Nine cover stories on global warming? I guessed twenty one.

Seriously, who DOES buy Time Magazine? Or Newsweek and US News for that matter. Not only do they not have any credibility but they are anachronisms.

I'm surprised those dinosaurs are still gasping for air.

re: Iran

I've been reading rumors of a coming October Surprise that President Bush has up his sleeve.

I don't think we can wait.

Fortunately more and more are discovering that they don't need to rely on rags like Time. Elites often cite the increased diversity in media as the cause of an ever deepening divide between the political aisles but I think talk radio, cable T.V. and the internet have given us what we knew was possible all along: An opposing veiw.
Unfortunately there are still tons 'o voters that really don't take an interest at all, and someday they may outnumber the rest of us.

They already do outnumber the rest of us, but when the wolf is at the door, they can focus for short periods.

Once upon a time, way back in high school, I'd read all of the news mags every week. I slaked off over time until my military years when I found them wanting, and rejected them altogether. There always were opposing views, National Review for one was started to be the lone anti-communist voice in a very dark time.

But this is the natural progression of all things. Like the oak, 100 years growing, 100 years in strength, 100 years in decline. Whittaker Chambers edited The World section of Time during WWII, and in 1947 Joe Kennedy bought a place for JFK on the cover of time from Henry Luce for $75,000, and that was real money then.

Now the old media is in the hands of the poseurs who climb bureaucracies, not a group of original thinkers. Life is good. Were I to choose an enemy, he'd be foolish and blind. Have another drink Ted.

Two thumbs up on the last sentence, Casca. I'm just glad I had already swallowed my coffee.

I can't criticize Mass too much for electing that bozo and Mr Heinz Kerry, because my state elected Mrs Bill and Chuckles Schumer...

I can't wait to retire and leave.

Iran is insane, heck they all are insane. They sure live to make threats. We are going to have to deal with these vile people soon in Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened."

>And yet... and yet! Time magazine tells us we should be worrying about global warming. Even though scientists don't even agree whether it exists.

An overwhelming number of climatologists agree that human activities is having adverse effects on Earth's climate. Just this week, Sir David King, the UK's chief scientist said the Earth is likely to experience a temperature rise of at least 3C. About the only people arguing against climate change are those who've accepted money from fossil fuel companies for slanted 'analyses'.

> Talk about sexed-up intelligence reports! Talk about fake threats!

Please provide evidence of falsification by climatologists of the climate disruption threat.

> Those guys need to pull their heads out of their asses and smell their own shit.

This type of talk is far beneath you; you've led us to expect clear, rational thinking, not cheap shot trashtalk.

And lest I forget my references that address your 2 year old question that has been put to bed, start with the first reference, and note that the false claims of the existence of errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction can be traced in part to spurious allegations made by two individuals without climate background, McIntyre and McKitrick (McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11#falseclaims
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/ammann.shtml
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/311/5762/841/DC1/1
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=199
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/CODES_MBH.html
http://www.assessment.ucar.edu/

For those who are not scientifically inclined, there is a 'dummies guide';
http://www.realclimate.org/dummies.pdf

The techniques used by climate science "skeptics" to cast doubt are clear. The strategy is explcitly put forward in this memo by political advisor Frank Luntz (as quoted in Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Climate of Man (Part III)" - New Yorker, May 9, 2005.

"The scientific debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.... Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming in the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. ... The most important principle in any discussion of global warming is your commitment to sound science".

This last phrase "sound science" is the current buzzword used by Paula Dobriansky and others in the current administration. Its use implies that the science is somehow not sound. In this case, many studies ("the Hockey Team") outside of Mann et. al. 1998 have come to the same conclusions about the climate of the last 1000 years and the current anomaly. Put against this is one paper by Von Storch et. al. and the McIntyre and McKitrick paper.

So, when I see posts yours, I am reminded that there is a concerted campaign being waged here in the United States to disseminate doubt about valid climate science results. I have no idea what your motivation is, perhaps simply internalized doubts that were cast by others or, as in many cases, unwillingness to believe the bad news that climate science brings. In any case, that comment creates doubt where in fact there is not a lot of controversy in the consensus view based on the best science available.

"In this case, many studies ("the Hockey Team") outside of Mann et. al. 1998 have come to the same conclusions about the climate of the last 1000 years and the current anomaly."

Will, I was following your argument until here. What do you mean by "the climate of the last 1000 years"? What's the "anomaly?" Is the anomaly, the current "warming?" Also, Earth's climate has varied over the past 1000 years. As you might recall, it is certain that Europe's climate changed fairly dramatically from the 10th century to the present. Of course, this variance in climate doesn't fit well into the current template that man is responsible for climate change. So, there have been attempts (in my opinion more political than scientific) to try and argue that there really was not a "Little Ice Age" from the 14th to the 19th century and, of course, no true "Medieval Climate Optimum" that preceeded it. The argument being that, if these periods did exist, they were confined to Europe and were not a global phenomenon.

Well Blu,

Why is it difficult to incorporate into a "civilisation influenced global warming hypothesis" the concept of local climate change? It has been obvious that there have been serious but local changes in many places but now there appears to be enough world wide data to support a global change that probably is being influenced by industrialization.

I have been very skeptical of the Global Warming people for many years.

I have always looked at the amount of time, about 25%, of the last 500,000 years that the earth was NOT in an ice age and felt the cycle was way too long for scientists, whose data, other than core and tree ring, really only goes back 2-3 hundred years, could grasp the forces or see the details that influence this very slow cycle. All of the history of man on this planet has occured after the last major ice age
Look at this chart-

http://www.iceagenow.com/Pacemaker.htm

Iceages seem to be about 11.5 thousand years apart and warming peaks about every 100,000 years. The question is not is the earth warming but are the effects of industrialzation pushing it a bit higher and faster.

If the last 7000 years are positioned on the graph it is impossible to see small but very important pertubations of temperture change. Since A relativly small change is capable of producing catastrophic changes to our way of life; even if there is a slight upward influence due to CO2 and other effuents to the natural warming trend of the last 50K years, it is foolhardy, given the enormity of the consequences, to ignore it.

Yeah, if the climate keeps warming, those damned Danes will establish viable colonies on Greenland,and rape and pilage Europe, Newfoundland, and north-central Asia. Fortunately their quest for expansion and global conquest will turn into a rout, when they encounter a strain of giant reptiles far better suited for the coming tropical environs.

> Will, I was following your argument until here. What do you mean by "the climate of the last 1000 years"? What's the "anomaly?" Is the anomaly, the current "warming?"

Take a quick look at the references I provided, which cover all of this in appropriate detail.

> Also, Earth's climate has varied over the past 1000 years. As you might recall, it is certain that Europe's climate changed fairly dramatically from the 10th century to the present.

That depends upon what you mean by dramatic; do you have any numbers in mind? What are the sources, and what were the data points they were derived from? How are these compared to the larger aggregate of data sets described in the references I provided?

> Of course, this variance in climate doesn't fit well into the current template that man is responsible for climate change.

Until you answer the points above, this is simply an unsupported assertion.

> So, there have been attempts (in my opinion more political than scientific) to try and argue that there really was not a "Little Ice Age" from the 14th to the 19th century and, of course, no true "Medieval Climate Optimum" that preceeded it.

One should rely on a critical examination of the data first and foremost. I haven't seen any arguments against a Little Ice Age or Medieval Climate Optimum, but I have seen debunking of arguments that said those were significant in light of the current warming.

> The argument being that, if these periods did exist, they were confined to Europe and were not a global phenomenon.

Whose arguments are you referring to?