Credentialed Climate Deniers And Failed Metaphors

The Times profiles a breed declared by some to be extinct and weaves the story together with a belly-flop of a metaphor:

Though Scorned by Colleagues, a Climate-Change Skeptic Is Unbowed

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts.

“I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ‘No.’ ”

Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He regards it as neither. Not that the earth is not heating up. It is, he says, and carbon dioxide spewed from power plants, automobiles and other sources is at least partly responsible.

...

“I detest words like ‘contrarian’ and ‘denier,’ ” he said. “I’m a data-driven climate scientist. Every time I hear that phrase, ‘The science is settled,’ I say I can easily demonstrate that that is false, because this is the climate — right here. The science is not settled.”

Dr. Christy was pointing to a chart comparing seven computer projections of global atmospheric temperatures based on measurements taken by satellites and weather balloons. The projections traced a sharp upward slope; the actual measurements, however, ticked up only slightly. [Ronald Bailey of Hit and Run provides the sort of chart omitted by the Times]

That suggests to some that maybe the science is not so settled:

Such charts — there are others, sometimes less dramatic but more or less accepted by the large majority of climate scientists — are the essence of the divide between that group on one side and Dr. Christy and a handful of other respected scientists on the other.

“Almost anyone would say the temperature rise seen over the last 35 years is less than the latest round of models suggests should have happened,” said Carl Mears, the senior research scientist at Remote Sensing Systems, a California firm that analyzes satellite climate readings.

“Where the disagreement comes is that Dr. Christy says the climate models are worthless and that there must be something wrong with the basic model, whereas there are actually a lot of other possibilities,” Dr. Mears said. Among them, he said, are natural variations in the climate and rising trade winds that have helped funnel atmospheric heat into the ocean.

However, this dispute spills over into the public policy arena:

Dr. Christy has drawn the scorn of his colleagues partly because they believe that so much is at stake and that he is providing legitimacy to those who refuse to acknowledge that. If the models are imprecise, they argue, the science behind them is compelling, and it is very likely that the world has only a few decades to stave off potentially catastrophic warming.

And if he is wrong there is no redo.

As promised, this leads to a mashed metaphor:

“It’s kind of like telling a little girl who’s trying to run across a busy street to catch a school bus to go for it, knowing there’s a substantial chance that she’ll be killed,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “She might make it. But it’s a big gamble to take.”

Ahh, hmm, so not in front of the kids with this science-y stuff? Our public policy leaders are little girls trying to cross the street? OK, they don't always make crossing the street look easy, but they are adults who are expected to make decisions under uncertain circumstances all the time. Just for example, we have building codes that contemplate earthquakes and floods, even though the timing and severity of such natural disasters is unpredictable. Any responsible cost/benefit analysis would include the probabilities of a disaster weighed against the costs of mitigation; our leaders ought to be able to wrestle with some uncertainty on both sides of that scale.

The Times includes this perspective from Dr. Christy:

By contrast, Dr. Christy argues that reining in carbon emissions is both futile and unnecessary, and that money is better spent adapting to what he says will be moderately higher temperatures. Among other initiatives, he said, the authorities could limit development in coastal and hurricane-prone areas, expand flood plains, make manufactured housing more resistant to tornadoes and high winds, and make farms in arid regions less dependent on imported water — or move production to rainier places.

Dr. Christy’s scenario is not completely out of the realm of possibility, his critics say, but it is highly unlikely.

I would add two things. First, a friend of mine who has been involved in the climate debate for twenty years recently mentioned to me that he has lost interest in the policy debate, which has hit a de facto dead end; his focus now is on adaptation.

Second, as to the implausibility of achieving the UN blessed goal of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees celsius, the recent UN study should be titled "Good Luck With That".

If we are to bring Hope and Change to the climate debate, I suggest we hope Dr. Christy is right and change the focus to adaptation, because we (i.e., the US, China and India) are not on a plausible path to deep carbon cutbacks.

Comments

[Some Guy]

That CO2 is considered a pollutant, is the single dumbest thing I've ever seen in my lifetime.

