Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

And that, alas, is to often the result of attempts to dig into a complicated subject. Those who don't want to see the threat will laugh at it.

I am not laughing, I am listening. I appreciate the effort you put into the post.

If we accept that climate change is happening, is deleterious, and is caused by humans, do you think it is possible (economically and politically) do anything that would really make a difference?

James50

Originally Posted by James50

I am not laughing, I am listening. I appreciate the effort you put into the post.

If we accept that climate change is happening, is deleterious, and is caused by humans, do you think it is possible (economically and politically) do anything that would really make a difference?

James50

I've posted the above picture many times in this thread. I try not to do it too often as familiarity has tended to breed contempt. Anyway, there is one key point that I am concerned with on the above chart.

At about +2 Vostok Delta T C, Antartica thaws. When Antartica thaws, there is a jump of about four more degrees. Sudden environment changes like that generally cause great extinctions. I would could avoiding or allowing such to happen would count as "making a difference." Thus, the question would be whether we can hold the line at less than a 2 degree shift.

Trying to hold it to 2 degrees would be brinksmanship. We'd be going right to the edge with the biosphere at risk. It would be the minimum plausible meaningful goal. Over the last few years, as the politicians get together at an international level to try to make it happen, they have given up on it. They have been unable to put together a program that would plausibly keep the rise below 2 degrees.

I believe it could be done. The scientists proposed viable agreements that might have done it. It would not have been easy. It was doable. Alternative energy sources are available, but they are still more expensive than fossil fuels. I believe it would take a tax on fossil fuels high enough that alternative energy becomes significantly more profitable that fossil fuels.

The major problem is political will. The rich countries want to maintain familiar life styles, and are not ready to let go of intense use of fossil fuels. The developing countries want what the developed countries already have. The poor countries are pissed at the thought that they should be held back. Meanwhile, a lot of folk who have profited from fossil fuels have a lot of wealth and a lot of political power.

I also believe enough in the S&H cycles to think if the political will can't get focused through this crisis it won't get focused at least until the next awakening. I see no evidence that ecological concerns will trump economic concerns in the next ten years. I see the fossil fuel economy surviving the crisis and being locked in place during the high.

I see hell to pay after the high. By the awakening climate science will be mature, the evidence will be overwhelming, and the young prophets will make my generation of prophets seem mild.

But it would be political suicide to go all in to fight global warming. The culture of greed still dominates. I believe we could do something if it is fully accepted that "climate change is happening, is deleterious, and is caused by humans," but it seems to be in everyone's short term selfish interests to pretend none of it is so.

Melville Chamberlain's comment about having achieved peace in his time by appeasing Hitler is not remembered well. That error is going to be seen as trivial as compared to the decisions we are making now.

About the climate change itself? Maybe not. About our own situation? I think we must, and I know many people who are.

I ran across a word of wisdom in a comment on a blog, to the effect that when a system is failing, the first thing people (especially the powers that be) do is to try to prop it up so that people can go on living as they were. The comment pointed out that this eats up the resources needed to adjust to the new situation, whatever it is, and throughout the recession I have been finding this to be true. I find it also applies to the necessities of aging, and obviously to the vagaries of foreign affairs, wars, etc. I see no reason it shouldn't also apply to whatever is happening to the climate, or to our natural resources, or whatever else we are facing. In fact -- the old pioneer spirit is called for here.

Sorry if this seems so vague; I tend to either see minute details (i.e. how DOES one insulate a concrete block house and whyever did those fools in the 1940s build houses that could not be insulated?) or general principles - either the forest or the leaves, but precious few trees.

However, individuals, groups, towns, and cities and even states are taking steps to deal with their immediate problems sensibly, and that's a good sign. Maybe, just maybe, the sum of all these individual efforts will add up to something and maybe they'll get us in the Can Do mood that characterized the last saeculum. In which case, who knows what we can do about whatever is happening?

An example of the objectivity and reliability of "science" in another field:

Social Scientist Sees Bias Within

by John Tierney
New York Times

“Given what I’ve read of the literature, I am certain any research I conducted in political psychology would provide contrary findings and, therefore, go unpublished. Although I think I could make a substantial contribution to the knowledge base, and would be excited to do so, I will not.”

