Like most of Sorkin's bloviating, this empty rhetoric is undermined by the incongruency of the climate change alarmists' own ballooning carbon footprints while attempting to use the government to impose force upon others' behavior. Until global warming alarmists themselves walk their talk (i.e., drive hybrids -- if they drive at all -- cease flying in airplanes, eat strictly vegetarian diets, have few if any children, and withdraw their consent from the worst polluter on the planet: the state), then no amount of freaking out, ranting, incentives, or attempts at policy will serve to avert the "impending catastrophe."

In China and India (where pollution is no doubt a significant problem), there are hundreds of millions of people who have far bigger concerns and more pressing problems than some remote notion of a "warming planet" or some looming "catastrophic collapse of civilization." (In fact, the same can be said for the majority of the population of the planet.)

And this is to say nothing of how ALL of the models used to support "evidence" for the case of a warming planet have ALL (not some, but ALL) been consistently undermined by serious skeptical science (PDF) while the claims of the political entity of the IPCC remain inconsistent with the data.

Since when do politicians get to decide the veracity of scientific fact?

EDIT: ALL of the climate-change alarmists' predictions, dating back to the 1980s, have all failed to come true. When this trend continues for the next few decades, there will be no shortage of "Told You So" moments that will undoubtedly be explained away by some unknown variable -- like the heat that is "hiding" in the ocean -- that, once "corrected for," will serve to further prop up this political ruse.

@Trancecoach
dude,its a TV show..relax.

i agree that a political argument dressed as scientific debate is a bait and switch that most people miss and buy into the bullshit.take the politics and monied interest out?

well,not much arguing going on.

now the discussions in regards to solutions are in the political realm and that my friend,scares the bejesus out of me.its like asking a crack whore to watch your kids.

how sad and shameful that the most progressive and creative solutions are coming from third world nations.these people crap outside for fucks sake!

but here in the states? too busy texting and facebooking and searching for that next new shiny,because our self worth is wrapped in what we own,what we do for a job,what we drive.we demand respect from everyone yet give none,convinced of our own superiority based on the most thinnest of veneers and baseless of subjective criteria.

we are the assholes of the world.

lets be real for a second.
this video is based on a show.entertainment.
and it plays it way over the top,but its entertaining.
its just a tv show.

i have seen some climate models that predict as early as 2050 shit is going to hit the fan,while others play it around 2100 (that was the IPCC one).all predicting some really nasty global stuff.

we aint gonna make it to 2100.
hell,i would be surprised if we made it to 2050.
because there is something far worse that will affect our societies than climate and thats peak oil.

how come nobody is talking about that?
far worse implications in regards to:food,clothes,jobs,economies did i mention FOOD?
oh,and war..lots and LOTS of war.killings,maimings and murders..oh my.
no arguing the science on that one,thats been in since the late 70's.

where is the debate on a subject that has real and immediate ramifications?

such a failed species.......

Did you fall down the stairs and hit your head? Are you OK?

I hope so. Though a concussion is really the only explanation for the nonsense you just wrote. Maybe you should get that checked.

The quote of mine you used was among my recommendations for global warming alarmists to walk their talk. However, I, myself, am not a global warming alarmist (though I somehow manage to maintain a much smaller carbon footprint than most -- possibly ALL --- of those that I know).

And, wouldn't ya know it, that heat that those alarmists claimed to be "hiding" in the oceans were wrong about that, just as they're wrong about most of the claims they base on political convenience, rather than climate science.

I'm sure that the capacity to think for oneself gives some people like you, who are unfamiliar with such a capacity, the impression of something akin to 'crazy-talk', but I assure you, the ability to think is not something to be "treated" or (medically) "checked," but is, by contrast, quite pleasant and enjoyable and I'd recommend it to you if I didn't think you were likely to hurt yourself if you tried it.

"All of these things are predicted by the IPCC—I mean, not the permanent darkness thing, I don't think that's meant to be scientific. But yes, as we reported in May this year, Europe faces freshwater shortages; Asia can expect more severe flooding from extreme storms; North America will see increased heat waves and wildfires, which can cause death and damage to ecosystems and property. Especially in poor countries, diminished crop yields will likely lead to increased malnutrition, which already affects nearly 900 million people worldwide.

So, in all, well done Newsroom. Informative, accurate, if a little heavy-handed on the doom and gloom." /Mother Jones fact check

*Quality piece, Newsroom.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by notarobot.

Yes, but you have repeatedly claimed your distain, disrespect, hatred, fear, and paranoia about the state. I just assumed you would walk the walk too. Could it be you're a closet statist, supporting the evil beast with your taxes and licenses even though you tell others not to?!

Sorry, I don't get my science from zealous political blog sites. I think that's your problem, you ONLY trust the political bloggers that tell you what you like, and no one else.

Expecting perfect prediction from an observational science of a chaotic system is hardly reasonable. Back in the 1890s it was predicted warming would follow the emissions. Limited in the kind of experiments they can do - climate scientists are bound to err.

