I'm not a fan of the doom-mongering arm of the climate change argument, but that was some of the most appalling nonsense I have ever seen come from a major newspaper.

These are the conclusions:

And a warmer Earth may not be any worse than a colder one, certainly not for the longer growing seasons it would allow in the world's temperate zones. None of this justifies passing, for the first time, limits on greenhouse gases that would impose hundreds of billions of dollars in compliance costs on American energy production.

Which translates into, we'll be ok up here in Washington, so fuck the rest of you. Maybe if someone shows the writer the predicted changes in  hurricane distributions they might think again.

The US lifestyle is not negotiable. Unfortunately, neither is physics.

would any sane person spend time on the WSJ ed. page?

I like the rest of the paper (enough to pay for it online), but John Fund, Paul Gigot et al are a bunch of ignorant weasels that might as well work for Faux news.

Regardless of the debate in the scientific world, how can anyone ignore the hard fact that we've excavated millions of years worth of carbon deposits and turned them into CO2 in the last 150 years.  That has to have some effect.  How could it not?

The WSJ article is a bunch of baloney. The administration's own Arctic Commission found that ice is supposed to melt so much that shipping lanes would open for the Arctic Ocean. And other studies have shown that the only reason the current climate is as cool as it is is because of the massive soot in the earth's atmosphere from man-made pollution.

Iraq War news and comment.

This is a pretty bogus editorial, that's for sure. There is one accurate point buried in it, though, which is that the Kyoto treaty is a meaningless political statement. Why are we reduced to statements like this? Because NO POLITICIAN IS GOING TO PROPOSE A REAL SOLUTION.

The U.S. rejected the Kyoto treaty (97 senators voted against ratification (none in favor)--not just the evil Republicans). European countries are struggling to meet the requirements, or backing out. And even if Kyoto were enacted by every country and then actually implemented by every country, it would not make any difference to the problem because it is such a small step. This is not a "Bush" problem, it's a "Western Civilization" problem.

The problem of global warming is huge. The economic disruption that would be require to reverse it is huge. Most people simply don't understand the scale of the problem: One estimate is that we would need to cut CO2 emissions by 70% to negate the problem.
http://clima.casaccia.enea.it/ipcc/focalpoint/infoclima/2001/Long_term_perspectives.html

SEVENTY PERCENT REDUCTION. That is a HUGE amount. Basically it says that everybody needs to cut their use of energy to 1/4 of what it is now. How are you going to do that? It's so completely impractical that getting the political will to do it is simply NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. It would essentially require the replacement of the entire Western electricity generating system with nuclear power, and the replacement of the entire automobile transportation system with electric trains.

Realistically, what politician is going to take that on as a platform? It's not going to happen. What is going to happen is a bunch of handwringing and a lot of flooding of low-lying areas. Move to high ground!

1. the WSJ op/ed page is not news, it's religion.

2. Putin said the same thing about global warming -- that it could be a good thing because it would extend growing seasons in the north.  I remind everyone that a globe tapers towards its poles;  what is being discussed here is extending growing season for a small amount of planetary real estate while wrecking agriculture in the much larger surface area each side of the equator...

3. I've been reflecting that the Great Work of the 21st century, if we had any sense, would be to clean up the suppurating, pustulent mess left by the big cheap petro/carbon party of the 20th century.  however, we are still "led" [hah!] by willie-jousting testosterone-poisoned lunatics, who think cleaning up after themselves (let alone after anyone else) is "women's work" and therefore infra dig.   they find it soooooo much more manly and dignified to scrabble and scuffle  viciously in the gutter over the piddling, shopworn remnants of our squandered planetary wealth.

4. it's already too late.
   

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

For a look at his matter in the eye of the Science, I highly recommend this web site : Union of Concern Scientist.

Solid stuff.