Are you really trying to peddle the propaganda myth that carbon dioxide is pollution? Are you really trying to equate carbon dioxide with cadmium?

Posted by: M.Mann | Feb 6 2012 14:17 utc | 1

"Hypocrisy is a typical characteristic of all kinds of governments."

Not only governments, but, humanity in general.

Posted by: ben | Feb 6 2012 15:21 utc | 2

CO2 is neither "dirt" nor a pollutant.

We NEED plants to live.

Plants NEED CO2 to live.

If CO2 is a pollutant, then so too is O2 (the output from plant life) and so too is H20 ... all essential to life on Earth.

Posted by: ScuzzaMan | Feb 6 2012 15:22 utc | 3

I don't see hypocrisy as much as I see China flexing their muscle and following the examples of other global hegemons. Hypocrisy is frequently exercised by those with the clout to do it. As for the US, an aging fighter had better learn a bit of diplomacy. Aging fighters need a sympathetic referee. Our hypocrisy is more costly to us than China's is. Though their well of good will is not unlimited, no one's is.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 6 2012 15:40 utc | 4

I guess, for some of us, there is no such reality as too much of a good thing. Try sitting in a sealed room full of co2. Balance, people, balance.

Posted by: ben | Feb 6 2012 16:50 utc | 5

Well the not a mess in my backyard is a staple of US policy since forever.

One of the reasons that manufacturing moved from the US, in some degree, to China, also > VietNam, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico etc. - for the EU, other places -, was the laxity of enviro regulations.

Inhabitants blasted with toxic chemicals, polluted water, water shortages, with dire effects on local agri, not to mention cancer and birth defects, have no recourse, there is no-one to apply to, protest to.

Wage arbitrage looks puny by comparison. The cost of a clean plant / factory, with no negative or even deemed ‘positive’ ecological impact, is so incredibly high that it would make the biz non-profitable.

That potential cost is far higher than paying ‘proper’ salaries. The ‘salary’ post is extremely malleable and adjustable, in function of the country’s pol structure, its culture, expectations, re-distribution payments, family solidarity, etc.

China is in a frenzy of development, resource extraction, thrashing everything, to be in the triumphant top league, dominate.

China has a surplus of people and astounding energy needs.

Whatever they spew about pollution / emissions / destruction of nature / and more, is BS.

Posted by: Noirette | Feb 6 2012 17:36 utc | 6

Are you really trying to peddle the propaganda myth that carbon dioxide is pollution

That is not a "propaganda myth" but a fact. Too much CO2 in the atmosphere can do some crazy stuff. Like for example kill you.

Posted by: b | Feb 6 2012 17:40 utc | 7

Agreed, CO2, like everything else, needs to be in proper balance in the atmosphere to provide for life, and quality of life, but it's still improper to label it a pollutant.

Also, I don't trust carbon trading, nor carbon taxation. Governmental Institutions have proven, the world over, that they are corrupt and venal and only serve the very privileged few in our global society. As such, they cannot be trusted to administer such a carbon levy equitably and justly. Knowing them, they will find a way to play reverse Robin Hood once again, and steal from the poor and give to the rich, using this wonderful new tax to pay off all that vig and principal to the Plutocrats. Look what they've done with Social Security. It's stuffed full of IOU's. Yeah, it's a surplus on paper only. From a cash standpoint, it's empty....and it always will be from here on out.

