Pharyngula

Posted by: Thorsonofodin | December 8, 2009 10:06 AM

Extinguish the Burning Windmill!
http://www.tompainesghost.com/2009/12/alignment.html

Posted by: DaveX | December 8, 2009 10:10 AM

Makes you wish that we could just grant them Utah, wall it off, and move on.

Posted by: mus | December 8, 2009 10:14 AM

PZ, you are such a copycat. I was JUST telling my friends yesterday that I despise global warming denialists even more than I despise creationists because more of them are just dishonest, obnoxious, lying assholes. In my experience, creationists as a whole tend to be more sincere and naive.

Besides, creationists don't have the same consequences. Creationists aren't directly leading to humanity as a whole not doing nearly enough to prevent some very negative consequences. GW deniers are.

Posted by: Tmax01 | December 8, 2009 10:17 AM

Well, I guess I'll jump right in here.

I think there's about as much point in trying to disentangle motivation in a schizophrenic as there is in a religionist. Not that their delusions have an organic basis, necessarily, but once you stumble into that paranoid the-whole-world-could-be-a-facade-on-a-Greater-Truth mindset, there isn't any logical way to get out. Whether they are deceiving others or just themselves, the fact-deniers are all of a bunch, whether they deny evolution, global warming, or that the nice men in white suits are there to help them.

As for the creationists specifically, I think more than a few are directly making a buck peddling their bullshit, while the climate deniers are more often just whores whoring for corporations. Whether that makes them more or less honest is anyone's guess.

Posted by: Bodach | December 8, 2009 10:22 AM

I think the phrase "willful ignorance" says it all. It is antithetical to anyone who values knowledge and education.
Who ARE these people?

Posted by: DungheapTheUgly | December 8, 2009 10:29 AM

The book Refuting Evolution 2 by Jonathan Sarfati is available online and contains an argument that, in my opinion, requires willful insincerity to make. Read this section about "debunking" the molecular clock. Not only is the argument written deceptively, but it seems to me that someone must actually understand the phylogenetic relationships between the organisms before they can construct the deceptive argument. Those that parrot the argument may be sincere, but whoever crafted the argument in the first place both understands genetic relationships and is willing to lie.

Posted by: Sheboyganite 137 | December 8, 2009 10:32 AM

I think you've forgotten a class of creationists: Moderate Republicans (it's true! some still exist!) who lie about it for political gain.

Posted by: broxter | December 8, 2009 10:37 AM

... he floated through a degree program without ever thinking or learning anything.

If this is the case, how on Earth did a degree get awarded? A degree, especially a PhD, is much more than a certificate for good attendance.

Posted by: mus | December 8, 2009 10:42 AM

DungheapTheUgly- I solidly accept evolution, but that section you linked to did bring up a question I've had about molecular clocks. I understand why the rest is wrong (or at least I think I do), but why is this wrong?:

"For this to work, there must be a constant mutation rate per unit time over most types of organism. But observations show that there is a constant mutation rate per generation, so it should be much faster for organisms with a fast generation time, such as bacteria, and much slower for elephants."

It's always seemed to me that it's quite a big assumption to say that all organisms (or even generation times) have the same mutation rate.

Posted by: Costello | December 8, 2009 10:44 AM

Just a quick couple of questions PZ:

Do you feel the slightest bit of shame when you belittle the Holocaust just so that you promote the pathetic idea that scepticism of AGW is equivalent to holocaust denialism? I enjoy people repeatedly fall foul of Godwin's Law as much as the next person but the association (quite consciously) implied by accusactions of 'denialism'/'denier' is a bit sickening.

Are you really going to claim that it is an irrational reaction to think that many in the climate change industry are shameless bullshitters and hypocrites once you compare the statements made and the commands given to how they actually behave themselves? IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is a fabulous example. On the one hand he will happily come out with apocalyptic rhetoric and instructions on how the lifestyle of the general populace must be governed by him and his ilk while leading a lifestyle which sees him flying 443,243 miles within 19 months on urgent business like honorary degree ceremonies, book launches and taking part in cricket matches. It's not like Pachauri is a rare example as pretty much every prominent person to have made a career in the climate change industry (including politicians using it as an excuse to grasp even more power for themselves) is just as guilty of double standards. Just look at the parasites flocking to Copenhagen this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp18LlWWSBw

140 private jets and 1200 limos. We're right on the verge of climate armaggedon they claim, but not so near that they can't enjoy the very highest standards of (high carbon) luxury apparently. They will, of course, also continue to be exempt from the rules they concoct for common taxpayers.

If you want to convince the significant proportion (recent polls seem to show 50%+) of the population who are to some degree sceptical of AGW you'd do well to start holding climate change lobbyists, scientists, politicians and indeed yourself to standards consistent with your rhetoric. There is nothing irrational about reacting with scepticism when seeing someone tell you to behave in one way while behaving in a totally hypocritical manner themselves.

Posted by: scudbucket | December 8, 2009 10:54 AM

The GW deniers, on the other hand, fall into two neat categories: the massively delusional or the systematic liars.

On second thought, maybe those are merely positions on the whackiloon continuum? Both products of a recursive autocatylitic delusion generator? Help me out here!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 8, 2009 10:56 AM

Well we could sit around poisoning the well instead of addressing the actual science or we could have some nice smoked Red Herring for lunch.

Both sound just like a big party.

Posted by: factician | December 8, 2009 10:58 AM

I forget the quote, but it's something like: "The hardest person to lie to is yourself. But once you lie to yourself, you can lie convincingly to anyone."

Posted by: Matt Penfold | December 8, 2009 11:02 AM

I forget the quote, but it's something like: "The hardest person to lie to is yourself. But once you lie to yourself, you can lie convincingly to anyone."

That reminds me of Peter Medawar's quote from his review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man.

Yet the greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | December 8, 2009 11:05 AM

What the fuck are you talking about?

It's called 'attempting (hilariously transparently) to seize the moral high ground'...

As in: no, they've got squat science-wise, and actually, if you look too closely at their conduct, yes, you will realize they're systematic liars and shameless propagandists quite happy to steal data and cherry-pick it all to fuck to obfuscate the real issues in the eyes of the general public...

