Ah, yes, but in 10 years, President Jenna Bush will tell us all "Nobody could have predicted . . . "

What do you expect the "World Meteorological Organization" to say? These Weathermen are using voodoo science to pursue the same far-left agenda they were 40 years ago.

4 minute Ted Talk

Rachel Pike: The science behind a climate headline.

Anybody who is trying to make hay out of these hacked emails is an enemy of your children's future.
I don't have children. But if I did...
I'd be angry to the point of violence.

To Al: How does it feel to be so ignorant about science that you don't have any idea how ignorant about science you are ? They're not weathermen you fool. Weathermen are the people who tell you what tomorrow's weather is likely to be. One thing America has begun to excel at: the proliferation of no-nothings.

Please, please do not tie the progressive agenda to man-made climate change.

It is an equally proven fact --validated by even more scientific research than the global climate change -- that the base and stoopid segments of the human species, when their stoopidity drags them into self-destruction, generally take us all down with them...

But it's snowing in Iowa! ;>

Al, I was gonna say your pinko slip was showing on that last one.. but, WOW, you pulled in a big mackerel!

hornblower wrote: "Please, please do not tie the progressive agenda to man-made climate change."

That is nonsensical gibberish.

Dangerous anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change is a fact.

It has nothing to do with anybody's "agenda".

Attempting to use reason with people who deny the warming data on the basis of their beliefs in conspiracies is an utter waste of time and effort. It's best to ignore them and let them wallow in their ignorance.

According to the experts, we have to keep CO2 below 350 parts per million in the atmosphere if we are to maintain civilization as we know it. Right now, according to 350.com, we are at 390ppm. With the US' puny response of a 17% reduction by 2020 and the Chinese and the Indians merely agreeing to slow the amount of their carbon pollution - with no effort to lower it - at the very best we are looking at something over 550ppm by 2025.

The EPA now says it has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but the reports now are that this authority will not be exercised, but will rather be used as a "bargaining chip" with Congress on the climate bill (the one that doesn't really deal with the real problem).

The point is you can't negotiate with physics. The game of "politics as usual", of getting a bill that "gets you through the door" so you can make it better over the next 20-odd years might work with health care, but it doesn't work with this. The planet isn't here to negotiate. It's just going to "do."

"Politics as usual" means that in about 100 years, the planetary cancer known as homo sap will be gone. Within 100 years of that, there will be no physical evidence on the planet that we were ever here. The planet will move on, and probably be better for the absence of the evolutionary failure in trying to create an intelligent being capable of foreseeing the results of its actions and acting accordingly. We've certainly failed at that job.

Posted by: DR
Ah, yes, but in 10 years, President Jenna Bush will tell us all "Nobody could have predicted . . . "

He , he , he , I hadn't heard a variation of that tickler in a while . It still makes me not miss those good old days .

Arguing with unreasonable arguments , that is not the task that the American people elected our present government to resolve . Luckily set in an equally illogical stone , like a little Gutenburg on Mount Horeb , our petite group of cornered deniers takes no notice of the smallest flies circling the dead wrong . So before any policy can groan out of the legislative gate , eagerly bringing all the malice and viscousness of the murderous insane , the preening and well paid , will need to spend our children's birthrights quickly . The walled and gated communities infested by the terminally dull should permit the quiet , final gasps of denial their due .

TCinLA is right that you can't negotiate w/physics.

But I wouldn't worry that the cancer that is homo sapiens will disappear in only a hundred years. This won't be the disaster that wipes us from the planet completely (barring total nuclear war along the way). What it will do is leave very many fewer of us living at a level of technology that makes it easy for small disasters to wipe us from the planet.

Think of it as a cancer gone to remission. Not guaranteed to die, but not exactly in the prime of life, and prone to disappearing in a few years of really bad harvests or some such.

Oh, and archaeologists of the future will quite possibly find something (as long as it's not more than a few tens of millions of years down the road) indicating a technological civilization. The question is whether or not they'll believe it.