The tell for the 'science is settled' crowd is the complete and total reliance on logical fallacies. If the science didn't suck so badly, they wouldn't behave like they do.

[abadman]

The models neither explain the past, Roman and Medieval warm periods, nor have they predicted the future over the past 15-20 years. Other than that they are rock solid.

The models are the 21st equivalent of reading goat entrails.

[MarkO]

CO2? Warm weather? Mitigation? Deniers as witches to be burned?

The greatest threat to the ecosystem of the world is Iran with nukes. Seriously.

What was it Oppenheimer said?

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

TomM says: "(i.e., the US, China and India) are not on a plausible path to deep carbon cutbacks."

Uh.. TomM, you may want to look at USA percapita CO2 output and re-phrase that line. Your pal of 20 years is he a Carbon Credit seller at UBS or DB? He might be a bit biased.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

MarkO-- J R Oppenheimer's son is a big time Watermellon Skydragon tale peddler and journo.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Dr. Christy is a 'lukewarmist' which puts him in good company with Dr Lindzner and the late, great Michael Crichton.

[MarkO]

In the early 80's, in the halcyon days before Tina Brown ruined the magazine, I loved reading the New Yorker. There was in those days serialization of significant ideas that would become books.

I read carefully and worriedly Jonathan Schell's "The Fate of the Earth," which was a reflection about the extinction of humanity by a nuclear holocaust. While it was a cold war era work, the weapons are not gone and, to the contrary, they are proliferating into the hands of terrorists.

It might be a timely re-read.

[Thomas Collins]

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-says-that-the-un-climate-panel-s-latest-report-tells-a-story-that-politicians-would-prefer-to-ignore

The above is a link to the most recent Bjorn Lomborg article I can find. Mr. Lomborg might be described as a lukewarmist in his analysis of the studies but, with respect to his evisceration of the world's global warming fundamenlist politicians, he is a red hot poker.

[Beasts of England]

Huntsville? Obviously this guy is full of shit. ;)

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Lomborg is a warmist... but he is a development economist, and he runs the numbers and they say (as TomM does) that CO2 reduction is worse than a foo's errand because it will steal resources from the real needs of developing nations, clean water, malaria supression (DDT anyone?) etc.

[lyle]

What ever happened to...evolution? Aren't all these "scientists" Darwin's children? What happened to adaptability, migration and variability?

However much CO2 mankind is responsible for, it's overwhelmed by nature in the form of wildfires and volcanic activity.

Cassandra had more introspection and self control than the climate zealots.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

Here is one of the many problems. The models don't work too well, so that climate scientists have a difficult time determining how much temperatures will rise given, say, a doubling of CO2.

Now, the mechanisms of the climate which lead to temperatures rising and falling are very complex and there are considerable areas that the models either crudely replicate or simply ignore.

However, how rising temperatures and increased CO2 will interact with and transform the future climate and other earth systems like localized weather, vegetation, etc, is vastly more complex and only rudimentarily understood.

Given the uncertainties in their temperature projections and the fact they can't even get their temp models right why should anyone listen to their guesses about the environmental consequences down the road?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Ignatz@4:56, well stated.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

--Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat.--

That is a false conflation and overly broad to the point of mendacity.
That increased CO2 will raise temps some amount is pretty much settled science.
There is no consensus on how much it will rise for a given increase in CO2.
And the number who agree a rise will occur is vastly larger than those who view it as a dire threat.

The IPCC is run by a relatively small core of committed believers in CAGW with a larger number of more reasonable people trying with little success to temper its reports. The committed core's true belief distorts the real consensus into a false unity in the media and with the media's full complicity and of course the statist politician's and their sucker fish rent seekers.
It's the climate-industrial complex.

[Beasts of England]

I've mentioned this before, but as this topic references a school he helped incubate (UAH), I'll share it again.

I went to a fine prep school that had a required science project each year and studies were encouraged to span two or more years. My mentor in seventh and eighth grade was one of the world's most technically respected rocket scientists, and, with Von Braun and others, brought UAH to fruition.

