MARCH 31, 2016
Climate Catastrophe, Coming Even Sooner?
BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-...ng-even-sooner

New research indicates that, due to global warming, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) may be headed for an unavoidable and disastrous collapse, triggering a rapid rise in sea levels.

One of the first people to propose that climate change could result in rapid sea-level rise was an eccentric British geographer named John Mercer. A hesitant speaker in public, Mercer was less restrained in private. He was once arrested for jogging naked. It was said that he liked to do his fieldwork in the nude—a curious habit for a man who studied glaciers.

In a seminal paper published in 1968, Mercer proposed that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, known in scientific circles as WAIS, was vulnerable to collapse. The reason, he wrote, was that the ice sheet rests on land that is below sea level. It is buttressed by floating ice shelves that extend far out to sea, but were these to disintegrate, Mercer wrote, then “changing horizontal forces” would cause the ice sheet to lift off its base. At that point, the sea would rush in and WAIS would start to warm from below as well as above. This would initiate the ice sheet’s demise, which would be “rapid, perhaps even catastrophic.” Several meters of sea-level rise would ensue.

More recent research has tended to confirm Mercer’s worst fears. The latest example comes from a study published Wednesday, in the journal Nature. “Antarctic Model Raises Prospect of Unstoppable Ice Collapse,” ran the headline in the news story that accompanied it.

The new paper, coauthored by Rob DeConto, of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and David Pollard, of Pennsylvania State University, arose out of frustration. The two researchers had spent years working on a computer model that did not seem to capture rises in sea level that were already known to have taken place. Before the last ice age, about a hundred and twenty thousand years ago, for instance, sea levels were at least twenty feet higher than they are now. But DeConto and Pollard found that unless they programmed the model with temperatures that were unrealistically high for that period it could not account for such levels.

Then the two got an idea from a colleague, Richard Alley, also of Penn State. Alley suggested that they look at what would happen if the floating ice shelves were lost. This would leave towering cliffs of ice exposed to the sea, which could make them vulnerable to rapid collapse. (A version of this process seems already to be under way in parts of Greenland.)

When DeConto and Pollard revised their model to account for this possibility, the results, as the Times put it, were “striking.” The revised model could account for earlier sea-level rises. More significantly, it suggested that what had happened then could easily happen again. The researchers concluded that just a few more decades of “unabated” carbon emissions could result in more than three feet of sea-level rise from WAIS by the end of this century. (The over-all rise would be much greater, as ice would also be lost from Greenland and from mountain glaciers.) Over the longer term, melt from Antarctica could raise sea levels by fifty feet.

This is, of course, alarming news for those living near sea level, which is to say anyone in New York or Boston or New Orleans or Miami or Mumbai or Jakarta or Guangzhou. And it couldn’t come at a much more alarming time. In spite of the flood of disturbing reports coming from both the Antarctic and the Arctic—just a few days ago, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the extent of the Arctic ice cap in winter had hit a record low for the second year in a row—the issue of climate change has rarely come up during the Presidential primary campaign. To the extent that the Republican candidates have addressed the issue at all, it has only been when forced to, and the results have been—well, let’s just say that no one is winning any ribbons at this science fair. Trump has repeatedly used Twitter—his favored policy platform—to scoff at the very notion of climate change. “Hoax” and “con job” are some of his more nuanced comments. “Bullshit” is another.

