It's officially known as a report on the "Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a Global Climate Time Series." In lay-speak, it's a study of just how long the current pause in global warming has lasted. And the results are profound:

According to Canadian Ross McKitrick, a professor of environmental economics who wrote the paper for the Open Journal of Statistics, "I make the duration out to be 19 years at the surface and 16 to 26 years in the lower troposphere depending on the data set used."

In still plainer English, McKitrick has crunched the numbers from all the major weather organizations in the world and has found that there has been no overall warming at the Earth's surface since 1995 - that's 19 years in all.

During the past two decades, there have been hotter years and colder years, but on the whole the world's temperatures have not been rising. Despite a 13 per cent rise in carbon dioxide levels over the period, the average global temperature is the same today as it was almost 20 years ago.

In the lower atmosphere, there has been no warming for somewhere between 16 and 26 years, depending on which weather organization's records are used.

Not a single one of the world's major meteorological organizations - including the ones the United Nations relies on for its hysterical, the-skies-are-on-fire predictions of environmental apocalypse - shows atmospheric warming for at least the last 16 years. And some show no warming for the past quarter century.

This might be less significant if some of the major temperature records showed warming and some did not. But they all show no warming.

Even the records maintained by devoted eco-alarmists, such as the United Kingdom's Hadley Centre, show no appreciable warming since the mid-1990s.

Despite continued cymbal-crashing propaganda from environmentalists and politicians who insist humankind is approaching a critical climate-change tipping point, there is no real evidence this is true.

There are no more hurricanes than usual, no more typhoons or tornadoes, floods or droughts. What there is, is more media coverage more often.

Forty years ago when a tropical storm wiped out villages on a South Pacific Island there might have been pictures in the newspaper days or weeks later, then nothing more. Now there is live television coverage hours after the fact and for weeks afterwards.

That creates the impression storms are worse than they used to be, even though statistically they are not.

While the UN's official climate-scare mouthpiece, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has acknowledged the lack of warming over the past two decades, it has done so very quietly. What's more, it has not permitted the facts to get in the way of its continued insistence that the world is going to hell in a hand basket soon unless modern economies are crippled and more decision-making power is turned over to the UN and to national bureaucrats and environmental activists.

Later this month in New York, the UN will hold a climate summit including many of the world's leaders. So frantic are UN bureaucrats to keep the climate scare alive they have begun a worldwide search for what they themselves call a climate-change "Malala."

That's a reference to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban after demanding an education. Her wounding sparked a renewed, worldwide concern for women's rights.

The new climate spokeswoman must be a female under 30, come from a poor country and have been the victim of a natural disaster.

If the facts surrounding climate-disaster predictions weren't falling apart, the UN wouldn't such need a sympathetic new face of fear.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I do want people to get what they deserve...and in this instance I believe those that ignore and deny that AGW is real and in part their fault (and every thing I read and all actual scientists I talk to agree that nearly ALL scientists agree that AGW is real and happening now, contrary to your claim that only 4% agree) deserve to have their offspring eat them alive when the food runs out due to their denial based actions.
Really, you claim you personally spoke to "most climate scientists"?!? So now I know for certain that YOU are just a bold faced liar, because that's an impossibility. ;-)
But I already did my hair and put my party dress on, I'm crashing your party! I'll hide among the other scientists and you'll never notice me until the lampshade hat goes on and I climb onto the bar to dance badly to Bolero.
I am 100% certain that either you or Obama has made a mistake here...4% is an exaggeration of the number of scientists that DON'T theorize that AGW is real, not the other way around. Someone got the wires crossed.
It's a poor argument, when presented with facts that are contrary to your theory, to reply with 'who cares what you think'...but perhaps the best argument against my statements that you have?
I do walk to work, in my own yard. I have a vegi garden and an orchard. I do eat mostly just my own vegis, but not completely, there's also chicken and pork that I don't raise myself (but source locally). My beef intake is miniscule. I drive minimally, well under 5K per year (still adding to the problem, agreed, but far less than average), I don't have children (the best and most useful thing one can do for the massively overpopulated planet IMO) and try at every opportunity to convince others to not have them either, I do have solar panels AND hot water tubes, I do grow >90% of my (and my wife's) food. Most of those things I do because they save me money, because as I said, I have no personal incentive to "save the planet" for more than 40+- years, and I also don't think it's possible at this point. I can try to not add to the problem as much as possible, but at the same time I don't let my methods rule or ruin my life. It's my opinion that the time to minimize AGW was in the 80's, when it was completely ignored, and that now it's far too late to minimize things, the system reacts slowly and the last century of CO2 (and others) will continue to effect the system long after we stop adding more...and I think we're already to the point where that unavoidable rise in temp will melt methalhydrates, giving us boiling oceans on fire and at least another 5 deg of near instant temperature rise (likely far more). The tipping point was back when we could avoid that, and I have been convinced by data that that time came and went long ago and now we're hosed.
I will concede that the ONN is a GREAT place for 'news'.

