exists.
Both sides independently have the burden to analyze the issue correctly and propose compelling solutions. Liberals at least try to do so, maybe with mixed success. Most conservatives don't even try.
That is a non-sequitur. You can't make up a fact and then ask the other side to debate what to do about it. If liberals fabricate a crisis out of something that doesn't exist (such as man-made global warming), there is no duty for the other side to debate it. Liberals don't have a leg to stand on with this issue becuase there is no proof at all that man causes global warming or now even if there is any global warming at all. The conservative view is to do nothing about the causes of global warming because nothing is what is needed you when you have a fictional problem.
Unfortunately, the liberals hold the levels of power and may attempt to pass laws based on these false facts (it reminds me on the laws passed to discriminate against jews in Germany - they were based on false facts too). Therefore, we need to be diligent about bring political pressure to expose the falsehoods. An old fashion way to do that is mockery.
JAC--
One of the reasons that I bought this particular piece of property in 1973 was the fact that there was 9 acres of woods, and I'd be able to heat the house with the wood. All you heard from climatologists back then was that another ice age was on the way. Do get back to me, when you've got the climate figured out, would you?
Of the scientists who signed the IPCC report, what percentage of them do you suppose vote for left-of-center parties?
Sure, but I think that obscures the point. I'll listen to a "liberal" scientist making an informed argument. Listening to a "liberal" lawyer (to pick a random example) expound on GW is a waste of my time.
When liberals and progressives start proposing policy responses to global warming that don't look an awful lot like the same policies liberals and progressives have been proposing for a century, I will take seriously the claim that something must be done.
Seems like you've defined "looking an awful lot like" liberal/progressive policies to include anything that involves major federal regulation. So you've ruled out that possibility, but aside from that, you're completely "moderate" and willing to listen to any solutions! Haven't you ensured from the outset that if there actually is a good solution that involves federal regulation, you'll automatically discount it?
And I see no reason to presume the best solution would be based on "federalism" when we're talking about the environment.
Until then, it's too obviously an excuse. When the people who are most aggressive in demanding action be taken start taking the problem seriously, they will have a right to ask other people to.
I don't see why you'd think that certain people (liberals) have to act first, and then others (presumably conservatives) will have to take it seriously. Why doesn't everyone who's in any kind of position of power over the issue have a responsibility to take it seriously right now?
Ok. I posted this on another thread, but it fits here. I remember when it all about the Globe Warming until just a year ago... when it started to become apparent that there was a lack of extreme warming predicted... er, I mean project by scenarios A and B of the climate models used by the IPCC and Prof. Hansen. Those scenarios most closely match the current CO2 gas concentration, but the actual observed temps are currently below scenario C. This is nothing more than changing the language to match the observed outcome. Using the new mantra of "climate change" how can you tell if the current unusually cold weather or the new big heat wave is a man made phenomenon, or simply a matter of natural variation? YOU CAN"T. But that's the beauty of this young field - no matter what happens, it's impossible to disprove, because ANY change can be pinned on it. That's a problem for this science, because if you can't disprove it, then it's not science.
PS. Not all climate science is a fraud, and yes, the extra CO2 will have some effect on the general climate. But it is not, and never has been shown to be the dominant driver in world climate. And please, don't come back with Michael Mann's tree ring circus "The Hockey Stick". That thing stinks on ice.
"consensus"
I don thin that word mins what yu thin it mins.
--------------------
You guys missed the last focus group. It's not global warming anymore (inconveniently enough, it's been getting cooler for years), it's now "climate control."
Temps up = more gov't reg's
Temps down = more gov't reg's
Luckily, whichever way the temps go, the gov''t will save us. Just like it's saving our economy now.
Oh boy -----> no wonder it's so fricken cold out.
There are many good men and women in science who dispute the basic existence of what the left calls "global warming": man-made causes of rising global temperatures.
And that definition is highly in dispute. It is disingenuous to say that one side must propose a solution for a problem that for many of that side is difficult to believe exists.
I realize there are global warming skeptics/deniers. Of course if they can make a convincing argument that there's no problem, then that itself would count as a solution.
If there really isn't a global warming problem, then powerful people who are capable of forcefully, persuasively advancing that argument to the general public must do so.
Now, based on my extremely limited scientific understanding, I think they're wrong. But maybe I'm wrong and they're right, in which case, more power to them in making that case to the public and saving us the trouble of doing whatever we would have otherwise done on the issue.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment).
Utter hogwash. They take their own pet issues seriously, in stark contrast to "the issues." Here is a partial list of issues which liberals do not take seriously:
The war on terror (you know they are unserious about this just from the way they can never resist putting "war on terror" in scare quotes
Islamofascism in general
Immigration ("open up the borders and let everyone in, and give all the existing illegals amnesty" is not a serious position)
Freedom of speech (the "Fairness" Doctrine)
Do two wrongs make a right? If conservatives feel that liberals are pressing a firm conclusion when actually further inquiry is needed, the response should be to actually engage with the issue on a scientific level and explain specifically what they're concerned about.
A deaf ear is turned when conservatives try to do that. Show liberals studies that prove that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has historically occurred AFTER temperature increases, indicating that it's an effect rather than a cause of atmospheric warming, and you get--what's that word? Denial.
JAC--
If you live long enough, you'll hear just about anything and everything. Like I said above, before global warming, there was not only global cooling, but an ice age was apparent.
What to do? Don't worry about it. If it get colder or warmer, you'll never have an ability to change anything concerning the climate.
That's one of the reasons I see conservatism and the Republican party as a non-starter. The liberals might not get everything right, but at least they're trying.
"Change must be stopped at all costs!" is a conservative mantra. Why are libs suddenly adopting it in the one special case of climate change?
Sometimes change is good. It's especially easy to appreciate that when it's below zero outside.
Now, based on my extremely limited scientific understanding, I think they're wrong.
It's too bad that so many think like you. They accept as truth something that cannot be proven and then act to enslave the rest of us based on the false truth. It is the ultmate in anti-freedom.
The problem with liberals is that they have lost the natural human urge for freedom. In this sense they have "evolved."
Seriously JAC, being a dour scold about everything does not equate to taking issues seriously!
Moreover, empirical evidence and logical argument on the damage caused by liberal programs, e.g., rent control, welfare, etc. is simply ignored by liberals.
Lastly, I've changed your prior paragraph slightly to make the skeptics' view clearer:
"I don't see why you'd think that certain people [those who believe in anthropogenic climate change] have to act first, and then others [those who the believers wish to convince] will have to take it seriously."
Of course anyone in a position of power should take the issue "seriously," but that does not mean accepting the alarmism. It may mean actually applying reasoned skepticism to the proposed theory and proposed solutions.
For those of us not in a position of authority over the issue - jokes will do.
If conservatives feel that liberals are pressing a firm conclusion when actually further inquiry is needed, the response should be to actually engage with the issue on a scientific level and explain specifically what they're concerned about.
And there are lots of people who do that, but as mentioned, we're not all qualified to get deep into the science. A lot of us are qualified to be skeptical and that's what we are. But this stuff is pushed from birth now and anyone who disagree's is mocked. So we mock back. If we find someone who will listen, we argue.
None of it matters.
Yellowstone is going to blow and put so much ash in the upper atmosphere that anything we do will be irrelevant.
And the magnetic poles are going to flip north to south and mess up the magnetic field of the entire earth for a couple of centuries either side of the event. We've no idea what that will do.