Ted Cruz is, if anything, worse; he recently claimed that the federal government was “cooking the books” to demonstrate warming that doesn’t exist. Cruz has said he will rescind rules the Environmental Protection Agency has put in place to limit emissions from power plants, while Trump has said he would eliminate the agency altogether. (The E.P.A.’s Clean Power Plan rules are being challenged in a suit brought by more than two dozen states and many industry groups; that case is expected to be heard by the D.C. Circuit Court in June.) Even with the power-plant rules, it’s possible that global temperatures will rise enough to set in motion the sort of catastrophic melting of West Antarctica that John Mercer warned about almost half a century ago. Without the rules, disaster is looking like an increasingly good bet.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Or conversely that climate change can be a) lived with and b) adapted to. A century is long enough time to adapt to a 5-6 foot rise in sea level. Cities can either be protected by sea walls ala New Orleans and Amsterdam or buildings on low lying ground demolished and material salvaged while construction shifts to higher ground. And in the meantime, productivity of agricultural areas improves with climate and areas previously unarable thaw out and become fertile. North Dakota and Minnesota are already undergoing a shift from wheat production to corn growing ( see http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-more-corn-so/ and http://www.umu.se/english/about-umu/...ands.cid192811 .

Sea Level Rise is a tricky thing. Even if there were none of us humans, MSL would be rising. Why? We are in an interglacial. During an interglacial, continental ice masses, and certain alpine ones, melt, ongoing. They melt until the interglacial ends. The rise due to what I describe here is asymptotic to a zero rate of rise but never reaches a zero rate. The real debate is regarding the AGW contribution, on top of the innate interglacial rate of rise. Based on both actual data and models, the rise could range widely. Some researchers conclude the AGW-caused rise may actually be less than a meter, when all is said and done.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Computer models are based on those stats. Everything has been measured and analyzed.

What is certainly clear from real evidence is that global warming is happening now, at a faster and greater degree by far than any time in the past. We also know that more severe weather is happening, sea levels are rising, glaciers and ice caps are melting, acidity levels in the ocean are rising, species are dying, etc. It doesn't even take computer models to arrive at this basic conclusion: what has been happening is likely to continue unless we get on another path. That path has to be: stop using fossil fuels. And vote out the Republican Party and its candidates that support fossil fuels and deny AGW.

Eric, please allow me to refine your understanding of computer models used to attempt to predict future climates. The models are sets of algorithms and forumlae that attempt to represent the physical and biological systems of Earth and increasingly, the near-Earth Cosmos. To simplify, these are based on the equations many of us who studied hard sciences know and love. At the core of such modeling are so called global circulation models - essentially flow equations for the atmosphere. In the early days, the things driving and interacting with such flows were represented by sets of predetermined parameters. That was pretty crude because some of the interfaces with the atmosphere are themselves dynamic - for example, oceans, with currents, differences in water temperature, etc. Similarly the outer interfaces with The Cosmos are dynamic. More recently modeling has improved due to better representing the interfaces often with their own computer models. While it is true that statistics and measurements help with the parameterizations, they are not the core elements of the models. The core elements are algorithmic representations of Nature's systems.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I have during my career worked for enterprises that provided equipment and software used for climate modeling among other tasks. Customers did include NOAA, NASA and other similar groups.

I don't see that the computer models matter so much. What matters are the actual measurements of the global warming that's happening, and how fast it's happening; including well-known histories of the ice caps and glaciers. You don't even need a scientist or a model to extrapolate from what has been happening to what might happen, nor to conclude that we need to change from fossil fuel use. Nor to understand that the Republicans stand in the way of the changes we need.

Science does not give us certainty. But sometimes the facts and trends are pretty simple, and making it complicated is just to obfuscate.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Sea Level Rise is a tricky thing. Even if there were none of us humans, MSL would be rising. Why? We are in an interglacial. During an interglacial, continental ice masses, and certain alpine ones, melt, ongoing. They melt until the interglacial ends. The rise due to what I describe here is asymptotic to a zero rate of rise but never reaches a zero rate. The real debate is regarding the AGW contribution, on top of the innate interglacial rate of rise. Based on both actual data and models, the rise could range widely. Some researchers conclude the AGW-caused rise may actually be less than a meter, when all is said and done.

A meter is about 3 feet, so that is still very significant.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

A meter is about 3 feet, so that is still very significant.

