What!?!

Perhaps on a scale of 20 to 30 years,there seems to be unusual patterns, though when viewed on a longer timeframe these patterns are not so unusual.

With that said, we have opportunities to improve efficiencies and reduce our consumption, and in ways that can benefit our poorer and oppressed neighbors around the world. Imagine the health of our economy and growth if the desperate poor in Africa and Asia could benefit and enjoy some of the comfort and stability we take for granted in the West.

You are confusing a denial that climate change is real, rooted in the dubious American dominant theology – think Calvinism with a whiff of voluntarism – and the political difficulties in putting a price on carbon, which are huge. This is exactly why we need a GLOBAL agreement.

But I must take you to task for one statement – the temperature has been cooling for a decade. Honestly, where do you get this stuff. Consider the analysis in the attached and look at the deviation in global surface air temperature through 2009 from the 1951-1980 baseline – you will see global warming at an accelerating pace over the past decade. And you can trace this directly to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as countries like India and Chian develop at a rapid pace. This is simply using reason.

Your first point is indisputable. Your second point is wrong, as the primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, and we’re still unsure how much effect each of the gases has (separately and together). As for your third point, you can’t really say that the planet is warming at an accelerated rate, as it’s been cooling for about a decade. We can’t even say that the earth is on a trend line of warming at an unprecedented rate. And as the current models failed to predict the current cooling, there’s reason for healthy skepticism.

Of course, climate change models entail an element of uncertainty. Why in God’s name should this be an argument to bury one’s head in the sand?

Anthropogenic climate change is based on models. Those models haven’t proven themselves to be accurate. On a popular level, anecdotes about the weather are used as proof of climate change. The problem is, neither the models nor the anecdotes are falsifiable. A warm decade is depicted as proof of an unprecedented new trend; a cold decade is written off as sunspots. A summer storm is depicted as proof of climate change; a winter storm shows that weather is changing, and is also used as proof.

The ironic thing is that you seem to be implying that Gore would have won if election rules were different. That’s also unfalsifiable. Every campaign decision is based on the goal of 270 electoral votes. No campaign in history more conciously targeted the swing voters in the swing states than the 2000 presidential run. If you want to say that Gore won the popular vote, that’s fine. It sounds like sour grapes, but it’s fine. If you want to imply that he deserved to win, well, everything about the campaign would have been different if the goal was 50%+1 voters instead of 50%+1 electoral votes.

As for the resentment I mentioned, that’s bound to show up when people change the rules. I said that badmouthing the theory based on a few storms is just as irrational as believing in the theory based on a couple of heat waves. GW skeptics are simply enjoying pointing out the obvious double standard of those who accept the supporting evidence and ignore the opposing evidence.

Lovely name btw, the name of my late saintly grandmother. But I digress. I have no ax to grind one way or the other with climate change but I do think if we err, it should be on the side of caution. Guess that makes me a (gasp) “liberal” since conservatives–at least the loudest ones–seem anxious to dismiss it outright despite the inherently conservative principles you mentioned. Sure, some individuals stand to be enriched by the world going green just as others would continue to be enriched by leaving things as they are. One way or the other, somebody is going to be enriched. That’s life.