Meanwhile, the sun will be carrying on its merry way with no sun spots or else more than ever before.
AGW is a warm, cuddly, *controllable* sort of thing. Like children we feel the most secure when we're the drivers of our own situation. Anything that *we* can break, *we* can fix.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment).
But, isn't that the problem sometimes? I think often liberals take themselves and their opinions too seriously. That is often what conservatives are mocking! When someone has the opinion that, everything I say is serious and right and everyone else is an idiot, how can you have a reasoned conversation with them? Believe me, I've tried and except on rare occasions it doesn't work. Sometimes it's best just to back away from the crazy. IRL, that is.
Yellowstone is going to blow ... the magnetic poles are going to flip
No more NOVA for you, Synova.
"Seriously JAC, being a dour scold about everything does not equate to taking issues seriously!"
I think we've learned that humor, reason and good sense aren't necessarily heritable traits.
"Now, based on my extremely limited scientific understanding..."
Ay, there's the rub.
"It all starts to look like a solution in search of a problem,"
A good working definition of "progressivism".
If global warming is a silly hoax, what does that say about people that can't stop talking about every day? Weird.
Actually, MAD Magazine did a "complete archive" CD-ROM set a few years ago. I think it went up to about 2000 or so.
Ha-ha.
That's so funny. the ice caps are melting, the permafrost is melting, the Northwest passage is open for the first time in human history, warming is happening faster than ever.
But, by all means, let's trivialize this and mock people who take the problem seriously. Because, you know, they're the weird ones.
The people who repeat discredited arguments against global warming, who keep shifting their arguments as each one is proven false, who fight efforts to deal with this real peril should be egged on.
And we should keep spewing false notions like record snow and cold disproves anything.
Ann, you forgot to say "algore." (Why you wingers say that is a mystery)
Alpha
Rush used to call him algore.
You should stick to your standard cut-and-paste, Alpha. When you try to wing it and write your own material it's just embarrassing for everyone.
"If global warming is a silly hoax, what does that say about people that can't stop talking about every day? Weird."
You talk about right wingers and George Bush every day. Weird.
"the ice caps are melting, the permafrost is melting, the Northwest passage is open for the first time in human history, warming is happening faster than ever. "
Well, if you believe this to be true, no wonder you think global warming is an irrefutable fact. However, for those of us who know that these statements are either false or debatable, the question of whether human activity is causing the earth to warm is still an open one.
Sloan waxes ignorantly:
No one can prove any global warming and everything is just a theory
What "proof" do you want if you don't accept the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and thousands of real scientists? (Not that you would accept any proof that challenges your entrenched belief system).
Here's the thing about proof:
Science is based on doing replicable experiments. When talking about planetary atmospheric systems, we don't have enough planets to run experiments.
We only have ONE planet. What you guys are effectively saying is "let's deny all science and evidence and keep spewing tons of global warming pollutants in the atmosphere and see what happens."
Not that rising sea levels would sway someone with an entrenched belief system. Here are examples of evidence the stubborn reject:
* the open Northwest Passage
* glaciers retreating around the world
* ice shelves breaking up in Antartica
* melting permafrost (which even Palin admits to)
* measurements of rising concentrations of greenhouse gasses.
* Accelerating desertification.
* More flooding
* Accelerated flooding and melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
* Oh, this list goes on and on.
Thing is the same people denying global warming is a problem and/or related to human activity, are the same people denying every other environmental problem!
That's so funny. the ice caps are melting, the permafrost is melting, the Northwest passage is open for the first time in human history, warming is happening faster than ever.
I would be happy if just one of these OMG GLOBAL WARMING!!! People would talk about just why exactly we are supposed to believe that there is some sort of set temperature that is best for the earth, what that temperature is and what the pro’s and con’s are of maintaining it, if that’s even possible. Even if it is a degree warmer than it was 100 years ago, well it was how many degree’s cooler during the little ice age, and how many degrees warmer during the medieval warm period…who decides this ideal temperature?
Not even to get into the fact that it doesn’t seem to be getting warmer right now and might even turn cooler. And that we can't even predict accurate weather into next week, or tomorrow or an hour from now.
NB the real Science is settled. It's the Sun. Every other hairbrained scarepothesis has been debunked and debunked. The only interesting thing to investigate is why people pretend otherwise.Someone alert Michael Crighton.
So how many deniers here think that the greenhouse effect is false?
hands?
"If conservatives feel that liberals are pressing a firm conclusion when actually further inquiry is needed, the response should be to actually engage with the issue on a scientific level and explain specifically what they're concerned about."
Assuming that it is true that liberals generally believe in AGW (or should we now call it ACC?) and conservatives don't (and I'm not at all sure that's the case), what does that tell you? A better question might be: assuming that it is true that liberal scientists generally believe in AGW and conservative scientists don't, what does that tell you? I know of ABSOLUTELY NO "SETTLED SCIENCE" that breaks down on any political lines. The measures we are told need to be taken had damned well better be based on settled science.
"Of course if they can make a convincing argument that there's no problem, then that itself would count as a solution."
But in actual science, the burden is on those who make the assertion that there is a problem to prove that that is in fact the case. I haven't heard it yet and am therefore under no obligation to offer any solutions. Put another way, when are YOU going to do something about the alien abduction problem?
"I think we've learned that humor, reason and good sense aren't necessarily heritable traits."
A bit harsh. I am generally impressed with the overall sensibility and thoughtfulness of both JAC and CAC (and I truly mean that; I don't feel that way just because their mother makes me swoon).
And one more observation: Paying an offering thru the Sun God's High Priests will only leave you broke and no cooler and no warmer.
"the Northwest passage is open for the first time in human history"
Amundsen must have been one of those lying liars (i.e., conservatives) that Franken warned us about.
For you deniers who will say "there have been temperature swings in the past," those swings were over much longer periods of time.
If one swing happens over 10 years and one 100, those things are different. The ability of plants, animals and ecosystems* to adapt is limited when it happens more rapidly.
*don't tell me. Only communists say "ecosystems."
AGW (or should we now call it ACC?)
I didn't get the memo. Has "Global Warming" been replaced by "Climate Change"?
the ice caps are melting, the permafrost is melting, the Northwest passage is open for the first time in human history
That's nothing. I read somewhere that farmers are starting to grow strawberries in Greenland. This horror must be stopped at all costs!
"Science is based on doing replicable experiments. When talking about planetary atmospheric systems, we don't have enough planets to run experiments."
You thereby admit we are dealing with an untestable hypothesis. I'll let you do the Googling yourself to understand the implications.
I realize there are global warming skeptics/deniers. Of course if they can make a convincing argument that there's no problem, then that itself would count as a solution.
JAC - Have you actually studied in-depth any of the writings of some of these "deniers" featured in the article? Or is all the info about skeptics based on condescending articles such as this one?
Crimso:
Amundsen must have been one of those lying liars (i.e., conservatives) that Franken warned us about.
Thanks, but one ship making it through in a 3-year trek hardly qualifies as "open." Ships are now sailing right through the OPEN passage.
The Northwest Passage was not conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had sailed just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa.
Yum. Herring!
Here, FoxNews reports on the opening of the Northwest Passage
Madam Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: 12 comments
Mad Magazine: 86 fershlugginer blort fonebone comments.
Publisher Bill Gaines once took the magazine's editorial staff and freelancers on vacation to Haiti, for the sole purpose of making an unannounced visit to the home of the one person on the island who subscribed to the magazine.