Yes.
And to give some perspective about the economic costs of rising sea levels, consider North Carolina. Several years ago a study determined that as long as the Atlantic did not rise more than 8 inches over the course of the 21 century then the coastal areas of NC would have enough time to adjust without severe problems. The problem is that the Atlantic is expected to rise 39 inches this century. So the state passed a law that prohibits the Atlantic from rising more than 8 inches over the next century.

Now, after you've pondered the folly of trying to throw the ocean in prison this article can give you the specific details.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

A meter is about 3 feet, so that is still very significant.

Perspective ... MSL was about 90M higher than now, at the outset of the Quaternary. Glaciation pulled it way down. Lowest was about 60M below present. It's risen that much since the Great Melt, 60M. Extrapolating, I'd expect at least another 5M rise simply based on run out prior to the end of the interglacial. 1M on top of that? Sure it's bad, especially if rapid. Nonetheless, even if we didn't exist, sea water would eventually flood a number of areas on the Passive Margins of our oceans (e.g areas with low tectonic activity).

BTW - if you really want to freak out, 75M YBP MSL was about 250M higher than present! Of course, the ocean basins were smaller, the atmosphere was different and there was no Continental glaciers anywhere. Even if we try our best, we cannot take it back to the Cretaceous!

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

BTW - if you really want to freak out, 75M YBP MSL was about 250M higher than present! Of course, the ocean basins were smaller, the atmosphere was different and there was no Continental glaciers anywhere. Even if we try our best, we cannot take it back to the Cretaceous!

Rats! You mean we can't clone Dino from old DNA?

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Rats! You mean we can't clone Dino from old DNA?

You can clone him or her but The Robertsons will shoot him or her to Kingdom Come.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Yes.
And to give some perspective about the economic costs of rising sea levels, consider North Carolina. Several years ago a study determined that as long as the Atlantic did not rise more than 8 inches over the course of the 21 century then the coastal areas of NC would have enough time to adjust without severe problems. The problem is that the Atlantic is expected to rise 39 inches this century. So the state passed a law that prohibits the Atlantic from rising more than 8 inches over the next century.

Now, after you've pondered the folly of trying to throw the ocean in prison this article can give you the specific details.

There is a scene from one of my favorite books, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, where a small one foot long miniature dragon attempts to beat the incoming tide back away from her nest with her wings. I confess I have more sympathy for the little fire lizard queen than I do for the North Carolina legislature.

But I don't know that the intent is to arrest the ocean. As I understand it, they are trying to prevent state and local governments from spending extra money on sea side road, bridge, harbor, building and similar projects. They don't want people to build stuff that is ready to handle the higher water levels. It just is not fair for those planning for the future to take money away from those who aren't.

(Expletive deleted.)

Originally Posted by B Butler

There is a scene from one of my favorite books, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, where a small one foot long miniature dragon attempts to beat the incoming tide back away from her nest with her wings. I confess I have more sympathy for the little fire lizard queen than I do for the North Carolina legislature.

But I don't know that the intent is to arrest the ocean. As I understand it, they are trying to prevent state and local governments from spending extra money on sea side road, bridge, harbor, building and similar projects. They don't want people to build stuff that is ready to handle the higher water levels. It just is not fair for those planning for the future to take money away from those who aren't.

(Expletive deleted.)

Yeah, but ''arrest that ocean'' does make for a nice absurd image and an interesting pun! lol

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Perspective ... MSL was about 90M higher than now, at the outset of the Quaternary. Glaciation pulled it way down. Lowest was about 60M below present. It's risen that much since the Great Melt, 60M. Extrapolating, I'd expect at least another 5M rise simply based on run out prior to the end of the interglacial. 1M on top of that? Sure it's bad, especially if rapid. Nonetheless, even if we didn't exist, sea water would eventually flood a number of areas on the Passive Margins of our oceans (e.g areas with low tectonic activity).

What does science say about that additional sea level rise, and when? From reports I've heard, we are actually getting colder now (and seas lower), if it weren't for AGW.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Yeah, but ''arrest that ocean'' does make for a nice absurd image and an interesting pun! lol

Your Majesty Canute, please pick up the white courtesy phone...

