Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
David Victor, in a presentation in January at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as part of a seminar series titled “Global Warming Denialism: What science has to say”, fairly recently highlighted here at Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog in the online International New York Times, made several very important points that I think that maybe we can, and should, all agree on, as a starting point to all of our subsequent discussions on “global warming/climate change”.
First, let it be said that David Victor, in his speech, self-describes himself as follows: ”I consider myself part of the mainstream scientific community on climate change, and I do all the things that the mainstream does. I teach about climate science and policy; I participate actively in the IPCC; I publish in all the normal journals.” He is a dyed-in-the-wool, self-proclaimed, practicing, Global Warming believer. He uses the term “believer” in his speech to describe adherents to the IPCC consensus. In any case, he cannot be mistaken for any kind of a climate change skeptic.
Each of the five following points of agreement is quoted directly from his speech, though not in sequential order, with some with emphasis added, each quote is followed by some comments by myself, in italics like this, to clearly differentiate them from Victor’s quoted words:
1. “First, I’d like to suggest that calling people who disagree “denialists” is clouding our judgment. If you really want to understand what motivates these people and what motivates the captains of industry and voters who listen to them, stop calling them denialists.”
The word “denialists” is offensive in its connotation, intended or not, of Holocaust denialism, and is, in any case, incorrect, no one (“nutters” excepted), denies “climate” or that climate changes. Later in his speech, he uses a better word which I will suggest here for all of us, if we must separate people with a binary system denoting disagreement with IPCC climate change science consensus: climate change consensus DISSENT and DISSENTERS.
I will add that though Victor seems comfortable referring to climate change consensus supporters as “Believers”, if I were a professional scientist, I would find this very distasteful. It sounds way to much like something skeptics often accuse them of. I would propose they settle for consensus SUPPORTERS, which doesn’t imply slavish following of every line of a doctrine-like set of beliefs.
2. “We in the scientific community need to acknowledge that the science is softer than we like to portray. The science is not “in” on climate change because we are dealing with a complex system whose full properties are, with current methods, unknowable.”
Dr. Judith Curry , who hosts the Climate Etc. blog, is the goto expert on the issue of climate change uncertainty, and has written extensively on the subject; and its known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
3. “The science is “in” on the first steps in the analysis—historical emissions, concentrations, and brute force radiative balance—but not for the steps that actually matter for policy. Those include impacts, ease of adaptation, mitigation of emissions and such—are surrounded by error and uncertainty.” … “We all agree, you say, on some basic facts—that CO2 concentrations are approaching a mean of 400ppm, a value far above the 280 or 290ppm of the pre-industrial value. We agree that the climate will warm in equilibrium when net radiative forcing is added to the atmosphere, that humans are all but certainly responsible for at least half of the observed warming since the preindustrial era, etc. etc. That zone of agreement is impressive, but we must face the reality that those aren’t the questions that really matter for policy.”
Nearly all believers and skeptics alike agree on these basic points of the science (I place emphasis on the percentage of human contribution, many serious scientists still hold this bit in question, but in the end most agree that the exact percentage probably doesn’t really matter that much for policy). Before quibbling about radiative balance, note he says brute force radiative balance – not the nitty gritty picky details…we agree that this is not yet settled and is still a moving target for many.
4. “but [the science is] not [“in”] for the steps that actually matter for policy. Those include impacts, ease of adaptation, mitigation of emissions and such—are surrounded by error and uncertainty. I can understand why a politician says the science is settled—as Barack Obama did last night in the State of the Union Address, where he said the “debate is over”—because if your mission is to create a political momentum then it helps to brand the other side as a “Flat Earth Society” (as he did last June). But in the scientific community we can’t pretend that things are more certain than they are.“
This simply has to be acknowledged on both sides of the climate divide – and not over-emphasized by skeptics. Some things are fairly well understood and some are still basically mysteries – surrounded by error and uncertainty — and some are in-between and require more study – clouds, ocean currents and overturn, effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation – there is quite a known list – and then there are the as-yet unknowns.