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

An example of the objectivity and reliability of "science" in another field:

Social Scientist Sees Bias Within

by John Tierney
[I]New York Times

Do you honestly see any similarity between the data used in objective science and that used in the highly subjective social sciences?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I've posted the above picture many times in this thread. I try not to do it too often as familiarity has tended to breed contempt. Anyway, there is one key point that I am concerned with on the above chart.

I don't mean to introduce a lateral arabesque here, but as I look at the chart, I can't help but note the remarkable difference in behavior of the data beginning about 5 million years ago ... the data appears to become very much more on a downtrend, AND it appears to be almost violently unstable.

Granted, the time periods here are very, very long compared to our own existence as a species, yet the change in the data is marked.

Originally Posted by TnT

AND it appears to be almost violently unstable.

Yup. It has been noted by many people that the reason agriculture was not around before 10,000 years ago was that the climate was simply too unstable for farming to be viable. The last 10,000 years have been bizarrely stable compared to the previous 400,000

The last few weeks have been nasty by any standard. At least where I live (southern Michigan) temperatures are expected to go above the seasonal average for next week. I had better see the ice sculptures downtown closely before they melt away.

Originally Posted by TnT

I don't mean to introduce a lateral arabesque here, but as I look at the chart, I can't help but note the remarkable difference in behavior of the data beginning about 5 million years ago ... the data appears to become very much more on a downtrend, AND it appears to be almost violently unstable.

Granted, the time periods here are very, very long compared to our own existence as a species, yet the change in the data is marked.

Yep. Five to Eight million years ago Earth got into a configuration where ice ages came and went. See the Wiki article on Milankovitch Cycles for more than you want to know about how changes in the Earth's orbit causes more or less heat to be kept in the atmosphere.

The Ice Age glaciers are what is known as a positive feedback effect. The more glaciers form, the more heat is reflected to space, the more glaciers form. Thus, once glaciers start to form they tend to run away. On the other hand, should they start to melt, more heat is kept, so they melt some more. For the last five million years the planet has been on the hairy edge of major glaciation. The ice has come and gone with the fairly subtle change in the Milankovitch orbital effects. As you say, the global temperature has been unstable, with significant temperature shifts swinging as the ice comes and goes.

The other thing to note is that over the last 50 million years there has been a long term cooling trend. This is generally attributed to photosynthesis taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it in the ground as fossil fuels. To the extent that man is trying to undo millions of years of carbon sequestering in a few centuries, one might expect a corresponding upswing.

Originally Posted by Odin

Yup. It has been noted by many people that the reason agriculture was not around before 10,000 years ago was that the climate was simply too unstable for farming to be viable. The last 10,000 years have been bizarrely stable compared to the previous 400,000

I have also heard it argued that once upon a time some grain fell into some open water, fermented, and thus man invented beer. It was then necessary to invent agriculture in order to get more beer.

It doesn't seem surprising to me that agriculture started with an interglacial rather than during an ice age, but I don't like to read too much into it.

Here is a fairly-good collection of analyses of the physical geography of ice-age climates.

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html

There's nothing for a hothouse climate, though.The last such climate ended after South America and Antarctica parted ways and glaciation began in Antarctica about 30 million years ago.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I have also heard it argued that once upon a time some grain fell into some open water, fermented, and thus man invented beer. It was then necessary to invent agriculture in order to get more beer.

I don't know about that legend. Beer was an attractive way of storing the energy without exposing grain to vermin. I have a better explanation: dry grain storage became possible after cats started finding easy prey at granaries. Dogs weren't so reliable.

It doesn't seem surprising to me that agriculture started with an interglacial rather than during an ice age, but I don't like to read too much into it.

Take a good look at one of the maps for Europe around the Last Glacial Maximum. Ice sheets reached nearly as far south as London, Berlin, and Warsaw.

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen...PS/europe1.gif

Where the ice sheets weren't in Europe, agricultural potential was practically nil. Polar desert might have evaded the ice, but it was much too dry as well as cold for any agriculture -- much like the northern part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to this day. Steppe-tundra is difficult to explain... I figure that it is a combination of low grasses with a smattering of tundra-style plants. It obviously had too little of a growing season for anything other than the sorts of grazing animals that small populations might hunt for food. That is what one would find in places that would later become Munich, Prague, and Kiev.

