During World War II, America gave up its wealth and wellbeing in order to fight totalitarianism in Europe.

It was a global crisis, met and defeated by a global alliance, and the economic and human cost was many magnitudes larger than what we need to pay to solve the CO2 crisis.

That was a time of true patriotism, a big sacrifice by a generation to ensure the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for millions of Americans to come.

It’s not really much to ask for a fraction of that patriotism now, to give up a small economic adjustment in return for the wellbeing of many generations of Americans as yet unborn.

And how we do that is the $64 trillion question.

Frankly, I don’t see how we can significantly slow down, let alone stop and reverse the effects of the deniers. As I tell people all the time over on my own site, one of the most depressing things you can do is set Google Alerts for “global warming”, “IPCC”, “James Hansen”, etc., and make sure you include blogs in the alerts, not just news sites The tidal wave of garbage that shows up in your e-mail from these alerts will be truly stunning.

There are two problems here:

1. The strong anti-authoritarian streak in Americans. I’m astonished by the number of well educated people who believe that global warming and/or peak oil are some sort of vast, complicated, decades long conspiracy and not simply what the experts say they are. Just the number of people who use the phrase “New World Order” in this context is enough to make one weep for the future of this country.

2. In practice, the Internet (and particularly the Web) is not the horizon-broadening tool we all hoped for once upon a time. Instead, it’s turned out to be a perfect way for people to indulge in info-cocooning, where we immerse ourselves in the virtual company of like-minded people.

No one can change a denier’s mind or get him/her to stop repeating the same ridiculous, and endlessly debunked, talking points online. The absolute best we can hope for is a huge effort to try to cut down on the rate at which the deniers gain new members. That’s not a very optimistic view, I admit, but after fighting this battle for years that’s where I’ve grudgingly arrived.

I have started and I suggest we each keep sending letters to the editors of all media expressing our concern and requesting they examine the facts and the on going debate and try to be part of the solution.

If this can turn into a ground swell I think we will get an important component in making the message clear to the public, motivating timely acceptant of the situation that will drive the political will and the change of life style required by society.

[JR: I am a physicist and energy analyst, who has also studied physical oceanography. The environment has never been my primary concern.]

I’m astonished by the number of well educated people who believe that global warming and/or peak oil are some sort of vast, complicated, decades long conspiracy and not simply what the experts say they are.

Honestly, this makes me laugh. For years I was told over and over again that it was environmentalists who were conspiracy theorists, who believed in an evil cabal of world-controlling and world-destroying businesses and governments. So I laugh pretty hard now that anti-environmentalists have become such dedicated conspiracy theorists. I know, I know, I should cry - but there is no laughter in heaven.

In practice, the Internet (and particularly the Web) is not the horizon-broadening tool we all hoped for once upon a time.

When I first encountered this notion, as young computer-science major (circa 1995 or so), it seemed like one of the cheesiest and most flagrantly dishonest marketing lines I’d ever heard. Like something you might find on the side of a bottle of Echinacea, sold by a company which donated huge funds to Senator Orrin Hatch. David Brin had described info-cocooning in his 1989 book Earth. Yes, I know, it was fiction - but at the time, info-cocooning seemed likely. Really, the idea that the internet would be horizon-broadening is something you believed because the unscrupulous and self-deluded majority of the computer industry spent billions making you believe it.

No one can change a denier’s mind or get him/her to stop repeating the same ridiculous, and endlessly debunked, talking points online.

I think this is another internet illusion. True, no-one will change their mind during an online argument. And surely, they won’t admit how wrong they were - they’ll change their pseudonym and pretend they always had their new view. I’ve watched a number of friends and acquaintances switch from active denialism to moderate acceptance of AGW. But more importantly, for every denialist you argue with, 10 or a 100 or more lurkers are reading the argument. Those are the people whose minds are changed. It’s not the few individuals whose posts you are responding to that you should thin of. It’s the dozens of readers who should be your real audience. A denialist is really just a foil.

In the end you need to look at the changes in attitudes recorded by periodic surveys - more people and policy makers today believe AGW is a serious danger than did 10 years ago. (Granted, if it takes 10 more years to convert the rest, we’re in serious trouble …)

When concerned about deniers, particularly those powerful ones in Congress, it is helpful to think about the results of a survey by Opinion Research Corporation called “A Post Fossil Fuel America: are Americans ready to make the shift?” Perhaps this site has already reviewed it, as it was completed October 2007.

