Climate Humor from the New York Times
















  1. mesaeconoguy:

    “It is important to remember that models are used so that we
    can understand where the Earth system is headed.”

    Total bullshit.

    If you used that standard for financial (and probably most other predictive) models, you’d get fired instantly.

    They work, or they don’t.

    These models are garbage.

    The Fed is in fact getting blasted for that very thing –

    Fed forecasting has been outstandingly shitty over the past 5 years.

  2. Harry:

    Given all the variables, and the degree of precision in the data, how are we to conclude increasing CO2 levels by fifty or even a hundred parts per million has had a measurable effect? This is not a smartass question.

    They should have trained their computers on explaining the Keynesean multiplier, which creates wealth out of thin air, and then blamed 100 ppm of CO2 for the failure of socialism. At least the result is predictable. More hair of the dog.

  3. Harry:


    You said it!

    In all humility, having read countless research reports from brokerage firms, written by a tyro who has the latest edition of excel, I have mistrusted almost everything they say.

    In another career, I was advised to believe nothing I heard and only half of what I saw, and as soon as I learned that lesson, I was able to find success. The corollary to that principle is not to take yourself so seriously, too.

    One time, the founder of the company I ran, who was learned and precise in using English, was presented in a meeting by a Vice President with nonsense, and he said, "There is only one word for that, and that's bullshit."

  4. Steven:

    I thought models were hypothesis, not fact. When did scientists decide that they were facts, not hypotheses?

  5. norse:

    Sigh. "Global warming" is just another case like "Iraq's WMDs". It's a FUD (Fear/uncertainty/doubt) argument that sounds good enough to maybe be true with substantially inflatable dire consequences that will sell well to the political audience one is pondering to. And, voila: money flows, income is generated and the authors can leverage power. It's sometimes sad to see the same political gimmicks that worked real well for the tribe's Shaman 10k years ago play out without much alteration today.

  6. Sam L.:

    They lie like rugs. Really UGLY rugs.

  7. mesaeconoguy:

    LOL, Keynes would froth at the stimulus/reconstructive/reorg programs available due to "global warming." He could make billions.....

  8. Lawrence:

    These are very strange climate models that can't be correlated with the known past but which have predictive power for the unknown future.

  9. Handworn:

    It's atmospheric temperatures that have leveled off; ocean temperatures have continued to increase. It's true that no one is sure why, and that there have been major embarrassments to its adherents like "Climategate" (I hate the general habit of appending -gate to every scandal, but until we get something better I'll do it), but on the whole, I think being concerned and cautious about it is far better than to dismiss it. Far better to assume something worse than we hope and act accordingly. If it's not happening, or not happening as badly as we thought, joy, we got a bonus. If it is, or it's worse, we got D'd up in time. Wishful thinking is one of the worst faults of the Democrats about economic matters; it's just as bad an idea for people to indulge in it about the climate.