And yes, the Chinese are liars like all the rest.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Feb 6 2012 18:03 utc | 8

good grief. CO2 is not a pollutant. and no, it will not kill you, unless maybe you tie a bag over your head. i guess most people don't realize this, but the percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 is tiny. you breathe out a hundred times more CO2, and burning all the world's oil isn't going to put a dent in that.

i know science is hard to understand for some people, but try looking at it from another perspective for a minute. energy use worldwide is not going down, in fact it's going up. nothing can change this. this biggest conflicts in the world are over who gets to burn the oil. the size of most economies are proportional to their carbon usage, and whoever burns the most oil, gas, and coal WINS!

taxes are a way to control who wins. they will not reduce usage, they cannot reduce usage. taxes increase costs, and whoever controls the world's currency wins by default since they can print the most money out of thin air. carbon taxes are a political weapon.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 6 2012 20:02 utc | 9

OK, CO2 is not a traditional "pollutant", but significantly increasing its concentration in can have - has had - a measureable effect on the net energy balance of our atmosphere & hydrosphere. The scientific basis (CO2's absorbtion spectrum - like glass, it's transparent to visible light but opaque at Infrared - Heat - wavelengths) has been known for over 100 years. The details - feedbacks in a very complex system - are still being worked out.

For people who actually want to understand the science behind prediction & measurement of "Global Warming", the website scepticalscience.com is a great place to start. Click the "Big Picture" box in the middle of the first page for a good beginner's overview.

Or, if you think you already know "why CAGW is bunk", check out the rebuttals of various common denialist memes, on the left side of the page where it says "Most Used Climate Myths... and what the science really says".

Most Denialists seem to be rabid right-wingers - Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist "Christians" - so I'm somewhat amused (though still mostly exasperated) to find commenters here who don't get it.

Posted by: elkern | Feb 6 2012 23:08 utc | 10

Nobody who has been through a single yellow dust season (and I've been through several) is very sympathetic towards China's environmental policies.

Other countries have offered to help them with this problem since it is in everyone's best interests, only to have China belligerently re-plant millions of gifted trees in urban environments where they do little to no good.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 6 2012 23:36 utc | 11

How do you guys say that the western countries have polluted the earth for centuries?

Posted by: jeffutogo | Feb 7 2012 4:22 utc | 12

The website is: http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Posted by: Bill Galt | Feb 7 2012 13:47 utc | 13

A couple of thoughts. We've seen in studies that increasing CO2 acts as a fertilizer, and stimulates growth of plants. So, I'd like to know what this will do to mitigate the increases of CO2?

waiting....

waiting....

No, climate studies is not climate science. It's getting there, but they don't know how these various factors and variables interact, nor how they'll be introduced. What would be the global warming benefit if Yellowstone went dormant? What is the cost of another one? If we don't know these answers, until we understand all the variables, and how they're introduced, how they grow/change we can't make predictions to study. So far, not a single climate model has been accurate, so we can't even craft hypotheses that are proven true. Further, since we can't replicate Earths, we don't have the ability to study these things. So, please, let's retire this discussion and move to what we can do.

Proton objected to taxes on fuels. Well, we have several proposals out there. Carbon trading is, in my mind a horrible idea. It leaves us subject to market manipulation and spikes and swings in price. It would be preferable to simply charge a simple tax on fuels. We do this already, and it works ok. In fact, we haven't raised the gas tax in the US since Clinton's time, however, the cost of highway construction has increased, as the cost of fuel increases. The price of gas has tripled since we raise the gas tax, but our tax is per gallon of gas, not per dollar.

To object to taxing fuels ignores the nature of fuel markets. Despite there being many gas stations, oil and fuels are utilities. Utilities are unique markets that don't have alternatives, nor any real competition. In fact, it would almost impossible to boycott an oil producer, as their identities are not linked to service stations. Further, these markets rely on gov't in a way unlike the free market. The dept of defense aids their business, special provisions are needed for refineries, pipelines and international ports. Presumably, an efficient market would have taxation that would recoup all the costs of this utility. It would be most appropriate if our gas tax paid for all our roads, the share of the Defense budget they bear, cost of regulation and subsidies. It is also appropriate for gov't to use taxation to create alternatives to oil use, namely the funding of mass transit. Since all these are costs of oil, doesn't it make sense to recapture that cost in our tax?