5. “…in the scientific world, there are no bright lines and the whole idea of “consensus” is deeply troubling. There is a consensus that 2+2=4. After that, we are in shades of grey. “ …“The instinctual unease with consensus helps to explain why some of the world’s greatest scientists have been climate skeptics and why the public has such a hard time understanding why these people are so disagreeable. They are disagreeable because the selection mechanisms in science demand it. If you want to find people who agree then hire an accountant. Nobody has caused bigger trouble than Freeman Dyson whose skeptical views on climate first came into focus through a 2009 New York Times Magazine profile. How do you dismiss perhaps the most accomplished physicist of his generation as an uninformed imposter? You can’t.”
This applies to many other world class Climate Scientists, Physicists, Meteorologists, and other professionals (and serious citizen scientists as well) who are regularly trashed, thrashed, dismissed as frauds, Big Oil shills, and uniformed imposters by those who should know better on the Support’s side of the Climate Divide and in a far too-cooperative mainstream media. Likewise, some skeptics label some serious climate scientists as crooks, criminals, and frauds because they produce mainstream climate science which they find disagreeable.
Let’s agree to agree with David Victor: How do you dismiss these people? “You can’t.”
(Has there been misbehavior and are there some bad apples? Yes, maybe so—but if so, then let’s honesty admit, in both apple barrels. )
If you go on to read David Victor’s full January speech, understand that he does not follow his own admonition not to call dissenters “denialists.” It gets grating very quickly. He uses other disagreeable words as well. There are interesting things in Victor’s speech about where climate fight money comes from and whom it goes, admissions you won’t see elsewhere. I’m sure you will find things to agree with and many other things that David Victor says to disagree with as strongly as I do. Truthfully, it doesn’t seem to me that he agrees with himself much of the time: he’d do better if he stuck to the basic points above and worked from these. But, as I have said so many times it annoys even me, “Opinions Vary.”
I do agree with David Victor on these five simple points. Maybe we can at least all try to agree on #1, and let’s refer, if and when we must, to those who don’t agree with the IPCC Consensus as “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” Consensus DISSENTERS and to the subject as Climate Change Consensus DISSENT, and encourage others to do so. I think it’s a pretty good alternative though I’d be glad to hear your suggestions. I’m sure none of us like being called deniers or denialists.
Thank you.
# # # #
Authors Replies Policy: I will be glad to discuss why I agree with these five points made by David Victor.
I cannot, of course, speak for David Victor as to why he made these statements in the first instance. If you wish to understand his position better, read his original speech and place it, and David Victor, in their original contexts (see the first few paragraph of this essay). I have not listened to his latest , May 15th, presentation.
This is not a technical thread and I am not prepared (or able) to discuss, defend, or even generally talk about technical points such as brute force radiative balance or percentage of human contribution to CO2 concentrations or observed warming.
The word “denialists” is offensive in its connotation, intended or not, of Holocaust denialism,
There is no ‘or not ‘ from day one the intent was to liink AGW sceptics to Holocaust deniers has part of the pathological need some feel to label those do agree with them as not merely wrong , but bad or mad. It is a type of approach is common enough in religion or politics ,however is has no role in science. That some of the people working in the area have an addiction to it , shows how little science they are doing.
Michael Larkin says: “Aha! The bargaining phase. To heck with that. Roll on with the depression and acceptance.”
Whew. I am encouraged to see this therapeutic progress.
Solyndra says it all, just like the Harry Reid scam.
Solyndra had about 1 billion of funding. The Govt gave another 500 million (which sloshed around some bank accounts and has now certainly ended up in various campaign war chests, along with all of the other unaccounted 100s of millions thrown around by the current administration).
The story is that there are promising industries and companies out there, if only they can get a helpful push off the starting line by some investment money.
So, the govt took my money and gave Solyndra the push.
Think abt this: if there were investors willing to commit a billion, Solyndra must have been a worthwhile business. If not, then it is a gamble – so the only reason to put in money is in hopes of a long-shot pay-off.
If Solyndra were other than a gamble, the final third of financing should have been out there.
If not, then it was a gamble all along, not a push-start, and the govt should not have been involved.
If it was a fairly sure thing or a gamble, the private money should have been out there.
If so, the govt took away some person’s or group’s open-market opportunity to participate in commerce. They lost out on the 500 million sure thing or gamble.
