Which companies will be around in 10 years? Companies that are in the business of acquiring, managing, and selling your data to others as well as selling other's data to you. The hardware and software do not matter. Those will always be there, of course, but the players will change as they have in the past. No one remembers Data General (a hardware manufacturer despite their name) or Amdahl or Compaq. For Microsoft, the success of their cloud services is the key to their survival. IBM, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Ebay...Yes. HP, Dell, Oracle, Sun...no.

Laura Poitras has made some 'feel bad' documentary films that have won awards but obviously not much revenue. Yet she spends her life traveling the world and pursuing do-good noble causes in support of people supposedly suffering under the yoke of US oppression. Who is funding her travels, hotel bills, restaurant tabs, etc.? Most of the attention that she gets from the US Government is likely related to the source of her funds. If there is one thing that the 'War on Terror' has shown us, it is that the money trail is more important than just about anything else. No matter if it is Al Qaida, ISIS, IRA, Fatah, Hamas, or whoever...following the money always leads to the main stem.

The Nigerians were SERIOUS about containing the disease. The US Center for Disease Control has not been as serious. They have delayed the response to the possibility of incoming infected air passengers, they have failed to quickly move in with oversight, training, and other response when infections have occurred in the US, and they have provided poor guidance and leadership to people seeking it such as the Ebola-infected nurse flying from Cleveland to Dallas on a commercial flight with CDC approval or the clipboard man 'supervising' the transfer of the Ebola-infected nurse to Emory University. Now we have hundreds of people potentially exposed, two known new infections, and dozens of people in quarantine. All of that would not have happened if the CDC was SERIOUS about containing this virulent disease. They need to approach their job as if a twitchy mental case were walking behind them with a cocked and loaded pistol pointed at the back of their head. That kind of serious. That's what it will take and we will get there eventually, although it might take a few dozen more new US infections.

The human race dumps in excess of 40 BILLION tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, every year.

The atmospheric co2 concentration increases by about 2 ppm per year. That equates to about 1.03x10^13 kg/yr or 10.3 billion metric tons added to the atmosphere per year (which has a mass of about 5150000 billion tons). However, the global production of co2 from fossil fuel combustion (coal, oil, and gas) is about 48.9 billion mt per year. Therefore, approximately 79 percent of all of co2 produced from fossil fuel combustion is sequestered as well as 100 percent of the co2 produced from respiration, forest fires, organic matter decay, natural gas seeps, etc. To put this in perspective, if all of the known reserves of global fossil fuels were combusted at present rates, they would last about 75 years during which time the atmospheric co2 concentration would rise from the present 400 ppm to about 550 ppm before plummeting as the supply of new co2 fizzled out. More likely, though, is that fossil fuel prices will rise as they become more scarce leading to reduced combustion rates that will extend their life out to several centuries. In that case, the atmospheric co2 concentration would rise from 400 ppm to some number quite a bit lower than 550 ppm. Will planetary temperatures skyrocket when the co2 concentration is 550 ppm? No more than they have at present. As TFA points out, the heat that is allegedly being trapped by the atmospheric co2 gas...cannot be found. If the additional heat is being trapped as the crude computer models have predicted, it has to be somewhere. Global surface temperatures, polar ice caps, ocean surface temperatures, and, now, deep ocean temperatures do not show the present of sufficient heat. Where is it going? Or...as the deniers have been saying, the computer models might be...wrong...and co2 does not block the heat in the way that they claim due to kinetic gas mixing and radiation of heat from other much more abundant atmospheric gas molecules of o2 and n2.

It would actually take about 75 years to combust all known reserves of fossil fuels at current combustion rates. In that scenario, prices would remain constant until that last chunk of coal was burned. However, the more likely scenario would be that fossil fuel prices would increase as they become more scarce and difficult to extract and the increased prices would lead to lower rates of use which would extend the life of fossil fuel reserves out to perhaps 2 or 3 centuries. In that scenario, the atmospheric co2 concentration would never reach 550 ppm (which requires 75 years of combustion at current rates) but would instead remain below 500 ppm and then decline as combustion rates dropped below the rate necessary to maintain the current atmospheric concentration. Approximately 80 percent of the carbon dioxide released from current combustion ends up as calcium carbonate in ocean sediments rather than co2 in the air.