I don't know about archaeologists of the distant future, but in the not-too-distant (and likely very short) future, the wretched starving remnants of humanity will have a name for the people of our time, who -- for an entire generation after the danger was understood -- failed to take action to stop anthropogenic global warming, and instead increased our output of greenhouse gases at an accelerating rate until catastrophe was irrevocable and unstoppable:

They will call us "monsters".

Reality, meanwhile, is indifferent to the demands of indolent ideologues.

That's an excellent sentence, but the ideologues of left and right are anything but indolent.

The ideologues of the left have decided to ignore Kenneth Trenberth's lament that there is no explanation for why there has been no continued warming since 1998, and that it's a travesty that they have no explanation. And Motl's (sp?) concern that the lack of warming may last decades.

The sense of urgency that you write of is intriguing. They may be urgent in Copenhagen, but it isn't likely to be about reducing carbon footprints. It's more likely to be about preparations for their next meeting in -- Mexico City, is it?

They will call us "monsters".

Or morons.

MatthewRMarler wrote: "The ideologues of the left have decided to ignore Kenneth Trenberth's lament that there is no explanation for why there has been no continued warming since 1998, and that it's a travesty that they have no explanation."

More lies from the deliberate, cynical, conscienceless liar, MatthewRMarler.

You are deliberately and knowingly misrepresenting Kenneth Trenberth's comments.

It is a blatant lie that "there has been no continued warming since 1998" and it is another blatant lie to attribute that lie to Trenberth.

You are nothing but a slavish regurgitator of scripted denialist lies. You are a liar. And you know it. And everyone who is familiar with the unending stream of lies that you post here knows it.

Hey, MatthewRMarler, "Global Warming" is so yesterday. Climate Change is the new meme.

As to 'sense of urgency', try selling your position to those Pacific islanders, who nations are disappearing into the deep.

I assume you don't own any beachfront propert. . .

TCinLA has panties in far too tight a twist.

Mankind gone in 100 years... oooh, scary.
A lot of poor people in places like Bangladesh
and southern Louisiana and Florida might die off,
but I see no reason that technological civilization will not continue.

Look at the maps of places that will do better with warmer climate. Farming in Canada, Siberia with ice free ports, and also farming in former permafrost. They have reason to push for more CO2
(at the expense of millions if not billions of their neighbors.)

Dramatic change is coming. Yes. Massive deaths,
and reductions in human population,possibly. Mankind disappearing, not so much.

Keeling Curve.

Methane.

Forget temperature trends. These two GHGs are rising at an ever faster rate.

Trees will not save us as carbon sinks.

Our oceans are showing mass migrations of jelly-fish (sign of warming) and pesticides kill plankton which would otherwise act as a carbon sink.

Global climate change is a sign that we humans have messed

up.

Flat-earthers be damned.

for your enjoyment, another item on power from municipal sewage.

SecularAnimist: You are deliberately and knowingly misrepresenting Kenneth Trenberth's comments.

Not so. Anyone can read the original in the hacked emails. He chastised another AGW proponent for not acknowledging the problem. It's a problem. Having not predicted or explained the lack of continued warming (i.e. that the current temp is considerably below what was forecast in 1999), the AGW proponents can not predict how long the non-warming will last, nor whether it will be followed by warming at the previous rate or by cooling. If the solar theorists are correct, and they think that they are correct, it will depend on what the sun does next. You certainly do not know whether the solar theorists are correct, however sure you may be.

another development in cellulosic ethanol.

AGW or no AGW, the US is revolutionizing its energy industry. A main issue is whether it will cost too much to do too much too soon (so that we have less wealth with which to take advantage of technologies that will be developed 10 years from now); and another is whether it will cost so much that we continue to lose the economic race with China, which will continue for decades to increase its CO2 emissions (even while pledging to reduce "CO2 intensity".)

Cynical, conscienceless liar MatthewRMarler wrote: "Anyone can read the original in the hacked emails."