If he were turned loose on the so-called 97%, it wouldn't end well. He wouldn't have allowed me to submit such junk science in middle school. It's the antithesis of everything these scientists learned and practiced.

Cheers to Spencer and Christy. Dr. Lange would approve.

[lyle]

Once again, the medacious media carries a lot blame in spreading the AGW horseshit.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

--If he were turned loose on the so-called 97%--

Even the 97% number is junk science Beasts. :)

That Lomborg article reiterates something that was truly astonishing, as Bishop Hill and others have noted; the latest IPCC report utterly eviscerates everything the CAGW clowns claim about how to deal with any warming. The core of true believers were unable to stop the publication of the true numbers, which show the cost benefit ratio of their plans for fixing the "problem" to be a disaster, so they have stuck with the questionable projections of temp and consequences and ignored the destruction of their own green solutions.

Why opponents have done so little to emphasize that the IPCC now admits that the watermelon plans for us all would be a gigantic weight on economies, especially developing ones, with benefits a small fraction of costs is beyond me.
The skeptics should be the ones waving that document in the CAGW clown's faces.

[Beasts of England]

That it is, Ig!

[Some Guy]

That increased CO2 will raise temps some amount is pretty much settled science.

That increased CO2 will raise temps some amount is pretty much settled opinion.

The science is actually very thin on this point, it just looks so much better than the rest of the science that most don't question it.

[Danube on iPad]

Vishnu? I dunno, vishnu with you.

[Eric in Boise]

vishnu with you.

I just gita a new Bhagavad.

{rimshot}

[Extraneus]

Dr. Christy’s scenario is not completely out of the realm of possibility, his critics say, but it is highly unlikely.

What "scenario" was that?

By contrast, Dr. Christy argues that reining in carbon emissions is both futile and unnecessary, and that money is better spent adapting to what he says will be moderately higher temperatures. Among other initiatives, he said, the authorities could limit development in coastal and hurricane-prone areas, expand flood plains, make manufactured housing more resistant to tornadoes and high winds, and make farms in arid regions less dependent on imported water — or move production to rainier places.

Yes, it may be "unlikely" because there's not much sweet government lucre in those activities, but is that a "scenario"? What was the "scenario"?

[MarkO]

I Vishnu a meddy Christmas.

[Extraneus]

I've been here long enough to know that posting on the recent thread, even if it's on-topic there, is a fool's game.

“Republicans have decided to use the Rio Grande as a reason not to do immigration reform. We won’t,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director. “Our belief is that now, more than ever, the American people see immigration as an urgent issue and want the administration to act to address the problem of a broken system.”

We won't what? We won't consider the border crisis as a reason not to exacerbate the border crisis?

They're really planning a full-speed-ahead on amnesty strategy? November is shaping up to be a bloodbath.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/16/white-house-by-the-way-were-still-planning-a-mass-amnesty-this-summer-for-illegals-who-are-already-here/

[Jim Eagle]

narc,

I keep driving thru Ormond looking for your red Ferrari parked at the Starbucks but no luck. Email me so we can meet up. Start the book tonight,

[Extraneus]

Huh: DOJ investigating the strange case of Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails

As part of its criminal probe into the IRS’s treatment of politically active conservative groups, the Justice Department is “investigating the circumstances of the lost emails from [former IRS official Lois Lerner's] computer,” according to prepared testimony by James Cole, the deputy attorney general. Mr. Cole is set to appear at a hearing scheduled for Thursday before a panel of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Wall Street Journal reviewed his prepared testimony on Wednesday.

Mr. Cole’s comments underscore the potential seriousness of the email loss, which has roiled congressional probes of the matter and angered some top GOP lawmakers. The IRS has blamed the loss on a crash of Ms. Lerner’s hard drive—a common occurrence at the agency, officials say. They add a backup tape also was routinely recycled after six months.

They add that, when we know for sure that her emails were stored on the backup "tapes," yet we have no reason to believe that they were on her computer's hard drive.