The great story of his being called to testify before Congress about violence in comics....Trying to lose weight, he was popping speed and high as a vulture. Congressman asked him if he, Gaines, thought this cover was inappropriate for children. Ha!
Senator KEFAUVER. Here is your May 22 issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?
Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir; I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.
Senator KEFAUVER. You have blood coming out of her mouth.
Mr. GAINES. A little.
Crimso:
You thereby admit we are dealing with an untestable hypothesis. I'll let you do the Googling yourself to understand the implications.
No, you leap to a wrong conclusion. We need to arrive at knowledge by other means than experimental hypothesis testing.
I'll let you use the Google to learn what's been done.
Chill out Alpha. You're staring to sound like Greenzo
"those swings were over much longer periods of time."
Considering the incredibly short period of time actual direct temperature measurements have been made, I would strongly suspect that it is not possible to determine what average global temperature variance was over a 50 yr period 200000 yrs ago. I freely admit to being wrong about this. I'd dearly love to know how they measure how much average global temperature varied between the years 75000 BC and 74950 BC, and whether you'd bet your way of life on whether those measurements are as reliable as having weather stations on the spot in that time making measurements.
I'm still waiting for my viking ancestors to reclaim their agricultural colony on Greenland and start growing grapes again in Vinland.
How the polar bears lived through that one is inconceivable.
Theo says:
For my part, and given my age, I plan to lower my carbon footprint to practically zero at some point in the relatively near future, when "doing something" will have much less meaning than might have had heretofore.
Think this through, Theo, in light of this article from the Portland (Maine) Herald on October 28, 2007.
Klara Tammany's mother didn't want a typical American funeral. No embalming, no metal casket, not even a funeral home.
When she died after a long illness a couple of years ago, family members and friends washed and dressed her body and put it in a homemade wooden casket, which was laid across two sawhorses in the dining room of her condo in Brunswick.
Then, for two days, friends and family visited, brought cut flowers, wrote messages on the casket's lid and said goodbye.
"We had this wake, and it was wonderful," Tammany said.
The home funeral is part of an emerging trend that some believe will change the way Americans deal with death. Send-offs like the one Tammany planned with her mother are called "green" funerals because they avoid preservative chemicals and steel and concrete tombs, all designed to keep a body from decomposing naturally.
After the wake, Tammany's mother was cremated and her ashes buried near the family's camp in Monmouth.
Another alternative that is just emerging in Maine is natural burial in a green cemetery: wooded graveyards that ban chemicals and caskets that won't easily decompose.
Two such cemeteries are now preparing to do natural burials in Maine, in Limington and in Orrington. There are only about six operating green cemeteries in the United States, but many more are planned, according to those tracking the trend.
"I think it's a tidal wave that's coming," Tammany said. "The cultural way of dying and taking care of the dead is changing."
Actually, this process seems environmentally irresponsible to me. Especially the carbon footprint--wood casket, cremation and all. In Nepal a traditional method of body disposal is to cut it up and put it out on a ledge for the birds.
Now, that would give those who will mourn you some major Green cred.
-44 this morning in Bismark, ND.
(Only weenies count wind-chill.)
We need to arrive at knowledge by other means than experimental hypothesis testing.
The big hammer in the toolbox is climate modeling. Some claim that those models haven't been very successful yet. Can anyone knowledgeable comment on this? (calling Madison Man)
(Only weenies count wind-chill.)
You got that right. There's a whole channel of it on television. Call it the weenie channel.
Mockery is a powerful tool when dealing with know-it-alls for whom reason is an alien concept.
Weather is not climate, and this year long cold weather spell may well be over when we are out of this trough part of the sun spot cycle.
That said, I consider AGW to be a political construct. I do have an informed opinion. I have run an environmental monitoring program for a nuclear power plant which included my very own meteorological station. I have, in a different capacity, modeled the thermal hydraulic systems of that same power plant, very simple when one compares it to the modeling required for the earth's atmosphere, and I have published studies based upon my modeling. I have some small idea of what it takes to develop a valid model, and the climate models are nowhere near good enough for any conclusions.
What some may call nit-picking, a scientist may call suffiecient to destroy a theory. "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Albert Einstein
It has been my experience that, taking the science issues around abortion out of the discussion, liberals have been much more hostile to science than conservatives. What say you all?
We need to arrive at knowledge by other means than experimental hypothesis testing.
Well then for heaven's sake don't call it science.
I doubt this "take it seriously" thing people keep saying.
If the AGW crowd "took it seriously" we'd see a major push to nuclear power. We don't.
This isn't "taking it seriously."
It's about being righteous and being right.
Otherwise people who "took it seriously" would look at solutions for which they could get the opposition on board even if the opposition never agrees that they are right. Like nuclear power.
No, it's about being righteous, and that means righteous living and taking the proper "green" solutions and implementing them and living the correct way and holding the correct values.
"Thanks, but one ship making it through in a 3-year trek hardly qualifies as "open." Ships are now sailing right through the OPEN passage."
Try walking through a closed door. After having stated it was open for the first time ever, you now want to qualify that statement. Suppose I tell you that the science is settled, and that the Earth is warming and we are the cause and something must be done. Then I tell you that maybe the Earth isn't warming but the climate sure is changing and that we are the cause and something must be done. So now you assert that the door was in fact open, just not to every vessel. The difference, of course, is that with the exception of Amundsens's crew (and his predecessors), nothing whatsoever was riding on the results of the venture. Whether any given expedition succeeded or failed, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the world's population would not be affected. I have learned in my time in science that you don't make ironclad, absolute statements unless you are ABSOLUTELY positive. And even then, you can still very easily be wrong.
"We need to arrive at knowledge by other means than experimental hypothesis testing."
"We?" You got a mouse in your pocket? Or are you of a mind with Nancy Reagan and her astrologers?
Have you actually studied in-depth any of the writings of some of these "deniers" featured in the article?
I have a lot of read their work. And I'm stunned how often they keep repeating discredited arguments and fail to address the responses to those arguments. Very dishonest.
And they'll lose one argument, raise another, lose that, raise another and then cycle through again from the top.
Hey, has anyone pointed out How Clown Inhofe has tried to advertise for deniers and his various fabricated scientific sign on lists?
"We?" You got a mouse in your pocket? Or are you of a mind with Nancy Reagan and her astrologers?
We = society.
Unless people who refer to society are communists?
based on my extremely limited scientific understanding, I think they're wrong.
Do you not see why some people might find statements like this pretty humorous?
The only "solutions" I've heard from anyone in the AGW movement come straight out of a liberal's wet dream... except for the one's which involve paying carbon off-sets. Those come straight out of Al Gore's wet dreams.
All in all, I couldn't be less impressed or more skeptical.
Simon said, "When liberals and progressives start proposing policy responses to global warming that don't look an awful lot like the same policies liberals and progressives have been proposing for a century, I will take seriously the claim that something must be done."
Exactly! When AGW alarmists push for a crash-program of atomic power plant construction, then they can be taken seriously. Until then, mockery is all they deserve. It is easier, more fun and exactly as "useful" as debate.
"The big hammer in the toolbox is climate modeling. Some claim that those models haven't been very successful yet. Can anyone knowledgeable comment on this?"
I don't do climate modeling. But how accurate is stock market modeling? And how much incentive do you think people have had since the dawn of computer modeling to accurately model the stock market vs. the climate? I don't know for sure, but I very strongly suspect that climate is a more complex system than the stock market.