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Your Majesty Canute, please pick up the white courtesy phone...

Alas,the quality of recent North Carolina statutes does not compare favorably to the writings of Henry of Huntingdon.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

A meter is about 3 feet, so that is still very significant.

3.281 feet, or about 39 inches.

Here's a good source of information on world climate patterns as they changed in the Pleistocene era with ice ages and interglacial episodes.


Example: a potential vegetation map of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula (not adapting to human manipulation of lands through agriculture) looks like this today:



But 9000 years ago Africa and Arabia were like this:



As you will notice, the Sahara and the desert of the Arabian Peninsula are much larger and more intense in its dryness in recent millennia than 9000 years ago. 9000 years ago, sites of Khartoum, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi were grassland. The narrow strip of 'semi-desert' was more like the Mojave today (which is less stark desert than the middle of the Sahara today because it has extensive shrub cover) than like the extreme desert that has replaced it.

The Sahara and the deserts of Arabia have expanded and become more intensely dry as the Earth's orbit has changed due to precession of the equinoxes. Today the Earth is closest to the sun in February, thus not allowing the combination of maximal heating with the positioning of the highest point of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. This has little to do with global warming; the Earth was about as warm then as now. There was also about as much moisture in the air overall then as now; it was more likely top be deposited in Africa back then. Savanna fully surrounded the Ethiopian Plateau and appeared in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. But this reflects when the northern monsoon was at or near its peak in post-glacial times. Move ahead about 4000 years, and the Sahara will probably be like it was 9000 years ago, global warming or not, because the Earth will be closest to the Sun in May or Jone.

In the Last Glacial Maximum:



What might otherwise have been water vapor or the waters of the shallower parts of the oceans was then sequestered in the great ice sheets that extended as far south as Seattle, St. Louis, Louisville, and New York City in the USA. Africa is shown much drier, with with a larger and more-intensely dry Sahara extending practically to the Mediterranean. The Kalahari Desert is more intensely dry, too.
This map does not show a cooler world, but a contemporary map of Europe at the same time does:



Europe was drier and colder, unless you want to call the ice sheets "wet". This world looks far different from the one in which the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians pioneered sophisticated civilizations. Northern Europe was utterly hostile to human life, with ice sheets, polar deserts in which cold and drought precluded almost any plant growth, a biome called steppe-tundra that has characteristics of both tundra and dry grassland, and along the Mediterranean shore, dry grassland that probably looked like the Canadian prairies today ... only colder.

Projections of climatic change have their own built-in risks even if they come from the top scientists. A hint: California will be much more affordable about a century from now, but for all the wrong reasons. The great skylines of Los Angeles and San Diego, bleaching in the desert sun, will be impressive ruins.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weathe...ecipi/20324861

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Projections of climatic change have their own built-in risks even if they come from the top scientists. A hint: California will be much more affordable about a century from now, but for all the wrong reasons. The great skylines of Los Angeles and San Diego, bleaching in the desert sun, will be impressive ruins.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weathe...ecipi/20324861

According to many experts, it may not be that straight forward. We can't assume that our current knowledge, built as it has been on centuries of observation, will able to be applied in the new climate future.

From CNN, A Cheap proven fix to climate change.

A Carbon Tax?

Apparently the state of Washington has put a carbon tax on the ballot. CNN and a college professor / comedian are trying to make a big deal of it. We'll see.

Interesting idea, but the $20M prize is paltry.

