The more I hear from James Hansen, the less impressed I am with him as a supposedly objective scientist.

OK, only one model has it going to New Orleans. Let’s hope that the consensus of the other models is right, and it’s heading for Mexico.

Or maybe Karl Rove is just revving up his black-killing weather machine one more time, for old time’s sake.

On science, society, and climate change. From Freeman Dyson.

[Update a few minutes later]

It slipped down the page, but I have an explanation as to why I think that Jim Hansen should have egg on his face, since there seems to be some confusion in the comments section there.

[Sunday morning update]

On this Robert Samuelson piece, I agree with Glenn:

Personally, as I’ve noted before, the whole debate seems to me to be a religious sideshow. Regardless of what you think about global warming, there are lots of good reasons to avoid burning fossil fuels. But the global-warming discussion in the media is a consensus identity narrative designed to achieve political ends, not an effort to find facts or protect the environment. And this also accounts for the backlash.

Looks like 1998 wasn’t the hottest year, after all. But it took a blogger to figure it out:

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

Guess the trend wasn’t as trendy as they thought.

Hansen should have egg on his face. Someone from the MSM should ask him about it. But I doubt if they will. It’s another one of those stories that’s too good to check.

Now that they have the data right (assuming they do) they should rerun the correlation analysis for hurricane frequency and intensity.

[Update late afternoon]

Maybe I should have titled this post “An Inconvenient Truth.”

[Saturday update]

Since there seems to be some confusion in comments as to why Dr. Hansen should have egg on his face, Coyoteblog explains (with a lot of other commentary).

When a scientist refuses to reveal his algorithms or models, but simply insists, ‘trust me, the numbers are right,” and someone else has to go through the trouble of reverse engineering them, and finds that the numbers are in fact wrong, said scientist should indeed have egg on his face. As the blog notes, that’s not how science is supposed to be done. Research is supposed to be replicable. Hiding the ball makes this difficult, and it’s one of the reasons that those promoting (and often deliberately overhyping) climate change aren’t trusted. And it brings into question all of the data and casts doubt on all of the researchers, even the best ones.

Randall Parker:

Carnivorous birds and wolves toil to protect forests from their natural enemies. What great animals. Cheer them on as they kill, kill, kill!

Maybe we need to bring in some wolves to solve the deer problem. But I’d still rather have the venison for myself.

And I should note that I don’t read Futurepundit as much as I should. Lots of good stuff there today, from life (and brain–drink coffee!) extension tips and breakthroughs, to the construction costs of nuclear plants.

With organic farming.

Earth haters. I think we should boycott Whole Foods.

[Update at 3 PM EDT]

But wait! There’s more! Exercise causes global warming, too.

<VOICE=”Homer Simpson”>Global Warming…is there anything that doesn’t cause it?</VOICE>

I blame George Bush and his mountain bike.

Maybe, but there’s zero evidence of it to date:

Last month, Roger Pielke, Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, released the most comprehensive paper ever published on the subject of damage trends in Atlantic hurricanes. The article will appear soon in the peer-reviewed journal Natural Hazards Review.

Is the planet warmer than it was? Yes. Is there any trend in hurricane-related damages in the United States, where good records of damages exist? After accounting simultaneously for inflation, population, and property values, no.

I always find it irritating when the media report this or that hurricane as the “most expensive ever,” as though there’s some worsening trend in hurricanes, without putting it into context. Yes, hurricane damage will increase in the future, but not because hurricanes are getting worse, or more frequent. It’s because the value of the property at risk continues to increase. Fortunately, so does the general wealth of the society, though we do need to solve the moral hazard of subsidizing people who choose to live in hurricane-prone areas. But selfishly, I hope not before I sell the house in Florida.

Virginia Postrel reiterates a point that I’ve made many times–that even if we accept a scientific consensus on climate change doesn’t mean that we should blindly follow their advice on what to do about it:

…even assuming that scientists agree on the facts, science can only tell us something about the state of the world. It cannot tell us what policy is the best to adopt. Scientists’ preferences are not “science.” You cannot go from an “is” (science) to an “ought” (policy).

…truths about human nature. I agree that a lot of what drives suicide bombing among young Muslim men is the polygynous culture, but that doesn’t explain the married doctors in the UK.

An interesting overview over at New York Magazine.

It’s long been obvious to me that homosexuals (and heterosexuals, as I am) are born, not made. What I did find interesting was the notion that women may not have an inherent sexual orientation, or at least one not as clearly delineated as that of men. It certainly jibes well with my own observations. But I’m skeptical that there’s no such thing as a male bi-sexual.