When does human history start in the Northwest Passage? Sometime around the 17th century? Wasn't the passage opened using modern ice-breaking technology unavailable to, say, Franklin and the Erebus?
Frost : Hot as hell in here.
Hudson: Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!
Crimso, if it was "open" for Amundsen, why did it take three years for him to sail it?
That's not "open." That distance does not require three years to sail.
Look, your picking nits. I'm not denying that there were a few ships to traverse it, including icebreakers and the like.
The fact is that the passage is much more open now. And that the ice cover on the northern ice cap has been significantly reduced.
This is fruitless anyway. Lunch is over.
I think that the whole notion of carbon offsets and paying to make up for carbon impact is the biggest indication that NO ONE is serious about AGW.
Giving people money to not produce carbon they weren't producing in any case in order to excuse your own lifestyle is a SCAM.
ome claim that those models haven't been very successful yet. Can anyone knowledgeable comment on this?
I suggest this web site http://www.realclimate.org
The models have been increasingly proven right by events.
And, I return to the point that we don't have a spare planet to experiment with, but we are experimenting with this planet.
If the AGW crowd "took it seriously" we'd see a major push to nuclear power. We don't.
This is an excellent point. Though I'm not knowledgable enough to come to an independent opinion about AGW, I am enough of a scientist to digest the current proposals for reducing greenhouse gases and they are pretty much a joke when it comes to addressing the problem. Huge amounts of money, nonexistent technology, no appreciable dent in emissions. Nuclear power is the exception. Yet does it find support from the doomsayers? Pretty much no. It's a great test to separate the wheat from the chaff. And the majority of the AGW alarmists are chaff.
Thanks for the clarity, Synova.
AGW? wha?
"Doing something" could include vast expenditures and government regulation to lower the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other so-called greenhouse gasses
And, government regulation is the worst possible thing that could happen to the human race, right? Ideology before all.
Beyond that, many measure we could take would save money.
"We need to arrive at knowledge by other means than experimental hypothesis testing."
Lol. So much for science.
Or is this the new Super-Progressive Scientific Method... let's feel our way towards the conclusion?
Seems like "progressives" only like science when they can use it to beat on The Man.
"And, government regulation is the worst possible thing that could happen to the human race, right?"
Generally.
"Ideology before all."
That seems to be your philosophy. Why shouldn't "we" try it?
What's AGW?
A blog isn't a very efficient way to get where I want to go, but thanks, Alpha. I'll take a look at it.
Huh? Anthropogenic Global Warming.
But how accurate is stock market modeling?
Not the same thing, I think. Physical world versus human behavior.
"What's AGW?"
Typical liberal, always expecting people to do the leg-work for them.
Look it up, twat-wad.
"And, government regulation is the worst possible thing that could happen to the human race, right?"
Do you believe blacks and whites shouldn't be allowed to use the same water fountains? Or that the government shouldn't allow gay marriage? Personally, I believe both ideas are nuts.
I don't get Alpha's question. Surely he knows that, given that he has "read a lot of their work" Is he mocking? Is AGW some sort of naive term not used by the experts?
The failure to recognize the acronym AGW, in a discussion about global warming (er, climate change) is a tell. AlphaLiberal (the equivalent of maybe a RhoConservative) has no idea what he is talking about.
Alpha Lib's list:
* the open Northwest Passage
---Closed again, has been open in the past.
* glaciers retreating around the world
---Has been happening for 250 plus years. Many are growing again. Google it.
* ice shelves breaking up in Antartica
---Has always happened, and alway will.
* melting permafrost (which even Palin admits to)
---Will happen during warmer climate phases.
* measurements of rising concentrations of greenhouse gasses.
---Yep.
* Accelerating desertification.
---Overgrazing and deforestation are main causes.
* More flooding
---More? Really? Than what? Can't gauge that based on proxies so you only have the modern era to compare to.
* Accelerated flooding and melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
---See glacial melting.
* Oh, this list goes on and on.
--- And so do the answers.
For you deniers who will say "there have been temperature swings in the past," those swings were over much longer periods of time.
If one swing happens over 10 years and one 100, those things are different. The ability of plants, animals and ecosystems* to adapt is limited when it happens more rapidly.
We have a very limited amount of temp history info gathered with the accuracy of todays measuring equipment. Temps older than 150 years need to be discerned through proxies. Problem - proxies can't measure temp changes with the same accuracy, and the farther back in time you go, you loose the ability to discern trends of ten, then twenty, then fifty years. And the farther back you go in time, the ability to discern temp signals becomes difficult to impossible from other environmental noise. So we don't know how many times in the distant past that you have actually had severe, yet temporary, temp swings because no temp record or proxy exists to reveal it.
The Big Elephant in the room is natural variation. As we are (were?) coming out of the Little Ice Age when we gained the ability to accurately track temp trends, it's going to take a lot more time to really get a grip on the amount of variability of nature.
"Physical world versus human behavior."
A major theme of Herbert's musings was that the latter is an inextricable part of the former. I agree with him. If climate change is caused by humans and therefore their behavior, then the models must take this into account. And even if they do, they are still models. All models are wrong at some level. Is the Bohr model of the atom wrong? In some respects it is quite accurate. In others it isn't. Either way, no one is suggesting that major changes be made to our way of life based on Bohr's model. If someone suggested we do so, I would vigorously oppose them precisely because it's just a model. Would you be willing to take pharmaceutical drugs tested only in computer models vs. the combination of animal testing and human clinical trials? Even the latter is nowhere near foolproof, but it's a damned sight better than not testing in an actual living organism at all.
Here's a reason why Alpha likes realclimate.org's politics:
link
Oh, BTW, the Arctic sea ice loss of 2007 was caused by unusual wind currents, not temps. From NASA:
"Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,"
Would you be willing to take pharmaceutical drugs tested only in computer models vs. the combination of animal testing and human clinical trials?
This one hits close to home, since it's something I do know about. The claims that animal testing is no longer needed, that we can do most of these things with computer modeling is laughable. Or at least it would be if what these people were pushing was not so dangerous.
When does human history start in the Northwest Passage? Sometime around the 17th century?
Hmm, right in the middle of the little ice age. Wonder why it was icy?
Again, give me some details from the medieval warm period and we'll talk.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the Arctic ice cap is seriously retreating, from one source, the European Space Agency.
And with the average global surface temp rising, as of late, there's also concern - by the mining companies - that alternative plans for their winter ice roads will have to be made, on account of the ice becoming unreliable.
Only a few anecdotals, but certainly there is change going on
And strongly agree - weather is not climate - a cold snap isn't indicative of anything much more than a cold snap.
Original Mike, I came to that same train of thought through Dr. Dean Edel.
He’s a reformed hippie, and there are a number of his policy positions that I would disagree with. That said, he is the one person who rail against the stupidity of bottled water, the phoniness of the supplement industry, and exposed the fraud in lawyer driven pseudo science such as the anti-IUD and anti-breast implant movements.
In the late 1980’s, PETA was fostering a movement to replace ALL animal testing of new drugs with computer models. Edel was the only one who I had ever heard who emphatically explained that CM’s wouldn’t work because, as much as we know about chemical physics and the human body, we still can’t predict how the body will interact with the drug, side effects or adverse reactions, potentially deadly, when combined with other drugs. CM’s only operate on known physical interactions, and can’t predict unknowns. That is why they don’t issue new drugs if they work in test-tube trials. I also apply this philosophy to computer generated climate models also. He, more than any other, put me on the path to becoming a skeptic of alarmist climate science.