[Extraneus]

UK Daily Mail:

Hillary's $2,777 PER MINUTE speaking contracts demand a 'presidential' teleprompter, let her cancel 'for any reason whatsoever' and she's the only one allowed on stage

• Speaking contracts covered August 2013 speech at SUNY Buffalo and upcoming August 2014 appearance at University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• The two events together pulled in $500,000 for the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation – but reporters were shut out
• Angry UNLV students have asked Clinton to return her speaking fee since their tuition has tripled in the last decade
• One contract demanded a 'presidential' teleprompter; another one required a $1,250 stenographer; both insist that only a hand-picked moderator – never audience members – can ask her questions
• At an event that drew 6,500 people, Clinton allowed a photographer to take just 50 photos of her with VIP well-wishers

[Captain Hate]

Shocking how the MFM is shut out by Rodham but you have to read a UK paper to find out about it. Healthy amount of self respect imo.

[Extraneus]

Pacing: Hillary's contract forbids anyone else to be on stage when she talks to her audience

[Extraneus]

Her 'participation at the event including the speech and reception will be closed to the press, unless otherwise agreed to in writing,' the UNLV contract reads 'There will be no other media opportunities or availabilities (i.e.. press conferences, statements. etc.).'

The Buffalo appearance earned Clinton $275,000 for an hour on stage and a 30-minute photo line – limited to 50 photos of her alongside no more than 100 people.

[Strawman Cometh]

Jill Abramson is on Greta. I can't even hear the substance, her speech/ accent is something I've never heard, Valley Girl / Ivy League nasal OMG

[narciso]

Ferrari's in the shop, reschedule for another day. Daily Mail is like the Honey Badger, they don't care about ticking off anyone, Captain

[Sue]

Okay, being bitchy here but why on earth do people talk about how George Bush and Sarah Palin talk? Have they ever listened to Jill Abramson? Or that Yellen woman? ::my ears! my ears!:: don't watch Greta.

[Sue]

Amen amen amen Strawman!

[peter]

One thing the science might actually be settled on is that C02 from China and India will eventually find its way to North America, even if we shut down every factory, generator and automobile.

[Captain Hate]

We need another Breitbart to confront the likes of Monkey Boy and Steffi with that crap instead of a bunch of clean toga boys tut tutting about Sarah Palin.

In view of Rove's involvement with the anti-McDaniel ads, does anybody think that Chris Wallace will confront him on that after using him and Hume to analyze the race? I think I'll go to their website and pose that question for this Sunday, complete with link.

[Strawman Cometh]

Jinks!

[BB Key]

Abramson : Speech defect exacerbated by plastic surgery

[rse]

We have talked about jeb's fondness for being bipartisan. Working closely with joel klein in ed. Aspen Institute with Voto Latino as co-chair.

Today he released a report with Richard Riley, Clinton's Ed Secretary. Pretty much has his fingers in most transformational ed ideas to get to Social Reconstruction I am aware of.

At least it's not also bicameral like last week's monstrosity from Congress.

Do not think his embrace of immigration reform will be the lift he hoped for now.

Troublingly rubio today introduced a student loan higher ed bill to make more students eligible for the 10% cap then writeoff. More cost increases and then shafting remainder to taxpayer.

[Captain Hate]

Message sent; possibly the biggest waste of time I've engaged in today. But hope springs eternal.

[Sue]

She needs to remain in print and behind the scenes. Her voice would make the Squatches come out of hiding.

[miss Marple]

I am thinking she got fired because people couldn't stand to listen to her.

She definitely should get tips from the Fox make-up artist. That is the best she has looked since I first saw her on C-Span back in the 90's.

(Talking about Jill Abramson.)

[Captain Hate]

The Horde is not pleased with the voice of Jill Abramson.

[Rick B]

"Abramson : Speech defect exacerbated by plastic surgery"

"Abramson : Speech defect exacerbated by mental defect and plastic surgery"

It's not just the sound.

[GMax]

Voice bad

Affect worse

World view naïve to the point of absurdity

[Jane]

The Horde is not pleased with the voice of Jill Abramson.

I'm certainly not. She was entirely unlistenable.

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

Jill wouldn't made it out of the screening interview if I was interviewing her for a job irrespective of her academic credentials.