So, realizing they're fucked both ways, there, all they've really got left is to try to shift the argument to what hypocrites their opponents could somehow be viewed as (see: shocking use of air travel), and how your pointing out their systematic unreason is (by the loopy logic that doth prevail in certain quarters) 'an insult' to a highly sympathetic group... in this case the victims of the holocaust...

(/Also: try to work in 'just a few quick questions'... as a shout-out to any Columbo fans present... It's like, wow, ya can almost see the trenchcoat and the slyly innocent manner... And how, really, this sadly weak tea is ackshooaly the key question that breaks the case...)

Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 8, 2009 11:10 AM

the creationists. I think they are all, as far as I know, personally convinced of the truth of their position and are entirely sincere.

It's not that simple, though.

They're often afraid that they might be wrong, but they're sure that they're "right" in the sense that they must believe what they do.

And they are convinced of the truth of their overall position, not of the truth of their specific lies. I quite believe that they know that they may very well be wrong when they make a majority of their statements, but they're convinced that they're actually "sincere," and really, they don't have any choice but to throw as much shit up as they can to obscure the fact that they have no evidence-based case.

As for Wells being stupid, probably, so long as you're going by "stupid is as stupid does." But he's said to have done very well on standardized tests, which may not be everything, but it's not nothing either. He's smart enough that he could know better, at least, and he's smart enough to know how to avoid learning what he doesn't want to know.

And he knows damn well that he might "be wrong" in a great many statements that he makes, he's just proabably very careful not to know completely that he's wrong so that it's not "exactly a lie."

In a sense, creationists are so thoroughly dishonest in their core that they're honest in making endless false and stupid statements.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | December 8, 2009 11:15 AM

...or we could have some nice smoked Red Herring for lunch...

... dunno, Rev.

I mean, I love a nice spot of smoked Red Herring as much as the next guy. But in this case, when ya know where it's just been, well...

(/... as in: just this minute pulled out of someone's ass.)

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 8, 2009 11:19 AM

mus,
It's off topic, but the molecular clock does not assume anything like a "constant mutation rate". It merely says that "on average" mutations occur at about the same rate over long enough times. And when you look at the causes of mutations and the fact that the material they occur in is universal and has been since our ancestors were pond scum, this is not surprising.

There are a lot of processes that give rise to such behavior, just as there are processes that give rise to quasi-periodic behavior despite not having a truly periodic dirver/cause.

Posted by: Christophe Thill | December 8, 2009 11:24 AM

Another kind of thinking that seems to be foreign to them is populational thinking. Ie, they see a category as an abstract type (Plato style) which "incarnates" in concrete individual; not as a collection of individual whose properties can be averaged to get a "typical" description. The problem is tha, if Mayr is to be believed (I think he is), populational thinking is absolutely needed to understand evolution.

Posted by: dutchdoc | December 8, 2009 11:32 AM

I think they are all, as far as I know, personally convinced of the truth of their position and are entirely sincere

I have my doubts about David Berlinski. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berlinski)

After all, wasn't he once caught admitting that he was only 'in it' for the checks from the Discovery Institute?

Posted by: dutchdoc | December 8, 2009 11:40 AM

@#25: That quote is of a statement by Richard Feynman:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool

See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

In 1974 Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science but is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 8, 2009 11:42 AM

breadmaker,
They are spreading lies, whether they are aware of it or not. Personally, in terms of climate denialists, I use the following categories

1)Ignorant--They really are unaware of the mountains of evidence showing that we're warming the planet
2)Wilfully ignorant--they've gone out of their way to keep themselves ignorant of said evidence
3)True denialists--there is no way they can truly be ignorant of the evidence but they still refuse to acknowledge it
4)Wingnut, tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists--think the entire scientific community is scamming the world's population

At this point, I'd say most fall into categories 2 and 3, but there are a surprising amount in category 4.

Posted by: Noni Mausa | December 8, 2009 11:46 AM

"... just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. These beliefs are sincere in the sense that they occur as psychological events in the man's mind. If that's what you mean by sincerity they are sincere... But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent."

[...]

"...hell is a state of mind... every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting-up of the creature within the dungeons of its own mind is in the end, hell. But heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is heavenly..."

Both these quotes are from one of the earliest C.S. Lewis apologetics, "The Great Divorce."

This is one of the things that puzzles me no end -- if the religious believe that God created the earth and everything in it, then the closest earthly approach one can make to God is to perceive and experience as closely as possible the reality he devised. They don't call Satan the Prince of Liars for nothing. So even within the religious structure itself, a great thumping lie has lodged itself like a cyst, not only unseen for what it is, but also protected and even treasured.

Noni

PS Hey, for bonus points: "The enemy can also be defined by lies. When some one is trying to convince you that black is white and up is down and good is bad, you could be dealing with the forces of evil. Remember the Prince of Lies cannot tell the truth. Yet, the Prince of Lies will call those who tell the truth liars. That is another sign. When you hear someone telling blatant falsehoods as truths and calling those who point out the truth liars, you are probably dealing with the forces of evil."

from "Your Catholic Voice," here: http://www.yourcatholicvoice.org/insight.php?article=823

Posted by: xebecs | December 8, 2009 11:52 AM

Shane: You are excused. That was a fascinating comment.

But I am curious... After mentioning the "101st cow", did he go on to talk about the 102nd cow that never existed, the 103rd cow that wasn't a cow, and the 104th cow that we all pretend isn't there?

Posted by: Stephen Wells | December 8, 2009 11:57 AM

I was just reading (for review) a book on climate change and alternative fuels. IIRC, at the moment electricity production (the biggest single emitter), industry, and road transport together put out about twenty times as much carbon as international travel does. Jeering at world leaders because in order to get together and reach agreements they have to *gasp* FLY is a really ignorant/deceitful tactic.

Posted by: Electric Monk's Horse | December 8, 2009 12:06 PM

This is a topic I've given a bit of thought to. Here's what I come up with.

