It's taken me a while to assemble something cogent about the outcome of the CoP15, the Copenhagen conference that produced what some are calling "better than nothing." There are those who consider it a complete failure because the final accord, which didn't receive full approval, includes no specific carbon emissions reductions targets. Others point out that just getting China to agree to a watered-down provision on verification protocols was a major achievement and the best that could be hoped for. I doubt a useful evaluation will be forthcoming until much later in 2010. History's like that. It's hard to gauge success or failure immediately after the fact. But there are some useful things that can be said.
First, here's IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri, speaking to New Scientist magazine a few days before the conference opened:
My biggest fear is that we get a weak agreement which does not represent any commitment to action. If that happened there would be a great deal of finger-pointing, and gloating on the part of the vested interests who would like to defeat any effort to get a meaningful agreement. I believe such a scenario would represent a major setback.
Second, it is perhaps useful to go back much further in time and compare what happened this past month with the conventional wisdom of say, 20 years ago . In 1989, James Burke indulged in a bit of science fiction, assembling a two-hour look back on global efforts to deal with climate change, from the perspective of 2050 or so. I've assembled about three minutes of some of the more relevant segments from "After the Warming."
Some of Burke's predictions were a little off, it seems. But the science that informed his predictions has survived relatively intact. Eight degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels by 2100? Pretty much bang on, according to the latest business-as-usual models.
More surprising is his embrace of cumulative emissions as a starting point for negotiations, an idea that was recently revived as the "trillionth tonne," a way of looking at the challenge of reducing emissions that even has its own website: trillionthtonne.org. Twenty years ago, Burke thought that the world could handle another 300 billion tonnes. He was a bit off, but not my much. Today the estimates of our remaining emissions quota is closer to 250 Gt, assuming we are comfortable with a 0.75 chance of keeping the temperature increase to just 2°C.
So did Copenhagen accomplish much at all? Given that in 1989, Burke and his writers were anticipating we'd have gotten our act together by 2000, it's clear that we're running behind schedule.
I am reminded of Michelle Shocked's lament:
I've come a long way, I've come a long way
I've never even left L.A.
The full After the Warming is available here.
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I saw a t-shirt last night: "The climate system does not negotiate." The mere fact that politicians and the populations they represent believe that the targets themselves should be subject to negotiation is, in itself, a tacit admission that there is no intent to fix anything.
Irrespective of the practical implications of Copenhagen (if any), it's clear that almost every nation on the planet -- barring a few, I believe the EU's proposed target was in-line with the IPCC recommendations -- lacks confidence in the abilities and intent of all the others (and themselves?) to address the problem. The default position of a given state, then, is to push for concessions that directly benefit that state, as in third world nations pushing for money, China, India, and Brazil for free intellectual property and the like, and the developed world for requirements which would limit the astronomical growth of these three states.
Copenhagen threw all this into focus. I'm not sure that anything can be done about it, but it's only encouraged my growing conviction that responsible states -- where they exist -- should simply take action to implement the IPCC's targets at any cost to themselves, and engage in militant economic action to attempt to force recalcitrants to do the same. Negotiation is clearly failing; time for either war, figuratively speaking, or to give up and enjoy the golden age while it lasts.
Lay down and have a cool drink Ross.
In case you hadn't noticed a growing percentage of Americans, and other world citizens, aren't buying into the apocalyptic nonsense associated with AGW. If the delegates and representatives of all the states at Copenhagen really believed we faced climate Armageddon they would have agreed to takes steps that cause the kind of economic pain that real CO2 mitigation would require. Despite all the lip service it is clear that they do not believe that doom awaits for CO2 emissions.
No democratic country is going to "...take action to implement the IPCC's targets at any cost to themselves..." nor should they. What you saw were countries trying to use the issue to their economic advantage because none of them really believe that disaster awaits if they all don't bite the economic bullet.
Also your fascist slip is showing when you say that countries should "...engage in militant economic action to attempt to force recalcitrants (sic)... " to take actions contrary to their own economic self interests. Nothing like turning to bullying weaker countries when you can't get your way.
How egalitarian of you.
1) Whether or not countries, groups, or individuals believe the scientific consensus on AGW has nothing to with the reliability of that consensus or the reality of the climate system. Go read some of the abstracts through scholar.google.com rather than denialist websites. I've no doubt that a large proportion of the politicians and functionaries involved in Copenhagen have denialist leanings; that really just makes the whole thing all the more hilarious.