It finds that: 75% of Americans (ie 65% of Republicans & 83% of Dems) would support a 5 yr moratorium on new coal plants if there was a stepped up investment in clean safe renewable energy… and 55% of us agree that global warming is a problem and we have limited time to get to solutions… and … 80% of Americans agree that “the effects of global warming require that we take timely and decisive steps for renewable, safe clean energy sources… and we cannot afford to postpone decisions since there are no perfect options” It added that 9 out of 10 Americans are willing to reduce energy demand by taking add’l personal efficiency and conservation steps home.

This is what you won’t read in the Wall Street Journal. But look up the study and share it with any elected official whose commitment to dealing with AGW is less than strong. They will know, or you can tell them, that these numbers will only get stronger. This study was based on calls to 1000+ people in all regions and has a margin of error of 3 points.

now go party-hardy.
Annefarr

Treason is quite an escalation of language. The treason is to the atmosphere of our planet, hence our nation too. And Newt should not worry about the economy, because all global economies are subservient to a healthy planet.

NeoCon Denialists try to lay claim to that word before it can be used against them. Because while they worry about labels, they ask us to forget actual deeds that are globally treasonous: active suppression of science in government agencies, invoking a secret energy policy that appears to fund oil companies rather than a healthy future for the US and may included “preventive war”.

They should be very worried. Because the worse things get, the more folks will be looking to blame. And the blame lands on Republicans like a turd on a table — they try to ignore it, deny it and now delay it as much as possible to escape culpability.

The very future of unbridled capitalism will be pitted against a rapidly changing world. Soon, millions of climate refugees outside the US, and citizens within will suffer storms, floods, drought and fire. (Oh, that’s today) Americans will be perplexed by the calls for burning more coal and oil and mumbling blame elsewhere.

Newt seems to want to move the serious and provable legal charge of treason, into the radio-talk-show-name-calling region where they can escape responsibility. Their counter-attack has been to challenge and deny the scientific connections between climate catastrophes of all sorts, and the predictable models and scenarios that are really no surprise to those who study them.

I suspect denialists know they will lose this and are trying to buy time. The Insurance industry gets it, Russia knows the Arctic will be ice free soon, this denialist PR push seems to come from the fossil fuel industry.

Denialists are not acting like flat earth believers, or Holocaust deniers, or Elvis Spotters. They are influencing and hindering survival. This is global treason.

–noun
1. the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2. a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.
3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
[Origin: 1175–1225; ME tre(i)so(u)n

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Wikipedia offers a much deeper discussion of the term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason
Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: “…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation].” In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.

Outside legal spheres, the word “traitor” may also be used to describe a person who betrays (or is accused of betraying) their own political party, nation, family, friends, ethnic group, religion, social class, or other group to which they may belong. Often, such accusations are controversial and disputed, as the person may not identify with the group of which they are a member, or may otherwise disagree with the group leaders making the charge. -snip-
…
The Cold War saw frequent associations between treason and support for (or insufficient hostility toward) Communist-backed causes. The most memorable of these came from Senator Joseph McCarthy, who characterized the Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations as “twenty years of treason.” McCarthy also investigated various government agencies for Soviet spy rings; however, he acted as a political fact-finder rather than criminal prosecutor. Despite such rhetoric, the Cold War period saw few prosecutions for treason.

On October 11, 2006, a federal grand jury issued the first indictment for treason against the United States since 1952, charging Adam Yahiye Gadahn for videos in which he spoke supportively of al-Qaeda.

Among the ranks of computing professionals there was a lot of optimism about what the Web could be, since it would make the Internet vastly more accessible.

My point in all this is that the way it’s really turned out–the Web as an incredibly high-gain amplifier for our preconceived ideas–has resulted in far more polarization than we had before.

And given how utterly useless most media outlets have become, I have no freakin’ idea how to combat the deniers.

Maybe not, if oil keeps doubling in price every couple of years. Globally I agree, but in certain countries (US, UK, etc) the cost of imported energy is a major, major threat to our entire economy and could plunge us into some sort of 3rd world status over the next decade.

Need a better term for those engaged in the tragedy of the commons.