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 7 2012 16:34 utc | 14

Scott -

An increase in photosynthesis is a probable negative feedback of an increase in CO2 concentration, but it's not guaranteed. Plants need many key inputs - water, minerals, light - and cranking up the CO2 will have diminishing returns. Can you site peer-reviewed studies - real science - which indicate that this one negative feedback pathway will stabilize things quickly?

You don't really think that climate scientists have ignored such an obvious effect, do you?

What are you primary sources of information on this subject? Have you checked out scepticalscience.com yet? They have lots of good readable explanations, so people like us don't have to try to wade through the dense academic stuff. See Bill Galt's post above for the link (Thanks, Bill).

Posted by: elkern | Feb 9 2012 0:26 utc | 15

"cranking up the CO2 will have diminishing returns"

Sceptics have been saying THAT for years, in relation to CO2's effect on Temperature over time - hilarious to see the warmists using a similar argument now.

The sceptic argument has been that yes there's a rise in temp with a rise in CO2 - but only for a while - as CO2 continues up, the correnponding effect on in Temp rapidily drops off - effectively once CO2 rises a certain amount it's effect on Temp gets weaker and weaker for every unit of rise of CO2

See this graph for instance http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/co2modtransimg2.png/ - The blue-line represents CO2 - The flatter portion of the graph gradually smooths out, as the effect of CO2 forcing becomes saturated with increased concentration.

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:42 utc | 16

correction - "effectively once CO2 rises a certain amount it's effect on Temp gets weaker and weaker for every unit of rise of CO2"

should say

effectively once CO2 rises a certain amount it's contribution to the 'Greenhouse-Effect' gets weaker and weaker for every unit of rise of CO2

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:43 utc | 17

"i know science is hard to understand for some people, but try looking at it from another perspective for a minute. "

- heehee - seriously, could you even possibly be more patronising?

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:46 utc | 18

BTW: the LAST place anyone trying to fond some sort of objective opinion on the subject, might want to visit is the website http://www.skepticalscience.com/ - there's NOTHING sceptical about John Cook and Dana Nucetelli, who rule that place.

If they can't even be honest in their choice of name, for their website, what are the chances that they really have a commitment to actual science, as oppossed to 'Climate Scientology™©'

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 0:51 utc | 19

a good place to start for anyone genuinely interested in the shenanigans of the Climate Scientlogists would be the whole the Hockey-Stick controversy,

Andrew Montfords's blog-post Caspar and the Jesus paper delves into the whole murky business in a fairly readable manner.

the lenghts the Climate Scientologists are prepared to stoop to, to cover-up/run-interference for each other is quite revealing

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 1:05 utc | 20

Yet another decent read on this subject is The Yamal Implosion- also by Mr Montford

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 1:09 utc | 21

A fairly decent expose on the IPCC and it's apparent, (according to the book anyway) disregard for anything even remotely approaching a sense of ethics, is Donna LaFramboise's book "The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert"

Here's a sample chapter or two from the book itself - http://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/delinquentteenager_sample.pdf

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 1:17 utc | 22

@18 - Hu Bris

sorry, it's just after a few years, one starts to lose patience. and i don't think i've seen anyone here mention methane. last time i looked, the data on methane was pretty sparse, and maybe only one measuring station in hawaii? yet no real call to deal with the methane warming problem that i've seen. so, i tend to think these things are pushed from above.

and, i invested time into trying to figure it out years ago. and what i found is that no one on the "warming" side seems to care a whit about proprietary data sources, secret correction algorithms at both the analysis side and the data collection side, temperature stations located in cities (sometimes near heat exhaust vents), scientists trying to pretend the medieval warm period didn't exist, scientists defacing wikipedia pages and losing admin privileges, the climategate scandals, people not understanding curve-fitting artifacts that look like hockey sticks, etc. etc. etc... so when i find that Enron was involved with the whole carbon credits scheme, it becomes hard to view it as anything less than a scam. so yeah, this comes out in the end as a bit bitter and contemptuous at times. but i'm done with CO2 warming and don't want to invest any more energy into it. so what if it does warm up a little? maybe i'll move to Greenland and grow potatoes.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 9 2012 3:28 utc | 23