In the case of AGW, it's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
I'm still trying to figure out why something impassible is called the North West Passage.
John Althouse Cohen said...
"Seems like you've defined 'looking an awful lot like' liberal/progressive policies to include anything that involves major federal regulation. So you've ruled out that possibility, ... [so h]aven't you ensured from the outset that if there actually is a good solution that involves federal regulation, you'll automatically discount it?"
I'm not saying that the solutions can't include stuff that fits in with the traditional left policy response to all problems, but when the two are coextensive, it isn't credible. For example, no one who supports the gorethodoxy should be against nuclear power, as Synova mentioned - indeed, a "crash-program of atomic power plant construction," as dbp said. Are there costs peculiar to nuclear power? Of course there are, but we are told constantly that this is a crisis, a planetary emergency, requiring an immediate response. What percentage of all of the United States' carbon emissions would be cut by a massive federal program to replace all coal-burning power plants with federally-built and maintained cookie cutter nuclear plants within four years?
"And I see no reason to presume the best solution would be based on 'federalism' when we're talking about the environment."
What I should have said, perhaps, is that the larsonite mindset was wrong then and remains wrong now - even in the face of a "global crisis."
And strongly agree - weather is not climate - a cold snap isn't indicative of anything much more than a cold snap.
I agree, and I think most of the jokes about this are a result of years of “look how hot it is, must be global warming” and “OMG hurricanes are all because of global warming” hysteria. It cuts both ways.
siyeh pass said...
"There is quite a bit of evidence that the Arctic ice cap is seriously retreating, from one source, the European Space Agency."
That was from Winter 2007; SonicFrog already addressed that with a citation to that notorious den of global warning deniers NASA.
What percentage of all of the United States' carbon emissions would be cut by a massive federal program to replace all coal-burning power plants with federally-built and maintained cookie cutter nuclear plants within four years?
I'm guessing 30 - 40%. More if we simultaneously moved to plug-in hybrids. You'd think they'd be chomping at the bit.
"Only a few anecdotals"
"Data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
"weather is not climate - a cold snap isn't indicative of anything much more than a cold snap."
Full agreeance (h/t to Fred Durst). But how much time must elapse for direct weather measurements to be considered "climate?" And then consider for how many years in the whole of human history direct, quantitative weather measurements have been made and recorded. Proxy measurements are still proxies (the lawyers in the audience can substitute "hearsay" for "proxy"). Anybody want to incarcerate or execute a person on the basis of hearsay? Anybody want to incarcerate our civilization on the basis of hearsay?
Bissage, Professor A: There were two Dave Berg cartoons about heat. One, yes, ended with the It's not the heat or the humidity, it's the screaming.
There's an earlier one where people are telling the Dave Berg-like guy Hot enough for you? and he's grumbling to himself about how unoriginal the saying is, until he comes upon a charming young lady and says Er, Er, Hot enough for you?
Oh, and that Dave Berg article you linked to is a gigantic piece of shit. Berg deserves better.
It's one of those things where the word "theory" is used to mean "bad, pretentious writing".
JAC has apparently been living in a cave for the past eight years: I'm just saying conservatives have a strategy of scoffing at instead of engaging with real problems. It's fine to make fun of Al Gore and global warming, just as it's fine to make fun of Bush or McCain or anyone in politics.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment). That's one of the reasons I see conservatism and the Republican party as a non-starter. The liberals might not get everything right, but at least they're trying.
"What percentage of all of the United States' carbon emissions would be cut by a massive federal program to replace all coal-burning power plants with federally-built and maintained cookie cutter nuclear plants within four years?"
I don't know, but our situation is clearly so damned dire that we'd better take measures to be absolutely certain. Anything (or anybody) that emits CO2 must be eliminated.
After that we can turn our attention to the clearly documented threat (Whitley Strieber assured me it is in fact a threat; he'll be getting that Nobel Peace Prize any year now) posed by alien abductions. I haven't fleshed it all out yet, but I'm pretty sure at least some of the measures involved will entail gassing all the Jews and denying gays the right not just to marry, but to eat as well. I'm not at all happy about these proposed actions, but SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
Okay, I admit it. I can be a bit of an off-putting smartass. But look on the bright side. None of you have to put up with being married to me.
Also: If there really isn't a global warming problem, then powerful people who are capable of forcefully, persuasively advancing that argument to the general public must do so.
Now, based on my extremely limited scientific understanding, I think they're wrong. But maybe I'm wrong and they're right, in which case, more power to them in making that case to the public and saving us the trouble of doing whatever we would have otherwise done on the issue.
JAC, everyone trying to engage the debate has been painted as an oil-company shill.
My understanding is also limited, but I know computer models. If you were actually paying attention to which, you'd see that they've been changing over time to include new, important factors not previously included.
There's no assurance that we have, at this point, the necessary minimum of important factors to make good predictions, and plenty of evidence--i.e., constantly wrong predictions--that we don't.
These models fail completely to predict the past, it should surprise no one that they failed to predict the immediate future, and no one should be gullible enough to believe that they're right about the long term.
Synova: Yellowstone is going to blow and put so much ash in the upper atmosphere that anything we do will be irrelevant.
Yeah, I keep hoping they're off a few thousand years on that one.
And the magnetic poles are going to flip north to south and mess up the magnetic field of the entire earth for a couple of centuries either side of the event. We've no idea what that will do.
I've been wondering if that flip isn't responsible for some of the meltage occuring at the poles.
A couple blogs I've started following recently are Climate Audit and Watts Up With That?.
Good stuff, although it tends a bit to the technical side.
Blogger garage mahal said...
If global warming is a silly hoax, what does that say about people that can't stop talking about every day? Weird.
It's not a "silly" hoax, it's another assault on individual freedom, such as we've seen for the past 40 years. (Said assaults go back a lot further than that, but environmentalism has been one of the more successful fronts.)
O, MadisonMan is correct, and has resolved the important issue. I remember that Dave Berg cartoon, the one where the guy gets tongue-tied and says to the babelicious girl, "Hot enough for you."?
I don't know enough about Prof. Althouse's life prior to becoming a law professor to venture any additional suggestions about why no one has ever said that phrase to her. I'm actually surprised that none of the secretaries or messengers at S&C, or maybe a tongue-tied guy in the elevator, ever uttered the phrase. It seems to me that I hear it in the elevator or at the coffee machine at least once a year.
These models fail completely to predict the past
I've heard this claim, but I find it hard to believe.
It is so amusing that some on the left who refuse to believe in the existence of God because they believe God's existence is unprovable also willingly believe in the existence of global warming even though global warming is easily debunked. Duh.
I have always pondered why AGW carries a liberal/conservative split. In think it is because of liberals' tendency to institute policy based on theories derived from an intellectual exercise rather than from facts. Communism/Socialism is the great example. Communism is a theory of human behavior that has no basis in fact. No one ever tested whether Communism works - When it was tried, it failed.
Global warming is another great example. Liberals are willing to accept the theory from an intellectual exercise of connecting certain behaviors that they don't like (such as man-made industry) to a theory that requires reducing that behavior. This is how liberals are able to connect human conduct to global warming even though there are no actual facts to support the connection. Liberals are content with the rationalization of a connection.
Well put Michael H.