My one word at the top of her resume would have been "annoying".

[suzy]

Okay, As a long time lurker on JOM, I realize that all of you will defend Jane. She presents herself as a victim--I just cannot understand when she says that she thinks Henry Kissinger should not have a heart procedure that is wrong. That is why I say she supported death panels. I am not the person Jane says I am who used to post here. I am a "newbie" and realize that newbies are not accepted.

[narciso]

Yes, but that wasn't the reason, her shop, Risen, Sanger and Shane, have been the subject of subpoenas, records requests,and the like by
the administration, apparently with no protection by Pinch,

[Rick B]

"Any responsible cost/benefit analysis would include the probabilities of a disaster weighed against the costs of mitigation; our leaders ought to be able to wrestle with some uncertainty on both sides of that scale."

They certainly have the time, now that they've resolved the Social Security and Medicare shortfalls and have the government on a firm balanced budget. I sure don't see why they can't use a little more money we don't have to fix a problem which may or may not arise.

[Jane]

Suzy,

I have never once in my entire life presented myself as a victim. If you have been here for 5 minutes you would know that.

So go fuck yourself.

[DrJ]

Tomorrow's lead editorial in the WSJ is worth reading. Google/Bing "Jack Lew's Flee America Plan" to find it. A sample:

So the same Administration that refuses to work seriously on tax reform has decided that its top economic priority is providing even more incentives to drive American companies overseas. And then accusing anyone who disagrees of having a lack of "economic patriotism."

Yes, that can only be Jack Lew in action, the Treasury Secretary who must make the statue of Alexander Hamilton want to put on a blindfold.

Needless to say, they rightly are not impressed.

[suzy]

Jane, My goodness!

[Rick B]

Boy, I can't wait to see the letter to follow.

[narciso]

well actually worse, she was the coathor with Huntress and Koch defaming, as well as Gitmo
detainee vouching Jane Mayer's Denebian garbage
scow, Strange Justice,

[Rick B]

Narciso,

Is she for Red Witch or Red Squaw?

[Sue]

Abramson assured Greta's viewers that the NYTs is not biased. Very impartial.

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

Suzy -- I will give you the benefit of the doubt and try to explain to you why ad hominem arguments or generalized accusations of a poster don't go well on JOM.

Please go back through the thread after Jane expressed herself about 91 year olds having open heart surgery. A number of us, including me, pushed back fairly forcefully. But none of us accused Jane for being a dope because she favored death panels. In my case, that is because I have interacted with her for years, and know that not to be the case. Discussion on JOM generally goes to the merits of the arguments presented. I believe you will find yourself welcome here if you follow that guidance.

[Danube on iPad]

Attagirl, Jane!

Strwman (and others) beat me to it re Abrmson,whom I had never heard speak. Just astoundig.

[rse]

Jane-

Attagirl!!

Not exactly the typical rollout of a 'long time lurker.'

[rse]

Well DOT--we apparently think alike.

[rse]

JR-I have been driving by that Greenway on Abernathy wondering why until I saw in the paper today that they spent $18 million on it.

[Sue]

We were all newbies at one time. I really hate that argument.

[rse]

Northside Hospital and the taxpayers means all taxpayers.

In the community organizing for economic democracy docs I am now forced to peruse one of the speakers at a 2012 forum in Boston said ACCA requires nonprofit hospitals to spend between 3-5% of their annual revenue on 'community benefits.' The Left is salivating over "tens of billions' that must be spent as they wish or "hospitals lose their nonprofit status."

Apparently that's in the small print you have to know about to find.

[Jim Eagle]

Jack Lew, Alexander Hamilton, Treasury? But who's statute is out front of the building? And why is it there?

[GMax]

Porch

Finally had time to go find the Marist poll. I should say the NBC/Marist poll. Its a RV poll. Especially in midterm elections, the turnout of voters is always way more republican than the underlying registered voters, and I expect this election to be even more so since most measures show Democrats unmotivated to vote, and Republicans intensely wanting to express their will at the polls.

Does not mean the polls are wrong, but I would say its way closer than a RV poll especially one done by guys who have a history of putting their thumb on the scale.