Fair enough Proton, it's just I don't think being patronising will convince anyone of anything, but I do understand the frustration when trying to have a discussion with a 'True Believer' - essentially these people seem to have replace one religion for another - time and time again the so-called 'evidence' falls flat on it's face when examined closely, yet still they believe, no hint of a doubt for the true believer.

and to be fair if I was objecting to ridiculous or offensive crap I really should have highlighted this astoundingly arrogant guff posted by elkern,

"Most Denialists seem to be rabid right-wingers - Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist "Christians" - so I'm somewhat amused (though still mostly exasperated) to find commenters here who don't get it."

Most of the non-Chicken-little people I have interacted with are people with a fair understanding of statistics, a pretty fair understanding of systems-theory. Many are programmers, engineers and a few Mathameticians as well. Although I know, from perusing the web, that "rabid right-wingers - Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist "Christians"" exist within the rather large Climate Realist camp, I've NEVER met any of them, the ones I've met are smart well-educated people that actually DO understand the theories as stated by the Climate Scientologists, and HAVE examined the evidence put forward by the High-Priests of Climate Scientology, and have seen that it's all a bit of a sham.

People like elkern want to portray anyone not a 'True Believer' like themselves, as totally loons - it feels comfortable to them as they ignore the fact that their theories can't survive close scrutiny, as more and more of the 'predicitions' of the Chicken-Littles, made in the early days of The Rise of the Church of Scientology, are, as time progresses, proven false by empirical observation. That Reality is slowly falisifying their heroes pronouncments, just doesn't seem to leek into their vision at all.

The truth is that when interacting with the True Belivers many of them in fact don't aseem to understand the theories themselves, mainly because they have never actually examined them, they have recieved all their info on this subject from the Media or from 'Activist' organisations (people that have a active interest in covering-up data and info that might contradict the Warmistas). Many True Believers have NEVER examined the evidence at all.

I used to be a believer too, and often argued with Sceptics. While doing so, I realised that the sceptics actually appeared to know more far more about the subject than I did myself, so if I were to argue against them sucessfully I needed to better understand the theories and have at the ready evidence to disprove those sceptics.

That's where my problems REALLY started :)

Once I got a good grasp on the theories I went on to examine the evidence - and shockingly enough I found that "There's no THERE there" - the evidence was not up-to-scratch in many cases, and in others it simply was complety non-existant and even in a few cases completly fabricated - Manns Hockey Stick being a fine example of the latter.

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 16:14 utc | 24

Some people may recall that The IPCC stated in it's 2007 report that “Himalayan Glaciers will melt by 2035″ - some may also recall that the claim was clearly shown to be complete and utter nonsense

Himalayan glaciers melting deadline ‘a mistake’
By Pallava Bagla in Delhi

The Himalayas hold the planet’s largest body of ice outside the polar caps

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035”.

(If I put that in a novel, no one would find it at all plausible.)

Some may also even recall that when the ridiculous IPCC claim was first questioned, IPCC chairman Rajenda Pachauri famously labeled claims of the mistake “voodo science”. He later had to retract that slur, amid some ebarrassment (but not much).

Now it appears there hasn’t been any melt at all in the last 10 years.

The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

I never thought I'd see that in the Guardian - I wonder how the Church of Climate Scientology will spin this one?

Oh wait - I already know - the Guardian helpfully inserted the Warmists spin for them, into the story sub-head

" . . .but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern

Got that? "a SERIOUS concern"!!