Either way, they were deprived of their right to pursue happiness. The govt took it by fiat.
If the govt really wanted to give Solyndra a push-start, they could have done this:
one: help set up a bunch of meetings to play match-maker with investors and Solyndra. Maybe back some investments to some certain extent, or offer some tax break on eventual losses.
two: help Solyndra by committing to have Solyndra panels on the next 20 federal buildings where this would be feasible.
The investors would see that obvious early-business cash-flow, and make the move to invest.
If the business is viable, the govt contract would be the push-start. If not viable, at least some solar panels would get made and put into action, though at some relative loss versus China panels.
Finally: China is solving the solar-panel problem for the U. S. Better us buy Chinese working, value-laden panels as well as the Walmart knick-knacks we buy from China.
Building a native solar-panel company that cannot compete might be a bit too protectionist for our own good.
There you have it. It is all political. Obvious alternatives to financing a company are obvious. The cvompany was so lousy, it folded soon after serving its money-laundering purpose.
“Claiming the middle ground” is a common tactic.
“Hey, now that we’ve taken all that time, money, and energy from you, let’s call it even!”
How about no? Not even, never was. Glad to see much later that Victor admits at least the gross money imbalance, too bad the rest of “the team” keeps asserting the reverse is true.
I can’t agree with the claim on the middle ground. I won’t. There’s no ethical way to surrender that. In an angry confrontation between a homeowner and a burglar, the burglar doesn’t have the standing to say, “hey, we both made mistakes, let’s call it even!”
The mediator’s habit is to try to find middle ground, but the middle ground isn’t in the middle of this one, it’s waaaay off to one side in terms of money, coverage, and political power, and in addition, as Eschenbach pointed out in some detail above (albeit in the form of a summary of a tiny portion of events), the “two sides” are simply not comparable on ethical grounds.
And it’s unlikely the powerful side is going to admit that.
Finally, I’m willing to let them live the way they want to and believe what they want. They do not hold to that position with regards to me.
It’s not going to be settled by mediation. It probably won’t be settled at all, eventually the subject will change, but the unstated goal will, as always, be Power and Control.
Author’s replies ==>
==> Pamela Gray – You too see the rub with a one word label — as I always have. I appreciate on-topic your input today.
==> BioBob – See my many replies on “the title was added by WUWT editors” not chosen by me, I only ask that you consider agreeing with the five points I quote from David Victor. In regards to “massive problem of warmist’s dismissive treatment of uncertainty, error”, that is David Victor’s admissions/points #s 2 and 4 ==
in which he says “The science is not “in” on climate change because we are dealing with a complex system whose full properties are, with current methods, unknowable” and then “but [the science is] not [“in”] for the steps that actually matter for policy. Those include impacts, ease of adaptation, mitigation of emissions and such — are surrounded by error and uncertainty.” These two admissions by an IPCC Lead Author (January 2014) are the central point of this essay.
==> Jonathan Abbott – It is unfortunate that much of the science is being done by persons who are also way too politically [scientific politics] involved, in my opinion. I am no expert, but this is how it appears to me, but I have only followed the field since 1980–30 years may not be enough time to discern the political trend ;-). You can see from some of the above comments that this is true in both apple barrels, on both sides of the climate divide. I assume by gravy train you mean funding….and if that is the case, nothing is likely to change too quickly….only internal pressure, inside the climate science field itself, will bring things right quickly. Judith Curry has the right idea, and those who speak out bravely now…their influence is felt amongst the honest at heart, I believe. [end of sermon].
==> Pamela Gray – …your on-topic input…
No!
Here’s what I’d agree to.
Tell the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Show your work.
Keep you research journal online for all to see.
Explain why you chose location ABC instead of DEF.
Explain what you expect to find from this research.
Everything should be online for free.
If it’s tax money or tax free money we should see what we paid for.
Oh yeah, plus you can knock off the name calling.
cn
Semantics – doesn’t fundamentally change the respective positions whatever they happen to be.