2) Irrespective of your personal belief in AGW or mine, working on the premise that it is real, I'd say my analysis of how everybody behaved at Copenhagen stands up pretty well. Please note that I didn't advocate violence but economic action. This is hardly the suggestion of a fascist; in fact, trade war seems reasonably civilised under the circumstances. I certainly wouldn't expect for the EU and those few responsible countries in question to win such a war, given the odds. I also noted that there's a perfectly reasonable alternative to declare a loss, do nothing, hope ITER turns up roses in time, or else live out the time we have before the proverbial sh*t hits the fan. But is there really any point going to the table when we ourselves (speaking in the collective Australian sense) have no real interest in contributing to solving the problem ourselves?
"Nothing like turning to bullying weaker countries when you can't get your way."
Because China, the US, India, Brazil, Russia...in fact pretty much everyone except the EU (including my own country, which I presume would be on the wrong side of the fence) represent economic weakness, right?
Lance,
Your use of the word fascist is nonsensical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
"...growing percentage of Americans, and other world citizens, aren't buying into the apocalyptic nonsense.."
Apocalyptic, as in the second coming? The vast majority of Americans think they're going to heaven, but that does not mean they are right.
It is one thing to debate about what can be done to ameliorate climate change, if anything, but to simply assume there is no warming is an act of self-deception, like going to heaven when you die.
To assume there is no warning one has to assume the global scientific community is wrong, and to do that one has to accept the positions of people who can't get their science past peer review over those who can, and to do that one has to assume a conspiracy is keeping them from passing peer review muster.
There are a lot of people in this country accustomed to self-deception, with minds that can slam shut at the first hint of an unpleasant reality, like not going to heaven.
At some point the Easter Islanders probably stopped fighting each long enough to say, "I think we're boned."
That's about when they started eating each other. The last hominids standing on this planet are capable of becoming monsters, make no mistake about it.
Hah! I'm not sure I'd go as far as Russ' last few paragraphs, but his summation of the arguments against the scientific consensus for AGW are instructive.
First to Russ Finley,
Did you think I was accusing Nils Ross of being a follower of Benito Mussolini?
Merriam Websters online dictionary defines fascist thusly,
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.
Here's a tip; words often have more than one definition.
Nils Ross' suggestion that countries should use "militant economic action" to "force" other countries to his will fits the second definition of the word fascist perfectly.
"It is one thing to debate about what can be done to ameliorate climate change, if anything, but to simply assume there is no warming is an act of self-deception, like going to heaven when you die."
Nice straw man, where did I say there was "no warming"? According to the data there has been between 0.6 and 0.7 degrees Celsius of warming over the last 100 years as averaged across the earth's surface. Hardly a catastrophe, nor is it a proven fact that humans are responsible for all or even most of that warming.
During those 100 years human life expectancy has been greatly extended, diseases that have plagued humanity for thousands of years have been cured or prevented and the living standards of billions of people have vastly improved. Much of this progress is directly or indirectly the result of the energy provided by fossil fuels.
This is a simple indisputable fact.
You and your fellow alarmist have the burden of proof that we face a climate catastrophe. You are asking for a great deal of economic hardship and sacrifice based on less than one degree of warming that cannot be shown to be caused by human activity to any reasonable accuracy and the "projections" (even climate modelers refuse to call them predictions) of models that have failed to accurately forecast even the last decade let alone the next century.
When you can't convince people with the weak scientific evidence for your claims you turn to personal attacks, such as calling people "denialists", and scurrilous invective.
Now that Copenhagen has failed to transform the worlds energy economy to suit your misanthropic worldview you are railing in disgust at anyone that disagrees with your delusional eco-moralizing.
Nils Ross
"Irrespective of your personal belief in AGW or mine, working on the premise that it is real, I'd say my analysis of how everybody behaved at Copenhagen stands up pretty well."
You have committed the classic logical fallacy of "Assuming the Antecedent" also referred to as "Question Begging".
Working on the premise that pigs can fly I am correct in expecting pigs to fly.
All your analysis of Copenhagen shows is your personal disappointment that the world's governments don't consider climate change mitigation in the form of expensive unproven punitive economic strategies, designed to discourage the use of fossil fuels, to be worth implementing. Especially when no frame work of verification exists and every one expects the other guy to take the pain while they either get paid off in billions of dollars in compensation, technology transfers, or delay or differ their own carbon mitigation by years or even decades.