How to Transform Our Energy System
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...energy-system/
… "Humanity can do better. Solutions don’t need to be linear. We can rapidly solve the problems of our energy system with global and exponential approaches. For example, the remarkable drop in the price per kilowatt-hour of solar photovoltaic cells has drawn analogies to Moore’s Law of exponential growth in computer chip transistor density, and prompted an influx of new ideas in the energy space.”…
… "Capitalizing on the power of the crowd and models that reduce risk will help accelerate this important transition. By harnessing genius of the crowd, we can rapidly identify energy breakthroughs because we exponentially increase both the number of innovators and the diversity of problem-solving approaches. Open innovation–crowdsourcing, challenge grants, hackathons, and others–gives innovators everywhere more shots on goal. And all we need is one shot to go in.”…


… "We recently announced the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a four-year competition that challenges anyone from anywhere in the world to develop innovative approaches for converting CO₂ emissions into valuable products. The teams that convert the most CO₂ from a working power plant into products that have the highest value will take home the $20 million prize.”…

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

According to many experts, it may not be that straight forward. We can't assume that our current knowledge, built as it has been on centuries of observation, will able to be applied in the new climate future.

In general, just about everything will get warmer, with the biggest increases in temperature in the Arctic basin. Rainfall patterns will depend upon the wind patterns. Should the belt of the westerlies 'simply' shift northward, then about everything south of San Francisco will get much drier on the Pacific coast. Figure that winter cold fronts might not quite reach the Gulf Coast, so Houston and New Orleans might become genuinely tropical. Dallas will probably have palm trees.

The big problem will be inundation of some heavily-populated areas with people who just barely avoid hunger now -- like Bangladesh.

There's your Crisis of 2100, just about on schedule.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

In general, just about everything will get warmer, with the biggest increases in temperature in the Arctic basin. Rainfall patterns will depend upon the wind patterns. Should the belt of the westerlies 'simply' shift northward, then about everything south of San Francisco will get much drier on the Pacific coast. Figure that winter cold fronts might not quite reach the Gulf Coast, so Houston and New Orleans might become genuinely tropical. Dallas will probably have palm trees.

The big problem will be inundation of some heavily-populated areas with people who just barely avoid hunger now -- like Bangladesh.

There's your Crisis of 2100, just about on schedule.

I think we face and deal with it this 4T, or we endure it continuously from now on, and not during an upcoming 4T.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I think we face and deal with it this 4T, or we endure it continuously from now on, and not during an upcoming 4T.

In the 1T and 2T people choose in effect what the Crisis will be. In the last completed cycle ending in World War II, some of the last deeds of the Crisis in Europe involved the exposure of Nazi horrors that arose from a denial of the humanity of victims who had done nothing wrong. Such resulted in part from the intellectual fad of eugenics and the ascent of Jew-hating from old-fashioned superstition to alleged 'racial science'.

Hysterical as it may seem, global warming that causes the inundation of low-lying prime cropland, especially with peasant farmers ill-able to move elsewhere in response, could kill even more people than the wars and genocide of the last completed Crisis Era. That's before I even discuss desertification, let alone wars waged by people desperate to survive or to keep from sharing their lands with people fleeing densely-populated farmland that goes underwater as the Greenland ice cap and parts of the Western Antarctic ice sheet melt away and expand the oceans and their connected seas.

Transforming such people into industrial workers? We are past the time in which production of more industrial wares can itself create prosperity. Besides, they would still need to move. Great cities like New York, St. Petersburg (Russia or Florida -- if you want to call "Saint Pete" great), London, Hamburg, and Shanghai -- maybe Mumbai -- can survive by imitating Venice, building new housing on top of old housing with the old housing stock sinking steadily into the water. Getting around by canal might be less convenient than getting around by subway -- maybe New Yorkers will find ways to build elevated tramlines above canals that were once streets.

But rich places can cope. Poor places will not find such so easy. A city like Boston that has a rich population and high-rise buildings will be able to cope. I will not name names of cities unable to cope.

Editorial: Is the Paris climate accord too little, too late?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edito...422-story.html

Representatives from more than 160 nations will gather at the United Nations on Friday to sign the accord they hammered out in Paris last December to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the effects of climate change.

But is it too little, too late? The accord was an extraordinary achievement, but in the end, it was only a nonbinding agreement, and everyone understood that the real, daunting challenge would be in working together to meet the accord's stated goals.