So yes I think info-cocooning is a big challenge. The enterprise of science and scientific cooperation which requires a unified corpus of data and fora in which to argue about the interpretation of the data is a direct challenge to info-cocooning. So it is little wonder that info-cocooners are particularly resistant to scientific claims about AGW or GHG concentrations.

Also, I would agree with Lou that there is an anti-authoritarian streak in America that has shuttled between the left and the right through the years, which makes it difficult for many to accept the authoritative claims of scientists as somehow privileged information. People want to think that every opinion is equally valuable. But in some circumstances, you want to have experts who spend almost all their time studying something and then tell you “the truth” that is based on the data. We have, in America, been calling this type of authority into question for at least the last 30 years. Occasionally our “skepticism” has a productive outcome but in the case of AGW it would appear to be a tragic fixation on one’s own ornery opinion.

On the bright side, the voices of deniers will resonate less and less with the silent majority as our political establishment starts to better reflect the scientific reality (i.e. in January 2009).

it’s true about any partisan though. lots of people on dailykos need to be rescued. but at least there you have some commitment to face reality, among the writers. it’s not all about the think tank talking points o’ the day.

last year peter schwartz, in/famous futurist, and others, described a major climate vulnerability, in impacts of climate change (pdf).

Since the 1950s, pop culture has become much more volatile and fast-moving, in no small part because of the advent of new mass and social media, including the internet, video-sharing, podcasting, and the handheld devices for creating, distributing, and consuming information. What has emerged is a global popular culture of paranoia, ripe for exploitation by political opportunists. That climate change is likely to unfold in a series of excursions from the mean will serve to continually mask the broader trend — and a paranoid culture of half-wisdom and rumor-mongering could amplify these excursions. For example, climate change skeptics could use a five- to 10-year global cooling excursion to debunk climate science in the media. This possibility should especially concern those wishing to construct rational long-term policies appropriate for GHG emissions abatement and impact mitigation plans. If such a surprising global climate excursion toward cooling by chance took place just as global politicians put together a workable global GHG abatement plan, opportunists might seize the excursion as an excuse to dismiss the need for abatement. Others might blame the sudden random cooling on the excesses of the abatement regime itself, not realizing that the abatement could not possibly yet have had any effect on the weather. The chance that the political will to enforce an abatement scheme might unravel in the face of such an unluckily timed climate excursion is unlikely, but far from inconceivable.

this was in january 2007, 2 months before the great global warming swindle aired and obviously before “global cooling” hit the talk circuit this year.

(they were also concerned about pop-culture alarmism complicating “any political efforts to develop rational and fair, cost-benefit measured, technocratic responses to climate change.” you know, rational and fair, where crooked politicians and ignorant heads of business decide how much of a risk to take, for all humanity.)

Hi to all my family and friends,

I’m sure everyone is busy preparing to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend but I feel compelled to ask you to listen to my plea for a different kind of independence day we need to be celebrating.

For those who know me too well you are aware that I have become a political junkie in these last few years. For those who aren’t, welcome to y current passion for outreach to save humanity!!

For most of our adult lives since the late 60’s I think many of us thought we could relax in the knowledge that government for all intents and purpose was supposed to be doing its job as outlined by the founding fathers.

Just as a refresher, the Preamble to the Constitution is as follows: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Followed by the Bill of Rights (or more commonly known as the Amendments to the Constitution, of which there originally were ten and are now twenty seven) the original founders of this country had settled on a document that though is imperfect in many ways gave a secure foundation in a working relationship of government and its people who are governed.

Here comes the inconvenient part. It’s not working. The people who elect representatives to use the power delineated in the Constitution are working for special interests not for the common wealth. From WIkipedia: The original phrase “common-wealth” or “the common weal” comes from the old meaning of “wealth,” which is “well-being”. The term literally meant “common well-being”. Thus commonwealth originally meant a state or nation-state governed for the common good as opposed to an authoritarian state governed for the benefit of a given class of owners.

Without getting into lengthy constitutional explanations for the benefit of argument, I believe that it’s time some common sense must prevail. Bottom line, today we have ourselves a dysfunctional centralized government. We are being ruled by the corporatocracy. With corporations given all the same rights as a person, we have been overwhelmed by the money that corporations can wield in having laws passed that literally bestow more power upon them. With more money, they have bought the rights accorded to we the people as elucidated in the preamble to the constitution. We the people’s rights have become secondary to the rights purchased by the major corporations.