The problem with the hypothesis that lifting people out of poverty lowers the population growth rate is twofold.

First, it is a long term (as in several generations) solution.

Second, as people become better off, they typically consume more resources.

The problem is not people it's resources. The tipping point is not x billion people. It's x billion people multiplied by the average resource consumption of a human. The planet is big, but it's finite.

depends on how you define "maximum nasty" @enoch

There was a time where I thought for sure we were heading towards another civil war. My assumption was that the gun nuts and other right wing lunatics would eventually take up arms against their country but ultimately lose.

But as I think about it more, for all their bluster and rhetoric. Chickenhawks are ultimately cowards and even gun-nuts really don't want to sacrifice their lives for their interpretation of the 2nd amendment. When it comes right down to it, most people don't want to fight and kill their fellow countrymen despite how much they want to try and demonize the "other"

The core issue as I see it that is preventing our political system from being more effective is private money in our politics and I don't think that's going to be fixed without a constitutional amendment prohibiting it. Thanks to the internet age, elections should be 100 percent publicly funded and lobbying and donations should be outlawed, because anyone can e-mail/blog and thus influence their elected officials without bribes or gifts or perks being involved. Money is not free speech

income inequality is going to get worse and worse until it reaches a tipping point that galvanizes the 99 percent but we're just not there yet. While I'm sure there will be some bloodshed during this process, I think on a national level it will be relatively bloodless and relatively peaceful.

as always, it's just going to be painful and it's going to take time. One of the problems with change is that you usually have to wait for people with bad ideas to die of old age before better ideas are implemented.

When the people feel that their elected officials stop following the laws then the people will stop obeying the laws.

We are nearing that tipping point.

I don't think you're grumpy, radx. Granted, my posts tend to have that same ominous tone, in general so I guess I'm a grump too. If you really think about the scale of inequality today, the absolute plundering the ultra-rich enjoyed during the recent recession and the efforts to keep money in politics to perpetuate this cycle with brilliant tools like Citizens United, it's hard not to be bleak.

Unfortunately, what we like to call democracy simply does not have the teeth to affect meaningful change. I am encouraged by the relative economic performance from the list of countries that have scrapped first past the post (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ) except for maybe Portugal, but even with more effective elections there is still an extra seat for the rich in every government.

Even more unfortunate will be the painful revolution the world will endure to either change from capitalism to some other form of economics (maybe resourced-based, a-la Peter Joseph.) If we don't simply slide obediently into greater and greater concentrations of wealth for the ultra-rich, we get closer and closer to revolution. But all it will take will be one upheaval to spur the revolution into action, be it:
- another, even more severe recession (maybe the EU will implode, taking the world economy down with it)
- severe global warming positive feedback loop from the arctic methane stores
- nuclear war

And who the hell knows what else might set people off. Maybe a solar flare will fry all the satellites in orbit and the lack of new tweets will create a world-wide frenzy of irate twats. And who knows when it will happen. Maybe 5 years, maybe 50 years. Since money pulls the strings, I think we're doomed to guess as to the source of VoodooV's "tipping point."

