If you were actually thinking about this, you’d notice the shape and trend of the entire curve. What’s happening in winter? The freeze extent is almost the same every year. If this is about rising temperatures or solar reflection, what’s up with that? On that crab fishing show, last winter was the worst for sea ice in the Bering Sea that they’d had in their memories.

Is this about reduced multi-year ice? Current changes instead of air temperature? There’s a lot of information we don’t have.

If we’re really worried about polar bears, maybe we could stop shooting about 700 of them every year.

And the market seems to be doing fairly well so far.

Efficiency creates profit.

The various reactions in the article and elsewhere will tell you a lot about motivations. Real environmentalists should express at least cautious enthusiasm. The ones who really wanted that political power handed to them won’t.

There are policy and technical solutions to this, they may not stop global warming altogether, but they may mitigate its worst effects, slow it down or spread it out, and provide economic support to those stakeholders most likely to be negatively affected by it. Maybe we can’t beat it, but we might be able to adjust to it with a little planning and preparation.

This may even provide opportunities and employment to those societies which implement these solutions.

But one thing is for sure, as long as those who tend to lose billions by maintaining the status quo are willing to spend millions on convincing the people there is no problem, or that it is merely some bureacratic scam to raise taxes, then nothing is going to happen.

And just think how much progress you’ve made, TB.
You’ve staged a disciplined and orderly retreat to every carefully prepared denialist fallback position:

There is no global warming.
Its actually getting cooler.
They don’t know what they’re talking about.
The data is contradictory.
Competent authorities disagree.
Its all a Socialist plot.
There is a problem, but its natural.
There is a natural problem, but its minimal.
There is a minimal natural problem, but its not our fault.
OK, its our fault, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.
Its all a Socialist plot.

Of course, we could simply let the market take care of it, and do nothing at all. And please spare us the bile, sarcasm and the obligatory Objectivist Randian rants. At this point in the argument, it just comes across as very sour grapes.

Now what happens?

Does it maybe involve vast amounts of wealth and power accrued to the True Gods, who for some reason are never considered “greedy?”

David Lightman: [typing] Is this a game… or is it real?
Joshua: What’s the difference?

“We’ve been lying to you about this for years. We’re sorry, but it seems we really do have a very serious problem on our hands, and we are at least partly responsible for it, or at least, responsible for trying to cover it up. We’re willing to do whatever is reasonable to help set it straight.”

This might go a long way to generating public interest and political will to do something about it.

And just think, your guys might even be able to write off the cost of the ad as a legitimate public relations expense.

And yes, that last para was no accident, any more than your continuous opposition to the entire idea of AGW has been merely scientific conservatism.