It's not on display in their current business. Windows 8.1, Office, xbox, windows phone, where? Also, let's not forget that they are busy laying off many/most of the former Nokia engineers in Finland that actually had to design, build, and compete in a competitive world market and replacing them with...who?

I sense a teachable moment. Carbon dioxide molecules certainly absorb infrared radiation leaving our beautiful planet. They have been doing that for most of the 4 billion years that the Earth has existed and had an atmosphere of gases. Fortunately for the planet, though, those same co2 molecules do not 'hold on to' (or store) the IR but, instead, 'release' it via collisions with other, far more abundant molecules in the atmosphere (O2, N2, H2O) or re-radiate it. Someone has noticed that the carbon dioxide concentration has increased in the atmosphere by 84 ppm since 1958 to its present concentration of approximately 400 ppm and they are concerned that that increase will result in a net decrease in heat being radiated into space thereby leaving our planet warmer. They believe that the carbon dioxide concentration should be held to a constant value by limiting the combustion of fossil fuels. To support this belief, they have modeled the planetary climate with computer software and have determined that a continuing increase in carbon dioxide concentration will lead to a much warmer climate which will, in turn, lead to melting of the polar ice caps in antarctica and greenland resulting in a dramatically higher sea level that will inundate a large portion of the human population. However, the maximum atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration possible if we combust all of the known reserves of fossil fuels at our present rate of combustion is about 550 ppm and it appears likely that a re-tuning of the computer model will show that a concentration of 550 ppm will not result in a any of the catastrophes that the earlier computer runs predicted, as TFA is alluding to. The climate changes, is changing, and will change...yes. But...due to carbon dioxide concentration...no. Capiche?

Denier: anyone who does not agree that the earth's climate is being significantly warmed by the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

...and embrace a Culture of Life. This 'bioethicist' is asking you to buy into his values: that the 'feeble' are less valuable than the 'non-feeble', that life is not worth living unless you are 'vibrant and engaged,' etc. These are the same sorts of values that are used to justify suicide, abortion, executions/murders, assisted suicide, euthanasia, eugenics, mercy killings, and the like, with the implied blanket claim that the killing somehow improves things for the killers. In TFA, we have the 'bioethicist' arbitrarily selecting some calendar age to begin neglecting his health based on the idea that life after that point is not worth living.

It is great to see some serious research on the aspartame/splendas type of artifical sweeteners based on amino acids. But you can do your own research. Go down to your local supermarket and look at all of the people who are 100+ lbs overweight who have a case or more of diet soda in their shopping cart. These people are severely disabled. Their quality of life is poor, their mobility is restricited, their life expectancy is greatly shortened, and the high blood sugar levels have severely affected their neurological function and cognitive processes. Worse, it is not their fault, even though their friends and families probably have castigated them about it from time to time. If there is one single person to blame, it would be Donald Rumsfeld, who as the new head of GD Searle, was instrumental in getting the federal government to approve aspartame back in the 1980s. That opened the floodgate of these sweeteners and, the rest, is history.

Science is a process of discovery: using observations, measurements, and thought to attempt to answer questions about the physical world. Religion attempts to define values, principles, rules, and ideas that enable our lives to be lived as our creator God desires. The only way that science and religion intersect is when people attempt to use science to prove or disprove the existence of God...which is obviously a question that science can not, and never will, resolve. If atheists need spockism, it is only because it gives them the comfort of a world with all questions 'logically' answered and with no messy philosophical entrails.

"CO2 concentration is measurably increasing year on year and accelerating...this is because of release of fossil fuel sequestered CO...CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat...These are not up for debate...The only debatable point is what do these facts mean for the climate."