Southern Europe appears as dry-grass steppe. Think of the Canadian Prairie Provinces but chillier and drier. It's possible to do agriculture in the Canadian Prairie Provinces, but it requires people with sophisticated agriculture adapted from elsewhere. That's how things were in what is now Madrid, Rome, and Athens -- not the sort of world in which one would expect a Plato or an Ovid to appear -- let alone Cervantes, Leonardo, or Matisse having a chance.

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen...PS/africa1.gif

If you are thinking that the climate bands were simply compressed, then think again. The pattern for Africa was decidedly cooler -- but also much drier. Tropical rainforests all but disappeared, and the savanna shrank significantly. The Sahara, Namib, and Kalahari deserts expanded both poleward and equatorward. The Sahara was probably even more desolate than it is now -- as difficult as that might be to believe. Because of far lesser rainfall near the equator the flow of the Nile practically stopped. The sophisticated civilization of the Nile Valley remained impossible.

Originally Posted by James50

I am not laughing, I am listening. I appreciate the effort you put into the post.

If we accept that climate change is happening, is deleterious, and is caused by humans, do you think it is possible (economically and politically) do anything that would really make a difference?

James50

PBS Nova aired a program about alternatives.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/ma...f-cleaner.html
Technologies improve as the needs arise. The idea that nothing can be done is a poor reason to oppose doing it.

Whether America will be at the forefront though, in the wake of Nov.2 2010, now looks unlikely.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Do you honestly see any similarity between the data used in objective science and that used in the highly subjective social sciences?

I see a similarity in how the entire academic community functions. "If you don't follow the party line you will not be published". The "Climategate" emails showed that practice at work. Hence, however much some people keep flogging away at it, this issue is dead.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I see a similarity in how the entire academic community functions. "If you don't follow the party line you will not be published". The "Climategate" emails showed that practice at work. Hence, however much some people keep flogging away at it, this issue is dead.

Climategate is dead, because it was a complete hoax. Science data doesn't change just because of some deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Climategate is dead, because it was a complete hoax. Science data doesn't change just because of some deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists.

"Deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists" didn't write those emails. The difference between your statement and mine is that mine has the virtue of being true. Do you want to place a bet on whether or not global warming legislation will ever be passed?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

"Deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists" didn't write those emails. The difference between your statement and mine is that mine has the virtue of being true. Do you want to place a bet on whether or not global warming legislation will ever be passed?

I wouldn't used the phrase "deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists." I'd speak of values lock and how people cling to existing perceptions of how the world works rather than face a change in their life style. These forums are a fine example of it. Logic, fact, emotion and whatever will not make people let go of their values. For all practical purposes, you and Eric don't dwell in the same reality. You have such absurdly incompatible methods for determining whether something is true or not that the word 'true' doesn't have much shared meaning.

I've been following Climategate's fallout on the Real Climate forums. The primary lesson learned is that one cannot consider e-mail to be secure, and thus you have to assume everything one writes might fall into the hands of a partisan propagandist. Various universities have reviewed their people's work and have found no deliberate flaws. Scientists are making increased efforts to double check the raw data and make it available to anyone. Where real flaws in the work were pointed out by the political propagandists, correcting the flaws has not significantly changed projections. Renewed efforts have been put into fighting propaganda with science, but the contempt for the propagandists aren't much different from what Eric states.

One of the latest threads from Real Climate might illustrate... Some thoughts on Personal Responsibility and the Peer Review Process

Ryan O’Donnell made a series of serious of allegations against me at ClimateAudit, in the context of our friendly dispute about whether his new paper in the Journal of Climate supports or ‘refutes’ my own results, published in Nature.

To his credit, Ryan has offered to retract these allegations, now that he is a little better acquainted with the facts. However, it is still important, I think, to set the record straight from my point of view. There were such a great number of claims about my “dishonesty,” “duplicity” and [implied] stupidity, all of which are untrue, that it really isn’t worth trying to respond in any detail. Just responding to the main two ought to suffice to make the point.