You can't have a sensible discussion about whether someone is telling the truth or not until everyone agrees on a standard for determining what is "true". I think this is where the problem lies.
To a rational person, a statement is true if it conforms to reality, if it describes the way the world really is. The faithheads have been told, and accept, the premise that whatever a certain book says, or what their religious leader says, or what mommy said, is true. They don't check their claims against reality because reality doesn't matter to them. They want to be perceived as being truthful (because truthful is accepted as a desirable thing to be), but when you look up "true" in the dictionary, you find it doesn't mean what they think it means. (Damned atheistic dictionary!)
Since they can't or won't be "truthful" according to the accepted meaning of the term, they are liars. No need to pull any punches.

Posted by: Alareth | December 8, 2009 12:14 PM

Off topic but of interest, an atheist elected in North Carolina is not leagally allowed to take office because of the state constitution http://bit.ly/6wtMag

Posted by: Alareth | December 8, 2009 12:20 PM

And my link suddenlt doesn't work ...

Oh well, the post is at Friendly Atheist

Posted by: Discombobulated | December 8, 2009 12:25 PM

PZ said:

I think they are all, as far as I know, personally convinced of the truth of their position and are entirely sincere.

I don't think it's really quite this cut-and-dry. It's a hard call, obviously, but over time and across various media appearances, you can build up a picture that shows that at least some of them are intentionally dishonest.

The one that springs to mind immediately is Nathaniel Jeanson, who, in his widely publicized and skeptically well-attended talk in August, reused the same arguments from the morning session, which were debunked and conceded by him, in the afternoon session.

But then, maybe a public display of cognitive dissonance is simply an employment condition for ICR.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | December 8, 2009 12:33 PM

#58:

Impressive. I see nine sentences, of which eight are simply wrong...

... and getting it right that modern thermometers are slightly better than older ones... Well, kid, let's put it this way: it's progress from your last exam, but apparently, you're not cut out for a career in rocket science...

... Nor any other science, for that matter. Nor janitorial services, since we doubt you can be trained actually to drive a truck safely...

(/However, perhaps you'd be interested in a career with the Cato...)

Posted by: Bill Dauphin | December 8, 2009 12:48 PM

DLC:

In many circles, the label "politician" is a swear word, regardless of which political views the politician holds.

I agree that many people feel that way (IMHO, because generations of so-called conservatives have been at great pains to deliberately dismantle the notion of political office as public service), but it's a somewhat suicidal attitude: Politics is both inevitable and necessary in any groups of humans larger than families (and even families have their version of politics). We can — and should — argue over the proper structure of politics and over the content of policy... but to hold that politics itself is inherently evil and anyone who works in politics inevitably a villain is essentially to hate the very idea of people living together in any semblance of order or peace.

Costello:

Do you feel the slightest bit of shame when you belittle the Holocaust just so that you promote the pathetic idea that scepticism of AGW is equivalent to holocaust denialism?

This comment confused me, because I didn't recall PZ making any comparisons to the Holocaust in his post. After several rereadings, I still don't see any; are you suggexting that any discussion of "denialism" is implicitly a comparison to Holocaust denial? That's bullshit.

PZ was making a comparison between AGW denialists and evolution denialists, and never mentioned the Holocaust. But even if he had, your complaint would be specious: The issue he's getting at is the mindset of people who systematically deny the reality of something that the overwhelming consensus of knowledgeable observers considers objective fact. Critiques of the denialist mindset are arguably independent of the scope and moral weight of the thing being denied.

Finally, while there's nothing obvious about the AGW situation to rival the moral horror of Nazi ideology, if the denialists win (i.e., if they effectively thwart any coordinated global efforts at remediation), it's not at all clear to me that the eventual human cost, in terms of lives lost and shattered, won't rival that of the Holocaust: If we ultimately have flooding and drought and mass population relocations affecting a billion or more people, it's hard to imagine that won't involve tens of millions of deaths.

Not dead at the hands of a megalomaniacal monster, perhaps, but every bit as dead for all of that.

Posted by: CJO | December 8, 2009 12:52 PM

It's all based on the axiom that temperatures have gone up.

No, it really isn't. It's all based on the brute fact of greenhouse warming. Show me a model in which you double the amount of atmospheric carbon and temperatures do not rise. Then use it to model past climates and see how inaccurate it is.

Fucking liars for Big Macs and Humvees. I almost prefer the liars for Jesus.

Posted by: Janus | December 8, 2009 1:04 PM

Even if you can't blame the sincerely deluded for the actions that result from their delusions, you can always blame them for deluding themselves in the first place.

Posted by: william e emba | December 8, 2009 1:32 PM

I quite enjoyed his putdown of the ubiquitous Viscount Monckton, and also this familiar joke:

Question: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? [...]

PZ, great joke! That reminds me of a joke about a rising flood. There's a man waiting on a roof, and a guy comes up to rescue him in a rowboat and ... wait, you've heard that one before? Well heck, never mind. Sheesh, you'd think I'd just tried to sneak 11 items by in a 10-items-or-less lane at the supermarket or something.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 8, 2009 1:38 PM

While we're on the subject of global warming denialism, can anyone tell me where this image came from and what it means?

No idea where it comes from, but it shows temperature (as recorded by an oxygen isotope ratio) and CO₂ from last glacial maximum to the end of last ice age*. The intent behind it is probably to show that changes in CO₂ lagged changes in temperature. And that's true – those changes in temperature weren't ultimately caused by changes in CO₂, but the latter were a feedback loop on the former. There was no temperature-independent source of CO₂.

This is also why this graph is completely irrelevant for today: today we have a temperature-independent source of CO₂, us burning fossil fuels. This time around, CO₂ precedes temperature.

* "Last ice age" as in "last week", and "last glacial maximum" as in "last Friday". I'm a paleontologist.

I understand why the rest is wrong (or at least I think I do), but why is this wrong?:

"For this to work, there must be a constant mutation rate per unit time over most types of organism. But observations show that there is a constant mutation rate per generation, so it should be much faster for organisms with a fast generation time, such as bacteria, and much slower for elephants."

It's not wrong – only its implication is ignorant. Modern programs for molecular dating have no problem with assigning a different evolutionary rate to every single branch in the tree that is to be dated. It's a bit complicated mathematically (basically it's one equation with two variables...), and it's highly sensitive to the choices of calibration points (which are necessary for absolute instead of relative ages), but it's feasible. I've done it myself and published on it.