Look, this isn't our problem any more. It's those bastards in China mucking up the atmosphere. They shoot a gazillion tons of crap into the air everyday while making enough Dollar Store crap to choke a black hole. They burn crap to create crap. Don't buy anymore Chinese crap and we can all save the planet.
I have always pondered why AGW carries a liberal/conservative split.
It is sort of curious.
On the one hand AGW is just the newest version of the various expressions of the noble savage/benign nature, thing. Humanity and civilization as a cancer is hardly a new concept. Some people find that having a cause gives their life meaning and passion and IMO, that's more often liberals. There's the cosmopolitan element that this is something that proves your dedication to the world rather than insular or selfish concerns. It also proves that you're "not afraid to face hard truths" and that you're among the intelligent and enlightened who believe in science.
And I think that this was all sort of building up below the radar and when Gore and who-all came out with their "the science is settled" and "this is the scientific consensus" and it became clear that economic policy was likely to become subject to this "crisis" that conservatives, who are by definition not "first adopters" of new ideas, wanting to let things shake out a bit before making judgments, said "Hey, lets look at this then."
And were told that there was a "consensus" and that the science was "settled" and really didn't get anything like good answers to simple and obvious questions. They looked at the solutions and immediately picked up on the inconsistencies. They got attacked for being "deniers."
The solutions that don't hamstring industry and depend on the third world remaining in poverty are feel good nonsense promoted by jet-setting scolds.
OM said, I've heard this claim, but I find it hard to believe.
I do, too, in the sense that you'd think the bare minimum of a model would be to predict the past.
That's usually how these things are built, in fact: by coming up with algorithms that match past data. But, oh, how you can tweak them within those confines. (As has been done repeatedly with GW models.)
These guys didn't even bother to come up with a compelling fake.
While we whine about cold temps in January, my hearty forebearers go skating.
The thing that makes me most suspicious of the Kyoto treaty is that none of the signatory countries have adopted the punitive economic measures they scold us for rejecting. Why is that? One would think the Europeans would jump at the chance to claim the moral high ground.
As to the global climate data; climate data is gathered by imperfect means, crunched by formulas and analyzed by criteria, all human constructs with inherent flaws. The information derived is interpretive, not fact.
We are not dealing with a fixed or closed system that can be predicted and gamed.
Many of us instinctively look at politically driven solutions with skepticism and given the miserable performance of our government over the last forty years, it's not unwise.
Speaking of Kyoto... I've heard claims that the US has reduced our carbon or pollution or whatever more than countries who actually signed the thing.
I find this very much in line with some of the arguments I heard that the US ought to sign the thing, even if it was a bad agreement. The *example* we'd give by doing so was more important than actually doing what we'd promise to do, so we didn't actually have to comply to elements of it that were damaging, so long as we put that moral pressure on others to sign it as well.
I tend to think that there's more moral authority in actually *doing* than in making a public show.
The website surfacestations.org has surveyed weather stations across the country and found that most of them have a margin of error larger than the .7 degree 100-year temperature change the AGW crowd is so concerned about.
In other words, the signal (AGW) is smaller than the noise (margin of error).
Other studies (four studies conducted by three independent teams) have shown that temperature data used to determine global temperatures is contaminated by the Urban Heat Island effect. However, the AGW believers simply ignore the studies because they don't fit the narrative.
As for climate models, no one, to my knowledge, has released the source code, raw data files, and other parameters used in those models so the methodology of the models can be independently reviewed, tested, or critiqued.
In short, the entire AGW argument is based upon shoddy data (temperature records) and climate models that no one can review to determine if their methodologies are scientifically valid.
Put another way, AGW is a belief and values system masquerading as climate science.
As for climate models, no one, to my knowledge, has released the source code, raw data files, and other parameters used in those models so the methodology of the models can be independently reviewed, tested, or critiqued.
I think this particular complaint is full of BS. Climate models are fully described in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences or in the Journal of Climate, and so are the initial conditions (Read: Input) and mathematical tricks used. Climate Conferences are littered with talks and posters in which various scientists compare their models and parameterizations and numerical treatments with those of other models.
I tend to think that there's more moral authority in actually *doing* than in making a public show.
blake said something like this on his blog, re: political correctness... "What matters in life is what you do, not whether you limit your speech to a list of approved words."
Disagree, if you're proposing the world spend trillions of dollars to solve a problem based upon your computer model, then put everything out there for the world to see.
As Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit has found, modelers and authors of research papers don't always reveal everything they need to reveal or should reveal for others to properly review their work.
Mann, specifically, seems to have turned selective disclosure into an art form.
The leading advocates of AGW have been the least receptive to calls for more disclosure and public posting of source code and raw data files.
One of my favorite stories, in fact, comes from McIntyre. He once asked a climate scientist for source code and raw data files used for a research paper, and the response was "no, you just want to prove me wrong."
Similar requests to other scientists have met with similarly reluctant responses.
Bottom line, when you objectively scratch the surface, one finds that AGW proponent's have serious credibility issues and many of their methodologies would not pass muster in any other hard science or medical research field.
One doesn't need to understand all of the technical details at sites such as Climate Audit, Watts Up With That, or Surfacestations.org to appreciate the very real methodological problems in climate science.
then put everything out there for the world to see.
It is out there already. The code is documented. The equations used are there -- they are very well known.
I understand what you're saying, but you are proposing the lazy way out. You want to take someone else's work and play with it. The correct way -- the way that science advances -- is to take what is documented, and reproduce it. If you reproduce it, then you change things because in theory you now will understand how it all works. If you don't reproduce it, you figure out why.
I think there's actually a pretty good explanation for why more greehnouse gases should be put into the atmosphere. It goes something like this.
If only those annoying scientists - who obviously take their marching orders from liberals, and believe that theories are more important than wished-for facts that no experiment has yet revealed - could be more repressed. Only then could they spout the "right" conclusions. Until then, they need to be more skeptical and believe, instead, in things like intelligent design - which is obviously a product of prudent skepticism and reflective of an entirely apolitical perspective.
I must admit that I love the presumption of credibility offered here! Skepticism means nothing without confidence to back it up!
Browsing through your asylum offers the casual observer a fascinating glimpse at the persistent intellectual degradation of an utterly disintegrated and increasingly irrelevant political movement. Keep bringing up Communists and Nazis, though. Nothing is more interesting to me than the way those on the right obsessively defines themselves through the lens of their previous enemies. Take a good, hard look. Soon your very own exhibit will take its place alongside theirs.
Oh, and by the way, before you go having a hissy fit, I'm open to looking at Dogwood's anecdotes and figures. I just think it's worth pointing out that he has no explanatory framework for piecing them together. Nor is it likely that he finds such a thing meaningful. But that doesn't mean that the rest of you won't, and that's precisely the point. So in other words, what Madison Man said.
MM,
Here is part of a recent post by McIntyre regarding model documentation:
If the models were properly documented (in an engineering sense), there would be no need to try to figure out (speculate) on how climate models did things, as it would be set out in long boring reference manuals, as is done in other fields. (Lucia mentions nuclear plants.) Climate science has, for the most part, eschewed reference manuals, preferring toy articles in "high-impact" journals. As a result, there is a niche for technical blogs, as discussions such as Lucia's somewhat fill the gap left by the absence of reference manuals that would exist in other fields.
Granted, this is one man's opinion, however, McIntyre has made significant contributions to analyzing the work of AGW proponents, and he approaches it from an engineering methodology that is more rigorous than that used by climate science.
