"No Ice" is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

The Australian heat wave extremes reminds me of the much lower temps this year in Kansas which were still high enough to kill the corn in the field. 112 F is high enough to kill corn. And Kansas got to 114 F. I'm unfamiliar with Australian agriculture. What crops are threatened by its 50 C temps?

We were in Alaska while that was happening. Watching glaciers calve ice bergs! Except ours were little dinky things: the biggest was maybe 50 ft across its face. Even so, as small as they were, they all had that characteristic crack and grumble sound as they broke free of the main glacier. I can't imagine how loud the calving in that movie was -- the db limiters of the micrphone would reduce the End Times to a cricket chirp.

Lucinda Williams doesn't write under the name "Gram Parsons"

Noah forgets the 3rd (and possibly the most important) of Karl Rove's 3 Rules of Politics: Be worse than anyone can imagine.

Yes. Ask the Republicans why they ran deficits during the Bush years.

Is this a recommendation? If so, I'll try the apple pie filling. Local apples are pretty tasteless or are unsuitable for pies.

Tax unemployment benefits. Problem solved.

I've never understood the "cycles" people. Where does the energy from the extra greenhouse gases go? It seems to me that you would have to deny the Greenhouse Effect to be a "cycles" person. The amount of energy from the increase in greenhouse gases can be calculated, and that energy has to do some work.

1976-1977 appears to have been the bulk of the genocide. A drop of 1.5 million people. A ~300,000 decline over the next 3 years could be from the war or continuing genocide. Almost 2 million is quite enough horror for me. Nothing "inept" about it. http://www.populstat.info/Asia/cambodic.htm In 10 years, the population returned to pre-genocide levels and has continued to grow dramatically. If the US population had grown at a similar rate, we'd have a population now of ~500,000,000.

I once applied for a job in Weatherford, OK. Only a telephone interview, I was told by the interviewer, because almost everyone made up their mind about the job if they saw the place before they got an offer.

That's the kind of thing that should get him in Bartlett's. And Leavenworth!

The interesting thing about Republican economics is that if TexOklaKan were to become a reality, it would devolve into Northern Mexico, and Missouri would pass immigration laws that would let their cops shoot anything in a cowboy hat.

Temps above 112 kill corn. The El Nino that would have ended the Great Plains drought apparently is stillborn. I don't think things will get better next year. Hey, but that will be irrelevant as the debt crisis and the Tea Party led debt default pushes the country into the Seventh Level of Hell Depression. Keep your passport up to date.

The animation which shows the thinning of multi-year ice near the start of Sinclair's piece is an amazing bit of work. It shows the decline and the process of decline. It's like watching a fuse burn down.

People who use contrived memes self-identify as [appropriate language omitted].

Next thing you know, they'll use the Bible as an excuse to default on the national debt. Ladies and gents, have your passports up to date. And please rebalance your portfolios.

#1 son has a 80 mile commute through the wilds of geezer-infested Florida. My wife and I should retire there to give him a way-station where he could sleep some nights. I'm only 92% joking.

In 5-10 years, there will be a hit movie or a best selling book with a plot the involves assassins from countries beset by climate change. The assassins will come disguised as legitimate immigrants but will really be in search of the powerful deniers: industrialists, politicians, media figures, and academics. They will pursue a "little fish first" strategy and it will take some time before the phenomenon (Death Visits the Climate Denier Community) is acknowledged by the public. At that point, paranoia becomes a political force with a consequences-beyond-tomorrow effect. By the end of the book/movie, the hero -- a straight arrow, do-your-duty kind of guy -- will realize how compromised he has become, but he'll save the big target -- a foul, morally-bankrupt billionaire industrialist -- anyway. Because that's what straight-arrow, do-your-duty heroes do. Then, he'll kiss his Prius and drive off into the sunset. At that point, we'll do something about climate change. Because there needs to be an attractive model for action.

Good idea. Keep him close to his loved ones.

"http://www.scotese.com/miocene1.htm What's so awfull in it?" You know the future climate is going to be peachy? Fantastic. I didn't know anyone who could be sure of the future. The Greek gods couldn't even foresee it.

Re: "Andy Revkin failed the test" As in Revelations 3:16?

"the sd can't be used to determine the frequency of the event in that way." Fine. I'm not a statistician. Exceeding 5 standard deviations on one side of the mean should happen around .000031383349 times. Whatever the "times" means. When the issue has been discussed recently the "per/year" number has always been significantly smaller than my understanding of what it should be. To me a 2 sigma event shouldn't be all that rare. Once a decade or so. Discussion on the web make it seem rarer than that. I used my 1 in 30,000 because that seemed more conservatively scaled because at that point, it's back into the ages of glaciation and the real world meaning seems blurred. At any rate, it's rare enough that you need to account for it outside of natural variation.

And while we're on the subject of Jewish wisdom literature, let me quote Freud urging on his readers to embrace his realism: "Those of our fellowmen who are dissatisfied with this state of things and who desire something more for their momentary peace of mind may look for it where they can find it. We shall not blame them for doing so; but we cannot help them and cannot change our own way of thinking on their account."

I'm just eyeballing a graph, and I know how inaccurate such things are, but the NSIDC graph on its front page to me looks 5 standard deviations from the mean. Maybe more. In other words, around 1 year in 30,000. I'm reminded of the parable of Dives and Lazarus when Abraham rebukes Dives in Hell. Dives has just asked Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers. Abraham says, "They have Moses and the Prophets. If they don't believe them they won't believe if a man were to rise from the dead." 5 Standard Deviations.