Well since www.realclimate.org is an activist website we could assume that they would disagree with anybody that would criticize Mann's work. The entire purpose of that website is to provide backup arguments to any and all climate change denier deniers.

If you want some middle of the road coverage of Mann try judithcurry.com.

Hansen, Mann and Gleick have proved themselves to be (very good) political activists first and scientists a (distant) second.

Or in the case of the last 18 years the worse the fit the (according to the climate change denier deniers) the better.

If it fits its good. If it doesn't fit it is still good. Trust us. The models will work. Even though we used to say 15 years with no temperature increase would invalidate them, we now realize we where wrong. It will take more like 50 years to invalidate them. Really. The science is good. Really really good. Because the models tell us that the science is good.

It is also a more efficient use of capital. Trucking companies invest a large amount of money in their fleet. A 20% more efficient fleet means a corresponding reduction in the amount of money you need to invest in your fleet. If there are other cost reductions as well this becomes compelling.

There are numerous different scenarios. Long haul trucking (for example) may end up being totally autonomous, just having a human driver picked up when close to leaving the freeway system.

Local delivery (Fed Ex, UPS etc) will still have an operator (or perhaps two or more) that can jump out with the package while the delivery truck drives around the block (or drops the second operator at a second location.) While going between locations the operators sort packages. When empty the operators may get dropped off for coffee while the truck heads back to the depot and a second full truck heads out to pick them up.

Its all about effectively managing resources and reducing costs. People will continue to have a place just a different one.

Correct, but for people or cars between 311 and 355 feet they will be alive instead of dead.

This is not a binary solution. Just incrementally better than the current (human drivers) solution.

To be (slightly) fair the 1.1.1 standard was published in 2012. Presumably the first versions where a year or several before that. So most likely this is circa 2008-2010 protocol standard writing.

Doesn't really excuse them. But it wasn't 2015 and not quite as obvious then.

Government official is NOT an accurate description of Goebbels. By that analogy you could say Hitler was just a democratically elected leader following the wishes of his electorate.

Most of the diaries have been available since I believe the 50's or 60's in English translation. They where rescued after the bulk where left to burn in a ditch. So incomplete at best. And chilling to read what is available.

Versus a car chase that injures how many other people and ends with you crashing into a barrier and / or being shot by police as they try to apprehend you.

Not saying its a good idea to have the police control your car... just saying that the current defacto law enforcement is not much better when you get down to it.

Actually for a large group of people (elderly, young, disabled) autonomous cars will provide a remarkable amount of autonomy that they don't have today.

Because one of the first perks that well off people get is to be driven around in cars by other people.

A lot of people like driving, on some roads, for pleasure, some of the time.

That does not describe the vast majority of required driving in most conditions. I.e. to and from work or the mall.

Again, small enough demand that driving clubs will accommodate it. Just like some people own and ride horses, other people will own and drive cars.

The vast majority of people won't own horses or drive their own cars.

Who cares if autonomous cars can't take you up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies. The number of trips along those roads is small enough that the EXISTING set of vehicles will satisfy all demand for many decades EVEN if no more are built.

On the other hand, for the other 99.999% of required commutes autonomous vehicles will do fine.

I have a computer in my pocket that would have cost $5-10 thousand dollars on my desktop 4-5 years ago. And $30-40 thousand dollars in a rack 15-20 years ago. And simply could not have been built in any shape or form 30-40 years ago.

$20k lasers will be dirt cheap and in mass production at some point. The ONLY question is HOW LONG that will take. There is no question about whether it will or won't happen.

Re: traffic ticket income...

Yes, but... I'll note that many jurisdictions are already foregoing tax income simply to foster (for example) electric vehicles by not forcing them to pay gas taxes.

Locally (BC Canada) that amounts to roughly $4/100kmh (assuming roughly $.50/l taxes and 8l/100km average consumption.)

Which also means at some point, when the ratio of electric vehicles gets high enough, that saner heads will prevail and some sort of tax will be introduced which will make those who purchased EV's pissed off.

The point being, things change and then we adapt. Taxes are no exception.

It will also be solved by society simply deciding that human drivers are too dangerous to allow on the roads.

Think Mothers Against Human Drivers (MAHD). Campaigns like MADD made it unacceptable to drive while drunk. That saved (is saving) some tens of thousands of peoples lives every year.

Human drivers (non drunk ones) continue to kill even more (est 30,000 per year in the US.) Once society realizes that autonomous cars don't kill people at the same rate there will be a change in perception. Just like it is unacceptable to drive while drunk it will become unacceptable to drive at all. Show up at your kids baseball game with a mini-van full of kids and you'll get a ton of disapproving stares from the other parents etc.