It just reflects the state of the uneven debate, scientists responding to people throwing mud. Both sides think they are winning where it counts. The scientists are producing science. Those throwing mud see mud as a victory in itself, without bothering to see if any of the mud has scientific value.

A bet on whether global warming legislation will ever be passed seems ambiguous. Some already has been passed, though those who follow the science think it woefully inadequate. Worse, if you don't set a time line on when the bet must be resolved, the person betting that such laws will be passed can just say it hasn't happened yet.

To me, the question is whether the 'Screwed Generation' will demand profound change next awakening. I anticipate the science will be solid and the evidence firm by the time the next generation of prophets are coming into full voice. If the science continues to hold I would expect the Screwed Generation's anger and demand for change will make the Blue Boomer's protests seem tame and mild in comparison.

I don't know that I'd want to place a bet short of that time frame. It seems to me that economic values will trump ecological values through the crisis. The values of the crisis are set in stone through the high. If mud trumps science for the next decade or so, people might well be able to keep their eyes closed all the way through to the awakening.

I'm hoping not. If no action is taken this side of the awakening, it's going to be one whopper of an awakening.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Technologies improve as the needs arise. The idea that nothing can be done is a poor reason to oppose doing it..

The issue is not the nothing should be done. The issue is whether to focus on mitigation or adaptation. It seems to me with the rise of the developing world, especially China, it will be impossible to maintain anything like our standard of living in North America and at the same time reduce our CO2 footprint enough to make a global difference. Coal as a fuel source is simply too cheap and renewables too unsuited to grid stability to expect renewables to make a substantial contribution in time to do any good. Only gradual change to nuclear, hydro, and renewables is financially and politically possible.

BTW - after reading these posts about glaciation in the last ice age, it strikes me that a new ice age would mean the end of life as we know it. Too cold is a lot worse than too hot.

James50

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I wouldn't used the phrase "deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists." I'd speak of values lock and how people cling to existing perceptions of how the world works rather than face a change in their life style. These forums are a fine example of it. Logic, fact, emotion and whatever will not make people let go of their values. For all practical purposes, you and Eric don't dwell in the same reality. You have such absurdly incompatible methods for determining whether something is true or not that the word 'true' doesn't have much shared meaning.

I've been following Climategate's fallout on the Real Climate forums. The primary lesson learned is that one cannot consider e-mail to be secure, and thus you have to assume everything one writes might fall into the hands of a partisan propagandist. Various universities have reviewed their people's work and have found no deliberate flaws. Scientists are making increased efforts to double check the raw data and make it available to anyone. Where real flaws in the work were pointed out by the political propagandists, correcting the flaws has not significantly changed projections. Renewed efforts have been put into fighting propaganda with science, but the contempt for the propagandists aren't much different from what Eric states.

One of the latest threads from Real Climate might illustrate... Some thoughts on Personal Responsibility and the Peer Review Process



It just reflects the state of the uneven debate, scientists responding to people throwing mud. Both sides think they are winning where it counts. The scientists are producing science. Those throwing mud see mud as a victory in itself, without bothering to see if any of the mud has scientific value.

A bet on whether global warming legislation will ever be passed seems ambiguous. Some already has been passed, though those who follow the science think it woefully inadequate. Worse, if you don't set a time line on when the bet must be resolved, the person betting that such laws will be passed can just say it hasn't happened yet.

To me, the question is whether the 'Screwed Generation' will demand profound change next awakening. I anticipate the science will be solid and the evidence firm by the time the next generation of prophets are coming into full voice. If the science continues to hold I would expect the Screwed Generation's anger and demand for change will make the Blue Boomer's protests seem tame and mild in comparison.

I don't know that I'd want to place a bet short of that time frame. It seems to me that economic values will trump ecological values through the crisis. The values of the crisis are set in stone through the high. If mud trumps science for the next decade or so, people might well be able to keep their eyes closed all the way through to the awakening.

I'm hoping not. If no action is taken this side of the awakening, it's going to be one whopper of an awakening.

Extremely good post - thank you for attempting to "Restore Sanity."

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I see a similarity in how the entire academic community functions. "If you don't follow the party line you will not be published". The "Climategate" emails showed that practice at work. Hence, however much some people keep flogging away at it, this issue is dead.

We have an Attorney General who believes that too. Of course, he believes a lot of things.