Everything we have built as a community in the past with neighbor supporting neighbor has now been usurped for the conveniences of what the corporations have made seem so necessary to our way of lives today. Making us dependent on them not interdependent on each other. We have been brainwashed to believe we cannot live without all the trappings of modern life. Don’t get me wrong. Flushing toilets, a necessity. Refrigerated food, done deal. But how much is enough. How easily have we been conned into believing the necessities of life include so much of what we are consuming as precious resource.

So what kind of independence has that given us? What we are seeing now in my humble opinion is that all this “freedom” issued in the form of paper markers (dollars) has become an unsustainable debt load. Dollars valued in oil were designed and minted for us to “shop” to buy the trappings of the American dream which we were told was good for the commonwealth. What we have come to learn is that it is nothing more than a pyramid/ponzi scheme. As we are finding out, nothing can grow forever at an ever-increasing rate. Unrestrained, unlimited and unregulated growth is unsustainable As time moves on, the emphasis of ever-increasing growth becomes omnipresent, it has been quantified and institutionalized in the societal structure, encouraging over consumption, over development, and excessive expectations, pushing economic stress to its upper limit of expansion, eventually inciting conflict and spawning war to insure growth fueled by the worlds resources. Essentially we have come to learn that the distinction between usury and interest is an arbitrary legal determination with no basis in mathematics or reality.

So we have watched the large fossil fuel industries use aggressive marketing campaigns to maintain the upper hand in persuading millions to allow them to supply the world with machines and fuels that are harming the sustainability of this place we call earth. This is not idle speculation. If need be I can provide the “doubters’ with plenty of evidence that others with more knowledge of this impending calamity can and will quell all argument to the contrary. Unfortunately for us many of these corporations have the money (from our indebtedness to them) to buy people to propagandize their deceit and it has now become standard practice for them to sow the seeds of doubt while the debate rages on as to “who dunnit’? If only to extend their bottom line a little further. Only one problem. The earth is dying beneath us as we are seeing in the latest onslaught of extreme weather. What needs to happen now is a new “revolution of independence” eliminating our use of unsustainable resources that are accumulating more greenhouse gases that are extending far beyond the boundaries ever envisioned by nature’s interdependent behavior. Technology alone will not save us without a concerted effort to conserve and steward.

So where are we now? Extremes of weather. That’s where. Projected, prognosticated and theories proven to be all too real.

Extremes, definitively one of the signals that the climatologists who have been raising a red flag for almost a decade , and more urgently of late, have been trying to communicate. Extremes of weather are a result of the climatological increase of temperature trending upward. You can banter on endlessly about whether carbon causes temp increases but the consequences of carbon forcing and temperature trending upwards has now taken a much more deleterious turn. Feedbacks from the forcing of carbon are now beginning to rear their ugly heads faster than expected. Science is finding the rapidity of the changes are alarming. We are witnessing a progressively exponential surge in feedbacks with the melting of the perma frost in Alaska and the Siberian tundra being one of the most dangerous indicators of an unhealthy planet.

Lest we not forget, in the last few years the climatologists have joined hands with other disciplines. Paleontologists, geologists, physicists and biologists along with climatologists are now all working together to better understand the stresses put on the earths ecosystem. Multiple scientific disciplines warning of the same results. There are some terrific books and very informative websites that for those who are willing to educate themselves further. I have a great reading list if anyone cares.

This is not just a natural phenomenon reoccurring that the earth has been through before over millions of years ago. The changes that are taking place today are changes that in the history of earth have resulted in extinction due to other causes but today are caused by the unleashing of carbon by humans. This is no longer a debate. Not in the scientific world. Maybe in the world of Limbaugh, CEI or Exxon but not in the community of scientists. This turn of events has been brought to bear by the human species on earth and is now the most obvious reason for the war, certainly causation for the droughts, floods, fires etc. and yes, even the food crisis, economic instability and the rise in gas prices have their origin in the dependence we have on fossil fuel. We have succumbed to being our own worst enemy.

In essence we are diminishing the very planet on which we depend for the health of our own species and our economy. It is the earth that makes us and our economy possible. If our planet isn’t healthy, we lose many of those materials on which we depend. And if the services provided by the planet become degraded, our health and economy suffer. This has become our present dilemma. Wish as you might otherwise, the economy ultimately depends on the resources of the planet. Bringing new clean alternatives online is urgent. Relegating the old fossil fuels to obscure use is imperative.