And even that may not be enough. Experts have warned that the accord's goal of capping global warming at “well below 2 degrees Celsius” still might be insufficient to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels. What's more, the world is already experiencing more violent storms and cycles of drought and floods. The Paris accord came near the end of 2015, which was the warmest year earth has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1880. The first few months of 2016 have continued the upward trend — February's increase in temperatures over previous years was described by NASA officials as “a shocker.”

Then there's this problem: Neither of the leading Republican candidates for president — Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — even believes the conclusion reached by an overwhelming consensus of scientists that global warming, driven by human activity, is well underway. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the Democratic contenders, accept that fundamental reality. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the third Republican contender (barely) standing, has acknowledged global warming as real but has balked at some of the administration's tougher responses.

So what will be accomplished by the signing of the agreement in New York? That's unclear. The accord requires the signatory nations to develop plans for reducing greenhouse gases by 2030, but the plans unveiled so far fall short of what is needed. Their aggregate effect will only limit global warming to about 2.7 degrees Celsius at best. Because of that, the nations are supposed to update their plans every five years, beginning in 2020, to reach the less-than 2 degrees target. How they will reach that mark is crucial.

The U.S. has pledged to cut emissions to at least 26% below 2005 levels by 2025. But President Obama's Clean Power Plan, a linchpin of his climate change strategy, was derailed two months after the Paris accord was reached, when the U.S. Supreme Court halted implementation until legal challenges could be resolved. If it is ultimately tossed out, that would set back Obama's chances of reaching the nation's 2025 goals for reducing carbon emissions even though the administration has taken other steps, including a 54.5 mpg standard by 2025 for cars and light-duty trucks, limiting methane emissions from future natural gas and oil wells, and declaring a moratorium on new coal mining leases on federal land.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could speed things up by reaching a quick decision on the stalled Clean Power Plan after it hears the oral arguments that are scheduled for June. Still, if the fight goes to the Supreme Court, a final decision isn't likely until the next president takes office. If the Environmental Protection Agency prevails, states will still have time to meet the plan's deadlines for moving away from coal-fired energy production (which they should be doing even without the federal plan). If the regulations are shot down, the next president ought to work with Congress to achieve the same or an even more ambitious goal.

Unfortunately, climate change isn't waiting. As the global temperature rises, glaciers are retreating, shrinking polar ice is threatening Arctic species, river and lake ice has been breaking up earlier, plants and animals are shifting ranges, and flowering cycles for trees are occurring earlier in the season.

The signing of the accord, while historic, won't solve those problems. It merely starts the world on the right, though very belated, path. While ambitious, it is also cautious, and contains vague wording that the signatory nations pledge to “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.” The world needs to accelerate the pace. Slow and deliberate means lost species, drowned seaside cities, disappearing island nations and more political instability in the most affected nations.

Despite the urgency of the issue, discussion of climate change has been depressingly limited in the presidential campaign. Whoever wins the White House needs to recognize the enormity and gravity of the problem, and lead the way to a more habitable world.

George Will, who is sometimes intelligent, here insists on going off the deep end into utter stupidity. But, as I refute it, I am at least giving some "free speech" on this little blog to your nonsense, George. I don't want to be an "authoritarian" (meaning any progressive who disagrees with established authority).

The ‘settled’ consensus du jour
George F. Will 11:33 a.m. EDT April 23, 2016
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/...jour/83348376/

Authoritarianism, always latent in progressivism, is becoming explicit. Progressivism’s determination to regulate thought by regulating speech is apparent in the campaign by 20 state attorneys general, none Republican, to criminalize skepticism about the supposedly “settled” conclusions of climate science.

NO, it's more about reining in the power of big money oil companies to hide the truth they themselves knew, and to fund the deniers who hide it.