I'm no fan of Bush obviously, but the guy needs to tone down his hatred of Bush. It kinda undercuts his otherwise accurate message. He keeps talking about the contempt the rich has for the poor. Well...he's displaying that same contempt.

They keep referring to things like revolution and "coming storms" I don't think that's how change is going to occur. Back when people were ACTUAL slaves or maybe they were free but were starving to death. They pretty much had nothing to lose so I think it was actually easier for them to commit to change by violent means.

well...things are different now. We're not physical slaves, but you can argue that we're economic slaves. Even poor people usually aren't starving. food is cheap, at least shitty food is. It's a sort of gilded cage. So it's harder to get to that tipping point of committing to a "revolution"

I think he's wrong though, I think change will occur through democracy. It's just going to be extremely slow, extremely painful, and it's going to be a lot of setbacks along the way. I think there will be a lot of moments that will generate outrage. I just don't think there will ever be revolts as this guy describes unless the vote gets taken away and things get monumentally worse.

I just don't there will be any magic shortcuts to a fair and equitable society. Even if there was a revolt. what do the revolutionaries do to make things better? It's relatively easy to revolt, but if you win, then the real work begins. It's easy being an armchair general, but when you actually do have to make decisions that affect thousands, if not millions of people, It's not that easy.

I think the key thing is that there are just too many who don't actually agree with the founding fathers "that all men are created equal" If we actually believed in that idea. A lot of these injustices would not occur.

We're pretty much at that tipping point now. More and more people are jumping ship from the Republican party, maybe not in name, but in the ballot box.

All you have to do is to continue to extend the argument. We compromise with the right and go individual mandate, still not enough.

It passes into law, and gets challenged and sent to the Supreme court and gets upheld. STILL not enough.

They then continue their temper tantrum and shut down the gov't over it. public polls swing against them and they go into full damage control mode, blame Obama of course, even though it's purely a congressional issue. Then they pretend the shutdown is a good thing, then they pretend that the shutdown had nothing to do with Obamacare.

STILL not enough so now they whine about the website which yes, does have a grain of legitimate complaint to it. But still, even though they dropped the ball on the website, it's still a non-argument, it's noise. it's distraction. Its nothing that will sway people in the polls. but still they try to pin it on Obama...I'm sure the birthers will now conjure some sort of argument. Obama isn't a Kenyan, he's an IT guy from India sent to sabotage our health care websites.

They just keep grasping at straws and coming up with more and more absurd arguments that don't have any leg to stand on.

I think they're starting to realize that they're losing the culture war. So quite honestly, I think we might be entering a phase where the right starts resorting to a Scorched Earth mentality. If they can't run the gov't then no one can. We've already seen them shutdown the gov't over a constitutionally passed and upheld law. They're willing to oppose a president even when he compromises and embraces THEIR plans.

We're past the point of reasonable opposition here. I think we're going to see more sabotage attempts. We're approaching the point where they're going to have less and less to lose