As I said to Russ Finley, if these countries really were worried about an impending "climate catastrophe", they would have been more interested in reaching a binding agreement rather than posturing for an economic advantage or outright hand-outs.
"All your analysis of Copenhagen shows is your personal disappointment that the world's governments don't consider climate change mitigation in the form of expensive unproven punitive economic strategies, designed to discourage the use of fossil fuels, to be worth implementing."
Setting aside the arguments one could make about the success of smaller scale emissions trading schemes, this statement stands reasonably well. However, this has nothing to do with the fact that the delegates to Copenhagen failed to even agree upon a target emissions reduction. Which I think you'll find was the crux of my argument.
I'll repeat it in a different way. Irrespective of whether they accept the scientific consensus on AGW, no one nation believes any other nation or nations capable or willing to address the problem. This in turn has been used by each nation as a pretext to, depending on their particular situation, obstruct negotiations or attempt to wring concessions from other nations to the point where even a statement of the concentration limit of CO2 in the atmosphere required could not be made. It seems fair to categorise this as fairly repulsive politics -- if amusing to anyone with a black sense of humour.
It is clear to me, then, that further negotiations will produce nothing of substance. The options available for any responsible nation -- should such a thing exist -- seem limited. A given nation can try to lead by example, engage in aggressive economic tactics where practicable (in the manner, for example, of Europe's drive to renewable energy in order to decouple themselves from Russian energy supply), or do nothing. Irrespective of their choice, they should certainly prepare for the consequences of climate change.
"You have committed the classic logical fallacy of "Assuming the Antecedent" also referred to as "Question Begging"."
You've misinterpreted what I've said. I've defined a starting point and followed that definition through to a conclusion. Of course one can question the initial definition--that AGW science is good science--although this is not the particular thread for that: hopefully we can discuss the outcomes or lack thereof of Copenhagen rather than standard denialist talking points.
I don't much like to follow multiple threads in argument at once, because it has a tendency to nova, but I think I should defend my assessment of the options available to what I'd define as 'responsible states' (again, if such things exist).
My position is that the current paradigm of compromise in politics cannot seem to deal with a no-compromise idea like an emissions target. The IPCC's recommendations with regards to maximum sensible allowable CO2 concentration are clear, and it is not reasonable at this stage to believe that targets should be set at lower than these recommendations. The normal mechanisms of political compromise should of course be used to work HOW these targets should be met in the most responsible ways. But the failure of delegates at Copenhagen to recognise this points to serious problems.
Given such problems, negotiation seems pointless. Economic action, such as the aggressive development and deployment of renewables by states with the capacity to do so (in order to deprive fossil fuel supplying states like my own of income), the formation of carbon-trading agreements between states with domestic carbon trading schemes, and the imposition of tariffs if necessary on states without them are all reasonable alternatives. I think you'll find that such potential measures are actually even part of the Waxman-Markey bill the US legislature has passed on to the Senate.
Of course one should be cautious about the application of such measures, given the historical record of protectionism and its human consequences. But realistically the current economic situation is without precedent, and some boldness may be warranted. This is not fascism in any sense of the word. Your accusation that it is, Lance, skirts dangerously close to fulfilment of the corollary to Godwin's Law. Tread cautiously.
In case you hadn't noticed a growing percentage of Americans, and other world citizens, aren't buying into the apocalyptic nonsense associated with AGW.
This is true. However, I would be more reassured if many of those citizens were professional climate scientists... or even physicists in general... or even scientists in general.
As matters stand, though, the consensus of the people who actually do atmospheric modelling appears to be pretty solidly AGW. The general scientific community is fairly solidly AGW too. It's only the general population that has mixed views. This is a demographic pattern I've seen elsewhere (read Response 1).
So in the absence of a scientific victory, you're bragging about a political victory. This is embarrassing.
(I should mention that I haven't yet formed a solid conclusion about AGW myself. I'm currently reading a book on climate modelling - will get back to you once I've run a few simulations.)
Nils Ross,
I don't think it is a "black comedy". I think many nations realize that the catastrophic consequences forecast from AGW are not likely or even plausible even if they buy into the idea that AGW is real and on net negative. They are trying to play the angles.
African countries are playing for cash, pure and simple, as they did for most of the last century. They have just repackaged their old claims of colonialist exploitation and racism as "climate" exploitation.
