Endless fun. Something simple, yet capable of demonstrating all kind of strange things. Really forces one to use their imagination. Best demonstration of how something simple can be used to do more complex things, like byte code, but less esoteric, and doesn't require any kind of reference text.

Sorry, you are right. It is not a religion, it is a cult. Religions usually have churches that bring in huge amounts of money that actually try to help people.

And what is this Australian engineer you speak of? I'll assume that wasn't totally random.

I double checked as well. The wiki article is good too.

Because it is a religion. Like many others it speaks of the evil of humanity and the necessity to bring it under control. It is an end of the world scenario brought about by the sins of mankind. The "science" is treated like scripture as if being handed out by Christ himself. So to have a valid opinion, you must first be devoted to the scripture, and any criticism must clearly by in good faith of supporting the cause.

Just curious, based on your argument, how are you qualified to say who is and is not qualified to have a valid opinion on AGW/ACC?

There is also the chance that AGW could be a good thing. I bet the Canadian Citrus farmers would be a lot happier. Also, as far as Carbon Dioxide being a pollutant, it is only a pollutant in so far as the belief that it is the cause of AGW. There are ways we could be spending 1.5-3.5 trillion USD to clean up the environment, but if AGW was just a scam to artifically create a possible $3.5 trillion dollar industry, we did that INSTEAD of cleaning up the environment. Opportunity cost. Also, Africa is on the brink of industrialization. So far, many governments have been paid off in food subsidies to ensure that the people of the African nations don't work to become self sufficient. And even if you don't care about that, this IS global economic planning. Judging from Japan's success with that, imagine the global impact if it turns out that this is all bullshit, or even intentional manipulation to control the world political environment. Your "denialists" are out in the streets fighting what they believe to be fraud for the same thing, we can't do nothing if it is what we think it is, or even anything closely resembling it. The worst case scenarios on each side given the level of certainty just doesn't add up to supporting the ambitions of Copenhagen.

As far as third world nations being given nuclear technology, I would not be as concerned about the weapons (relatively) as I would be for their sake of my expectation that the technology is purchased on credit, leaving the country in ruin of inescapable debt and at the mercy of their creditor. I think the middle east is a great example of how well that has worked out.

According to the emails, while water vapor is the strongest green house gas, whether it is trapping more heat or reflecting more light in terms of the net heating effect can not be determined, and that for the most part climate models only kind of work when water vapor isn't considered. I compliment your memory though, I havn't heard the deforestation argument in a LONG time. Let me bring you up to date. Despite carbon dioxide being necessary for plants to make sugar and produce oxygen, the NET effect of vegitation, particularly rain forrests is a net positive contribution of carbon dioxide if you consider the entire life cycle and eco system including the natural decomposition of of dead plant matter and necessary seasonal forest fires. Negative net CO2 contribution comes from algae in the ocean.

As far as what we COULD see in the future, everything that has ever been predicted with regard to global climate change since the Berlin Wall fell (I will side so far with Lord Monckton it is not a coincidence) has never come to fruition. So far no actual change has taken place. Everyone was supposed to be dead by 2004 at the latest if we did nothing. We did nothing, and every time Al Gore et al is proved wrong there is some reason why their predictions were only slightly off, but we are certainly doomed in just a few more years if we do nothing.

I am more convinced 2010 WILL be the year of the Linux Desktop than Anthropogenic Global Apocalypse via Carbon Dioxide.

In addition to pollution != AGW, the biggest thing that "convinced" me this is the biggest scam in history is what people actually want to do about the AWG. Specifically, not allowing third world countries to industrialize without permission of the United Nations. I see this going about as well for the people of Africa as world efforts to help the middle east. While much of Africa has the resources and labor to industrialize independently, wouldn't it be nice if they could be incorporated into a world government where the nations of the world unite to lend African nations the money to buy their clean energy solutions? I would have to argue against. These nations "looking out for Africa" "changed their position" on the genocide in Darfur after the Sudanese government provided invaluable information in the war against terrorism. Rather than just sticking with "sorry, we need to look out for our own first" which didn't go over well publicly, now they are pushing the argument "it isn't technically genocide". However you may feel about Africa, Sudan, genocide, interventionism, or nation-building; imo, it gives reasonable cause for skepticism versus the blind faith that these people have my best interests at heart, or yours.