Tim, a chart I found I think you would like:



.
Interesting that the glacial periods become longer and more intense as time goes on. That +1C marks the current global average temperature. It's warmer now than at any time in the past 3 million years. It has not been this warm since before the genus Homo existed.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I see a similarity in how the entire academic community functions. "If you don't follow the party line you will not be published". The "Climategate" emails showed that practice at work. Hence, however much some people keep flogging away at it, this issue is dead.

Getting academic recognition in the sciences and even the near-sciences requires that one exposing one's findings to peer review. Peer review requires that an academic have potentially-controversial discoveries checked for validity. Peer review can slow the dissemination of ideas and knowledge, but it also keeps cranky and corrupt (as in ideologically-loaded) material from getting the label "science" or "objective research" attached. Such keeps the sciences, mathematics, and certain parts of economics and history from losing reputability. As examples of material that would not pass peer review, consider such junk as Holocaust denial, eugenics, creationism, and sundry conspiracy theories involving the JFK assassination. Sure, that tough standard made Einstein's theory of relativity in the category of pre-scientific thought, but as the proposals of proof by Einstein proved valid, relativity became mainstream science.

Of course it is possible to evade peer review and go to either mass markets or to ideologically-loaded organizations (including giant corporations and their fronts). Standards applicable to the American Petroleum Institute on global warming aren't the same as those for a peer-reviewed journal of climatology.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I wouldn't (have) used the phrase "deluded tea party nuts and conspiracy theorists." I'd speak of values lock and how people cling to existing perceptions of how the world works rather than face a change in their life style. These forums are a fine example of it. Logic, fact, emotion and whatever will not make people let go of their values. For all practical purposes, you and Eric don't dwell in the same reality. You have such absurdly incompatible methods for determining whether something is true or not that the word 'true' doesn't have much shared meaning.

Good work. Historical realities force change. Some of the changes are satisfying; some are dreadful. Some of the changes are delightful; I wouldn't like to have a commitment to the culinary 'choices' available in the 1950s. You can take or leave the Vietnamese restaurant in town only if there is a Vietnamese restaurant in town. Technology tends to compress information so that is more easily transported and made accessible. Maybe The Brothers Karamazov isn't quite the same on some on some reader devices as it is in a leather-bound book that one can keep as a reminder of how highly you value literature... but it might be more convenient; a vinyl record has a panache that a CD or an MP2 download lacks, but try moving about with a turntable. Some are wonderful or dreadful depending on where one is on some side of an economic divide. No rational rule can tell us that an economic order that serves the most powerful and well-positioned well and makes life harsh for others is superior to one that more evenly spreads the fruits of toil and investment.

I can't prove my moral values, but I can usually explain the consequences of moralizing on certain issues. I might find gay porn repugnant, but I can think of people who would find it an important and innocuous part of their lives. Child pornography, on the other hand... I don't think that I need to go further.

I've been following Climategate's fallout on the Real Climate forums. The primary lesson learned is that one cannot consider e-mail to be secure, and thus you have to assume everything one writes might fall into the hands of a partisan propagandist. Various universities have reviewed their people's work and have found no deliberate flaws. Scientists are making increased efforts to double check the raw data and make it available to anyone. Where real flaws in the work were pointed out by the political propagandists, correcting the flaws has not significantly changed projections. Renewed efforts have been put into fighting propaganda with science, but the contempt for the propagandists aren't much different from what Eric states.

Precisely. Much goes into wastebaskets that one doesn't want exposed to the rest of the world. Such includes the letter that one wrote while angry, one dripping with anger that might exist for the moment that one decides after a little reflection is best relegated to oblivion. I'm also going to figure that much that can be placed on e-mail can be altered by cut-and-paste methods, deleting or negating negatives, or even turning concessive or qualifying clauses into declarative sentences. Forgery and plagiarism are far easier with e-mails as 'originals' of e-mails rarely exist.

It just reflects the state of the uneven debate, scientists responding to people throwing mud. Both sides think they are winning where it counts. The scientists are producing science. Those throwing mud see mud as a victory in itself, without bothering to see if any of the mud has scientific value.

