Geoffrey says:

Adam and John, England will get colder not warmer when the North American gulf stream on the east coast loses some of its steam. It’s not the mystery Adam makes it out to be. It’s happened before. Glacial lakes in North America dumped into the gulf the last time they melted. I’d tell you my source so you could watch yourself, but you’d not respect me in the morning if I did. So go dig up your own sources.

And another thing — Dennis Simonaitis (sp?) who is Road and Track magazine’s engineering editor had a good writeup this month about his meeting with Toyota’s oil economists/geologists. One of those graphs told me basically everything I needed to know about estimating oil prices for the next 20 years. If you ask me, the final disappearance of spare petroleum capacity starting around 2015 to 2020 will spell the beginning of massive price oscillations (the past two years are but a mild foreshadowing) and the resultant substantially increased war, pestilence, and famine. But until then, there is a bubble of relatively plentiful petroleum, a last gasp if you will. Let’s enjoy all our petroleum based carpets, paints, house siding, clothing, and wire insulation while still can!

Unbound says:

One simple FACT:

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

So, under ‘normal’ climate variations, 2008 would have been a very cold year. Now it is just coll by comparison… but it is still one of the top ten hottest years.

There is some saying about “not being able to see the forest because of the trees”?

RBG says:

The Bernard Madoff situation “almost the same thing as discovering Mother Theresa was a hooker”? That was my first thought too, but then, don’t you think it’s actually more like discovering JCD likes to engage in inappropriate behavior with small animals? Or maybe frequents family change rooms for less than honorable purposes?

RBG

JoaoPT says:

John, as a Portuguese folk, let me tell ya… you brought a fledging tear to my eye.
Thank you. By the the way, Linguiça is good, but there’s more from where that came from:

Chouriço: bigger than linguiça, not so spicy but filled with paprika (colorau, as we know it…)

Morcela: made with pork blood.

Salpicão: the best, just the best meat, with almost no fat, smoked.

Alheira: Smoked Poultry sausige with bread, heavily seasoned with garlic (legend says that these were invented by the jews, to escape the Inquisition troops, they invented this pork free sausige, and the garlic is there to hide the bird meat flavour)

Pesunto: the whole hind leg of pork, smoked to perfection, served thinly sliced. (as an aside, Tom Merrit was fascinated by the Spanish variant,”Pata Negra”, but be advised, most of it is bred and grown here in Portugal)

Andrew Eisner says:

Guys,

Just to emphasize what Geoffrey said global warming doesn’t necessarily mean everything gets warmer. When fresh water gets dumped into the ocean from melting ice it can potentially stop the gulf stream from “streaming,” which would make for a very cold Europe and potentially cause another ice age. When ocean temperatures change and currents get upset it can affect jet streams which can make for extreme weather like hotter summers and colder winters. I enjoy your show but when you scoff at climate change it makes me cringe.

Zack says:

Regarding exponential population growth…

The automated Las Vegas Monorail PA system makes this announcement:

“Since 1940, Las Vegas has doubled in population every ten years, which means that by the year 2230, we will have over 1 trillion people calling Las Vegas home. We’re going to need more trains!”

IsItHotOrIsItJustMe? says:

So, Earth has warmed a bit over the past couple of decades. Hmmm, research shows that Venus has warmed a bit over the same time frame. Let’s see – aha! So has Mars! Has our carbon footprint expanded so much that we humans affect the climate of our neighboring planets? What else could it be – after all we humans are the primary force in the entire universe, right? Well, let’s see. Venus and Mars are our neighbors in the Solar System. Hmmm – Solar… Solar… what is the common factor here? Hey, the Sun is right in the middle of our Solar System. Darned if researchers haven’t found that the Sun has also been putting out just a bit more energy over the past two decades. Of course, an increase in the massive amount of energy put out by the Sun couldn’t have ANYTHING to do with climate change, now could it? After all, even though the Sun provides the vast majority of energy/heat available on Earth, we humans are the primary influence on everything…

On a side note, does anybody remember the “Mini Ice Age” scare of the 1970s? Back then, after having some of the coolest years on record in the past century or so, we were told that we had to eliminate airborne pollutants so they wouldn’t “block the sun’s warming rays from reaching the Earth!” As it turns out, we didn’t end up freezing to death after all, leading to the current perils of either roasting into oblivion or having to grow webs between our toes as we transition to amphibious living due to rising sea levels.

The Earth cools down, the Earth heats up – been happening for millenia, gonna keep happening for at least a few more…