Kip Hansen says,
==> Alan Robertson If you were to listen to Victor’s complete speech [I have just discovered that Andy Revkin’s online transcript of Victor’s presentation is no longer available online] you would find that he admits openly that the PR money flow in the Climate Wars is vastly uneven – with the lion’s share going to the pro-GW side and almost nothing to the skeptic side.
****
I appreciate David Victor’s willingness to make this admission on the public record.
But he will actually have an impact when he and others in the climatological world call out everyone around them, including all of the biggest names, whenever they pretend that the funding is the other way around.
Every time Michael Mann does it, every time any of the others do it.
Can he reverse the trend that got Naomi Oreskes a job at Harvard?
More to the point, will he try to?
Kip Hansen “Let me remind you that the title was chosen by the blog editors, not myself, the essay author.”
I will not say that David Victors essay is not without merit but just as every other guy on the AGW bandwagon, sitting on his high horses he has lost contact with reality and I totally resent the tone of it. He essentially treats everybody outside of the IPCC party line as part of a herd that needs to be classified in order to be brought into the church of AGW in the most efficient manner.
Though, why should we be surprised. He is a political scientist. Unless he buys into the AGW dogma, nobody would listen to him just as nobody would listen to the like of Oreskes. It is a prerequisite to be invited.
@ur momisugly jfreed27 says:
May 18, 2014 at 10:57 am
Hey, twit: Skeptics are not complicit in your delusions.
There are none, zip, zero climate caused deaths occurring due to CO2.
Anyone who actually believes that makes a sack of rocks look brighter by comparison.
If you want to understand why you think there is a climate catastrophe occurring, go see a psychiatrist.
Your beliefs have nothing to do with reality.
Why not “climate agenda conformists” since their views perpetually adapt to the establishment narrative of the hour?
As to the rest, how about “climate naturists”? Oops, I guess that’s already taken.
Kip Hansen said:
==> Alan Robertson If you were to listen to Victor’s complete speech [I have just discovered that Andy Revkin’s online transcript of Victor’s presentation is no longer available online] you would find that he admits openly that the PR money flow in the Climate Wars is vastly uneven – with the lion’s share going to the pro-GW side and almost nothing to the skeptic side.
I tried to respond, but when I hit “Post Comment” it went straight to the great bit bucket…
So here’s another try.
I appreciate David Victor’s willingness to admit in a public forum where the money’s been flowing.
But to have any impact Victor (and others in the climatological community) will have to call out those who keep pretending it’s the other way around—every time they pretend it.
Will Victor et al. have anything like the guts needed to call out Michael Mann and all of the other big names? And to take the reprisals that will inevitably be coming their way?
Sorry about sending a near-duplicate post.
It looks like there is a delay of at least half an hour.
And by the way, that hobbyist shill promoting global warming hysteria for fame and fortune, Andy Revkin, is really on a roll: Wallowing in his ‘den^er’ dehumanization of skeptics, acting as smarmy in his own way as Lewandowsky, and arrogant as only the truly ignorant can be.
Peace?
With slimeballs like Andy Revkin infesting the public square? He is to climate reporting what Walter Duranty was to reporting on Stalin.
Author’s replies ==>
==> JunkPsychology – David Victor seems to be taking his presentation “on the road” — repeating basically the same talk in different venues. Maybe the word will get out sufficiently to gain traction with the MSM.
Author’s Wrap Up ==>
Thanks to all those who read my essay and commented on its contents. I was surprised to get only one strong contender for alternatives to den1er/dissenter: critic. I like it myself. Although I asked if we couldn’t get some adjectives or modifiers for “critic”, none came forth. Maybe critic’s supporters will feed in some more suggestions following on.
I have worries that some of the commenters here may have commented only based on the title, which was unfortunate and, as I have stated several times above, was assigned by WUWT editors. My original title was simply “Why don’t we all just agree?”
I was mildly amused that fewer readers did not comment on the oddity of an IPCC Lead Author making these admissions publicly. Not only are they rather astonishing admissions but they are things that I thought most of us could agree with pretty readily.
Lastly, I’d like to thank J. Romm and his friends for stoppin’ by,
Kip
PS: “Wrap up” means that this will be my last comment on this essay.