Developing countries like China and India are looking for economic advantages through hobbling the western economies with restrictive energy policies while brazenly grabbing and monopolizing any and all fossil fuels they can secure both in their home countries and through out the world.
If you haven't noticed this obvious fact you just aren't paying attention.
The chutzpah is that they are claiming to be going "green" but the vast majority of their "green" investment is in the form of technologies they plan to sell to the gullible western states.
They have made it clear that they plan to burn all the fossil fuels they can get their hands on to raise the living standards of their peoples. This alone show that they really don't buy into the whole "climate peril" paradigm. If they did they would certainly being paying more than lip service to "saving the planet". After all I'm sure they know it is their address as well as ours.
As far as your claims that I am skirting "Godwin's Law" I think your words speak for themselves. You spoke of using "militant economic" actions to "force" other countries to submit to your will.
Trying to sell it as reasonable economic policy doesn't suddenly make it egalitarian or even moral for that matter.
As far as "denialist talking points" go there is a real debate as to the alleged "catastrophe" that is forecast over the next 100 years. Like it or not.
Saying the "science is settled" doesn't make it so. Also we both live in democratic societies and I am damn sure going to fight through any and all legal means to stop the Waxman-Markey economic suicide bill from ever being signed into law.
And I am hardly alone.
Lifewish,
I voted for Obama. I am an atheist who has never voted for a Republican president in my 35 years of voting. I have a BS in physics from Purdue University. I teach math at IUPUI and I worked for years as a project engineer for a firm specializing in instrumentation equipment and software (with no connection to the fossil fuel industry).
I don't "deny" that humans have contributed to the current atmospheric level of CO2 nor do I "deny" that there has been about 0.7C of warming over the last century. Nor do I "deny" that this extra CO2 has caused some of the 0.7C of warming.
That is where the "undeniable" facts stop.
"(I should mention that I haven't yet formed a solid conclusion about AGW myself. I'm currently reading a book on climate modelling - will get back to you once I've run a few simulations.)"
The suite of models that the IPCC used to forecast a 0.2C/Decade warming have failed miserably over the last ten to fifteen years. Most are outside, or on their way outside, of their 95% confidence intervals when checked against real world data sets.
You started by quoting a bunch of "consensus" talking points. Follow the evidence not what people tell you to believe.
I recycle plastics, glass, aluminum and steel because it makes sense, both economically and for the environment. I belonged to the Sierra Club, WWF, and Nature Conservancy until those organizations became more interested in chasing the politically sparkly climate bobble and stopped concentrating on concrete strategies, such as habitat protection and water shed improvement, that actually impact the earth's biosphere in measurable and immediately tangible ways.
AGW is a phantom menace that we are told will have amorphous effects that conveniently can never be concretely attributed to any specific event and will only become "catastrophic" at some unknowable date in the distant future. How convenient.
Try to keep your mind open and your emotions (and politics) out of you investigation. I think you may be surprised what you find.
"As far as your claims that I am skirting "Godwin's Law" I think your words speak for themselves. You spoke of using "militant economic" actions to "force" other countries to submit to your will."
So I assume Lance, that you're essentially claiming that any kind of coercion in politics, be it social, economic, or military, corresponds fascism? Interesting.
So that would make the liberation of Europe FROM the Nazis as fascist, right? Also, the Australia use of force against militias in East Timor following its independence vote would be fascist? Trade restrictions imposed against Iraq following the first gulf war -- fascist?
Coercion, violent, economic, or social, is -- depending on its level of application in a given situation -- a reasonable tool of statecraft. To label it as fascist simply because you believe it suits your line of argument satisfies the corollary to Godwin's Law as far as I'm concerned.
"Saying the "science is settled" doesn't make it so."
You're right. I think the hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed climate journals, put together by thousands of hard-working well-qualified reasonable-thinking scientists, and summarised elegantly and conservatively by the IPCC DOES make it so, however. Unless, of course, you can provide citations to peer-reviewed literature not since refuted in the literature which say otherwise? scholar.google.com to find them!
Ah, I thought not.
The tale of the tape looks somewhat different over 25 years ...
Gosh, we've had a bit of an extended minimum and are just emerging from a La Niña and Mr. Science says "this proves the models have failed miserably".
I wonder what he'll say when it's shown that he's full of shit and his claim is false in the first place?
We're already seeing serious ecosystem perturbations that worry people who have PhDs in fields like population ecology, rather than BSs in physics.
