Paul, I think the missing element is human conflict. You referred once to Chinese droughts and 29% of the world population being undernourished. Personally, I'd guess an increasing population and agricultural output being down by 20-40% causing a lot more than 29%, but if we feed more people and fewer animals, perhaps not. Still, hungry people go to war. Current conflicts such as Syria can be traced in part or whole to climate change. Gwynne Dyer put it as well as anyone: "People always raid before they starve" Two obvious areas of conflict are India/Pakistan as the glacier-fed Indus river dries, and China/Russia as the Chinese breadbasket desertifies.

Sofouuk, I have to disagree. While Jevons paradox may have been based on observations when originally conceived, believing that it will always happen this way is indeed a matter of faith.

JC, I'd like to point out that taking the average continental US temperature anomaly isn't going to tell us much about a wandering jet stream. Think like the statistician with a foot in boiling water and the other in ice water saying 'on average I feel fine'. To do an analysis like that you'll have to at least break the temperature down into regions and look for both high and low anomalies by region. I think the real mark of a meandering jet stream is simultaneous high low anomalies in different regions. FWIW, my $.02, YMMV, etc.