Sure, there is no need to speak in terms of civil war. Unless you're one of these guntoting, armed to the teeth nutjobs who think it would be a good idea. You know, the kind of people who buy an *assault rifle* for self defense.
However, no matter how well trained your riot police is, their less than lethal tactics are only useful up to a certain amount of people, they can become rather useless if the crowds get too big to contain or simply too violent themselves. That's when it gets interesting, that is when protest can turn into riots.
When the cops face huge, somewhat peacful crowds, they might enter Tiananmen Square. At what point would american cops or military personnel start thinking that it's unwise or inhuman to start firing into the crowd? Before the first shot? After the second magazine? On day three?
It's not the 1960s anymore but the sixties are not forgotten. Not by those who faced police officers willing to fire into the crowd. You know, black people. The kind of people whose parents and grandparents are still alive to tell them about their fight against oppression. This is still alive in the american concious, it shaped your country and it won't go away soon. Just ask Barak about his birth certificate.
Civil unrest is part of your recent history, the seed is there. Even under a President Stalin all you'd need go from isolated, contained riots to complete and irreversible shitstorm is a Martyr, a Neda Agha Soltan or a Treyvon Martin. No matter what ethnicity (although african american would be nice), that would present a tipping point.
Your police can bring out the tanks on Times Square if they want but if half of NY shows up, these guys inside the tanks might want to get out ASAP.
The Erich Honecker regime of the German Democratic Republic was basically brought down by somewhat peaceful demonstrations of people shouting "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore" in east german accents.
The StaSi, the Ministry of State Security, who was efficient enough to make *every* citizen a potential informant in the eyes of their opposition, ran from the protesters like little girls. They used to imprison and torture people who spoke up.
The east german border used to be the most secure in the entire world. It was protected by minefields and guards who shot and killed anyone who tried to cross it. Before David Hasselhoff even had a chance to put on his illuminated leather jacket the government caved and just fucking opened it. People just strolled through Checkpoint Charlie and bought Bananas as if it was Christmas.
This was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. You know, the guys who lost over 20 Million people in WW2 and still kicked the Nazis in the nuts.
Nobody brought a gun. All the east germans had was shitty cars and lots of anger. They tore down not just a dictatorship, they tore down the iron curtain.
And they didn't even have a Nelson Mandela. Or Lech Walesa.
I still stand by my point: strength in numbers, not caliber.

Can this (crowdsourcing / crowdfunding) work? Clearly, yes. In situations similar to hers, it likely works better than signing with a label. However, I'd wager that the bigger you get, the more likely it is to have that turn on its head.

On the other hand, her method builds a solidly loyal core following, while handing the reins to a major label (and therefore the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) practices shitting on the heads of their core followers from on high. The longer the RIAA types spend on their strong-arm tactics, the more that tipping point between smaller artists -> crowdsource vs. bigger artists -> labels swings in her favor.

Maybe the whole thing will come crashing down and "patronage" (crowdsourcing) will become the way artists get funded, as it was during long periods of human history (including highlights like the Renaissance) .

I don't know if we'll ever get to an "I told you so" on the anthropogenic cause, but within 10 years or so I think even the hardest of hard core Fox News watchers will have to stop denying that climate change is happening. At that point they will still deny that giant multi-billion dollar corporations and massive farming of the rain forests have anything to do with it, they'll stick to their "it is a natural" cycle, feedback loops be damned, and continue saying "follow the money" when they point to who is saying it is man made, while ignoring their own advice and following the money to who is saying it isn't man made. Even if they do believe it man made, they'll say it won't matter as a large number of the deniers are evangelicals who say Jesus is coming again soon and he'll whisk them away before it gets too bad. I know because I've heard them say this very line, they use this line to say it doesn't matter who somebody votes for as well, though they still follow Fox and vote as the Republican right tells them to vote... Anyhow I think part of the problem is a lack of basic understanding of science, not understanding what a theory is and how it comes about, and the fact it got politicized (and unfortunately for those of us who accept the scientific facts, Gore may have done more harm than good by being a bit more alarmist in some areas and mis-representing some facts for the deniers to point to and say see the whole thing is false). I used to be a skeptic, but then I followed the research trail back on both sides, saw who was saying what exactly, and it became clear that we are screwed...

TLDR: They may come to accept climate change is happening, but still won't accept that humans have much if anything to do with it.

>> ^alcom:

Superstorm Sandy is another example of society's march past the greenhouse tipping-point like the lemmings that we are. I laid it our in arguments in this video, where I was vehemently opposed by doubt-fuelled, fear monger, climate change deniers:
http://videosift.com/video/Climate-Change-Latest-science-update
We're so close to that "I told you so" moment. By that time unfortunately, the methane feedback loop will probably be well under way.

