"Flatulence is now a patriotic duty."

This just in.

The four major organizations that calculate "global average temperature" all agree: in one year, more than 80 years of global warming has been wiped out. The quote in the title is from one of Jerry Pournelle's correspondents:

If this is true, the consequences are appalling. Most of North America and all of Europe north of the Alps will be under a mile of ice by 2030. This means that most of the advanced countries except Australia will cease to exist. There can be little doubt that the need to survive will trump any international norms of behavior: I would expect that Europe would invade Africa and the US would invade Mexico, accepting genocide of the indigenous populations as an unfortunate necessity, given the absolute need for lebensraum.

Perhaps we could delay or stop the transition by using nuclear explosions to release floods of methane (a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) from the hydrate deposits under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, and/or by mounting a major effort to reduce the albedo by shoveling dirt over northern snowfields. Unfortunately, the reputations and income of far too many influential people now depend on the existence of the GW threat, and they will resist recognizing the truth as long as possible. In any case, I don't expect politicians to have the chutzpah to act before it is too late.

Until we find out whether the present cold is transient or getting worse, the Precautionary Principle demands that we all do our duty by guzzling as much gasoline and emitting as much CO2 and CH4 as possible. Flatulence is now a patriotic duty.

Now this could all just be a blip in the data, and 2008 will jump back up where it was in 2006. Note the huge, unsustained spike in 1998. But the important point is this: global cooling will screw things up much faster and much more thoroughly than global warming ever could.

Our move to Arizona is looking like a better idea every day.....