Wait... one thing is wrong: generation time is by far not the only influence on mutation rate. Body temperature, metabolic rate, and unknown factors influence it, too. Ironically, you can't simply correct for generation time and get a constant mutation rate back, as Sarfati assumes.

climate change industry

Now there's an irrational reaction!

the molecular clock does not assume anything like a "constant mutation rate". It merely says that "on average" mutations occur at about the same rate over long enough times.

The modern methods don't even assume a single such average rate for the entire tree anymore.

The problem is tha, if Mayr is to be believed (I think he is), populational thinking is absolutely needed to understand evolution.

Worse yet – this is one of the things on which Mayr and Gould agreed! :^)

That realization, that humans can behave against their own self interest

I do think that people strongly tend to do what they believe is in their own self-interest. They're just capable of being wrong. :-|

Off topic but of interest, an atheist elected in North Carolina is not leagally allowed to take office because of the state constitution

If so, that article of the NC state constitution contradicts the 1st amendment to the US constitution (as amended by the 14th) and is therefore null & void. Or what have I overlooked?

That said, the one essential ingredient, and one which is rarely mentioned in warming discussions
is that without stringent controls on population any efforts to contain the problem will be transitory in vain.

If everything else will stay equal, the world population will have started shrinking before the end of the century.

Of course, not everything else will be equal.

Why the bias up when the majority of the bias is Urban heat island effects.

<headdesk>

Are you in category 1 or category 2?

In other words, do you know anything at all?

Posted by: Lilith | December 8, 2009 1:48 PM

Totally OT, but I just stumbled over this link (which may have been posted here before, but if so, I missed it):

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/12/column-atheists-need-a-different-voice.html

Apparently, we women represent kinder, gentler atheists. Obviously the author hadn't been reading some of the posts by the women here :-)

Posted by: Citizen Z | December 8, 2009 1:57 PM

DungheapTheUgly- I solidly accept evolution, but that section you linked to did bring up a question I've had about molecular clocks. I understand why the rest is wrong (or at least I think I do), but why is this wrong?:

"For this to work, there must be a constant mutation rate per unit time over most types of organism. But observations show that there is a constant mutation rate per generation, so it should be much faster for organisms with a fast generation time, such as bacteria, and much slower for elephants."

It isn't wrong. Or it's right about that being wrong. (Huh?) It's a strawman. Scientists know about that, and they didn't learn it from a creationist. Assuming Wikipedia is accurate. In fact Wikipedia references Francisco Alaya's 5 factors that limit molecular clock models, and Alaya is a big time evolution proponent.

Posted by: william e emba | December 8, 2009 2:07 PM

James Sweet wrote:

Libertarianism, particularly in regards to economics, is untenable in the face of AGW. Those who continue to cling have to either make some impressive mental contortions, or else deny AGW exists.

Libertarians have to engage in blatant doublethink almost all the time. They will argue about how the free market is great for so many things, and then cite examples that turn out to have involved all sorts of government intervention.

A classic example a few months ago was Timothy Sandefur pushing the historical development of aviation as a fine example of the power of absolute free markets. He did not respond to ugly little facts, like the industry almost stayed at the Wright level because of patent gridlock, which was ended by government fiat. Or the overnight nationalization of airspace property rights, because of one SCOTUS decision.

AGW denial is simply the newest and loudest of this fanatic mindset in action.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 8, 2009 2:13 PM

vltava, sorry to burst your bubble, but the sulfate aerosol idea is a pipedream at best and could make things worse. The reasons:

1)The various drivers of climate are understood with different levels of confidence. Insolation and CO2 are quite well understood. Clouds and aerosols...not so much. So we are being asked to solve a known problem with a technique we can't model particularly well--on the only planet known to support life.
2)Timescale--Aerosols stay in the atmosphere at most about a year, while CO2 hangs around for hundreds or even thousands of years. Eventually CO2 wins.
3)Unintended consequences: H20+SO2--H2SO3, and eventually, H2SO4. Acid rain anyone? And with CO2 already acidifying the oceans, and acidic oceans being more conducive to H2S producing bacteria than O2 producing bacteria...
4)Greenhouse gasses trap IR radiation. SO2 blocks visible light. Thing is, plants like visible light a whole helluva lot more than IR. There's a lot more, but suffice to say that Leavitt and Dubner are smoking some really good stuff.

Climate change is like a minefield: If you want to get out alive, better retrace your steps (e.g. reduce carbon emissions).

Posted by: Jon Cantwell | December 8, 2009 2:19 PM

Off topic, but...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/sarah-palin-is-coming-to-town/

Stanley Fish at his very best.

Posted by: wiley | December 8, 2009 2:34 PM

My personal choice of targets in the alarmist clan are the harlots who use dubiously derived data to fool politicians and the media into believing that a harmless, colorless, enviromentally beneficial trace gas is heating the world to hell and its all our fault.
Save The Plants!

Posted by: Menyambal | December 8, 2009 2:37 PM

Do the denialists not even think about the shit they believe? They say something like "the majority of the perceived temperature rise is Urban heat island effects", and seem to think that they have delivered a stopper. When they have, instead, given some of the simplest-to-understand evidence against their own case.

"Urban heat islands" is a fancy way of saying that cities are hotter than the countryside. Everyone knows that, nobody argues that. The denialists mention it because they argue that the thermometers that record temperatures used to be out in the country, but are now surrounded by growing cities. Which, they say, makes the recorded temperatures higher than they would be if they were still in the country, and that gives a false impression of just how much higher the average global temperatures are. Scientists, of course, allow for that when they process their data.

Notice, please, what the denialists base that aspect of their denial on. First, cities are hot. Second, cities are getting bigger.

In other words, they say that more of the Earth's surface is hotter than it used to be. If that increased heat is averaged out or spread around, what can it be called but Global Warming?

Except that denialist believe that the urban heat doesn't spread around, or it goes away, or something. They don't know what happens to the heat, but they do believe that bigger, hotter cities disprove Global Warming.

Posted by: amphiox | December 8, 2009 2:50 PM

Two comments:

First, re: "One can maintain the idea that both personal and fiscal freedoms are good"

This is not a definition of libertarianism! This idea is also central strain of liberalism, humanism, and even some strains of conservatism.