Four core tenets of progressivism are: First, history has a destination. Second, progressives uniquely discern it. (Barack Obama frequently declares things to be on or opposed to “the right side of history.”) Third, politics should be democratic but peripheral to governance, which is the responsibility of experts scientifically administering the regulatory state. Fourth, enlightened progressives should enforce limits on speech (witness IRS suppression of conservative advocacy groups) in order to prevent thinking unhelpful to history’s progressive unfolding.

First, progressives maintain that we need to make progress and solve real problems. I guess that's a "destination," meaning forward; but why call it a destination as if all problems can be solved forever? That's utopia, which these days it's you libertarian trickle-downers who excel at. Second, well yes, we have opinions and naturally we think we're right. So, you don't? And you don't? Sure! Third, if you don't get your way on policy, you say it was created by experts. No, it was created by politicians. And your Republican ones want corporate experts to control everything instead of the people through politics. Fourth, fraud is not speech, although you want to attribute all fraud to our side because of a few bureaucrats who acted on their own to target conservatives.

Progressivism is already enforced on campuses by restrictions on speech that might produce what progressives consider retrograde intellectual diversity. Now, from the so-called party of science, aka Democrats, comes a campaign to criminalize debate about science.

Sure, you want equal time on campus for unscientific bullshit. Do you want campuses to offer creationism too? How about conspiracy theory?

“The debate is settled,” says Obama. “Climate change is a fact.” Indeed. The epithet “climate change deniers,” obviously coined to stigmatize skeptics as akin to Holocaust deniers, is designed to obscure something obvious: Of course the climate is changing; it never is not changing -- neither before nor after the Medieval Warm Period (end of the 9th century to the 13th) and the Little Ice Age (1640s to 1690s), neither of which was caused by fossil fuels.

There is no greater obfuscation in the realm of public discourse today, than for you climate science deniers to say that "climate is always changing."

Today, debatable questions include: To what extent is human activity contributing to climate change? Are climate change models, many of which have generated projections refuted by events, suddenly reliable enough to predict the trajectory of change? Is change necessarily ominous because today’s climate is necessarily optimum? Are the costs, in money expended and freedom curtailed, of combating climate change less than the cost of adapting to it?

To deny that climate science answers the first question, by saying that humans are indeed causing climate change today, is simply to cover up the facts. No-one is saying you can't say things. But be prepared to be called on them.

Second, climate models CAN'T be completely accurate; they are MODELS. To insist on accuracy is typical of folks like you who refuse to follow and understand science.

Third, the results are already being felt and widely reported. You just put your head in the sand and deny these events. Lost species, dying coral reefs, acidic ocean, rising seas, diminishing food and water supplies, more droughts, more floods, more storms, more fires; you call that an improvement? When you say things like that, then don't try to repress us when we call you on it.

Fourth, the costs of acting are inflated by promoters of free market fundamentalism. "Freedom" curtailed indeed: meaning freedom of your wealthy corporations to make money without paying taxes and without regulations. We progressives don't care about the so-called "freedom" of your moguls to pollute, fire people, export jobs, cause recessions, buyout companies, keep wages low, and all the other wonderful stuff you guys do with your "freedom." Reaganomics is dying, and you are clinging to a sinking ship. Get over it and jump out. The costs of finding and making more fossil fuels are rising while costs of alternative energy are falling, and the green energy boom creates millions of new jobs. But you'd rather keep the profits for fossil fuel bosses high. You moguls and mogul-enablers are the only ones who are hurt by the "costs" of responding to climate change; THE ONLY ONES. You are crying wolf because you wolves are running out of meat to hunt and kill for from the rest of us. Shut up and pay for the pollution and climate change you cause, George. Corporations should change to alternative energy, or go out of fucking business. And the sooner the better. And the market itself will kill you soon anyway.

But these questions may not forever be debatable. The initial target of Democratic “scientific” silencers is ExxonMobil, which they hope to demonstrate misled investors and the public about climate change. There is, however, no limiting principle to restrain unprincipled people from punishing research entities, advocacy groups and individuals.