I am not a scientist. I can fancy myself a soothsayer if I wish. A sort of oracle if you will. But I definitely am a firm believer in the cosmos. That “”We are part of the Earth and it is part of us. This we know. The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth.” (attributed to Chief Seattle) is my daily mantra.

James Lovelock, a very wise scientist that originated the Gaia theory (named after a Greek goddess) proposes that living and non-living parts of the earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. I liken his theory to the functioning of the human body. As much as what there can be with certainty, there comes a point where infringements on the bodies systems where equilibrium can no longer be maintained and death ensues. As large as earth is I believe it can and will come to a similar point at which mother nature has a point of no return and will collapse as the system we know of today. Even without 100% certainty are we willing to risk that eventuality? Let us think long and hard as to whether the price of hubris where we think man could conquer or ignore nature and the price of squandering our resources to the point of influencing climate and destroying our life giving environments is really worth the cost of our freedom to choose how we think we should live our lives without regard to the whole.

I ask each of you to reexamine everything and anything you can do to make even more changes within your own lifestyles that will contribute to energy independence from fossil fuels. Share with others that which you have learned and become a part of the solution of a renewed earth community and reject the premise of empire building for domination of earth resources. I ask each of you to reject calls for increased drilling for a fuel we know causes greenhouse warming. I ask you to lobby your representatives and senators for getting us out of this war and using that 14 million dollars an HOUR for an Apollo program for clean renewable energy and goods. I ask you to lobby them for increased CAFÉ standards for automobiles now not in the future. That could very possibly be too late. We are all on this boat together and rearranging the deck chairs does not prevent the ship from taking on water once it hits the iceberg.

I want to close by relating a paragraph or two of one of my mentors in the fight to have people understand what the scientists are trying to make us aware of. It goes as follows:

“The scientists are telling us that what the science tells them is that this - unless we act quickly and dramatically this, in Churchill’s phrase, is only the first sip of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year. We have to rise with this occasion. We have to connect the dots. When the Superfund sites aren’t cleaned up, we get a toxic gumbo in a flood. When there is not adequate public transportation for the poor, it is difficult to evacuate a city. When the wetlands are turned over to the developers, then the storm surges from the ocean threaten the coastal cities more. When there is no effort to restrain the global warming pollution gasses then global warming gets worse, with all of the consequences that the scientific community has warned us about.

My friends, the truth is that our circumstances are not only new; they are completely different than they have ever been in all of human history. The relationship between humankind and the earth had been utterly transformed in the last hundred years. We have quadrupled the population of our planet. The demographic transition has been occurring more quickly than was hoped for, but the reality of our new relationship with the planet brings with it a moral responsibility to accept our new circumstances and to deal with the consequences of the relationship we have with this planet. And it’s not just population. By any means, the power of the technologies now at our disposal vastly magnifies the average impact that individuals can have on the natural world. Multiply that by six and a half billion people, and then stir into that toxic mixture a mindset and an attitude that says it’s okay to ignore scientific evidence - that we don’t have to take responsibility for the future consequences of present actions - and you get a collision between our civilization and the earth. The refugees that we have seen could well be the first sip of that bitter cup because sea-level rise in countries around the world is already mobilizing millions of environmental refugees. The other problems are known to you, but here is what I want to close with:

This is a moral moment. This is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue. Ultimately it is about who we are as human beings. It is about our capacity to transcend our own limitations. To rise to this new occasion. To see with our hearts, as well as our heads, the unprecedented response that is now called for. To disenthrall ourselves, to shed the illusions that have been our accomplices in ignoring the warnings that were clearly given, and hearing the ones that are clearly given now.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. As Lincoln said at another moment of supreme challenge that the question facing the people of the United States of America ultimately was whether or not this government, conceived in liberty, dedicated to freedom, of the people, by the people, and for the people - or any government so conceived - would perish from this earth.”

I would add: It’s your choice.

HAPPY ENERGY INDEPENDENCE DAY……….

