I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED, TO FIND OUT THERE'S THINKING GOING ON - AT 9:42 P.M. ET:  We knew the day had to come when some people would figure out that global warming isn't as, I apologize for this, hot as it's cracked up to be.  From Spiegel online:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

Whatever the explanation, maybe we'd better nail down the facts before we spend trillions of dollars on junk science, possibly wrecking economies and making the world's poor even poorer.

The Earth's average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Ironically, climate change appears to have stalled in the run-up to the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.

Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see.  The batteries in the calculator just went dead, that's all.

Even though the temperature standstill probably has no effect on the long-term warming trend, it does raise doubts about the predictive value of climate models, and it is also a political issue. For months, climate change skeptics have been gloating over the findings on their Internet forums. This has prompted many a climatologist to treat the temperature data in public with a sense of shame, thereby damaging their own credibility.

And maybe for good reason.  I think we've had more political science here than real science.

"It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community," says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. "We don't really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point."

Of course, the article goes on to pretty much endorse the conventional, trendy wisdom on warming - that it will resume, but the endorsement is half-hearted.  Many, many scientists are questioning what Al Gore has been preaching. 

Remember that careers are involved here.  Careers are often more important than the truth.

November 20,  2009