But... the mud may be more lucrative. It may be what well-heeled special interests and powerful people want ... and are willing to pay lavishly for. Pseudoscience often pays far better than does science that remains within the constraints of peer review, obscurity, double-blind tests, and other inconveniences.

A bet on whether global warming legislation will ever be passed seems ambiguous. Some already has been passed, though those who follow the science think it woefully inadequate. Worse, if you don't set a time line on when the bet must be resolved, the person betting that such laws will be passed can just say it hasn't happened yet.

Legislatures cannot prove scientific reality, but they can surely enforce superstition. They can dictate that creationism be taught and that the teaching of evolution is a crime. Peer review, for good reason, does not involve lay people as participants.

To me, the question is whether the 'Screwed Generation' will demand profound change next awakening. I anticipate the science will be solid and the evidence firm by the time the next generation of prophets are coming into full voice. If the science continues to hold I would expect the Screwed Generation's anger and demand for change will make the Blue Boomer's protests seem tame and mild in comparison.

What sort of Awakening will happen will be shaped by the conclusion of the Crisis. Nothing says that a Crisis must result in triumph. We Americans have been lucky with wholesome endings in all but one Crisis and an ambiguous one in another. This Crisis could yet culminate with the triumph of the 3T Red coalition, the right-wing coalition poised to enforce its ways with Inquisitorial or Soviet-style methods of secret police, censorship, and loyalty oaths -- and either gulags or executions with torture. It can end in thermonuclear warfare that renders technologies later than the mid-19th century unavailable, in which case we might be lucky to have reaping machines powered by horses to support a much smaller population. America could lose World War III with the partition of the US into sundry smaller states -- at least those not grafted onto some other country. Then there are those scenarios that end in a great and largely-benign re-ordering of the World Before.

(I prefer that people have fear of this Crisis, seeing at least as much danger for themselves and loved ones or cherished institutions as opportunity for their enrichment and advancement, or for the close approximation of some social ideal).

Whatever good happens as the result of a Crisis is almost always by accident, and not by design. Would anyone have foreseen in 1935 that after World War II and its consummate horrors that Europe would live in peace unknown in any time, that the Soviet Union would rise as a world power only to collapse of its economic follies?

I don't know that I'd want to place a bet short of that time frame. It seems to me that economic values will trump ecological values through the crisis. The values of the crisis are set in stone through the high. If mud trumps science for the next decade or so, people might well be able to keep their eyes closed all the way through to the awakening.

I'm hoping not. If no action is taken this side of the awakening, it's going to be one whopper of an awakening.

Ecological and economic realities will eventually merge.

News reporters from Oklahoma say the weather there is "bizarre" and "unprecedented." A 100-degree change in 2 days. Look for more and worse in the years ahead, due to human-caused global warming. The longer people are in denial, the longer it will be before things ever get any better.

Originally Posted by James50

The issue is not the nothing should be done. The issue is whether to focus on mitigation or adaptation. It seems to me with the rise of the developing world, especially China, it will be impossible to maintain anything like our standard of living in North America and at the same time reduce our CO2 footprint enough to make a global difference. Coal as a fuel source is simply too cheap and renewables too unsuited to grid stability to expect renewables to make a substantial contribution in time to do any good. Only gradual change to nuclear, hydro, and renewables is financially and politically possible.

There are ways to make renewables more stable, as the PBS program pointed out. We cannot limit ourselves to thinking only about current technology in order to solve our crisis. Americans need to be innovative. One good thing is that is our strength. Our standard of living is not constraining us from making the changes. It is only politics. I think events in CA will prove that over the next decade.

BTW - after reading these posts about glaciation in the last ice age, it strikes me that a new ice age would mean the end of life as we know it. Too cold is a lot worse than too hot.

James50

It should be an obvious point, but global warming does not just cause warming. It causes extreme and unusual weather. It causes droughts and fire in some places, and too much rain, snow and more-dangerous hurricanes in others not so far away. We've already seen that in the last year in Asia, Australia and even America. Whether that weather will be too hot or too cold makes little difference. If the Gulf Stream stops flowing, the result of global warming could be an ice age.

How much it's going to cost us all in the pocketbook should be a concern to all conservatives, but it's not. They are only concerned with the welfare of oil and coal executives, who are the only ones who benefit from the current conditions.