With love from one little being on planet earth,

(my name)

That isn’t necessarily the case. They could be accepting some as more trustworthy and holding up others as examples of “wrong” thinking. Your skeptic friend might just be trying to make a hash of any trend or pattern that is observed…

When concerned about deniers, particularly those powerful ones in Congress, it is helpful to think about the results of a survey by Opinion Research Corporation called “A Post Fossil Fuel America: are Americans ready to make the shift?” Perhaps this site has already reviewed it, as it was completed October 2007.

In case anyone is wondering, the survey annefarr refers to is here . First link when googling ‘A Post Fossil Fuel America’.

http://www.legalreforminthenews.com/ 2008PDFS/ AJP-SLF_Kivalina_5-13-08.pdf

Native village of Kivalina is suing ExxonMobile and a bunch of others over both global warming and the free speech of describing the issue.

Changing my mind here after reading of the Kivalina suit. Clearly now disinformation and denialism is a business and legal tactic of the fossil fuel industry. This explains why most other nations are way ahead of the US in discussion and understanding the problem.
http://www.climatelaw.org/ cases/ country/ us/ kivalina/ kivalina

It does not excuse it, just explains it.

The Register is a very respected and well followed site that reports on the digital world. In computer science, generally, something works or it does not. Digital is on/off or yes/no - with no other answer in between

From what I read about climate science there are tons of studies and mountains of data all converging in an attempt to describe a fluid environment. There is lots of evaluation. Digital conclusions really do not fit here.

I plan to read about the climate from RealClimate.org and when it comes to computational reporting I will stick with The Register.

In sites dedicated to applying or reporting on the application of the scientific method to AGW, information coalesces around a consensus because ideas which are not supported by observation and data are discarded.

By saying you’re not one, you treat it like a dirty word, the same way women say “I know women aren’t treated equally in our society, and I’d like that to change, but I’m not a feminist”.

It’s not a dirty word, and treating it as such hurts your allies. Please reconsider.

I’m pretty much “single issue”, whereas “Environmentalism” is something more.

For example, I’m pro nuclear (if the economics are right), whereas environmentalists are anti no matter what the economics are.

And environmentalists have a tendency to oppose wind farms in sensitive ecological areas, whereas I’m in favour (again, given the right economics).

I don’t think understanding climate change and the CO2 problem automatically turns you into an environmentalist; it’s not “deniers vs environmentalists”.

Who among the clan of anti-carbon will post a bond for damages We and others suffer when the lack of need for any action regarding use of carbon fuels returns to the status Que ante the present mania?

It is much easier to prevent a larceny then attempt to recover the monies after the crimes are committed. At what level of economic damages and loss of property rights does the exercise of my natural rights require me to take direct action to preserve my sacred rights?

While my future economic progress might be destroyed by the enactment of bogus anti-carbon laws, third and fourth Worlders will be locked into at least two or three more generations of grinding poverty and early death.

Without the widespread use of carbon based liquid fuels how will the poor countries ever achieve the wealth required for freedom? Enactment of the anti-carbon laws will lead to deaths of millions of poor. The greens may even out do Mao in total dead.

It is actually deniers like yourself who are locking the third world into generations of poverty and death. The worst part is that you are doing it deliberately. believing your ideology trumps their rights and science and truth.

In fact, you are displaying an ignorance of how science works by asking for proof. Proofs only exist in the hermetic world of mathematics and logic. No one has ever “proved” Newton’s laws of gravity. They’ve been confirmed many times and not falsified but never proved.

In asking for proof, you deniers are asking us to enter a world of unreality; the real world requires us to work with just a hair less certainty (which you guys know somewhere…otherwise you would never cross a street for lack of “proof” that a 200 mph vehicle wasn’t about mow you down).

despoilers
sociopaths

Exusian,
Same deal, putting Foley in the “do not reply” category IS engaging in “info-cocooning”. Who knows he might utter another doozey that will enable you to display your erudition and sharp debating skills. As someone pointed out recently, it’s really the many undecided readers whom you want to listen to your arguments, not the “ossified” deniers whom you may be directly responding to.

Plus, there is always the (remote) possibility that Foley is defending his position here, but secretly researching a plugin hybrid for his next vehicle purchase in 2010

Hmmm?

Snark aside, disagreeing on the best means to effect an end is not the same thing as opposing the end.

Even if emitting CO2 becomes illegal(Is breathing to be criminal?) here in the USA it is illegal to enact an ex post facto law.