We're losing Canada's boreal forest.
A recent paper from the Netherlands documents the collapse of populations of several insectivorous bird species, due to loss of synchronicity of the spring insect hatch and the bird species' migration/nesting timing. We're seeing that loss of synchronicity in wide swaths of the northern hemisphere. Bird ranges are moving northward rapidly.
Horticultural zones are moving northward. Impacts on agriculture will only increase in the next few decades.
Etc etc.
Nils Ross,
Amusingly you accused me of flirting with Godwin's law and then you jump the shark with a full blown reference to, yes that's right, the Nazis!
"Forcing" countries to your will through "militant" foreign economic policies just because they disagree about climate change is somehow the moral equivalent of the Allies war against Adolf and El Duce in your book? OK.
Dhogaza,
I said it was outside or about to be outside of 95% confidence intervals. Of course you use GISS and your graph still dips outside the lines in a few places. Try using 90% confidence intervals and UAH satellite data.
The rest of your posts are just your usual snide bullshit.
Again you snipe at my BS in physics. You of course have NO credentials in physics or climate science.
The two biggest emitters are China and the US. These two nations are not responsible, and it will take a great deal of time and energy to make them responsible. Perhaps more importantly, very few states can engage in militant economic action against America, and even fewer can do so against China.
Negotiation has failed precisely because those who wish to do something about global warming lack the economic and military muscle to carry out war, whether figurative or not.
James Hrynyshyn, please fix preview. It works on every other blog on scienceblogs. Why should yours be specially crippled?
That was only for the graph showing the historical trend with its two sigma error bounds.
In the other graph comparing model outputs, it hasn't dipped outside the confidence interval at all.
Only someone ignorant of biology, population ecology, etc would suggest that pointing out already troubling ecosystem responses to warming is nothing other than "snide bullshit". The loss of synchronicity of insect hatch and migratory bird arrival/nesting times is *real*. Pointing it out is not "snide bullshit".
And of course we have many other observations and studies of many biota other than birds that are showing a similar response to warming.
dhogaza,
No competent scientist believes that the less than on degree of warming over the last 100 years is outside of past natural variation during the Holocene even if they believe that most of the the change is anthropogenic.
Are you not aware that we are in an interglacial period of the Holocene? There was a mile of ice above where I am typing this message less than 20,000 years ago. I think the insect hatch rates rebounded nicely.
Do you think that the climate remains static and must do so forever? If so your are seriously misinformed.
Lance - quit being an idiot.
Oh, wait, I have a better idea ... continuing proving you're an idiot in public.
Rate of change counts in climate, ecological response, and deceleration of automobiles. It is the *rate* of change that concerns biologists and ecologists.
You've got a BS in physics, try the following two experiments:
1. Decelerate from 100 mph to 0 mph in one mile.
2. Decelerate from 100 mph to 0 mph in one inch.
I suggest you perform the two experiments in that order, in order to increase the odds that you're able to perform both ...
Yeah, and the end of the last ice age saw mass extinctions, including most of the megafauna in North America, despite the rate of climate change being much slower than that we're imposing on the planet today.
But of course, BS physics types understand that we're above nature, and vast ecological disruptions will have no negative effects on humanity at all.
dhogaza,
Keep being an asshole it only underscores your weak arguments. And I would be certain that someone else was using your name if you suddenly became a nice guy. Actually it would be rather disturbing if you suddenly became reasonable and affable.
Geographic ranges of organisms are constantly in flux. If you new anything about population biology you would know this. Do you really believe that biospheres remain in static balance because their environments remain at a static temperature?
Biological populations change rapidly due to all sorts of pressures. If you think that there is some magic balance that humans are threatening you are in for a rude awakening.
Take a look at the fossil record from only 10,000 years ago. You'll find the ranges of organisms, as well as their representative populations to be quite significantly different than today's.
Here's a clue there weren't any SUVs during the Quartenary extinction event. Also, over just the last few thousand years the list of North American mammals that went bye-bye include all the camels, all the horses, all the ground sloths, two genera of musk-oxen, peccaries, certain antelopes, a giant bison with a horn spread of six feet, a giant beaverlike animal, a stag-moose, and several kinds of cats.
Do you think that the last 100 years has anywhere near that kind of death toll. The Laurentide ice sheet came and went with no help from us and the earth's flora and fauna rolled with the punches.