Much of the work being done in the name of climate science is very shoddy and would not be acceptable in fields where lives are at stake, be it medical or engineering.
Given the purported risks of AGW, we should expect & demand that climate scientists be more rigorous in their analysis, and 100 percent transparent with code, data and methodologies.
Finally, it is AGW proponents stating we have a problem, so the burden is on them to convince us, and one way to do so is to operate transparently, and they intentionally choose not to do so.
It is out there already. The code is documented. The equations used are there -- they are very well known.
Hansen at NASA released his source code in September 2007, after much prodding. It wasn't the code they actually used to get the results, and is quite messy and poorly documented--not at all in compliance with NASA standards.
Bonus fun: It's in Fortran!
Hansen's now just fudging numbers. (He used September's numbers for October.)
And if you disagree with him, you should be put on trial.
Dude, there's no way this guy is any sort of scientist.
As for climate models, no one, to my knowledge, has released the source code, raw data files, and other parameters used in those models so the methodology of the models can be independently reviewed, tested, or critiqued.
Madison, the statement is over broad and paints with a huge brush. Some do share their data, but more often than not, when dealing with the leading Climate Scientists, this is the case. Steve McIntyre has experienced all sorts of roadblock to getting Climate Scientists to release their source code: This from 2005:
In the case of the Mann et al [1998,1999] study, used for the IPCC's "hockey stick"? graph, Mann was initially unable to remember where the data was located, then provided inaccurate data, then provided a new version of the data which was inconsistent with previously published material, etc. The National Post has recently reported on my experience as this unfolded.
Here's a link that will let you see for yourself just how often the code is locked down and not shared openly.
Titles include:
*Santer Refuses Data Request.
*Glenn McGregor: Data Archiving not required by the International Journal of Climatology
*CSIRO adopts Phil Jones' Stonewall Tactic
And my personal favorite utterance from Climate Scientist Phil Jones:
"We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."
Yep, sounds open and accessible to me!!! ^-^
It ain't science.
But it is good business.
You want to take someone else's work and play with it. The correct way -- the way that science advances -- is to take what is documented, and reproduce it. If you reproduce it, then you change things because in theory you now will understand how it all works. If you don't reproduce it, you figure out why.
The key phrase here "is to take what is documented, and reproduce it." It can't be reproduce if ALL the data and methodologies are not provided. And remember, these are not physical experiments, but statistical exercises carried out on computers, using gobs of data and code. Again, without ALL the data, replication is impossible.
There have been over a 100 transits of the NorthWest passage. Though some have been multi-season voyages and many were by icebreakers or ice strengthened ships, many normal ships, including cruise ships, and private yachts have made the passage through open water in a single season.
Ships are now sailing right through the OPEN passage.
No they aren't. There was a report of a single ship sailing partly through the passage (close reading of the report raises serious questions and indicates it may be a hoax.
* the open Northwest Passage
A single ship going partway though does not an open passage make. Furthermore in "human history"? Idiotic assertions like this don't help your cause.
* glaciers retreating around the world
Superficially true. Glaciers are also expanding around the world. A more puzzling problem is when glaciers retreat in the alps exposing villages--hmm.
* ice shelves breaking up in Antartica
So? Even the Antarctic has seasons. I suppose a thickening of ice overall in the Antarctic means nothing.
* melting permafrost (which even Palin admits to)
Happens every year. Try reading up on how Russians and Canadians moved material across the Tundra.
* measurements of rising concentrations of greenhouse gasses.
Measurements made of CO2 concentration made in the early 19th century found numbers very close to today. These have been chucked in favor of proxy measurements (yet current day measurements don't use proxies.) Then there's the inconvenient problem of temperature change within the margin of error of most thermometers.
* Accelerating desertification.
Not true and ignores pretty strong geologic evidence of massive desertification in the past. In the US, there is evidence that the great plains and California had far more extensive deserts in the past. There is some evidence that the 20th century was actually far rainier than normal historically.
* More flooding
Unsupported by geologic evidence.
* Accelerated flooding and melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Makes no sense. Flooding of the Greenland ice sheet? The Greenland ice sheet is increasing!
* Oh, this list goes on and on.
No, the made up bullshit goes on and on. Like ignoring subsidence in favor of ocean levels increasing.
The biggest problem with AGW is that CO2 simply doesn't do what is claimed. This was shown in the late 19th century. If CO2 really did act in the way claimed, we could fill a glass box, add a generator and have an infinite amount of energy.
Maybe the liberals' have their own problems, but at least they take the issues seriously (this applies to other issues, not just the environment). That's one of the reasons I see conservatism and the Republican party as a non-starter. The liberals might not get everything right, but at least they're trying.
That is the dumbest thing I've heard in months. If you actually believe that, you are a fool.
To illustrate: if liberal Congressmen really believed the financial crisis were serious, they would have voted to rescind their raise. No, it wouldn't have made a hill of beans difference in financial terms, but the symbolism would have been extremely powerful. Most importantly, it would have shown that they took the issue seriously. They don't.
If they were serious about fraud, Charles Rangel would be expelled from Congress and Dodd would be forced to disclose his loan documents or be expelled.
(That doesn't let Republicans off the hook; they're hypocrites and earned the thrashing they got by turning into pigs at the table.)
What's wrong with FORTRAN? It's a very efficient code for numerical simulations.
The software I work with is 30+ years old, a mix of FORTRAN and c, and let me tell you, it's very interesting to debug it. First, there are the labeled GOTOs that programmer x -- a great FORTRAN programmer -- was fond of using. Then there's the c code written by the programmer who was so very very fond of information hiding -- writing lots of little c functions to change global variable names that are declared in an obscure module with no logic to its name. Or storing information in the bits of an byte because 30 years ago every sector was sacred. Working with legacy code is truly for trichillomaniacs. Meteorologists just are not known for documenting code. When you codebang, who has time for that? Then someone else comes along, changes the code in one place (not realizing that 6 other changes must be made). The same result will happen if you take the FORTRAN code and transform it into c. Sorry. A complex thing like a climate model? Won't work. All you will prove is that you don't know everything that's going on in the model, and I don't care how good a programmer you are. That's why to understand it, you have to start from point 0.
My point stands: the way to understand what it really happening is to take the results in the journals (Technical Publications mean diddly squat to a tenure committee) and try to reproduce them. If you can't, then you present that at a conference and hilarious bedlam results. Then you publish.
That, my friends, is science.
That is the dumbest thing I've heard in months.
I'm sorry to hear of your recent spate of deafness, and am glad to read that you are apparently better.
As far as data sharing goes, well, I'm not in climate science, but most scientists I work with will willingly share data with colleagues who know how to use it.
Keep in mind, though, that most data are produced in grants and that Universities have a financial interest in it. That is to say, they recognize it has value (even if the data are the result of Federal Grants, my recollection is that the PI gets to control it). Someone who comes in and asks for the data and offers nothing in return? Do you all give away things gratis as a matter of routine? As I say, there are some who do. Most will want to collaborate -- after all, what's easier than giving your data to someone, having them do a lot of work, and having them write a paper and slapping your name on it as a courtesy? But will they do that if they think a paper in a refereed journal won't result? I doubt it.
Dogwood, I respect your (professed) interest in rigor, but what you are positing is a damn fiction. You propose this be done "in an engineering sense?" Using "engineering methodology?" What planet are you living on? The one brought forth and explicated in exquisite and flawless detail by the intelligent designer?
