I have no problem being contrarian on the subject of what was once called global warming until the warming stopped. Back in the late '80s I was just recovering from ridiculing the coming Ice Age and Nuclear Winter when the opposite was declared. They had only one thing in common, the cause was the same, industrialization, and the cure was the same, de-industrialization.

Needless to say I was a bit skeptical of the same people who were railing about the advancing glaciers suddenly jumped ship and began railing about the retreating glaciers without skipping a beat. And listening to the subtext they were repeating the same 1960s back to the Earth mantras as though they were new.

Back in 1988 I read the first quasi government approved clear prediction roughly as follows. I we do not reduce the amount of fossil fuels we burn in ten years it will be too late. Not being naive I did not expect an announcement in 1998 that it was too late to do anything and everyone should party on. I was not disappointed.

In most of the years since 1988 there have been similar ten years or else predictions. Now I have no problem with people making erroneous predictions. I have made more than my share of them.

I am suspicious when science comes in tens. I am suspicious when there have been no admissions of errors much less explanations for them. I am suspicious when science just happens to fit the apocalyptic visions of starving mad men living in caves.

I am on solid ground when I identify both the advancing and retreating glaciers as containing the implicit assumption that we live in the best of all possible worlds. That is a medieval idea that occupied theologians along with pinhead dancing angels. But it leaves the glacier trackers with an obvious unanswerable question, which is the best world climate.

Reasonable people would look at the purported caused, the burning of fossil fuels, and say the pre-industrial climate was the ideal. They would certainly be able to show how the current world climate is worse than it was in pre-industrial times. It doesn't take too much effort to debunk that idea. Ask the Anasazi how warming dried out their land and ended their culture. They were not big on burning fossil fuel.

But that is just an example of the emptiness of the supposedly scientific concern. Other than the 1960s back to the earth railing against industrialization, which in itself can be traced back to the Luddites, one does not find what we should expect to find, things like what is the ideal climate.

We also do not find rational guidance on how to live with it as it is in fact too late to stop. The carbon trading scheme does absolutely nothing to reduce the world total CO₂ emissions nor is it intended to do so. It is solely a redistribution system attempting to create artificial value to CO₂ emissions or lack of same. Tulipomania comes to mind. It is a thing without intrinsic value, like monopoly money.

It is coming, whatever it is, warming, cooling, greater variability, whatever is coming what should we be planning to do? We can look at the geologic record and see warm and wet go together as do cool and dry. So should we be planning for Siberia to become the breadbasket of the world? If not, why not? And if you don't know, what are all the dire warnings about?

I mean yes, the Sahara desert is growing. It has been growing for the last 6000 years. That is sort of a gimme. Should we plan for great solar power facilities there or will they be threatened by a return of rain as the world gets warmer? I mean the Amazon is in a hotter place than the Sahara already. What does temperature have to do with it?

Should I speculate and buy palm tree futures for Canada? Will rain forests return to England and northern Canada? Will that make Alaskan oil cheaper to extract? Will the increased water make it cheaper to extract Canadian shale oil? Will Antarctica become a summer vacation tourist trap?

Why have the peak oil people stayed out of this? Does not peak oil mean we run out of oil soon and the warming stops for lack of fuel? Do the glaciers last long enough to still be there when the temperature starts coming down again?

If this is the best of all possible climates then all changes will be negative and the proper response to all those questions is, Don't be silly.

If this is not the best of all possible climates then it will improve in some places and get worse in others.

As all the replies are, Don't be silly, clearly it is believed we live in the best of all possible worlds.

On one hand we are warning of the deaths of hundreds of millions of people from climate change. It is presented as a certainty.

Lets say there was an energy solution without CO₂ whose worst impact was ever few years a few thousand or even tens of thousands might die but that risk would decrease with experience. Who would be so against the occasional risk while accepting the certainty of hundreds of millions? Those who are against nuclear power of course.

Not to say nuclear power is the solution. We would have to commission a new one every week or so for a couple decades to replace fossil fuel plants. But I raise it to put the Luddites in perspective. As long as they are not among the hundreds of millions dead the risk isn't worth it.

But nuclear is the only known solution. It is not possible to reduce the present level of world energy consumption. In fact it will increase. No number of curly light bulbs will make a dent in the world increase. Energy using equipment is approaching thermodynamic theoretical maximum efficiency.

Like the nuclear solution upgrading our power consuming infrastructure cannot happen overnight. It is a decades long effort. So just how many years do we have until it is too late?

And all the while the West is going nuclear and maximizing the efficiency of consumption India, China and Southeast Asia are going to be raising their standard of living by joining the energy intensive 21st century. That is why world energy consumption is going to increase no matter what the West does. Unless they go nuclear CO₂ will continue to increase. China is presently commissioning a new coal fueled power plant every week.

Doing anything to reduce CO₂ emission is a waste of effort as nothing can be done fast enough. If the US were to start the conversion to nuclear tomorrow 2040 is the earliest we could expect completion. Do we really have that many years? Could we even afford it? Affordability is an issue for the US as there is no economic demand for the change. In China electrification pays for itself many times over.

But these considerations should not be matters of opinion. If the climate experts did in fact understand what they are talking about they could provide the missing information.

For example we know how much light is produced by incandescent bulbs and thus the power requirement of lighting in the US. We know the power savings using compact fluorescent lamps, CFL, curly bulbs. Thus we can calculate the savings in power demand and find the reduction in CO₂ emission and the one time savings in new power plant construction.

Similarly we know the power consumed by heating and cooling in the US. If the climate scientists were able to tell us the actual temperature change we could plan for it. We would know what we have to do and when we have to do it. But they cannot. So we have no idea what to do until it gets here.

This is not what we call a robust science. In fact given the apocalyptic best of all possible worlds assumption implicit in the warnings one hesitates to call it a science at all.

The reality is the world has been both warmer and cooler than today. If the climate scientists are correct it was ideal in the 19th century so even they have to agree this is not the ideal world climate. While they cannot tell us what to expect in degree-days in the US in 2050 there is no way to declare whatever it is then that it will be better or worse than today. Different, yes, but better or worse is a different question. Better or worse in which parts of the US is an entirely different level of uncertainty.

There is nothing we can do about it fast enough to matter according to all assessments. Back following the 1988 (and 1989 and 1990 and ... you get the picture) prediction of only ten more years it took years to organize a meeting to talk about doing something about it. People cannot act in the time frame the melters give us.

Nor do the melters explain the constant failures of their "too late" predictions and why we always have enough time to act, but only urgently, because of another prediction which will fail without an explanation of the failure.

It is going to get warmer. OK. Now what? What is wrong with warmer?

I will only accept an answer to that question with a detailed analysis of the pros and cons for each geographic region of the world. I will not accept the usual recitation of the four horsemen arriving because of warming. Frankly I have never heard a consequence of warming that is not one of the four horsemen but perhaps I have missed one.

Nor will I accept any excuses for the absence of a detailed analysis. We are 25 years into the coming apocalypse and 14 years passed the first too late date and nothing of biblical proportions yet nor a single thing even close. If you think you have seen something you are either young or have forgotten your youth. If the latter get tested for Alzheimer's.

If these supporters of climate scientists or the scientists themselves have a case to make then make it rationally and honestly. If you can't demonstrate warmer is worse keep your mouths shut until you know what you are talking about. That goes double for politicians.