The word ‘dire’ is ambiguous unfortunately.

Instead of focusing on whether or not the situation will be dire, think about it this way. The hydrological system is being influenced by the current warming. That will change regional hydrological as well as thermal patterns which will affect crop productivity. Crop yield losses will result in not only inflation, but increasing food scarcity.

The question then becomes, how bad does it have to get before you consider it dire?

And, if I may be so bold, Ray and others are saying that a huge problem with the “climate skeptics” is that they have offered no coherent alternative explanation for the warming we are seeing. To me, this is reason enough to doubt not only their incessant nitpicking, but their sanguinity regarding future developments.

To see real intellectual honesty in operation, read the recent posts and commentary on methane. Quite the contrast to the merchants of doubt of whom Dan H. and others seem enamored.

That is where climate science ends. That we are in deep kimchee emerges from the fact that by 2050 we will have to support ~10 billion people–roughly 50% again as many people as we currently have–in an environment that is significantly degraded in terms of its capacity to meet those needs. That we will have to do so without cheap fossil fuels and petrochemical insecticides and fertilizers adds to the concern. This is simple extrapolation of climatic trends and examination of their implications for demographics. It is not climate science.

To look at these trends and conclude that “the market will provide” or “there’s nothing to worry about” is not science at all. It is self-delusion. I hope that clears things up.

The authenticity of all the HIgate documents remains in doubt, and thus challenged. As of just now, the HIgate ‘stolen’ documents are still unauthenticated by H.I. They admit documents such as these were e-mailed but they cannot say if they are now presented in an unaltered state. H.I. are still (presumably) trying to find personnel available with enough of those rare skills in literacy to check the ‘stolen’ documents match the ones they were daft enough to send off to an unknown e-mail address.

The alternative version is that the ‘stolen’ documents (and likely also the ‘fake’ document) contain many embarrassing truths which, if the waters are kept muddied, can remain apparently (and thus arguably) false.

I see you still have that tree problem in the way of the forest.

You think there is a raging debate because people like you don’t understand what is going on. The consensus is clear that increasing GHG concentration during the industrial age has increased the radiative forcing.

Just because you’ve got a big plastic tree that was placed in front of your face, or that you have parked your self behind so you can’t get a better view, does not change science… It only insures that you will remain naive and/or ignorant of the actual science and the relative confidence levels that have been and are being established quantitatively.

As they say, there are none so blind as those that choose not to see.

Deconvoluter #405, a better metaphor is the counterfeiter who told the good judge that, since the number of banknotes he had printed was completely insignificant against the millions of banknotes people around the country are spending every single day, he should be acquitted…