Kip Hansen says: May 18, 2014 at 3:55 pm “I only ask that you consider agreeing with the five points”
Why should I change my normal standards for science ? NO
– THEY should start being scientists instead on con-artists, shills, corrupt, rent-seekers.
– THEY should start gathering data that conforms to the minimal sampling required needed to understand the source and magnitude of errors and variance like those employed by all other rigorous scientists.
-THEY should employ anecdotal quality ONLY to derive anecdotal estimates which are employed to investigate the quantitative nature of the issues which arise.
Otherwise, just go away. This well has already been thoroughly poisoned.
A full transcript of David Victor’s full January 2014 presentation can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/Revkin/victor-on-climate-denialism-29-jan-2014
— Kip Hansen
6. And then there’s the possibility that this is all a silly-buggers game:
“In summary, the lesson from the past suggests that the insolation minimum at 397 ka BP terminated interglacial conditions (as indicated by pollen data) at least in Central and SE Europe. Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene.
“The possible explanation as to why we are still in an interglacial relates to the early anthropogenic hypothesis of Ruddiman (2003, 2005). According to that hypothesis, the anomalous increase of CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the atmosphere as observed in mid- to late Holocene ice-cores results from anthropogenic deforestation and rice irrigation, which started in the early Neolithic at 8000 and 5000 yr BP, respectively. Ruddiman proposes that these
early human greenhouse gas emissions prevented the inception of an overdue glacial that otherwise would have already started.”
http://folk.uib.no/abo007/share/papers/eemian_and_lgi/mueller_pross07.qsr.pdf
If CO2 has anything substantial to do with climate, in particular warming, why would anyone want to remove such a climate security blanket that may have delayed onset of the next glacial inception for thousands of years already? Would you prefer to tip us into the next glacial?
Really?
7. And then there’s another possibility that this is all a silly-buggers game:
“The geology of the last interglacial in the Bahamas records evidence of short-term sea-level events that invite an interpretation of climatic change considered catastrophic in geologic terms. The lesson from the last interglacial “greenhouse” in the Bahamas is that the closing of that interval brought sea-level changes that were rapid and extreme. This has prompted the remark that between the greenhouse and the icehouse lies a climatic “madhouse”!””
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/249518169_Rapid_sea-level_changes_at_the_close_of_the_last_interglacial_(substage_5e)_recorded_in_Bahamian_island_geology/file/9c96051c6e66749912.pdf
Honestly folks, how are you even going to detect the AGW “signal” amidst the climatic “madhouse” that tends to attend the ends of the most recent interglacials?
Isn’t it interesting how easy it is to turn an argument on its head? CO2 is a heathen devil gas. It has prevented glacial inception for thousands of years now. If both of these ‘truths’ are true, what do we do?
a) remove it so that nature can resume her course into the next ice age? Or,
b) Take action now! Discussing the Late Eemian Aridity Pulse (LEAP) at the end-Eemian:
“Investigating the processes that led to the end of the last interglacial period is relevant for understanding how our ongoing interglacial will end, which has been a matter of much debate…..
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades, demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416 Wm2, which is the 65oN July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428 Wm2. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”
There’s got to be something………..anything!!!!!, that H. sapiens could deploy to at least span the next 4,000 years?
You know, like maybe GHGs et al etc………….???
The thing is if you like your climate you probably can’t keep it. Period. The only, repeat only way we may be able to cheat glacial inception (like we have apparently already been doing) is to strengthen, not diminish, the supposed anthropogenic climate security blanket!
Especially for the next 4,000 years or so……..
Isn’t it ironic that if the AGW hypothesis is correct, and if Ruddiman’s Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis is correct, stuffing the late Holocene atmosphere with GHGs might actually be the right thing to do?
And by “extreme weather/climate” does anyone mean something substantially different from “climatic ‘madhouse'”?