Oh, let those who benefit from fossil fuels "speak" and tell us how much we depend on their products! It's not enough they buy up the airwaves and regale us with their nonsense in commercials all the time. They seem to somehow remain "free" enough to purse their mindless propaganda campaign!

But it is difficult to establish what constitutes culpable “misleading” about climate science, of which a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report says: “Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).” Did Al Gore “mislead” when he said seven years ago that computer modeling projected the Arctic to be ice-free during the summer in as few as five years?

Good, at least you read science from 15 years ago. Why not read science from TODAY? You might be more credible. Climate system models have, if anything, underestimated the amount of global warming, and how long its effects will last. You think some inaccuracies in the timing indicated by some models invalidates the entire thesis and all the measured, real evidence that the Earth's climate IS changing. NO, the models forecast global warming, and global warming IS happening; and it's happening FAST! Case closed, dumb fuck!

A 21st attorney general, of the Virgin Islands (where ExxonMobil has no business operations or assets), accuses the company with criminal misrepresentation regarding climate change. This, even though before the U.S. government in 2009 first issued an endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gases, ExxonMobil favored a carbon tax to mitigate climate consequences of those gases. This grandstanding attorney general’s contribution to today’s gangster government is the use of law enforcement tools to pursue political goals -- wielding prosecutorial weapons to chill debate, including subpoenaing private donor information from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

You want fraud from our side prosecuted, whether legit or not (the IRS scandal), but fraud from your side is "free speech."

The party of science, busy protecting science from scrutiny, has forgotten Karl Popper (1902-1994), the philosopher whose “The Open Society and Its Enemies” warned against people incapable of distinguishing between certainty and certitude. In his essay “Science as Falsification,” Popper explains why “the criterion of a scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.” America’s party of science seems eager to insulate its scientific theories from the possibility of refutation.

It was Exxon that covered up. That's the fact. If your scientists can disprove global warming and its consequences, then PROVE IT. Show us your evidence, and be prepared to debate it, instead of whining about authoritarian progressives and quoting philosophers. Put your mouth where your money is.

The leader of the attorneys general, New York’s Eric Schneiderman, dismisses those who disagree with him as “morally vacant.” His moral content is apparent in his campaign to ban fantasy sports gambling because it competes with the gambling (state lottery, casinos, off-track betting) that enriches his government.

Because a politician might be wrong about something else, does not make him wrong about climate change. Your reasoning ability is indeed compromised in your old age, it appears, Mr. Will. Is it moral to defend the profits of CEOs while the world careens toward disaster because of THEM? Pardon me if I say, no it isn't moral, and neither are YOU George.

Then there is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who suggests using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, written to fight organized crime, to criminalize what he calls the fossil fuel industry’s “climate denial apparatus.” The Justice Department, which has abetted the IRS cover-up of its criminal activity, has referred this idea to the FBI.

As well it should. And no, the IRS alleged abuse is not being abetted or covered-up. It was revealed and dealt with. That's just a convenient excuse for your own cover-up and deception, George. Maybe you were disappointed that it didn't lead to the impeachment of Obama. That's your idea of abetting, I guess.

These garden-variety authoritarians are eager to regulate us into conformity with the “settled” consensus du jour, whatever it is. But they are progressives, so it is for our own good.

The consensus has been settled for quite some time. For you to label it as du jour, is fraud on your part. And regulating the fossil fool CEOs is what we desperately need. Their fraud is criminal indeed. Tell me about real scientists who are repressed. Science is an open process. Your corporate world is not. It's all about greed and conformity, and practically nothing BUT greed and conformity. How many whistle-blowers speak up in corporate meetings, or report misconduct to their bosses, and get away with it? Not many, I reckon. It's go along with the program, or be fired. Just like your Donald says on TV.

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Maybe I'll send this refutation of your rant to you, and see how you like it.

Happy Earth Day, George. You have a strange way of celebrating it.