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 17:02 utc | 25

elkern: - "Can you site peer-reviewed studies - real science - which indicate that this one negative feedback pathway will stabilize things quickly?

how about

Aboveground inventory of sour orange trees exposed to different atmospheric CO2 concentrations for 3 full years - (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Volume 60, Issues 1-2, pp. 145-151, August 1992) Sherwood B. Idso, Bruce A. Kimball

"You don't really think that climate scientists have ignored such an obvious effect, do you?"

given the depths I've seen Climate Scientologists sink to, nothing would surprise me concerning those guys at this stage. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they were in fact fully aware of such studies but willfully chose to had in fact deliberately ignore them

and then there's

Atmospheric CO2 enrichment enhances survival of Azolla at high temperatures
(Environmental and Experimental Botany, Volume 29, Issue 3, pp. 337-341, July 1989)
- Sherwood B. Idso, S.G. Allen, M.G. Anderson, Bruce A. Kimball

I got lots more if you want em - you just ask, mKay?

I just pulled those two out from the first 10 I found listed under 'A' ;-)

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 9 2012 18:03 utc | 26

@24 - hu bris

Most of the non-Chicken-little people I have interacted with are people with a fair understanding of statistics, a pretty fair understanding of systems-theory. Many are programmers, engineers and a few Mathameticians as well. Although I know, from perusing the web, that "rabid right-wingers - Crypto-Libertarians, or Rapturist "Christians"" exist within the rather large Climate Realist camp, I've NEVER met any of them, the ones I've met are smart well-educated people that actually DO understand the theories as stated by the Climate Scientologists, and HAVE examined the evidence put forward by the High-Priests of Climate Scientology, and have seen that it's all a bit of a sham.

yeah, i saw elk's comment, and wondered what he means by crypto-libertarian. is that like a crypto-jew? is the implication that libertarians are involved in some grand conspiracy to take over the world? the rapturist thing i get, it implies a lack of responsibility, because Jesus will come back and fix everything before it gets too bad (or the believers will escape the consequences, making it a little psychopathic).

but yeah, you are correct, my background is engineering. and so, i have learned things like how far confidence intervals go out of bounds when you start simulating even simple systems in open-loop. didn't study stats so much, except an undergrad class, but did take the stuff that stats is based on, random variables and stochastic processes per Papoulis. system identification, control systems, signal processing, etc., these things i have a great deal of intuition for, and could even go back and write code again if i were sufficiently motivated.

"Climate Scientologists" - i like that, and will probably steal it.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 9 2012 20:45 utc | 27

Wow, Hu, ten posts? Are you getting paid for this?

I actually checked out some of your links, but it was wasted time. The graph was pretty, but it's a picture with no supporting info, and the axes make it hard to tell how much of a difference a doubling of CO2 will make.

And you really think Bishophill gives good science?

The links about the effect of increased CO2 concentration on plants (One didn't work; I just read the abstract of the other) are nice, but they missed my point: I agree that increased plant respiration could be a mitigating factor, but it's not likely to completely offset the extra carbon we're pumping into the atmosphere. More importantly, I ended the sentence with the word "QUICKLY"; I'd probably agree that plants will EVENTUALLY absorb whatever we burn, but I'm concerned about the next century or so.

...and you berate another commenter for "patronizing", then write of "Climate Scientologists"? Ah, yes, you chose a good moniker. Have I been Poe'd?

Proton Soup - Have you run the numbers? It's fun.
1. How much does the atmosphere weigh? (proxy for mass, close enuf): 14 lbs/sqin * surface area.
2. Total CO2 = (Atmos Wt) * 390 ppm
3. How much CO2 do we add? Calc how many gallons of gas you burn each year, multiply by a few hundred million for all the other drivers, then double it for trucks, and multiply by 3 (or more?) because transpo is only a fraction of the carbon source.

When I run this, it looks like we add a few percent per year to the atmosphere. Or do you dispute even the measurement of CO2 concentration (390 ppm)?

If you want to brush up on your stats & learn about AGW at the same time, check out Tamino at tamino.wordpress.com (sorry, I'm html-challenged). He's got a pretty sharp-tongue, but that happens on both "sides" of this issue (see Hu Bris, above, and most Denialist sites).