Second, from where I sit, AGW denialists are doing more damage to more people than holocaust deniers, and as such, any comparison between the two is, if anything, unfair to the holocaust deniers.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 8, 2009 2:58 PM

Wiley, have you tried to live in an atmosphere composed of, oh, say 1% of your "environmentally beneficial" gas? Only 1%, right? How bad could that be?

And for what it's worth, poison ivy agrees with you about the benefits of CO2.

Hint: Don't confuse fetid with fertile.

Posted by: Johnny | December 8, 2009 3:03 PM

"it couples evangelism with willful ignorance"

I’m quite confident that it's more than that, for groups like the Discovery Institute and the Trinity Broadcast Network... They spread not only ignorance they spread intentional deceit for profit. And unfortunately there getting better at it all the time.

Darwins Dilemma, Creationist Propaganda and Corrupt Christians

http://ecographica.blogspot.com/2009/12/darwins-dilemma-creationist-propaganda.html

Posted by: Sean | December 8, 2009 3:06 PM

So, where does Ben Stein fit in to this?

Is he truly convinced of the truth of Intelligent Design or is he cynically lending his "credibility" to the Creationists for fame and fortune?

-S

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 8, 2009 3:08 PM

Wiley was just snarking, right? I don't believe anyone is THAT ignorant.

No wiley isn't that ignorant, wiley is that stupid.

Posted by: konopelli | December 8, 2009 3:26 PM

The ones that frost my ass are the creationists who are also deniers, on the basis that man, being god's creation, is somehow incapable of desstroying god's handiwork.

Me? I think they're praying that the climate crisis is the the one that will summon their 'redeemer' back from the dead to lead them to glory.

But i may be confusing them with a comet cult...It's so hard to tell 'em apart...

Posted by: Menyambal | December 8, 2009 3:30 PM

The BBC News says This decade 'warmest on record'.

As to the topic of just how deniers think, I used to worry about the creationists. I was trying to figure out who was lying, who was stupid and who was just gullible.

I've decided that there are liars and those who believe the liars. But none of them are as smart as they think they are.

Posted by: wiley | December 8, 2009 3:33 PM

@#87&90
Can anyone provide an MSDS for CO2 that quotes the LD50? (Mine says 'not available'.)
BTW, CO2 is less than 0.04% so you would need to increase by a factor of 25 to reach *just* 1%.
Whatsfurthermore, CO2 can only absorb IR in a narrow range of wavelengths around 15um (that's for David Marjonovic).

Posted by: Johnny | December 8, 2009 3:38 PM

For creationist groups like the Discovery Institute - for example - consider that their mission statement outright states that the “point of view Discovery brings to its work includes a belief in God-given reason;” and also, “to utilize every form of available media to present the reality of God's existence through compelling scientific evidence and academic research".

Mission statements like these leave little doubt that their positions are founded on deceit as opposed to “willful ignorance.”

Posted by: Felix | December 8, 2009 3:45 PM

http://www.starherald.com/

Go look at the poll on this site. Absolutely stupid

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 8, 2009 3:50 PM

Wiley's been having Competitive Enterprise Institute materials read to him again.

Wiley, if you're going to half-regurgitate bedtime stories here, please try to stick to the classics. They even made a movie of Where the Wild Things Are so you can still pick up the plot in the event your care worker is busy with another resident.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 8, 2009 3:54 PM

Let's stop with all the ranting by and at libertarians.

No. Stop infringing on my freedoms.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 8, 2009 3:55 PM

Whatsfurthermore, CO2 can only absorb IR in a narrow range of wavelengths around 15um

Posted by: MTS | December 8, 2009 3:59 PM

All I can say is that I am now really, really glad that my wife talked me out of having kids (1-2, of course), and that I am seriously terrified about the future our nieces and nephews face. We will, in all probability, be dead before the excrement hits the ventilator in a serious way, but still...

Posted by: Paul | December 8, 2009 4:01 PM

Let's stop with all the ranting by and at libertarians. I'm a libertarian (sort of), and I acknowledge that the Earth's climate is changing and that there is substantial evidence that human carbon emissions are a significant cause of this trend.

Great. But the fact that you are an exception to that rule does not make the other Libertarians less wingnutty. You're the one choosing to identify with a label generally used by denialists of various stripes. If you don't like being identified with them, stop identifying with them.

Posted by: MadScientist | December 8, 2009 4:03 PM

With the money that Steve Milloy (and more recently Marc Morano) rake in, you'd think they could hire a real climatologist or even a meteorologist. Instead they engage in numerology - look at web pages, pick out strange names like "latent heat", pick out a few numbers, and magically conclude that global warming is a hoax. Then they cut and paste their crap all over the internet. They confuse people like Monckton who wouldn't know latent heat from albedo.

I wonder if anyone is following the money - now that would be a fantastic news headline: AGW Denialists are Paid Shills.

Posted by: Mal Adapted | December 8, 2009 4:06 PM

Wiley, please read Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Then come back and tell us why you think you know what you're talking about.

Posted by: MadScientist | December 8, 2009 4:08 PM

@fishyfred #120:

Absolutely. I mean, every time I'm on a commercial flight I'm shot at, stabbed, bludgeoned, robbed, tortured, and finally disemboweled. Every single flight. Commercial flights, man, they're dangerous!

Posted by: Kel, OM | December 8, 2009 4:12 PM

Let's stop with all the ranting by and at libertarians. I'm a libertarian (sort of), and I acknowledge that the Earth's climate is changing and that there is substantial evidence that human carbon emissions are a significant cause of this trend.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 8, 2009 4:17 PM

AGW Denialists are Paid Shills

Don't be silly; climate change deniers are all doing it for the love of science, or liberty, or some such thing.

It would be a gross mischaracterisation to mention that ExxonMobil tossed climate change 'skeptic' organisations $16 million.

Now, where are those damning East Anglia emails again?

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 8, 2009 4:23 PM

Yes, Al Gore is a blithering idiot and a hypocrite

Walton spouts hyperbole like this, and then expects us to say nothing about the idiotic mindset that serves as the wellspring for such.

sorry, Walton, you still have MUCH to learn.

