Oral Report Time Again

For whatever reason, Catastrophic-Global-Warming believers never tire of giving the same old third-grade Oral Report – over and over and over again. This time it’s Matthew Yglesias who regales us with his carefully-considered oceano-atmospheric scientific knowledge:

A modest rise in world temperatures, if it stays modest, could be manageable. But a modest rise in world temperatures could lead to a big increase in greenhouse gas levels through a variety of feedback loops. Then the rise gets unmanageable, especially since once all this stuff gets into the atmosphere the climate just keeps getting hotter.

NOTE: Just in case you had any doubt, that’s the entirety of the substance, such as it is, of what he says about climate in that post. Nothing actually follows, and if the post contained an ‘argument’ for something, that was all of it.

Okay now class, turn to page 2 (Reaction And Discussion):

1. Matthew Yglesias has come to this expertise and conclusions about climate facts by way of (a) extensive study and numerical simulation of the oceano-atmospheric system, including time spent in postdoctoral research at the Oregon State-affiliated College Of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) in Cornwallis, Oregon, seven published papers in the Journal of Computational Physics on turbulence modeling, as well as some in-the-field study involving collection of temperature data, (b) pulling it out of his butt after reading some articles on Slate by guys like Ezra Klein and Joshua Micah Jonah Jeshua whats-his-name who interviewed other guys and whatnot.

2. How do you feel about Matthew Yglesias’s ultra-scientific and informed finding that the climate could “just [keep] getting hotter”? (a) bad, (b) really bad, (c) really really bad, (d) really really really bad.

3. Name some everyday, routine things you could tell your parents not to do (or replace with more intrusive and/or annoying tasks) in order to prevent the earth from being destroyed (essay): ______________________________

4. What does Matthew Yglesias actually know about these “feedback loops” – their mechanisms, their role and importance, etc. – to which he casually refers in passing as part of his informed, substantive description of possible future climates? (a) squat, (b) diddly squat, (c) diddly fucking squat.

5. On the basis of these informed findings of Matthew Yglesiases’es, and how often he implicitly calls other people stupid and unscientific if they don’t accede to his studied conclusions without question, how much power should he and guys who think – and are informed at a level – exactly the same as he is be given over the rest of our’ses lives: (a) absolute, (b) total, (c) dictatorial, (d) all of the above.