See, humans aren’t responsible for their actions when we can blame it all on cow farts.

This explains a lot.

Please wait until the end of your bloviation to include insults and ad hominems. Otherwise it is hard to get past your first sentence. Do you want your content read or don't you?

If you insist on calling someone a nut, then do it like this:

Krugman is a nut, obviously, because …

You would be thrown out of my debate club for failing to follow basic rules of good debating.

Nobody that truly cares about the environment would propose these policies.

Last I checked, the current status of the earth was not crowds of humans huddled together on barren rock.

Many species have caused the extinction of other species.

At least humans feel bad about it and generally try to not do it.

"I also found useful the dialogue "The Big Heat" in the June issue of Discover magazine (not yet on-line). It's the best discussion I've seen of why the climate change skeptics clutch at a few pieces of (supposedly) favorable evidence but don't think about the issue at the very deep level or require that their scientific theories cohere as a whole or predict a wide range of climate-related data."

The above quote is from Tyler Cowen who I admire and enjoy reading. I am a skeptic in regards to global warming. I tend to respect the views of others in as much that I generally don't think that they are deluded for not agreeing with me. What I cannot understand is why smart people suggest that skeptics should be required to prove the null hypothesis.

I'd buy onto both of those points, and I'm certainly no skeptic

Actually, no, you don't accept Dyson's point. Krugman and others of his public caliber are advocating measures that fly directly in the face of Dyson's statement (hence his reasoning for making the statement) and you are feverishly defending Krugman, the one Dyson's point is at odds with.

The contrapositive of what I said would be , "As long as humans are around, other species don't stand a chance." And it is a true statement.

You're operating on false premises and never looking back.

Protectionism is a proven loser on the historical record, but you are willing to advocate such a failed economic policy against a very possibly belligerent nation for the cause of a highly questionable scientific theory?

The premise is false of course that global warming is indeed fact, and worth the threat of military engagement at worst, or the start of a nasty economic war of higher and higher trade barriers where no one wins.

The second false premise is that Russ or any other credible voices on the side of liberty are advocating that genuinely negative externalities be ignored.

Russ Roberts is one of the most balanced, well tempered public voices in the world today as is easily proven through his posts, podcasts, etc. Whereas Krugman and most global warming advocates are the very definition of rash.

Krugman is not giving credit to consensus, he's buying in to a shallow trend that is already starting to crumble under the weight of evidence.

Moralistically speaking, where has Roberts said anything approaching the level of Krugman's smugness?

And that is a large part of what you're missing. Not the debate of global warming only, but Krugman and men like him declaring their beliefs with such arrogance on something that is, as you almost admit, is still open for debate.

Can you find any thing that Russ has said in the way of declarations about "what has to be done" that even comes close to the hubris of Krugman?

If I were in your position, I would take the first step myself.

It's a start.

But if you doubt, say, whether their kids are smart, or — which is relevant here — express doubt about their favorite religious dogma, you will hear if not feel their righteous wrath.

Basically, factual evidence and confidence are replacements for each other.

For people on both sides of the issue, global warming just serves as a proxy.

If evidence did arise that persuaded you to change your mind about global warming, would you also change your mind about the proposed policy prescriptions? If nobody had any policy prescriptions, would you even care?

On the contrary, I think you were fooled by non-randomness!

Now, neither one of us is a climatologist, and I am not knowledgeable enough to tell you that you're right or wrong, but I do find it very perplexing that your skepticism about so-called "global warming" can be encouraged based on a non-randomized sample size of (1) one – (i.e. Your car's temperature this morning at 8 am in Washington, DC, not long after you read Krugman's column)

So while we can be fooled by randomness, we can also be fooled by false inferences made by non-randomness.

–Pingry

Freeman thinks the models are greatly exaggerated, and from the NYTimes article "he is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.". If interested, read the latter part of the article when he discusses An Inconvenient Truth with his wife and argues with her that he sees no clear evidence, he discusses China, etc. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=8

As for Kary Mullis, here is his TED talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNOtiRB3uyk&feature=channel_page), at about 19:40 in he talks about how many scientists are led astray by money/special interest/government and says how scientists often lie and specifically mentions "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". At about 21:50 on he is specifically talking about Global Warming and how the theory is incorrect. At 27:00 he says "this should be called The End of the Global Warming fiasco" about a study that came out and proved it wrong, "Wrong by a large factor".

What the HELL?

The worst case scenarios were that Miami would already be underwater by now.

The worst case scenarios were that the last bald polar bear would have died of skin cancer.

The worst case scenarios were crop failures and massive category 7 hurricanes.

What we're experiencing is BEYOND the worst case scenarios?

Krugman is guilty of ginning up hyperbole to serve his hyperbole.