Kukla (2000) provides this:
“There were four interglacials in the last half million years and ours is the fifth one. Past interglacials invariably ended with the increase of solar energy income to low latitudes in boreal spring, compensated by decrease to high latitudes in autumn. The change was caused by orbital shift. A qualitatively similar shift is taking place now (Kukla et al., 1992). The question is whether the current interglacial will :
“I) -last into foreseeable future, maintained by increasing levels
of greenhouse gases,
“2) -end suddenly with a catastrophic breakdown of thermohaline
circulation, or
“3) -gradually turn into a colder world following the orbitally
driven blueprint of past interglacials, only in part modified
by the artificial increase of greenhouse effect.
http://geolines.gli.cas.cz/fileadmin/volumes/volume11/G11-009.pdf
And that’s how science works.
Nick Stokes says:
May 18, 2014 at 6:14 am
“We’re not dependent on the “experiment” of burning 350 Gt C to know the effects of CO2. That comes back to radiative physics that has been known for over a century.”
From the Wikipedia entry for Photon
“Nomenclature[edit]
Standard model of particle physics
CERN LHC Tunnel1.jpg
Large Hadron Collider tunnel at CERN
Background[show]
Constituents[show]
Limitations[show]
Scientists[show]
v t e
In 1900, Max Planck was working on black-body radiation and suggested that the energy in electromagnetic waves could only be released in “packets” of energy. In his 1901 article [4] in Annalen der Physik he called these packets “energy elements”. The word quanta (singular quantum) was used even before 1900 to mean particles or amounts of different quantities, including electricity. Later, in 1905, Albert Einstein went further by suggesting that electromagnetic waves could only exist in these discrete wave-packets.[5] He called such a wave-packet the light quantum (German: das Lichtquant).[Note 1] The name photon derives from the Greek word for light, φῶς (transliterated phôs). Arthur Compton used photon in 1928, referring to Gilbert N. Lewis.[6] The same name was used earlier, by the American physicist and psychologist Leonard T. Troland, who coined the word in 1916, in 1921 by the Irish physicist John Joly and in 1926 by the French physiologist René Wurmser (1890-1993) and by the French physicist Frithiof Wolfers (ca. 1890-1971).[7] Although the name was suggested initially as a unit related to the illumination of the eye and the resulting sensation of light and lateron in a physiological context, although Wolfers’s and Lewis’s theories were never accepted as they were contradicted by many experiments, the new name was adopted quite immediately by most physicists after Compton used it.[7][Note 2]”
“In 1896 Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C.[10] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C).”
Given that Old Svante was doing his work about a quarter century before a fundamental element of radiative physics was either described or named, and in his second bite at the GW apple came fairly close to what many skeptical observers posit for a CO2 sensitivity factor, he should probably be commended, but it is a bit of stretch to suggest that we “know” anything about the energy balance of the Earth based on his work.
Kip,
Thank you for an interesting post. That yet another IPCC lead author is off the consensus reservation is very interesting and I for one apologize for allowing the low hanging fruit like Revkin and Stokes to distract from that.
I think over time we will see a lot more of lead author level scholars leaving the consensus complex.
Until I see something that overturns the correlation between solar activity and earthly temps, on the macro scale including the geological record and the four prior historically documented warm periods, or on the micro scale overturns the simple combination of physical pacts that is the relative temps in the 1930s versus the latest, much lower peak temps of 1996 and the subsequent cooling even as CO2 increased by 40 percent over this same 80-year period – I will give no credence whatsoever to the notion that man’s activities or CO2 have any significant effect on climate
The entire global warming meme is so contaminated with unscientific process that it can never hope to be accepted by anyone who is not ignorant of the facts or possessed of an antilibertarian political agenda. The reliance on empty assertions, in the form of computer models, and unproven a priori assumptions, including the claim that CO2 is the master determinant of climate, can never produce an accurate or truthful conclusion. The entire process and output of so-called global warming “research” is pure witchcraft, nothing more, and only thinly disguised in technical jargon. It is as though astrology, phrenology and Lysenkoism were all rolled into one,
For me, I am as certain that man’s effect on climate is nugatory, as I am that the Earth is not flat
Kip, yes I agree that it is very welcome that an IPCC lead author and CAGW warrior admits some of the weaknesses in their formally “settled science,” the well regarded critics such as Dyson, the great disparity in funding, and the incivility of using the term denier or denialist. Take it on the road. YES! Thank you also Kip for your many, many wise posts to the Dot Earth Blog.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MPMmC0UAnj0