It's not 'alarmists' saying the heat is being trapped in the deep oceans. At least not exclusively. It is an observed fact that there is more heat energy entering our system than is leaving it. This leaves some possibilities:

1) Our observations of heat flow are incorrect to a significant degree.
2) The laws of thermodynamics are nonsense
3) The heat is trapped somewhere on earth.

Without reason to suppose 1) and being able to reject 2) out of hand, we're left with 3). And from there, where is it? The classic answers would be

a) atmosphere
b) biosphere
c) cryosphere
d) hydrosphere
e) lithosphere

Some scientists proposed d) as an answer. This is at least partially true, the fist km or so of ocean is warming. It was hard to get measurements of the global deep ocean temperatures, it was hypothesized that some heat was down there.

Maybe they're wrong, and maybe the heat is somewhere else. This is the joy of science: the capacity to falsify ideas, even popular ones. But the heat is very likely here, and until we find it, it might be said to be 'hiding'. It may be that there is more heat going somewhere we thought we'd accounted for already such as 'the cryosphere'.

It's not happening at the litho-atmosphere boundary so much right now (the 'hiatus'), but that leaves plenty of stones to explore. It's still happening, and we're breaking post industrial temperature records almost annually (2014 looks like it'll be the new hottest year).

Your PDF source:
- I cannot find the list of 'climate models' constantly referred to, without a clear identification of what models he's referring to, any argument relating to those models is completely besides the point. How can i fact check that? This should be VERY clearly covered early on, it's the most basic of introduction to your work.
- Top of page 3, unscientific jab at a previous scientist's contribution. Can we stick to scientific arguments please?
- What, no uncertainties? Am i in pre-school? How do i know he hasn't taken the top uncertainty of every model and the bottom uncertainty of every real measurement? These graphs are absolute dog shit.
- Figure 3 - no decent scientist would put an arrow pointing to "subsequent reality" in contrast to the models. That arrow points to the lowest point of a highly variant series of data points, and statistically speaking is fucking worthless (technical term). Plot a trend of the data, this is basic stuff.
- Figure 4 - see previous point, by eye the trend of the data would sit nicely near the conservative estimate made in 1990. If i could see the uncertainties (see previous point) i would know how reasonable this lower estimate was. Without it, i only have the arrow pointing to the lowest point of a highly variant series of data points, which distractingly exaggerates the difference.
- Figure 5 - again referencing "all climate models" which are not specified. Even if i assume this person is telling the truth, how can i check it?

Now i'm going to single this one out, because i'm particularly annoyed by this:

- Figure 6 - DOES NOT EVEN HAVE A KEY TO SHOW WHAT THE COLOURS MEAN - there is no explanation whatsoever, merely a talk of hotspots and how there isn't one...... and furthermore the source of what he calls the 'real data' links to nothing, and unless i'm mistaken, he blames the scarcity of the source on the government.

Trance.......... you are not applying the correct critical review process. This is absolute hogwash, and is totally unprofessional, and i am not surprised it is not published - i checked for you, btw.

@Trancecoach, your hypocrisy is staggering. You accuse other people of "politically based science" or some other such nonsense and then you post a bunch of non-peer-reviewed bollocks from people owned by fucking oil companies.

It would be fucking hilarious if the consequences weren't so tragic.

Fear mongering from the left.

Wished this piece were true then the rise in the oceans will flood/kill the liberals along the costs.

I had a thought about global warming the other day. At what point does the survival of the human species become more important than the democratic process? When is it ok to just say ....fuck it ..your voice doesn`t count in that matter?

Perhaps someday countries will go to war over the amount of co2 each other blasts into the atmosphere..

Imagine emerging economies being told not to burn fossil fuels for the sake of everyone.. little unfair but still necessary..right?

The well-funded campaign to cast doubt on climate change science has very little imagination. They simply accuse scientists of what they do - distorting data for financial gain to please some powerful interests. The fossil fuel industry does this every day. The expanding global community of scientists, in many disciplines, with ~100,000 research projects, does not. The effects of climate change are already being felt. For example, tens of thousands are dying in Bangladesh from increased flooding and storms. The difference now is that leaders in Bangladesh, and people around the world, are blaming this on the history of greenhouse gas emissions - dominated by the US. (China is a new contributor, most of the historical emissions have come from the US.) Bangladesh is now expecting numbers of climate refugees in the 10s of millions in coming decades. Around the world, the refugee crisis could easily exceed that of the 50M during WWII. And they will know who to blame.

Trancecoach "In China and India (where pollution is no doubt a significant problem), there are hundreds of millions of people who have far bigger concerns and more pressing problems than some remote notion of a "warming planet" or some looming "catastrophic collapse of civilization." (In fact, the same can be said for the majority of the population of the planet.) "

Isn't that like saying the dinosaurs had bigger problems to deal with than an asteroid hurtling towards earth?

My hope is that this will take the form of progressive revolutions. When the food and energy start to become scarce people might start to recognise that the ONLY people who can get us out of this mess are engineers, inventors and scientists.

Maybe we will even be smart enough to put them in charge and ditch the whole idea of politics for the sake of politics all together.