I don't think a less than one degree change over the life span of twenty generations of most mammals and birds has caused anything to rival the population pressures that have been in place for eons or even the real pressures those populations face from the usual suspects.
The sad fact is that Man's biggest negative impact is habitat destruction but you're so focused on the phantom menace that you don't have time to address a real and significant human interference with the world biospheres.
Let us look closely at Lance's claims ...
Hmmm ... what is Lance's argument against the notion that ecosystems respond to changes rather than just randomly meander about (at present, "randomly" being consistently northwards)...
Ahhh! 10,000 years ago the climate was exactly the same as it is today, yet ranges were different!
But, wait, that was the end of the last ice age ... that couldn't possibly have had an effect, could it?
Further proof that climate change is nothing to worry about!
So in one paragraph you document a huge extinction event, and in the next you say, oh, flora and fauna rolled with the punches.
Contradict, much?
And just how many billions of people were dependent on a semi-stable environment back then? How many billions were dependent on currently evolved agricultural techniques and products?
Actually, I spent about 20 years working on habitat destruction/conservation issues but like nearly everyone with hands on the ground, I came to realize that this wasn't sufficient.
The world's warming, ecosystem perturbation is really and significant. The Nature Conservancy, USFS, USF&W, BLM, NWF, etc, are focusing now on this issue, quietly, mostly in private, not particularly involved in world politics, because it's known that current warming - anthro or not - is fucking things up.
Go back to teaching arithmetic to freshmen, you don't know shit about population ecology, biology, conservation, or climate science.
And, this, of course, is just a twisty little false dichotomy.
Yes, humans are fucking up natural ecosystems in many ways.
We know this.
This doesn't mean that AGW can be ignored.
You're playing the Lomborg gambit ...
Meanwhile, conservation biologists the world over are busy revamping conservation strategies and plans because of the havoc being wreaked by climate change. They're not waiting for assholes like you to say "the science meets my high standards based on having an undergraduate degree in physics!" It's all based on observation and the fact that warming - human-caused or not - is tossing century-old conservation strategies into the toilet. Observation, facts on the ground, that's all that's driving it. The fact that science says "it is due to fossil fuel combustion" is mostly irrelevant.
Yep, I mostly teach mathematics to freshman, but not arithmetic; algebra, trig and calculus actually.
And yes I have a BS in physics from Purdue and I am working (perpetually it seems) on my PhD, while restoring a Victorian home, starting a new family and running a small business. From what I can tell from what you have said and what the internet provides, you photograph birds.
Can we now move on to facts that actually matter?
Here are some facts. Successfully disprove any of them and you'd probably earn more than one Noble prize in multiple disciplines.
1)The planet and its inhabitants, including humans, have survived serial ice ages during the last 100,000-200,000 years. There have been extinctions during those ice ages and the warm interglacial periods that have separated them, but hey that's what evolution is all about. (You're not hoping to stop evolution are you?)
2)Humans have survived all of those events even though they possessed neolithic technology for the vast majority of that time. We now populate all regions of the globe, from 45C desserts to -45C polar regions. (I think we could handle a few degrees C in the unlikely event that it might happened.)
3) The earth has warmed about 0.7C over the last 100 years and NO sane climate scientist claims that all of that warming is anthropogenic. So your claims of vast disruptions to the biosphere are greatly exaggerated unless the earth's biota demand completely static temps a claim that no lucid population biologist would ever put forward.
4)This warming , despite what you claim, has not been anomalous even over the last 1000 years.
You can rail and spew insults and invective but those are the facts.
Nothing in those facts calls for drastic changes to our energy economy, standard of living or system of governance not matter how shrill or plaintive the cries of climate alarmists such as yourself become.
Lance: it's not where we've been that's important; it's where we're headed.
James,
Over the last decade temps are heading down not up.
People are getting very tired of apocalyptic pronouncements from the likes of James Hansen.
He has quite clearly lost it.
In a shameless ploy to garner book sales he and Mooney gambled that storm activity would increase, it hasn't.
Sadly I think Hansen actually believe his own nonsense, luckily few other share his delusions.
Wrong.
And, of course, this decade was warmer than 1990-1999, which was warmer than 1980-1989 ...
Thus far, this winter's refreeze of arctic sea ice has been anemic.
dhogaza,
Funny how you always run for GISS. Also as you are no doubt aware the trend you show is not statistically significant even in Hansen's tainted data set.
The UAH satellite data show no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years.