[narciso]

I would guess Squaw, Hillary's cadre has become ever more selective,

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

I've heard Abramson quite a few times back when she was a reporter.
That jam-pointy-pencils-in-my-ears voice combined with a manner that is somehow simultaneously, oleaginous, obsequious and spectacularly pompous, capped off that with that self-satisfied smile of a toad stuffed shortly after it polished off a couple hundred horse flies is enough to make it inevitable she was a native New Yawker polished to a sheen at that pinnacle of toad stuffing academies, Hahvahd.

[Commonly misused and interchanged, as are many of the terms in the debate.]

Eh, 'mitigation' in the debate is usually used for the carbon dioxide limiting policy options, 'adaptation' for the policy responses for rising temperatures.

[Sue]

Wow Iggy you get the reward for most descriptive.

[danoso]

That increased CO2 will raise temps some amount is pretty much settled science.

Absent any other variables (i.e. lab experiment), yes, increased CO2 will increase the greenhouse effect. That's most certainly not what we're dealing with here. One might expect an enhanced greenhouse effect, but without understanding all the other inputs and their interactions it's pretty much a guess.

And while I'm no expert on things like chaos theory and non-linear dynamics, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't expect a proportional response when changing one input parameter. Along with the fact their record sucks, this simplist response makes me think the models are complete shit.

[MarkO]

Jane,

You know how I love it when you talk dirty.

Where did the lurker get that silly idea?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

--Okay, As a long time lurker on JOM, I realize that all of you will defend Jane. She presents herself as a victim--

For not being 'sailor', or whatever name that Jane-fixated oddball first used, you sure write snotty lines like she did. And use a lower case, usually feminine name like she did.
Not too convincing, "newbie".

[DrJ]

danoso, I agree, but also overlooked is the role of the model parameters. There must be dozens and dozens of these, and I'd bet that they are not easy to measure independently.

Some time ago I linked to a post that showed that nine parameters can be used to fit an elephant. Same goes for these models.

[Threadkiller]

Shall I turn this into a birther whirlwind thread and see what longtime lurkers say about how JOMers stick together?

This place is a mixture of recipes, friendly fire, and outright hostility. It took a while for me to understand sue's only rule:

Don't going away mad, just go away.[paraphrased]

Being a newbie or part of the fraternal order of JOM makes no difference how that rule is applied.

[That's All Folks.]

More to laugh about. The higher the climate sensitivity to CO2 the colder we would now be without man's input.

So pick a sensitivity that frightens you and calculate how cold we would now be without man's help.

Anthro CO2 likely will raise the temperature of the earth higher than were we not in existence. The question, the $64 trillion question, is just how much it will rise with our help, and what else is going on(What is Nature doing with the temperature of the Earth). It seems that with sensitivity around 1 degree C per doubling, then we'll be unlikely to raise the temperature of the Earth more than about 2 degrees C before other energy sources oust fossils from the market..

We also contemplate the end of the Holocene, at which time the temperature of the Earth will drop around 8-10 degrees C. No one knows when that will happen, but a half precession is a likely candidate, which is now.

It will eventually, and relatively soon, be acknowledged that warming is better than cooling, since it sustains more total life and more diversity of life.

With or without natural cooling, man's contribution to warming is far more likely to be a net benefit than a net damage.

So why do we have to suffer this Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd, appealing to fear and to greed? It is sustained by the illusion of knowledge about climate science, and it is turbocharged with guilt, but it is madness, plain and simple.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

To my knowledge, no mechanism has ever been identified that would render temperatures unchanged or lowered by a substantial increase in atmospheric CO2. The rise might be very small or somewhat larger. It might eventually be stopped at some point by negative feedbacks and is not linear or the atmosphere would have been cooked away long ago.

As I've said before whatever increase we might experience will almost certainly be a net benefit and if this interglacial period is nearing an end we may very well wish climate sensitivity is sky high [heh] just to ward off skating past the top of the Chrysler building.