Superstorm Sandy is another example of society's march past the greenhouse tipping-point like the lemmings that we are. I laid it our in arguments in this video, where I was vehemently opposed by doubt-fuelled, fear monger, climate change deniers:
http://videosift.com/video/Climate-Change-Latest-science-update

We're so close to that "I told you so" moment. By that time unfortunately, the methane feedback loop will probably be well under way.

>> ^Reefie:

I agree with the principle of his warning. To say that it has become a major concern in the last two weeks is grossly inaccurate, there have been numerous events in the last decade that have not been spotlighted by the media because they have loyalties to a political agenda, or to business customers.

Everyone has their tipping point. I guess he found his in the last 2 weeks.

Isn't it fascinating how every four years, we seem to always be at a tipping point between total destruction and prosperity?

There should be a study done or something...for some reason, every four years, our union is just a heartbeat away from being completely and totally annihilated by a mustache twirling villain who conspires to put you in chains and shoot your dog too.

Amazing that we've survived this long. Every four years, somehow we've managed to avoid the total collapse of the United States.

Someone should look into that.

Wow! All that, and a mind reader too? You're awesome!

It takes a particularly high level of arrogance to tell someone you've never met, and haven't spent any significant amount of time interacting with, what they're actually thinking and how it's different from what they say they're thinking.

But sure...you're right, and everyone who disagrees with you is on the dark side. Whatever...>> ^swedishfriend:

Thinking in such absolutes has never led to anything good. It is a matter of degrees. The serial killer kills because that extreme of a thing is what it takes to feel anything. Without emotions you become passive. I am right about what I wrote. With some introspection on your end you will realize it too. Denying the dark side of yourself will force it to be expressed, which the tone of your comment clearly shows.
>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^swedishfriend:
Yeah that is it exactly. He was telling himself and others that they really aren't bad guys because the workers want to be there. This shows that he does have empathy and does care. If he didn't care he wouldn't need to comfort himself like that. He is just really good at burying his empathetic feelings and making excuses to himself so that he will feel less bad about it. I am sure we can all relate to some degree. Everyone uses these tactics. We simply cannot help all the people in pain that we come across in our everyday lives. He has done it for so long, so much and regarding such serious situations that even desperately unfair conditions like these aren't enough to make him act properly. Not a good choice for a leader of anything.
>> ^enon:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't think there is any way to judge this comment unless we find out what Romney did with the factory after he bought it. I don't think he was bragging, and from what I've heard and read, his description of the fierce competition for jobs in China is accurate.

First off, you're previous comment, minus all the godly stuff, was quite beautiful and is how I strive to live my life - minus the godly stuff
In regards to Romney's comment -- from my vantage point it sounds more like he was expressing surprised relief that the slave labor factor he had just purchased was actually staffed by willing slave laborers rather than forced slave laborers and this somehow alleviates what ever remote feeling of guilt he might have had. It gave the appearance that either way he was going to work these poor women to the bone, it just made it easier on him now that he knew they were semi willing participants. Obviously this is all conjecture but I'm hard pressed to hear and sympathy or remorse in his voice, it was much more akin to "Did you know these mother fuckers actually WANT to work like this? So in reality we're doing good and turning a profit!" His voice has far more interest in that fact than disgust which is kinda the tipping point for me.
I try to remind myself that this can potentially happen to anyone. He was raised and has lived far away from what would be considered a working mans life and it is hard to feel empathy for someone if you are not able to relate to them or have never been taught it. I think it's pretty evident from his lifestyle that this holds true for him. He's not a bad person because he's evil, but because he's incredibly ignorant.


Seriously? You think his attempts to paint himself in a better light shows he has empathy?
No. It shows he realizes just how fucking sociopathic his behavior is, and he's trying to sell a "nicer, warmer" image of himself to his audience. He flat out does not care...he'd be just as willing to bleed those women dry, and profit from their blood. Because he's better than they are...they're just peons, and don't count for a thing, just like all of us. We're not him, so we don't count.