Planetary systems, like biological systems are, get this, complex. They are exceedingly complex, and too complex to understand in full detail for the time being. If there is one intellectually redeeming quality about Althouse's Nixonian peanut gallery, it's the fact that they at least get this. I fully appreciate the likelihood that you probably have a strong background in the methodology of engineering statistics. But to propose that a solid theory about climate chemistry be disregarded because we don't have all the proof of how it will play out according to the current experimental design is as reckless as it is to say that a proven animal toxin be given to people because you haven't given it to enough people to quantify how many will croak or experience end-organ damage from it. We do this without first requiring the mythical endpoint of an engineer's sense of precision when it comes our understanding of every relevant variable at play within the human body.
To a certain extent, much of what we have to go on is based on theories, no? Is it really your contention that the theories don't matter or aren't worth taking seriously? I haven't found a single educated skeptic/denier who endorses this approach. And yet, the bulk of what we have to go on is theory. The right to disregard theory is therefore predicated upon someone having at least proposed a theoretical, yet intellectually defensible reason for doing so. Almost none of the commentariat possess anything beyond a sixth-grade science education required for doing that, so they absolve themselves from being taken seriously by virtue of their appalling ignorance alone. But surely you must have a better reason for your own stance.
Blogger montana urban legend said...
'It goes something like this.'
I don't know how your mother raised you, or where you work, but posting a link to a porn site without warning is kinda uncool.
Not that I expect any less of you.
Now go ahead and explain why you were right to do so and I am wrong to call you on it.
Ok, Nichevo - I apologize for forgetting to include a disclaimer. I regret any damage done to your developing eyes and nervous system.
Seriously, sorry. It was a joke. And if you had a more meaningful objection to anything stated I'm pretty sure you would have made it. But we've been through this before.
What's wrong with FORTRAN? It's a very efficient code for numerical simulations.
Uh huh. Then you go on to detail exactly what's wrong with FORTRAN and C.
Or storing information in the bits of an byte because 30 years ago every sector was sacred.
Hey, I've done that. It's also useful for using reducing I/O.
Sorry. A complex thing like a climate model? Won't work. All you will prove is that you don't know everything that's going on in the model, and I don't care how good a programmer you are. That's why to understand it, you have to start from point 0.
Mmmm. There's nothing mystical about reading code. If the code produces numbers but the programmer can't explain why its there (other than to produce numbers he wishes), that right there is bullshit.
Given that Global Warming Is The Greatest Crisis Man Has Ever Faced, one would think the scientists involved could be bothered to explain it.
My point stands: the way to understand what it really happening is to take the results in the journals (Technical Publications mean diddly squat to a tenure committee) and try to reproduce them. If you can't, then you present that at a conference and hilarious bedlam results. Then you publish.
MM, if you don't see how that process went off the rails in the past ten years, I don't know what else to say.
Bitch, do you know what a corporate firewall is? Have you ever got a splash page telling you that the good folks from Data Security would probably be stopping by sometime to discuss your viewing habits?
SO not cool. You don't have to pretend to be sorry, just LEARN something.
I suppose it was titus' profligate references here to body functions and certain acts that led me to take a more relaxed standard for granted. How's that for an explanation?
;-)
Actually, I've heard of sites that block access to Blogger altogether, for some reason. Go figure. Apparently now the site does offer a "view only if mature" function if your blog is so configured.
But if you get any static from The Man, just show them the thread and hopefully they will understand. If not, I will myself vouch for the non-sexual nature of your interest in Althouse's occasionally X-rated blog.
He is truly appalling - but all his loaf talk will not put up a red flag on the proxies. "Youporn.com" will. What I'd really be afraid of is that althouse.blogspot.com (or even blogspot.com!) could be blacklisted for corporate viewing due to linkage to such sites.
I trust you don't want or need an explanation of the phenomenon I describe, or do you?
Netiquette indicates the use of an NSFW warning for such links. This is why.
I'll stop busting your chops now, here endeth the lesson. ;>
As for AGW: Why no, I had in fact reserved comment for the time being. (You're one of these silence-implies-consent guys, eh?)
I'll accept that humans may be warming the planet if you will accept that a) this may be either good or bad, b) the impact of a new Ice Age would be far far far far far worse for humanity than any reasonable impact described of AGW, c) mucking with our lifestyles is in any case off the table.
You want to talk geoengineering, terraforming, carbon sinks, whatever, let's talk. Putting everybody on bikes and tofu diets, well hell, let Bangladesh drown.
Yes, Monty, I definitely want to get dragged in front of a SVP or an ethics committee to explain why I'm consuming Firm resources on this enriching, but non-business-related chitchat. How did you know?
JAC and Alpha,
Do you see any moral distinction between Holocaust deniers and Global Warming deniers?
Of course I accept a) and b) because they do not take an irrational exception to unrefuted science. c), on the other hand, sounds like a pretty subjective and politicized assumption however.
And your last paragraph is interesting. But intelligent discourse implies that we should both be basing what we accept as fact and reasonable courses of action on something other than what either of us accept or reject of the other's assertions. A bargaining process might be in the cards politically, but this is just a discussion.
SVP or ethics! For surfing past 11 o'clock on a Friday? That's harsh! A home laptop? If it's at a site away from your home then they should REALLY be a little more forgiving about simply being on a non-work related site. And in this economy I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have more important things to worry about.
As I said, I will let them know it was an accident. I'm sure you clicked away immediately. Surely they can't believe that it's impossible that anyone might be accidentally directed to a site they didn't mean to go to. Especially if it's not repetitive.
"Unrefuted" is a neat little slipping in of the knife, but I am not the one intent on putting up that fight. Frankly I don't know. Nor (IMHO) do you, though you obviously feel pretty sure of it.
As for c), do you want to solve the putative AGW problem, or do you want to control Americans' lifestyles and tell them what to eat, what to wear, how much toilet paper to use?
Let me rephrase, if you like, and say that c') you will get much more action on the problem if you don't impose on people unnecessarily or gratuitously. The whole ban-CFCs movement would have got nowhere if they didn't come up with acceptable (if suboptimal) substitutes for Freon, hairspray, etc.
As for Bangladesh, if it's going to cost a trillion dollars, or $10T, right now, to fix the problem and avoid drowning Bangladesh, it might be cheaper to give everybody in Bangladesh $1000 to move to high ground when the time comes. I bet a lot of starving kids over there would take that deal right quick.
I think you, or someone here, objected to mockery of AGW doom-and-gloomers like Al Gore. Let's again grant arguendo that they mean well. It might inspire people to see them sacrifice, instead of calling upon us to do so while they live high on the hog.
Gore could have had one of them thar teaching moments if he had accepted his Nobel Prize via telepresence, for instance. How much carbon footprint and so forth would that have saved? Bet that would have kept a lot of Bangladeshis in clean water; kept quite a few New Yorkers cool in summer and warm in winter.
But no, I should weave underpants out of old newspapers, so that my betters can party. Right on!
See how my don't-mess-with-my-lifestyle works for everybody? If you want to turn down the planet's thermostat, turn down the thermostat, don't B-Mod everybody and hope that does it by follow-on effect.
Unless you really just want to B-Mod and AGW is a fig leaf.
Past 200, but I'll say, Blake, that if you think I'm arguing that AGW is a done deal, you're misreading me.
I'm arguing that it's BS to complain that the information about climate models isn't out there. It is. Whether of not the climate models produce anything useful is a whole 'nother thing.
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