re: #1051 Charles

Your position is reasonable and the “bad conservative” thing just might explain the amazing (to me, anyway) reaction to your post on Van Jones. I don’t deny AGW, I just think it isn’t catastrophic and the raw data seems to support my contention that the trends are holding linear and not “tipping” or accelerating. (I posted some raw data links in #137.)

Getting back to the video that is the basis of this thread, I don’t care if the temps since 1998 are down, flat, or slightly up; they are a regression to the mean that gets the long term trend back to its regression line. The next zig in the zigzag will surely be up and it’ll just keep us on track. Thus, for example, the one inch per decade rise in sea level will continue until further notice. Since the low end of the IPCC range is 7” by 2100, this is not a radical prediction.

The heart of the whole CAGW thing is that the current trends will get worse and that will be a problem. Unlike all the other AGW points, this one really isn’t well supported. This has been going on long enough that a lot of pessimistic predictions have already failed. The global warming march just continues at a steady, non-catastrophic pace.

By the way, if anyone has a reference to a real (mathematical/quantitative) explanation of the 800 year lag and how the feedback works out in those cases, I’m interested.