BTW, I call Godwin on your mis-interpretation "Crypto-Libertarian". I mean people who imagine that there's a conspiracy among thousand of scientists around the planet to impose World Communism through the IPCC & tax their hard-earned capital gains. Lookup David Brin's take on Randian Libertarianism; that's what I mean. Most of the comments I've read here are politically to my Left, in traditional terms at least; I find that refreshing (thanks again, b).

Posted by: elkern | Feb 10 2012 0:02 utc | 28

"Wow, Hu, ten posts? Are you getting paid for this?"

One thing you can always, ALWAYS rely on, as predictable as the dawns and the tides, is that, when dealing with a fully paid-up member of the Church of Climate Scientology™©', <------ elkern, fer instance> is that they will ALWAYS, always, accuse anyone daring to disagee with them of being paid by someone to dare to disagree with them.

Inevitably the group supposedly paying those dastardly people that think for themselves <---Me, fer instance> is always some nefarious member of the Oil Cartels

The "True Believers" and their absolute certainty in their own omnipotence is so concrete, that it really really never ever occurs to the poor deluded little dears that anyone disagreeing with them might (just might!) actually be doing so because that person actually really thinks that The Church of Climate Scientology™© just might be wrong, in some of their suppositions.

I actually checked out some of your links, but it was wasted time"

That's fine and dandy, dear - that is exactly what I expected from a "True Believer™©" such as yourself, and as usual you delivered in spades.

You lot never fail to fail to deliver evidence - it is in fact a defining characteristic of the Church of Scientology™©

True belivers such as Elkern are so entranced by the suppossed beauty of their own propaganda that they are completely unable to fathom the notion that someone might disagree with them because that person actually really really thinks that the nonsense that these fully paid-up members of the Church of Climate Scientology™© peddle, is just that: 'Nonsense'

It never seems to occur to such Fully-paid-up member of the Church of Climate Scientology™© that others have actually examined that crap they called 'evidence' and rejected it for good reasons

"(sorry, I'm html-challenged)" -

yeah, yer also kinda somewhat 'evidence-challenged' too, but somehow that seems to escape yer notice< ;-)

The referance to 'Tamino", is yet another SURE-SIGN™© (as if more were needed) that I'm dealing with a fully-paid-up membership in the Church of Climate Scientology™©

I notice the Church Elder, elkern, just completely ignored any refernce to the Andrew Montfod blog-posts I linked to earlier : Caspar and the Jesus Paper and The Yamal Implosion - I can almost guarantee you that elkern will steer well clear of them because they totally expose the Church of Climate Scientology™© for what it really is: a you-sctatch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-your's echo-chamber and mutual-appreciatioom-society.

These High Priests of the Church of Climate Scientology™© hope that they will all end up with juicy Gov't grants to study nonsense that they invented out of thin air - otherwise these utter charlatans would be out of a job.

regarding the rest of your propaganda-hit-piece screed: there really is no point in my replying to thew rest of the nonsense you posted - you're a "True Believer™©" and I'm not. Never the Twian shall meet etc etc -

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 10 2012 1:54 utc | 29

@High Priest elkern, of the Church of Climate Scientology™© : -

since you deliberately refused to address the Peer-Reviewed SCIENTIFIC papers that YOU personally requested, maybe we all might benefit from perusing an abstract of those SCIENTIFIC peer-reviewed papers that you earlier demanded, . . . . . but for some strange reason YOU rejected, when actually supplied with he information that YOU demanded, eh?

lets see shall we?

BOTH of the papers I linked to earler loaded inMy BROWSER with no problem for at all, so I'm a little surprised at your earlier claims regarding page-loading - perhaps YOUR browser has a problem with loading Non-Church-Of-Scientology related SCIENTIFIC papers?