Here are some more facts. The atmospheric co2 concentration is increasing by about 2 ppm per year. The world currently produces about 4.9 x 10^13 kg of co2 per year from the combustion of fossil fuels. Therefore, the small total amount of co2 in the earth's atmosphere (atmospheric mass x co2 concentration) means that the earth currently sequesters ALL of the co2 produced by living organisms, decay, natural methane seeps, etc. as well as approximately 80 percent of all of the co2 produced annually from the entire world combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas. Based on all known reserves, there are approximately 75 years remaining of fossil fuels at current consumption rates. What this means is that, even if the natural sequestration rate remains unchanged (it is likely to increase with increasing co2 conc), the atmospheric c02 concentration will not increase more than 150 ppm ultimately reaching a concentration of approximately 550 ppm from the current 400 ppm. Even that increase, however, is unlikely, as rising fossil fuel prices and the diminishing returns of production will mean that global consumption of fossil fuels will decline over the next century as they are replaced by solar, wind power, nuclear power, conservation measures, and increased energy efficiencies. Therefore, rather than reach a maximum of 550 ppm and then decline precipitously as the last chunk of coal is burned, the atmospheric co2 concentration will more likely never reach that number as consumption tapers off and consumption continues at a lower rate of several centuries. What this means to an AGW true believer is that you have to believe that the earth's climate would dramatically warm if the atmospheric concentration of co2 went from the current 400 ppm to 550 (or less) and, there is absolutely no scientific basis for that belief. The atmospheric co2 concentration has increased by approximately 84 ppm since co2 measurements began in 1958 and the earth's climate has not changed dramatically. Even the small amount of warming that we have seen during that time is much more likely to have resulted from increased solar activity and long-term climate effects (we are in the middle of an interglacial warming period) than an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Moreover, there are actually signs of climate cooling as both the arctic and antarctic ice extent have increased in recent years. So, no, 'consensus' is not science.

Many will likely go 'cluck, cluck...they are the independent press and shouldn't do that' and, of course, they are right. But the 'independent press' is rapidly disappearing because there is no longer any money to be made in being part of the 'independent press.' Newspapers (such as the LA Times) have a plummeting circulation of mostly older subscribers and a shrinking advertising base. Most of them are losing money hand over fist or, at best, barely breaking even. Television news (network and local) is seeing its viewer base plummeting and consequently, its advertising revenues are declining rapidly, leaving it fortunate to still be on the air. Internet media gets lots of hits but not much revenue. The bottom line is that there are no longer any major 'independent' news organizations that can afford to antagonize powerful organizations, be they government or corporate or whatever. The LA Times reporter was likely grateful for any scraps of information that his CIA friends would give him because he would never have any way of getting that information otherwise. He is probably lucky if the LA Times will pay him car mileage to drive over to meet with a source. You get what you pay for. Follow the money. What do you pay for news?

(From TFA): "Musk and Tesla's biggest hurdle in the U.S. has been bypassing conventional dealerships and selling directly to customers. "

I don't get why Tesla's biggest hurdle to sales is bypassing conventional dealerships. It seems like their biggest hurdle would be to convince people to purchase a new type of vehicle that had different advantages and disadvantages than anything they had owned before. The linked article on the slowing sales of electric vehicles also refers to that when it mentions that 'the numbers don't pencil out for many purchasers.' So why is Tesla focusing so much energy on getting rid of car dealerships? Couldn't they allow 'Tesla' franchise dealers to sell cars? Wouldn't that result in more retail outlets for Teslas? Wouldn't that result in more places for Tesla owners to go for repairs and parts and wouldn't that result in more people working indirectly or directly to make Tesla a success? Maybe a few dealer salespeople would be able to show buyers how the numbers do pencil out. What am I missing here?

You're not accounting for all the methane that gets released from the frozen tundra in Siberia. Once that goes, it's runaway greenhouse warming. Methane is much more climate warming than CO2.

No, methane does not persist in the atmosphere but oxidizes in a matter of a few weeks. Moreover, the amount of methane potentially released from permafrost is small relative to the amount of methane produced as natural gas.