Raise your hand if you believe this academic really thinks there are politicians out there flipping through his menu, debating whether or not they should create global warming legislation or appropriate billions on malaria and poverty prevention in the third world. What kind of planet would he need to be on to believe this is actually related to the real world choices academic work in this area influence? The reality is that Lomborg is smart enough to know why he's been thrust into the spotlight and what the true utility of his message is, and to whom. He's being used by politically astute power brokers whose agenda has little to do with public welfare and his complicity in that effort is not in doubt, (nor is the degree to which he has personally profited from it).

Notwithstanding, it is probably still the case that Lomborg sincerely believes his analysis and conclusions, which, coupled with the self-serving ignorance, makes him an idiot in addition to useful. In particular, not 'focusing on worst case scenarios' while sounding sensible, is actually quite the opposite. You will find that small changes in probability estimates of extremely negative outcomes cause wild swings in what cost-benefit analyses tell us, and the inference in Lomborg's whole million dollar routine is either that we understand these well or that such outcomes aren't relevant to costs and benefits. We don't. They are.

As to the latter, the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change points out a number of catastrophic threats associated with global warming whose probability of occurring within the century, while considered small, is also very poorly understood. These include: sudden collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, weakening or even reversal of thermohaline circulations that might strongly affect the Gulf Stream, runaway amplification of global warming due to the many potential reinforcing feedbacks (including, but not limited to, loss of polar albedo and rapid releases of methane from arctic permafrost). More gradual but still very serious and highly uncertain are: sea-level dynamics, drowned coastlines of unknown magnitude, extreme weather patterns, flood risks, ecosystem destruction, mass species extinctions, tropical-crop failures, humidity-nourished contagious diseases, etc. etc.

This doesn't mean that there should be no weight given to expected costs and damages to our environment and economy, but points out that such is insufficient to the point of being invalid. As the Stern Review notes:

Averaging across possibilities conceals risks. The risks of outcomes much worse than expected are very real and they could be catastrophic. Policy on climate change is in large measure about reducing these risks. They cannot be fully eliminated, but they can be substantially reduced. Such a modeling framework has to take account of ethical judgements on the distribution of income and how to treat future generations.

It is ironic that in today's world, the most effective way to promote irrationality is through 'rational' arguments like Lomborg's. Marketing is nothing if not innovative.

hammerbutt-

You've been misinformed. The problem the climate data first picked up on by McIntyre did no such thing- Hansen's ordering of the hottest years is the same now as it was before, 1998 is still the hottest year on record- it's just that 1934 is now the hottest year recorded in the lower 48. So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, given that it's called "global warming" and not "contiguous US warming", your slander against Hansen's integrity is without merit, as I gather is your understanding of this field of inquiry (fyi, the surface temperature record is not the basis for global warming science).

One more thing, McIntyre didn't uncover the problem with the data, merely its symptom- an awkward jump in the record. NASA scientists took all of one day to diagnose the problem and fix the record, contrasting nicely with all the delusional global warming skeptics out there, still banging on about how the hockey stick has been debunked, fully months since the purported debunking's been debunked.

McIntyre works in the mining industry- indeed, if anyone is a poster boy for the denial industry, it is he. Also fyi, as stated in the post you ignored, his and McKitrick's well flogged 'debunking' of the Mann Hockey Stick was thoroughly debunked many moons ago, though denialists seem incapable of getting this through their evidently quite thick skulls. You also should read through my other post for details on your other sorry misstatements. Even posting under a pseudonym, one presumes some semblance of pride.

Genius, The police were there to investigate a suicide not to preempt one with murder. You say that the police could have thought Jamie was in there on a shooting spree, harming other people... what possible basis would they have for such a suspicion? Clearly the family wasn't consulted by the police during the standoff, nor does it sound as if he himself were even asked about other persons in the house- if their overriding concern was regarding the harm Jamie could do to others, you think maybe they might broach the subject? More succinctly, you think?

If I didn't already know the answer to that question, I might ask if you knew whether or not the police had the right to demand that Jamie leave a place where he was lawfully sequestered? It wasn't under the circumstances, but that didn't stop them. In short, there was no threat, no probable cause, no common sense or empathy applied, just a good enough excuse for police snipers to get in some trigger time- something anyone familiar with these types knows they are diabolically eager to do.

It's cumbersome ninnies like you whose order-following predilection enables these mindless animals to go on killing. You should know that your dumbness of the head and that of those like you is a dead weight loss to society.