The abstract from the First SCIENTIFIC Peer-reviewed paper (as you earlier demanded) states:

"After 3 full years of differential CO2 exposure, the CO2-enriched trees had nearly 100% more branches, 75% more leaves, approximately 160% more trunk and branch volume, and 190% more trunk, branch and fruit rind volume than the ambient-treatment trees."

(useful tip : but For NON-LIARS only!!) : this is always a good way to try and gauge how dishonest your opponent is!)

would that satisfy your esoteric religon-based queries?

why NO, of course not- that is pure HERESY - burn old nasty heretic me, and the Authors, at the stake of Climate-Goodnes™©, for goodness sake!!

seriously -your're nothing but a cheap pathetic shill for the Church of Climate Scientology™© - ytou ain't foolin' no one

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 10 2012 3:05 utc | 30

elkern, the thing is, CO2 production is not going down. there is nothing we can do about that, save a quantum leap in alternative energy production, storage, etc. i wish it weren't so, i really do, but no magic exists yet. a sufficiently-advanced energy technology will have to produce significantly more energy than it takes in. you will know it when you see it. for example, a solar panel factory would be able to run off-grid, using previously-manufactured panels to power production of more of the same. windmills would produce enough current to refine aluminum from ore and smelt copper. we're nowhere near this. we can't even get over unity making ethanol from corn, even natural gas is used to distill it. better hope that fusion thing works out eventually. because all the worlds' nations are in a competition for the resources. we are currently in the process of killing each other over it, and unless a really huge number of people dies, the only question will be who are the haves, and who are the have-nots. this will continue until fossil fuels dry up and the population crashes.

i hope it will be a few degrees warmer.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 10 2012 7:58 utc | 31

Soup -

You're right, "CO2 production is not going down", at least not yet. I'm afraid you may be right about the next part - "there is nothing we can do about that", but I'm not ready to give up yet. I root (& vote) for more investment in alt entergy, a carbon tax (there may be better ways), and ending the huge subsidies currently going to the Dinosaurs. Coal scares me the most.

I agree that alt energy isn't quite at break-even yet, but we're getting darn close. I'd rather see us use the remaining petrocarbon wisely - building a post-carbon infrastructure - than pissing it away on jet-skis and battleships.

Be careful what you wish for ("a few degrees warmer"). Humans developed agriculture around stable local climates. A warming planet implies destabilization of regional climate patterns. We all eat (except Hu, who just bites). You may well be right about that population crash. The longer we pretend this doesn't matter, the lower the resulting carrying capacity of the remaining ecology. People get so wrapped up in money that they forget that the economy is a subset of the ecology.

b - Sorry for hijacking. I fear I may have attracted the troll with my mention of scepticalscience.com

Posted by: elkern | Feb 10 2012 22:44 utc | 32

BTW, I don't consider Proton Soup a troll.

Posted by: elkern | Feb 10 2012 22:50 utc | 33

Yes - everyone's a troll except the sanctimonious pompous twat that can't fathom how anyone disagreeing with his nonsensical crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap, might do so simply BECAUSE they realise that his crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap is actually just that: a steaming pile of crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh claptrap

Unable to process this simple fact, the poor deluded fool has taken to inventing conspiracy theories wherein anyone daring to have a opinion not sanctioned by these Church High Priests, simply must be a paid-agent of Satan, out to sabotage the good-and-pure holier-than-thou crypto-religious doomsday End-of-the-world-is-nigh message, espoused by these Latter Day saints of the Church of Climate scientology

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 13 2012 2:23 utc | 34

"I agree that alt energy isn't quite at break-even yet, but we're getting darn close."

the ever-receding horizon - salvation is JUST around over the next hill, or if not that one, then the one immediately after.

Yes, I know I said that 5 hills ago too, but listen just trust me, ok, I know what I'm talking about, I am after all a VERY IMPORTANT Person, I'm not just a mere Scientist, you know - oh nooooooooooooo, I'm much much more important than that ..... I'm a Climate Scientologist!!

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 13 2012 2:32 utc | 35