Posted by: Lynn | December 8, 2009 4:25 PM

RE #10 & "I'm not surprised to see people arguing against AGW. To many, there's a feel of 'Government telling me what to think' about the whole deal."

So where were these people when Bush was telling them AGW was not real, and was having his journalism flunk-out whelps rewrite the science to show it wasn't happening? They should have been screaming that AGW was true and real, esp since the politicos said it was not!

Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | December 8, 2009 4:26 PM

wiley @81

Bottoms up!

Colorless gasses harmful? You can make this one at home!

Taking your knowledge to the next level

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 8, 2009 4:27 PM

But Wells is a special case, easily the most odious of creationists, because he knows very well that most of his arguments are rotten.

I think he's a bullshitter: he does not care whether what he says is true or not, he just says anything in the hope it might contribute to "destroy[ing] Darwinism" – his words.

Or rather... What he really believes in is the Irreverend Sun Myung Moon. What that guy says is what Wells believes is true; if reality contradicts that, reality is wrong. Reality, after all, has a well-known liberal bias. That presumably means he believes he's not truly bullshitting – he's just expressing a truth that is deeper than mere reality. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry put it, "you only see well with your heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes".

I think he's sort of meta-honest without contradicting himself.

I wonder if anyone is following the money - now that would be a fantastic news headline: AGW Denialists are Paid Shills.

How many times did ExxonMobil announce it was going to stop funding stink tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute? Must be somewhere on Deltoid.

Posted by: vltava | December 8, 2009 4:29 PM

@Paul #113: Don't confuse Libertarian (the party, populated in large part by Randians and anarchist wingnuts) with libertarian (the portion of the political spectrum which describes people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal).

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 8, 2009 4:35 PM

However should we not be asking, Why is global warming happening?

Is it humanities actions, or a natural cycle, or what?

Nonononono. We should be asking:

Where has Questeruk been for the last fifteen years?

Why does Questeruk believe in all seriousness that no climatologist has ever thought of this obvious question?

Posted by: Steve_C | December 8, 2009 4:41 PM

Felix.. was that meant to be in quotes or are you happy to be labeled sincerely nuts?

Are you in a bunker with cans of beans holding onto a rifle?

Posted by: amphiox | December 8, 2009 4:43 PM

#96:

Libertarians like to invent definitions whereby their opponents can be described as somehow not believing that personal and economic freedoms and "good" things.

Liberalism and humanism, as I have already stated, both believe in these things as well. Just because their positions are more subtle, in that they acknowledge that there do exist circumstances that justify some limitations on freedoms of all kinds, DOES NOT mean that they do not agree that on the balance, freedom is a "good" thing.

Thus that statement is disingenous in the extreme and that is why I object to it. While it is true that libertarians do believe in these things, those beliefs are not exclusive to their viewpoint and thus is NOT a distinguishing characteristic.

Posted by: felixthecat | December 8, 2009 4:46 PM

By no means. It was sarcasm. So quotes, yes.

Global warming comes comes and goes. Unless we set off a large number of nuclear bombs, we cannot really affect the weather much. The Vikings farmed Greenland, the Romans farmed North Africa, and as we look back and study the climates of past ages, we see clearly that there are ups and downs of temperature.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 8, 2009 4:50 PM

After all both global warming and global cooling have happened before - can't blame mankind for previous occurances.

"People have lived and died in the past, so surely you can't fault me and my smoking gun for the demise of the victim, Officer."

Posted by: amphiox | December 8, 2009 4:53 PM

#138:

They believe it is a big conspiracy, see, by remote shadowy figures whose sole malevolent purpose is to send them, personally, to the poorhouse.

The scientists can be trusted when they talk about Cretaceous and Permian warming, yes, because that doesn't matter anymore and there are no ulterior motives. But when they talk about climate today, well, they've been paid off by the Illuminati, see?

It's a train of thought shared by some strains of creationism, too. Microevolution? Fine. Bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance? Fine. Birds descending from dinosaurs? Um, alright, reluctantly, I'll accept that. My human political opponents descended from chimps? Er, sure, metaphorically speaking, I can go with that. But ME? ME EVOLVED FROM ANIMALS? NO WAY! NO SIRREE! GOD MADE ME IN HIS(MY) IMAGE! I'M SPECIAL! SPECIAL! SPECIAL!

Posted by: vltava | December 8, 2009 4:57 PM

In response to various:

I'm both a humanist and a libertarian. The latter doesn't describe everything about me; it's just where I lie on the political spectrum of conservative/liberal/populist/libertarian. I'm not inventing anything for the sake of convenience, this is just what I learned in political science class, which was consistent with what I had learned from independent study using multiple nonpartisan sources. Yes, I'm from the United States.

I'm not a free market idealist.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 8, 2009 5:06 PM

That's bizarre, it still does that. But at least it's now legible.

The scientists can be trusted when they talk about Cretaceous and Permian warming, yes, because that doesn't matter anymore and there are no ulterior motives. But when they talk about climate today, well, they've been paid off by the Illuminati, see?

You're way overthinking this. You're talking about people who don't know the very words "Cretaceous" or "Permian".

Posted by: blf | December 8, 2009 5:08 PM

Yes, Al Gore is a blithering idiot and a hypocrite…

We can test this hypothesis. Assume Mr Gore didn't exist. What, precisely, in the science of and/or related-to AGW would change? Be specific…

Fairly clearly, nothing changes. Ok then, the charge that Mr Gore is a “blithering idiot” must rest on a body of claims he has made which aren't true and which he could reasonably expected to have known weren't true when he first made each claim. What are these claims? How many fall into this class? Again, be specific…

(Has Mr Gore been mistaken at times about various AGW-related points? Yes, he has. That alone does not make him a “blithering idiot”; you need a consistent pattern to be a “blithering idiot” (think Palin if you want an example).)

And the charge of being a “hypocrite”? That is, as far as I am aware, mostly(? entirely?) a judgemental thing. Mr Gore is comparatively wealthy, and “the rich” do consume more and waste more. Hypocritical? Perhaps. On the other hand, Mr Gore is visibly active and has taken visible non-trivial actions to reduce his and his family's Carbon footprint. Have you? Have I?