I love crap like this about how our democracy is threatened by the free exercise of speech and the press. It is fun to compare pro censorship literature of the past 100 years to today and see how their tactics have improved, but always coming back to how people need to be protected from themselves, and from their own ignorance. The best part is that of course they are never talking about the reader; the reader is smart because they are reading their article. It is all those other people out there that don't read or can't understand the brilliance that is Lawrence M. Krauss that are the idiots out there we could help so much if they would just do what we say, and read what we write. After all, this is Scientific American.

My Health Care is fine. I like my doctor, and I don't think under any condition I will ever "like" hospitals (oh well). In my experience, government is just the biggest corporation around, and like many monopolies once powerful enough rarely needs to listen to the customer to keep conducting business as it pleases. Academia tells us that government is the voice of the people, but the reality of which person is being heard leaves a lot to be desired.

I think there is a lot that could be done to improve health care in the United States and the world for that matter. In my understanding of the bills as I have read them and listening to the range of opinions on specific issues, I do not like any of the proposals getting serious attention. I am very skeptical that this congress will be able to produce a decent bill. I would be more open minded if congress would at least begin by looking at some of the many social welfare programs and regulations concerning health care that have not been as effective as intended.

The fanaticism in this debate, as the author likes to put it, is the idea that something must hurriedly be passed, whatever it is. "Death Panel" is a buzz word no matter who says it that relates to actual fear (rational or otherwise) some can't easily dismiss, and controversies over how specific provisions of the various bill provisions will actually be interpreted and executed (no pun intended).

And if the scientific method as a whole is going to be brought into this debate, let us consider some principles of engineering. Great designs, in reality, are only as good as they can be explained. If a majority of people can not be more greatly persuaded by truth than by lies, maybe some of the burden lies on you to improve your documentation if not also the design itself. Blaming the reader, investor, or customer for simply not understanding your brilliance is a cop out. And if there really is an emergency, all the more reason for due diligence, not blind faith.

Any chance that society has improved such that we are more aware of the social problems around us due to better access to information and the rate at which we are improving on and solving problems is not increasing at the rate at which we are becoming better at monitoring and discovering problems thus creating a perception of decline? Or maybe every generation as it has gotten older complains about the decline of civilization as they see a new generation changing the world they revered as part of their own childhood?

yeah, probably not

ALL HAIL THE NEW WORLD ORDER!!

Thanks for taking the time to read my other posts. Wish you would have read this one. Too long? I'll simplify.

That was the part I found the most absurd. Global Warming isn't science, it is alarmism. 'Consensus' is politics, not science. And even if science were democratic, your claim that we can write off this small group of researchers as irrelevant and non-representative assumes gross ignorance of the role played by this central authority, as if they don't have any influence.

Also, I didn't realize there was anyone out there quite so passionate about Voltaire. I admire your enthusiasm.

Milankovi Cycles only deal with ice ages. That cycle (the long cycle) is in a warming phase and the solar cycle aka drought cycle, dealing with types of radiation as a result of changes in the suns magnetic field as the surface spinning at a different speed from the core that effects upper atmosphere cloud density / formation, is in a cooling phase (that sun spot thing).

So what you are saying is that we accidentally came across the solution and saved ourselves from eminent destruction? Hurray for the oil companies and their insight. If that be the case, you should really let somebody know because figuring out how to prevent a natural ice age is NOT what the new world government is being created to combat. I also don't see how destroying industry as we know it, and forcing Africa into poverty helps the issue. We are causing severe suffering in attempts to discover more about something we know very little about. Have you noticed that every thing that has ever said in the 90's that was going to happen in 10 years NEVER happened? Haven't we hurt Africa enough?

You do know this isn't about 'believing', and this debate has gone FAR beyond the classroom. Very powerful people with lots of money and guns are doing stuff in the name of "global warming". I wish I could believe it was all being done in the name of humanity, I am just of the opinion that "Yay, world government is going to save us from ourselves" is a bit naive. Every dictator hell bent on world domination has been beloved... right up until they killed a whole bunch of people, then we say they were bad men. Hasn't this happened enough times in just the last 100 years? Sorry, guess after reading a bit of world history, been left a bit gun shy.

Or any history textbook not used in a public school.

“As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities”
but of course
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong”

Thanks Voltaire. As for myself, I may not be a zoologist or have a degree in biology, but I know what bullshit smells like.

I don't necessarily have a problem with theories of anthropogenic global warming right up until everything that has been said we need to do, and particularly done globally to "fight" it. So all those other times genocide was bad, and their reasons were no good, but this time, THIS time we have figured out why we need to do it. Its even more humane than ever! Forgive me if I don't jump for joy.