And anyone can see that you are deliberately lying about Trenberth's comments.

And you are lying about the "lack of continued warming".

And you are lying about the "solar theorists", whose speculations have been falsified repeatedly by multiple independent scientific studies.

You are doing nothing but spreading lies and regurgitating long-debunked denialist drivel.

But that's what you do. That's all you ever do.

You are a liar. And you know it.

The whole point of leaking the CRU emails was to reinforce the miasma of doubt already created and produced by fossil fuel interests, especially King Coal. Any new data, or projections about future climate, will be met with media skepticism, and the predictable scornful denial by the know-nothings, which includes at least half of our bought-and-paid-for Congress.

This is all a well-planned and timed attack on the Copenhagen climate conference, and it may well neutralize any outcomes it produces.

Please, please do not tie the progressive agenda to man-made climate change.
Posted by: hornblower on December 8, 2009

That is nonsensical gibberish.
Dangerous anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change is a fact.It has nothing to do with anybody's "agenda".
Posted by: SecularAnimist on December 8, 2009

Hornblower is absolutely right. Global warming should not and must not be tied to or labeled a "liberal" or "progressive" issue. Doing so waters down the seriousness of the issue into traditional political compromising of give and take. Read Bill McKibben's articles. His take is that Global Warming is totally unlike any issue facing our political system in that it doesn't fall into progressive vs. conservative ideologies. Rather it's about our political system vs cold-hard physics.

Things like the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, desegregation, and yes, even health care reform are about what one view of humanity should be vs another view. The "progressive" struggle may be long and hard, but at least it isn't subject to timelines.

With global climate change, however, such deadlines exist, in fact we've already crossed over them. Political parties can bicker back and forth over important issues, but with Global Warming, we're dealing with physical laws that are non-negotiable. This mustn't be a democratic vs republican issue. It must be a business-as-usual vs the catastrophic collapse of life on earth issue.

Folks, please stop feeding the ignorant fucktwit that is MatthewRMarler. After all, he's lying his ass off about Trenberth in the hopes no one actually checks.

And the proof is right here.

Please feel free to discuss issues with folks on the right who are interested in honest, good-faith debate.

Marler, however, is not one of those folks.

A Chinese perspective.

Anyone can read the original in the hacked emails.

Where you can see that he was talking about a paper, not the state of AGW theory.

Once again, MatthewRMarler has no idea what he's talking about, just like the rest of them.

A complete idiot's perspective.

I believe that addressing global warming is beyond human abilities. Why do I say that? Because there are three steps involved: (1) Reach a consensus (or near-consensus) that something must be done. (2) Develop a plan that is adequate to the task. (3) Implement that plan. Of these three, only step (2) is technological/scientific. The other two are political, and nobody really knows how to do politics at the scale we are talking about.

We need Hari Seldon.

Marler wrote: Anyone can read the original in the hacked emails.

But it takes a particularly dishonest brand of partisan hack to lie about their contents, and sadly, there you are.

The one bright spot in this whole so-called "Climategate scandal" is that you couldn't resist blowing your feeble pretense as an honest commentator and reverting to the bad faith debate we all know is your signature.

Shame on you, Marler. Get bent.

Kenneth Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate. (courtesy of Mark D.)

He blames the data. But "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, ... ."

The climate change deniers have always rejected the evidence outright. Now they have a new misleading soundbite to support their assertions to a credulous public.

Aw, Marler, you didn't have to confirm my statement with your dishonest selective quotation; everyone already knows you argue here in bad faith.

Thanks for the confirmation, though.

Jackass.

MatthewRMarler is not only a deliberate, cynical, conscienceless liar -- he is also a stupid hack.

He's too stupid to even write his own lies -- he just slavishly regurgitates the scripted lies that are spoon-fed to him by ExxonMobil's propaganda machine.

That's where I must respectfully disagree with Gregory.