(The answer, in my case, is Yes and No: I have take non-trivial actions, but they are not widely-known (visible) outside my close circle of colleagues and relations.)

Posted by: lose_the_woo | December 8, 2009 5:11 PM

How is anyone capable of believing that thousands of scientists are so dumb they don't know how to shit?

Just going out on a limb here, I say it's because the person is:

- emotionally stunted
- intellectually lazy
- willfully ignorant
- IQ challenged

It's probably safe to say there are additional contributors, but with the list above, I'd they are fully in the realm of complete moron.

Posted by: lose_the_woo | December 8, 2009 5:21 PM

Wait...
The person who said:

Unless we set off a large number of nuclear bombs, we cannot really affect the weather much.

also said:

...my graduate degrees are only in the social sciences and in law, but I am capable of evaluating and comprehending what I read about global warming, and I am not convinced that humans have played any role in the current warming trend.

Hmmm. Now I know there's a fail in there somewhere.

Posted by: Betty Boop | December 8, 2009 5:30 PM

You called?

Posted by: william e emba | December 8, 2009 5:34 PM

True, my graduate degrees are only in the social sciences and in law, but I am capable of evaluating and comprehending what I read about global warming,

And you're going to write a book about it next? Global Warning on Trial? Sheesh, you're as dumb as the creationist loons, and proud of it, too.

Posted by: KiwiInOz | December 8, 2009 5:40 PM

Sluggo - Ice, Mud and Blood: lessons from climates past, by Chris Turney is a good primer.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | December 8, 2009 5:43 PM

Unless we set off a large number of nuclear bombs, we cannot really affect the weather much.

Yeah. Duh. I mean, have you ever tried to push a cloud with your hands? You can't even do it.

Just like us:weather, here is a list of other things that cannot really affect other things much, using felixthecat's reasoning in which you say something and then, well, I think that's the extent of his reasoning:

Water:rocks. Have you ever poured water on a rock? It just rolls off. Even pee--which sources tell me is slightly acidic and therefore can be used to escape from Kamal Khan's palace should the need arise in which case you can thank me for the tip later--won't break the rock, even you really have to go.

Electricity:life. I stuck my tongue across the contacts of a nearly dead 9-volt and I'm still alive. Plus, my cellphone uses electricity and I dropped it in the bath once (it kinda looked like a shuttlepod and so I was reenacting the "Skin of Evil" episode from ST:TNG, with similarly unfortunate consequences) and it stopped working after that. Just like Denise Crosby.

Bathwater:cell phones. Sorry. I jotted this one down before writing the above. The former can indeed affect the latter.

Ice:ocean liners. Okay, I confess I've never been on a cruise myself, but are you going to try to tell me you can't order a margarita on the lido deck? What the hell was Isaac even there for then?

Bullets:skin. I stepped on a really sharp pebble once and it didn't break the skin. Bullets are even rounder, like a marble or my sister's lipstick. You do the math, unless you're a communist. Oh, and the NRA asked me to write this last one, which I thought I'd do out of sheer niceness because they were nice to me and gave me a big check.

Wow! That was fun. I can't believe how much time I've wasted in labs and reading books and journal articles, when I just could've been thinking of things and then typing them. Yay siance! Boo siantists!

Posted by: Menyambal | December 8, 2009 5:44 PM

I am not convinced that humans have played any role in the current warming trend.

I don't think that a person should have to be convinced that humans have a role, it seems that the burden of proof would run the other way--I would need to see strong evidence that we are *not* responsible.

I mean, honest to Bob, just look at the situation. We are digging up hydrocarbons that have been sequestered since the Carboniferous, and burning them to make heat. We are putting CO2 and water vapor and heat and all kinds of stuff into the air. The obvious consequence is increased heat, humidity and a general return to Carboniferous conditions.

And we do, indeed, see the planet warming.

But somehow it isn't our doing.

Sheesh.

Posted by: blf | December 8, 2009 5:52 PM

Now I know there's a fail in there somewhere.

I tempted to just put in down to being a typical ambulance-chaser: What is said is not important as long as he/she/it is being paid lots to say it. However, that's rather probably me being a bit too cynical…

Putting some of my cynicism aside, and speculating, there is a bit of point here: Legal “proof” is laughably unscientific, and often based on what ought to be the case, rather than what has been shown to be the case. The stature given to eyewitnesses is a prime example; legally they are (as I understand it) the, or close to the, gold standard. Scientifically, they are highly doubtful and have been shown to be extremely unreliable.

I suspect(? wonder?) if you apply the legal profession's standard of “proof” (or “evidence”) to the evidence for AGW, it's not very convincing. It's all these boring chemical equations, statistics, adjustments (“tricks”), tests (very rare in legal circles, I think!), and arcane language (like the legal profession but a different arcane language). There's no person or easily classified group who is a villain, no eyewitness, no criminal and no (legal) gold standard. And essentially all of the money's on the AGW-denying crowd (ExxonMobil et al.), so that's where the ambulance-chasers will presumably gather… (Please note that last cynical sentence is ambiguous: Are they working for ExxonMobil or waiting for a change to sue the same?)

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 8, 2009 6:07 PM

and as we look back and study the climates of past ages, we see clearly that there are ups and downs of temperature.

...says the man who most likely hasn't even bothered to do so.

*sigh*

Posted by: ursa major | December 8, 2009 6:50 PM

I really have a hard time being patient with the AGW denialists fuckwits. Even if there was no global warming we would still need to take the exact same steps for the long term survival of our society. Why do they hate humanity so, seriously. I have had a few conversations with corporationist* shills where they admitted that for the sake of profits next quarter they would shaft (even lethally) their friends, families and nation.

So, you denialists out there - why do you hate your families?

*corporationist: n. an asshole who puts the interest of a legal fiction over real people.

Posted by: david | December 8, 2009 7:23 PM

As to: do creationists know they are lying? Some do, I think. I carefully read Dinosaurs by Design by Duane T. Gish and others which included a geologist. I read it for its rhetoric to see if they knew they were lying. I concluded that they knew they were lying, and I concluded that I would be able to illustrate they knew they were lying, shown by some artful cross-examination on just that book if allowed the chance.
The question shifted to: if they know they are lying why do they do it? The answer was not far to seek, located in the beginning of their gospel John, their last and most embellished synoptic: "so that you might believe and be saved." Which is to say, their tactics have been consistent since the early beginnings.