I realize the hax0rz was all the craze last week, but if you were paying attention to the news, it wasn't a hack, it was a leak disguised as a hack. Just one source, it was all over the news. Just thought I should bring you up to date in case a denier tries to use that against you.

Just like Climate change is just the issue being used to promote world government. Doesn't really matter what the issue so long as it helps justify the objective. Controlling Carbon Dioxide is NO different than the Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax, other than DHMO was meant from the beginning to make a point... which evidently most people still don't seem to get.

Even Al Gore has come out recently to say that "It isn't Global Warming, it is about Global Climate Change".

Yes, ice has been melting AND ice has been forming. Overall, there is MORE ice. The past decade has seen significant cooling just like there should have been based on solar cycles as people have known and understood for hundreds of years.

I am sorry you can't go outside and ice skate any more, but how is a comparison of a generalization of a lake near your house as a kid versus a generalization of it as an adult evidence for or against anthropogenic global climate change? Also, nothing you have said shows any evidence that any of this change would be bad. Directly related, there were many predictions made in the 90's about "global warming". Storms, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, and cannibals. None of these predictions have even remotely come true, not to mention strong evidence that the people that made the "predictions" never believed them in the first place (Ok, maybe they did it for the insurance policy). 4 Dead polar bears and some broken ice prompted book signings more than anything else.

The only real truth to come out of this is what we already knew: The climate is really weird and unpredictable, and thus far NOBODY has been able to create a model to even remotely predict it. You do know that when the "weatherman" says "there is a 40% chance of rain today" means there is a 40% chance you are in a place that is raining right now. That's it!

What we CAN see are very real consequences of this hoax. Just as the DDT hoax is easily responsible for 40+ million deaths in Africa that were totally preventable, the United Nations and European Union have been denying third world sovereign nations the right to industrialize under the threat of war justifying it with "data" about their supposed "carbon footprint". Independent nations with the natural resources, the technology, and skill, and certainly plenty of labor to make much of Africa thrive allowing them to provide FOR THEMSELVES electricity, steel, clean water, and all the other things we take for granted are being denied. People are being denied the right to take care of themselves.

Genocide has always been justified. They don't worship the right God, and God is going to punish us if we don't kill them, or at least let our leaders do what they know is best for us. Their blood is different, so we need to kill them so they don't pollute the gene pool and we die of horrible disease, or at least let our leaders do what they know is best for us. We don't have enough food to feed everybody, and we can't let everybody starve, so we are going to have to let you die (oh yeah, there is still some "debate" over whether or not the grain silos were full at the time, but that is just an academic issue). Sorry all you darkies are dying of Malaria, but after we cured all our land, it turns out there is this one study that found a bird laid a soft eggs and we think it might be related, you are all just going to have to die because we would hate to think another bird might lay another soft egg.

So you tell me, just how sure are you about this Global Warming thing, this Anthropogenic Climate Change thing, keeping in mind this goes a LITTLE bit further than regulating what additives in your hair spray might end up in the ozone layer.

Yes, there are real environmental issues, air pollution, water pollution and such which are rightfully local issues that people in their communities can actually deal with. "Global Warming" is a scam and an exploitation of good people that care about people and the earth that will take the time to listen to anybody, hear them out, and try to make an informed decision. Unfortunately it is just another scam like the many before it that has not only wasted so much money and resources has already been the cause extreme human suffering, not like the imaginary human suffering that "could might be caused by" Global Warming that has yet to manifest (Wasn't California supposed to fall off into the ocean by 1996? What ever happened to that?).

Despite self appointed Gods of the new world order thinking they have won, and sadly while things like Copenhagen seem to be just around the corner, and self identifying experts run around debating "what do the emails mean?" not paying attention to what is ACTUALLY going on around them in reality, I am actually happy to see that in general, more people are certain of haunted houses than global warming.

When it comes to justifying genocide (African, political, economic, industrial), I am not skeptical, and I am not open minded. It is not open for debate. I recognize this is a meta-judgment, but history seems to repeat itself too quickly to listen to every damn argument about why people need their lives controlled for their own good.

And the next issue that is going to scare everyone into why we are all not smart enough to be responsible for our own lives, not even knowing what that is yet, yeah, I already oppose that too. But don't worry, no matter how radical you may think my beliefs are, I am not going to try to ban you from driving your Prius, no matter how stupid you look in it. That's you exercising your freedom as a consumer :)