A man can hope anyway. The alternative seems to be extreme left and right wing movements fighting over metaphorical ash and bones.

Co2, methane and other undesirables in the atmosphere could probably be shifted if there was a concerted global effort, doubly so if we factor in 50-100 years of technological advancement. I'm sure the task would be herculean but it would probably also be the greatest thing we ever achieved as a species! ("screw your ancient wonders, we built an air scrubber the size of Missouri!")

I'm there with you partially, but if we must wait 50-100 years for the tech to START solving this problem, humanity as we know it has no chance.
I say that because 1. We're still rising the rate at which we add CO2, not lowering it 2. Even if it dropped to 0 tomorrow, we still see 3-5 degree temperature rise in the 100 years before even the extra CO2 already in the atmosphere is absorbed (and that's if the natural processes that absorb CO2 don't completely fail before then, the ocean system is, forests are disappearing, I'm not sure what's left to do the job nature has done for all history) 3. Assuming we do see even just that minimal rise, and not a catastrophic cycle that releases methane causing it to be more like 10 degrees minimum, the disruption of commerce, production (food and other), the loss of natural food sources, useable water, etc. could easily make solving the problem exponentially more difficult to solve in the even near future, and impossible 50 years farther down this road, and 4.Unexpected side effects of solving this problem could easily make things worse...for instance, if we just shut down all coal plants and combustion engines tomorrow, we could easily see a rapid 3+ degree C rise in temperature globally because we would stop adding the particulates that cause 'global dimming' (which is assumed to be causing approximately 3 degrees of cooling today).

(wow, that might be the longest run on sentence I've ever written!)

Yes, but just like the dinosaurs, the bulk of the 2nd and 3rd world have no idea what is coming...

Hell, most of them don't even know what they are missing out on (see the vid on cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast tasting chocolate for the first time), but as they become aware, they want what we in the west take for granted.

And let's face it, most of the first world where we have the luxury of information at our fingertips and the resources to try an affect change isn't alarmed.

In some ways, I think the dinosaurs had it easy. They just kept on eating, pooping and making little dinosaurs right up to the point where they got fucked good and proper. Ignorance is bliss right?

"But when people are not only wrong, but so dismissive of those who know a thousand times more than they do, one realizes that such people are simply ineducable: they don't know how to assess evidence or argument; they don't know what real scholarship consists of; and they don't know who the real scholars are; yet they do not hesitate for even an instant before insulting and ridiculing scholars whose shoes they are unfit to tie, often people who have spent decades immersing themselves in the study of a particular subject." -- Trancecoach's inspiring profile quote.

@Trancecoach - keeping in mind that you hold scientific rigour in the highest regard, judging by your love for the text above - could you please tell me what you think of the paper after my criticism?

You can either claim that i do not have a scientific objection to the paper, or you can admit that the paper is unscientific, and therefore meaningless in the context of a scientific discussion about climate change.

Surely a man of science such as yourself (see above paragraph, very inspiring) wouldn't disagree with me - no uncertainties, highlighting of meaningless data points showing a total lack of statistical understanding, no key or legend for plots rendering them COMPLETELY useless, not listing sources therefore none of it is provable, having sarcastic digs at previous scientific work..... It isn't as though i've nit-picked problems with it, these are problems that render the work meaningless. The author is not making a scientific argument, and this is a scientific debate.

Right?

Would you say, perhaps, that you don't 'know how to assess evidence or argument?' That you 'don't know what real scholarship is, nor who the real scholars are?'

Please. Please read your own profile quote back to yourself and consider it and how it relates to your own approach. I would love you to come out of this with a net gain in understanding, i am not trying to ridicule anyone. Ensure that you are one of the educable.. I have also had to reconsider my own approach in the past, i would say it's a good thing.

Actually, the new theory is that the dinosaurs may have been 'wiped out' by an asteroid, but they were already far into an extinction event when it happened. This is proven well by the fact that there are not large deposits of bones in the K-P boundary layer. Climatologists and paleontologists are coming to understandings that the climate was changing on the dinosaurs, making most extinct long before the impact. It wasn't a dinotopia one day and wasteland the next.

Oh, and the rest of the first world IS on board with the theory, and most are more than alarmed. We are fairly alone in our stance that it's not our problem, odd since we (the US) created most of this problem. Our position makes us look like the least responsible country in history.

Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe, let's call the species off... ; )

Either which way, they had the defense of either not being part of the problem, or if they were, being incapable of knowing there was a problem.

We don't have that excuse.

*Doublepromote

Guess what, this just became true.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html

Holding global warming to a critical limit would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."

Based on the report, we are absolutely going to hit the critical limit now. No stopping it. The best we could do, literally the best, is to prevent from going too far above it.

So, we are definitively fucked. Now we just get to compete for how bad it is going to get by the end.

Double-Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, November 30th, 2014 6:05pm PST - doublepromote requested by Mordhaus.

Ha! Came to reply to you, only to find this was actually my long forgotten post! Thanks for the double promote.

In the competition, I say if we're going to fuck it up, go all in and shoot for Venus level warming.