Micheal Hoexter, Removing from the poor the opportunity to advance their economy because there might be a one degree rise in world temps over a hundred year period, is incredibly selfish.

Exusian, my ideology doesn’t allow minorities to run the world by their religious dogma. My ideology allows others to abdicate their personal freedoms, but not seize control of the levers of power through a misguided dis-honest mania. I’ll use all force necessary to preserve my freedom, but I won’t engage in any sort of pseudo-intellectual nanny stat-ism. Have you read ANY current peer reviewed data regarding the actual trend of the global Temps, land or sea?

David B. Benson, I’m not advocating the suspension of democracy and the enactment of a new Supra-national level of unneeded bureaucracy that will take acts of revolution to restore current freedoms enjoyed by the present free world. Hell hopefully will have special conditions for do-gooders afterlife. Who is the sociopath, the one who forwards environmental fascism or the rational actors that want actual proof of a causal link between Co2 ppm’s and a radically warming Global climate before destroying the economic basis for our freedoms.

John Hollenburg, I’m filling the bunker’s armory with pre-Obama fire arms.
I’m saving up for a dual fuel refrigerator to preserve my food during the wind mill brown outs and federally ordered power free days to come. During the day job I sequester carbon to satisfy irrational LEED requirements, eight hard copies of all data to meet the latest capital destroying environmental regs that don’t actually save any net energy when the energy costs of the added expenses are included.

I read all the bogus data JR pushes just in case at some time in the future the actual science data and theories begin to match CO2 forced-AGW. So far Joe’s positions are diverging ever farther from reality. He’s either suffered a psychic break or trapped in the web of misinformation he’s generated.

Threatening people who disagree a weak theory that is unsupported by observations of the Earth’s recent climate with capital punishment will I hope lead to some sort of reaction by the authorities.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

but I fear you are too (fill in the blank) to do so.

In any case, many reports suggest that 1–2% of GWP will suffice. It is time to act now, before drastic social re-organization occurs.

For continued denial will certainly lead to ‘climate wars’ and the four horsemen will have many, many field days.

p. 69
269…The Conspiracy Defendants have engaged in agreements to participate in the intentional creation, contribution to and/or maintenance of a public nuisance, global warming. The Conspiracy Defendants participated and/or continue to participate in an agreement with each other to mislead the public with respect to the science of global warming and to delay public awareness of the issue so that they could continue contributing to, maintaining and/or creating the nuisance without demands from the public that they change their behavior as a condition of further buying their products. At all times the Conspiracy Defendants were concerned that the public would become concerned by global warming and that the growing concern would force a change in the Conspiracy Defendants behavior which would be costly. Delaying these costs was the major objective of the conspiracies described herein.

270. The Conspiracy Defendants have committed overt acts in furtherance of their agreements. The Conspiracy Defendants have participated in an agreement with each other to mislead the public with respect to the science of global warming, either individually or through their various industry fronts or trade associations, and have included overt acts that furthered their intentional creation, contribution to and/or maintenance of a public nuisance, global warming.

We might want to see what the courts say
http://www.climatelaw.org/ cases/ country/ us/ kivalina/ kivalina

These trends can only be observed over relatively long periods of time, due to the amount of weather “noise”. Realclimate has an article on this that suggests time spans of less than about 15 years have too much noise to be useful. Thus, stating that there is “global cooling” or slowing of warming over a short period of time (5-7 years) is not meaningful. This well thought out article can be read here:

http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2008/ 01/ uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/

To win the next war, the USA needs to maintain the ability to outproduce any conceivable combinations of enemies, thus we need clean, reliable, cheap carbon, and nuclear power. The misapplied eco memes have already killed millions with the DDT ban and the end of use of CFCs. Even now millions go to bed hungry due to anti GMO nut jobs. Eco-tyrants have a history of collateral damage that far exceeds the benefits of the bans.

Have you yet done the math on the impossibility of JR’s 6 degree temp rise? Black body radiation is a mature science. I’ve studied physics at the university level and understand the Greenhouse effect that has increased Earth’s average surface temperature ~30 to 40 degrees C above the atmosphere free average. Obviously your theory that climate sensitivity is 6 degrees per CO2 doubling is totally inaccurate as all current data refutes your position.

Try reading some literature that is not internal to the church of CO2-AGW.