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | December 8, 2009 8:05 PM

David, I don't know what you mean by 'meta-honest'. If you mean Wells buys into a modern-day messianic cult that teaches him that it's OK to lie for God, I'll admit that's a fair description of his schtick in action. In that sense, he's not violating a commitment to the truth that Christians from time to time claim to adhere to, so he has some internal consistency.

But the question that should be asked is, 'consistent to what?' There's something off with our moral compasses if we just lump a guy like Wells in with the ignorant and misled. I don't see most creationists bad-mouthing science teachers and science textbooks directly. Instead, they make the arguments that Eugenie Scott has labeled the 'pillars of creationism.'(see video 5)

Posted by: Realist | December 8, 2009 8:32 PM

Well, you are just pathetic by pumping yourself into saying that everybody against climate change is either fool or liar.

Several arguments are hard to refute:

- Experts, scientists and media are far from immune from hysteric scares. Consider the millenium bug of 1999/2000, which was supposed to wreck computers and civilizations.

- Positive consequences for human economy and environment are likely to be substantial, but media consider only negative ones. Lots of articles "heat wave due to climate change, kills 100", no articles "cold spell avoided due to climate change, saves 200". Lots of articles "less polar bears" no articles "more of rare tropical animals".

- Lots of practical countermeasures proposed are either uneffective, swindle or cruel, or all three. Typical example were biofuels, where lots of money was spend only to be abandoned. Theory of climate models is vague, but practicality of economic solutions is even more vague.

- It is far more efficent to let the climate change and spend the 1% or so of resulting faster economic growth on adjusting to it. For example, cost of changing to different crop varieties is trivial compared to turning the agriculture upside down to produce no CO2.

- Free market mechanisms will create a "green economy underclass" who cannot afford rising costs of fuel, energy, fertilizers etc. Rich businesses simply buy out carbon allowance, keeping poor people in poverty. BBC already mentions uneasily, that the cost of carbon tax to aviation will mean that business trips will continue, but poor people will be unable to afford an ocassional flight.

Posted by: Anton Mates | December 8, 2009 8:38 PM

Ooops...the first question in the above should be part of the blockquote. Sorry.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | December 8, 2009 9:11 PM

Realist #177

Experts, scientists and media are far from immune from hysteric scares. Consider the millenium bug of 1999/2000, which was supposed to wreck computers and civilizations.

Are you referring to the Y2K bug? The thing to which millions of man-hours were devoted to fixing before the event?

If the computer techies had followed the AGW denial route, just standing around with one thumb in their mouth, one thumb up their ass and switching thumbs every ten minutes, then there would have been a major problem. Instead, the techies determined long before hand that there would be a problem and a literally world-wide effort was made to deal with it. As a result, the Y2K bug became a non-event.

So, Realist, concerning AGW, how do your thumbs taste?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 8, 2009 9:15 PM

So, Realist, concerning AGW, how do your thumbs taste?

Like denial

Posted by: Commissar Claw | December 9, 2009 12:02 AM

It is far more efficent to let the climate change and spend the 1% or so of resulting faster economic growth on adjusting to it. For example, cost of changing to different crop varieties is trivial compared to turning the agriculture upside down to produce no CO2.

Ugh....

This just makes me want to bash my head on my desk. There is already enormous competition for money used in capital improvement projects. Rising sea levels, dwindling water supplies, and a decrease in arable land are only going to make the situation worse.

The people that make this argument now will later be the ones proclaiming "They shouldn't have lived there! Why should my tax dollars be used to help a bunch of bums who weren't smart enough to move?"

It's never time to change or help as far as these people are concerned.

Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2009 5:41 AM

Felixthecat,

The Vikings farmed Greenland, the Romans farmed North Africa, and as we look back and study the climates of past ages, we see clearly that there are ups and downs of temperature.

Sure, the global temperature increased by about 0.6 degrees in a time span of 600 years (400AD to 1000AD), at a time when the world population was around 200 million (it then decreased at about the same rate in the next 600 years).

Now we've got the global temperature increasing by the same amount in less than 30 years, and the world population is 6.5 billion.

Why is it so difficult for you to understand that when climate changes 20 times faster in a world 30 times more populated, the consequences aren't going to be as benevolent as they might have been in the past.

It's the combination of speed of change and high population density that is alarming. Not climate change per se.

Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2009 6:31 AM

The people that make this argument now will later be the ones proclaiming "They shouldn't have lived there! Why should my tax dollars be used to help a bunch of bums who weren't smart enough to move?"

Or they'll claim that the solution is to let private entreprise solve it : these people should be privatized, like pets or livestock. Same with endangered species. Let's just all put them in some kind of zoos.

Posted by: CJO | December 9, 2009 1:40 PM

Positive consequences for human economy and environment are likely to be substantial

[Citation needed]

but media consider only negative ones. Lots of articles "heat wave due to climate change, kills 100", no articles "cold spell avoided due to climate change, saves 200". Lots of articles "less polar bears" no articles "more of rare tropical animals".

You're just wishing away serious issues. "Positive consequences for the environment" is irrelevant. We have no perspective from which to make that determination other than that of human civilization, which arose in a geological and evolutionary eyeblink. That said, it's superficial and naive to say that "more of tropical animals" would be an unmitigated good thing, especially taking into account the other side of your formulation: "human economy." After all, malaria-carrying mosquitos are tropical animals, and we don't really want more of them around, do we?

What is at issue is rapid disruption of a climate regime that has pertained for millennia, crucially including thos few millennia that it took for human civilization to arise and prosper here, not simply a general warming trend, an exspansion of balmy tropical beach resorts, and wearing shorts in Saskatchewan in November. The disruptions to the human economy, from rising sea levels displacing a large fraction of the human population, disruptions to agriculture and fresh water supplies due to changing rainfall patterns and loss of arable land, increasing acidification of the oceans, and on and on, are overwhelmingly more ominous than the economic hit we'll take from measures designed to reduce emissions in the short term.