But I would have to say it is probably past the 'guess' point as to whether it prompts some rise of some dimension.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

Curses, kim said it first and better. How bout a little warning next time? :)

[clarice]

I must say I prefer mud wrestling, I'm pretty sure Jane does, too.

[Jane]

You know how I love it when you talk dirty.

You have clearly got my number.

TC and I get to meet Jimmy tomorrow, and I am very excited. Can you fly in and join us? I'll pick you up.

[According to the New York Times, the sane are extinct.]

Iggy, there are more and more saying it. We go mad in crowds and recover only one by one.

[clarice]

Jane, you'll love jimmyk. Every bit as nice and smart as you must have already imagined.

[Winter is coming.]

Remember, too, the Little Ice Age had the temperature depths of this Holocene, long in the tooth as it may be. If we've raised the temperature since then, we are fighting a losing battle, with AnthroCO2 too weak to sustain Nature's imminent ten degree C. cooling. If we've bounced naturally from the depths of the Little Ice Age, then we may have a way to go yet before the Ice Curtain descends.

[narciso]

I half imagine Kerry Emmanuel, somewhat like Anthony Zerbe's vampire leader in Omega Man,
or the mutants under the Planet of the Apes,
worshipping the cobalt bomb;

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/26/gates-billion-dollar-leftism-part-two-geoengineering-global-warming/

[narciso]

they are either ignorant of events like the '38 storm, (which I was reminded by a novel by Peter Quinn, 'the Hour of the Cat') or mendacious tools

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/features/2012/hurricane_sandy_and_climate_change/hurricane_sandy_hybrid_storm_kerry_emanuel_on_climate_change_and_storms.html

[Jim Eagle]

narc, no email yet. 2 more days on the Daytona RT run. Lets meet up.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

--I must say I prefer mud wrestling, I'm pretty sure Jane does, too.--

I'd say it's settled and we have a consensus.

[henry]

Winter is coming. It will be cold here by the lakes. Mid July, might get 40s tonight. Just weather for now, but warmer would be nice.

[matt]

I finally hit the "play" button on a book on Pod of Tom Wolfe's "From Bauhaus to Our House". The book was written in the early 80's and is a tremendous takedown on postmodern architecture.

What really struck me was the easy Marxist deconstructionism of Le Corbusier, van der Rohe and Gropius. They just made shit up as they went along. What was really interesting was that the evolution led to the statist, structuralist art and architecture of pre-war Italy and Speer.

And what do we have today? Much of the same. I do like Neutra and Gehry, though.

Marxism is an infection of the mind that is fatal. The whole thing has been proven fatal to nations time and again and yet it keeps on coming back like H1N1.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

A wise short essay from a cute 20 something gal on the 77 qualities I thought my future husband had to have.
Trigger alert; God and faith mentioned.

[Porchlight]

I love all JOMers. suzy sounds a lot like that previous troll but just in case she isn't, trust me, Jane is the very last person to play the victim.

I really want to plan the JOM party. I can host a party space in Boca Raton FL or lakeside in the Minneapolis area depending on the seasons. (My folks' places.) Room enough for a large gathering and nearby hotels.

[Beasts of England]

I go out to dinner and come back to find that Jane's dropping the F-bomb and narciso has a Ferrari? Dang...

[Jane]

Jane, you'll love jimmyk. Every bit as nice and smart as you must have already imagined.

I have no doubt. Plus I saw him on TV once. I can't wait.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

First Wolfe I ever read, matt, about, jeepers, 30+ years ago?
Superb.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwaski]

Johnathon Turley again tells congress rein in Barry or he'll rein you in.

[Danube on iPad]

"Jane, you'll love jimmyk. Every bit as nice and smart as you must have already imagined."

Ditto.

[jimmyk]

You're very kind, Clarice, but I'm sure I will love Jane and TC more.

[Danube on iPad]

First Wolfe Inever read was an Esquire article entitled "Junior Johnson is the Last American Hero. Yes!" i had never read anything like it. It was my first exposure to what came to be called the New Journalism.

[narciso]

prefer the jaguar, since the equalizer, didn't know about their electrical problems,

[Beasts of England]

Very kind offer, Porch!