The California citrus crop may be wiped out from the cold. I blame George Bush.

Actually, "global warming" does cause a number of climatic disruptions including droughts and unexpected cold snaps.

There is evidence that the Earth has experienced unusual climatic stability over the last few thousand years compared with the "normal" state of affais measured over geological time.

If that is true and if recent climatic changes are NOT caused by burning fossil fuels, then our species will actually face a much more daunting challenge than merely switching to compact flourescent bulbs and higher MPG cars.

= = =

Exxon is about to follow the lead of the big tobacco companies. Do you remember? For decades they insisted cigarettes did not cause cancer. "No evidence, there is no evidence at all linking cigarettes to cancer!"

Then, they pivoted on a dime. "Everyone knows cigarettes cause cancer. Like d'oh!"

Watch for a similar Exxon pivot on global warming.

Yeah, I remember when global warming became a major topic seeing articles that said we would have an adjustment of climate that could be best described as an increase in both the mean and variance of the temperature, with more severe storms as a byproduct.

Heck, I remember when the "coming ice age" and "nuclear winter" were all the rage.

*yawn*

BTW, I am all in favor of non-fossil fuel mobility -- for national security reasons. Battery tech is advancing pretty rapidly, and plug-in EV's and hybrids look to be quite feasible in 5-10 years.

MG

Or, to sum up: everything that ever happens that doesn't exactly conform to a perfectly "normal" state, as defined by a bunch of people with a financial interest in promoting the idea of global warming, is actually caused by global warming. You know, at least in the old days when bad stuff happened, you could say "God did it" or "Zeus did it" and at least get a little self-analysis out of it; here we just get a bunch of people out for your wallet and we don't even get a good parable out of the deal.

Aha! Hotter summer at my house = global warming; colder winter in California = global warming; my cat has a change of taste = global warming.

I believe Rand's point, which I agree with, is that to take a singular climatic event, such as a warm winter in New England, and claim it proves global warming, makes nor more sense as claiming that a cold winter in California disproves it. The only thing that makes real sense is to look at global data and global trends.

The earth has been much warmer in historical time periods. During the midevil climate optimum (about 1000 years ago) grape growing and winemaking was prevalent in the U.K. and Finland. Greenland was green and the Vikings established farms there (which are now under the ice). The earth was even warmer 3,500 years ago than it was 100- years ago.

Most of geological history, the earth was much warmer than now (about 10degC warmer) and there were no icecaps anywhere on the planet. The temperature of the Arctic Ocean water was 20degC. It is only in the past 3-5 million years (out of like 1 billion years) that the Earth has had glaciation with periodic ice ages.

We may have global warming or we may not. Either case, its not worth sacraficing any measure of economic growth and opportunity to combat what is not a real problem (I actually think that global warming, if it is real, is a good thing and actually should be encouraged).

There are certainly good reasons to go to nuclear power and get away from a hydrocarbon economy, but combating global warming is not one of them.

Air quality reasons alone are a good enough reason to dump coal plants, atleast those which don't use a combined cycle or gasification processes. I currently have no problem with the CO2, but we shouldn't allow plant operators to be filling the atmosphere with fly ash, NOx and SOx.

As above, for security reasons we should probably also cut back on oil to below domestic production levels.

Very good column on this matter by Cathy Young:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/15/common_sense_in_the_warming_debate/

While i agree with you Rand, you better be careful on this subject
you might draw the Ire of BOB MUNCK "super Genius"..
if you dare google him, you see hes every where on the blogs.

The earth has been much warmer in historical time periods. During the midevil climate optimum (about 1000 years ago) grape growing and winemaking was prevalent in the U.K. and Finland.

Winemaking is prevalent in the U.K. now.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/english-vineyards-again/

Maybe global warming is real. If so, its definitely a good thing, not bad. I think we should encourage the Chinese to build even more plants to put more CO2 into the atmosphere. A warmer, rich world is infinitely preferable to a cooler, poorer one.

Singnificant global warming will make large areas that are currently either too cold (Siberia) or too dry (Sahara) more pleasant and more desirable places to live. It will also reduce the amount of desert because global warming means more energy in the atmosphere and, hense, more rainfall in most places. It will also make existing agricultural land more productive. Hunting as a commercial activity may come back in certain places (Northern Canada, Australian outback). Environmentalists will go psychotic over the changes, but normal people will figure out ways to benefit economically from the changes.

I don't fear global warming, I welcome it.

I think that man-induced global warming is the only think that will keep us out of the next ice age. If anything, we should be trying to double or triple the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over the next 30 years. I think the idea of trying to "stop" global warming is counterproductive and a waste of economic growth.

I see that Branson has sent $3 billion to "fight" global warming. Why the hell doesn't invest some of that money into Robert Bussard's IEC fusion idea? I mean, these idiots are spending all kinds of money trying to stop global warming and none of them are investing a potentially workable fusion concept that would make the hydrocarbon economy obsolete.

Plant growth in greenhouses is optimized in an environment where the CO2 is 700-1000ppm. This suggests that the ideal level of CO2 in the atmosphere should also be 700-1000ppm. Given that it has gone from around 260ppm to 380ppm, we got quite a ways to go before atmospheric CO2 can even be considered a problem.

This global warming stuff is a non-issue.

Plant growth in greenhouses is optimized in an environment where the CO2 is 700-1000ppm. This suggests that the ideal level of CO2 in the atmosphere should also be 700-1000ppm.

The other variables (temperature, humidity, soil moisture, nutrients available to the roots) are independently controllable in a greenhouse. In the global environment, those will also change as CO2 increases, and possibly not in a way to helps plant growth overall.

One of the arguments for geoengineering with space-based scatterers is that it would enable selective tailoring of the spectrum of sunlight, for example by preferentially scattering UV light or near IR. This could reduce energy input but allow improved photosynthetic efficiency, particularly if plants don't have to deal with as much UV damage.