re: #566 LudwigVanQuixote

I agree that he is overly alarmist. However, he does not set policy.

What more do you want me to say? I agree that I do not think that his position should even be there in the first place. However, as to the predictions of climate models there is a lot of bad news. It is very bad news.

We are still dealing with people who think that somehow the facts of AGW bogus and in reality a conspiracy of commie scientists to rob them of their livelihoods.

I actually really wish to G-d that congress believed that it would all come crashing down by 2020. That way, the bullshit half measures they would take might actually be sufficient.

Now before everyone jumps on me about that, understand clearly, that we hit a tipping point well before the crash down. Just because the crash down is a bit further out makes little difference if you pass the tipping point.

As far as the best science I have been able to look into goes, most estimates of the tipping point happen around 2020 to 2025. There are other ones that put it a bit further out and there are some who believe we may have passed it already.

Seriously though, if we do pass it, we are screwed. Billions really will die because they will loose their homes and there will not be enough food.

Another thing to be worried about is the limitations of the models.

Here is something that few people get. We do not understand how ice breaks up well. Research into how ice breaks was derided by politicians as yet another waste that silly scientists care about.

It turns out that the models got the ice break up in the poles wrong.

OUR ESTIMATES WERE MUCH TOO GENTLE.

THE ICE BREAKS UP AND THEN MELTS A LOT FASTER THEN WE FIRST THOUGHT.

That means we are closer and not further away from a tipping point. You might have noticed I have been writing a lot more about AGW lately. It is because I just recently read about how the models need to be reworked to take EVEN FASTER rates of polar loss than expected. The situation is more than less urgent.

Out of curiosity, who or what do you view as the “authorative” source on the predictive side, since I have seen lots of varied estimates and predictions?

On the other topic, I’m not sure our minds will meet, at least now anyway. I gave some examples of Obama’s advisors who seem to be in the forefront of policy setting - and since Obama has already done this with a few, there is no reason for me (at this time) to believe that Holdren is excluded from the club. I’m not saying he is the technocrat-in-chief… I just don’t have your faith that it’s out of the question.