Marler doesn't "argue in bad faith" -- because he doesn't "argue". Actual "argument", even in bad faith, is beyond his abilities.

All he is capable of is cutting and pasting talking points -- and he seems to get most excited by the stupidest, most blatantly and transparently dishonest talking points he can find.

"Global Warming Denial Talking Points For Dummies".

That's Marler's shtick.

LOL!!

Wow, Marler. You're too fucking stupid to even read the entire text to which I linked. Instead, you picked the one quote which the link actually refuted.

A few grafs down from the quote you keep putting out there is this (I'll even include a link that's included in the quote, even though you're obviously not bright enough to read the whole thing):

But Trenberth, who acknowledged the e-mail is genuine, says bloggers are missing the point he's making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it. That article -- "An Imperative for Climate Change Planning" (.pdf [new window]) -- actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.

"It says we don't have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures -- including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators -- that global warming is continuing," he says.

Thanks for proving that, once again, you and pretty much everyone else in the denier crowd either aren't smart enough to understand the science, or are lying sacks of shit.

It really is one or the other.

Mankind gone in 100 years... oooh, scary.
A lot of poor people in places like Bangladesh
and southern Louisiana and Florida might die off,
but I see no reason that technological civilization will not continue....
Dramatic change is coming. Yes. Massive deaths,
and reductions in human population,possibly. Mankind disappearing, not so much.

thank you, catclub. mankind is too clever (well, some of it is) to be wiped out completely. it's overly dramatic crap like this that feeds right-wing ridicule of reasonable people.

your pal,
blake

Mark D: That article -- "An Imperative for Climate Change Planning" (.pdf [new window]) -- actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.

It was a travesty that there was no explanation for the lack of warming (when it was a private email), then it became a random variation and warming was actually occurring (when he "clarified".) In the email he critiqued a colleague for not admitting that they did not know why the warming had ended.

The fact remains, as he clearly wrote in the stolen email, that AGW has no explanation for why the warming ceased. If warming has continued, it has been at a much lower rate than 1978-1998 predicted, and they still have no explanation.

rising sea levels

We'll have to pick that topic up later. For now, not all the data show rising sea levels:
Tuvalu, Australia, Washington.

The fact remains, as he clearly wrote in the stolen email, that AGW has no explanation for why the warming ceased.

He doesn't write that at all, you ridiculous jackass. Because you can't read English worth a damn you keep misstating his meaning. When he asks, "Where is the warming?" he is clearly asking "where is the FURTHER warming that the CERES data predicts? He states that the CERES data show that there should be even more warming than is currently being exhibited -- not that global warming has stopped, you moron.

Trenberth believes warming is continuing, points to an article in his email that shows jwarming is continuing, says in all his other emails that warming is continuing, and states to this day that warming is continuing.

And for slow learners like yourself who apparently have difficulty with your own shoelaces in the morning he further clarifies his position later when he says that we can observe continuing warming -- in a quickened pace of glacial melt and disappearance of sea ice and droughts and other phenomenon -- but that if we lack specific measuring devices for many of these phenomenon then we can't fit their dynamics into the model.

So, for instance, if after years of warming the older, denser sea ice is now exposed (which has happened) then perhaps more available heat is used up in melting that ice and consequently the atmospheric warming appears to slow. Because we don't have specific studies around the area of sea ice density, however, it may not be reflected in models taken from CERES data.

Your assertion has completely dispensed with in this thread. Time to find a new meme to sell.

Because [strike]you can't read English worth a damn[/strike] you're a deliberate liar you keep misstating his meaning.

Marler isn't as smart as he thinks he is, but I have never held that he is dumb. Which is all the worse for him, as it means that his serial dishonesty in these threads is deliberate, and his reflecive support of the Republican Party and its sweet, sweet tax cuts the mark of deep and profound personal moral failing.

Shame on you, Marler.

While I am no authority on this topic, I feel that I can often spot a bullshitter. On this occasion I have yet to do so. Either the joke is on me, or you have cracked the code.