In the immortal (?) words of Geddy Lee: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".

Good article. Good comments. All human issues are multivariate, both in the independent and dependent variables - the domain of our behaviors and the range of the results. In the absence of properly conceived and implemented models, all we are left with is trial and error.

Nobody has mentioned sensitivity analysis (a term from system engineering, not psychology :-) Models aren't built just to provide some number - or even numbers for comparison - as here, literally with apples and oranges :-) Rather, models are constructed to allow the effect of tweaking different parameters to be gauged. What is the effect on public policy as the price of gas goes up? Will the long haul or short haul trucking of vegetables suffer more?

Or, if 10% of long haul trucking can be redirected to rail, how do the equations rebalance? The point is that even imperfect models have predictive value.

While simplistic, carbon footprint models are a good first step to building better models that include more facets of each system being modeled. Systems also interoperate, as food production and transportation do here. Appropriately complex models are needed to capture the essence of the emergent behaviors in the gaps.

The public cannot participate in solving the world's problems if they are provided no insight into the issues. This insight must be driven by numbers galore. With time, the key numbers - figures of merit - will be improved. We will both get better estimates of the true transportation burden - and will determine what other factors are similarly (or more) important.

All our problems scale with population. Reducing the human burden on the Earth must be part of any solution. But first, characterize the problems with models.

It is possible that this decision won't lead to more slaughter in the streets. It is possible that parents will turn to educating their children in proper gun handling for their personal cache of lock-free weapons - and that fewer household tragedies will result. More likely, however, is that the streets will run with blood and some far future, less partisan, Court will deem this interpretation of the Second Amendment to be "quaint".

In the mean time, the obvious tactic to follow is to identify not just a school or hospital as being a "sensitive place" as Scalia avers, but the entire city. By what logic is the permissible edge of a gun-free bubble to be identified? Is it the door of the school? The gate of the schoolyard? The end of the block? The nearest crack house? The next major street?

A school exists to serve a neighborhood. If the school where children spend 8 hours/day is sensitive, so is the neighborhood where the children live 24/7. And a city is a patchwork of one neighborhood adjoining the next. Work to extend the gun-free zones outward from the areas permitted by the Supremes. Red in tooth and claw though Scalia may be, even he is forced to admit the absurdity of little Billy packing heat. As the zones merge, the guns will be swept out of the city limits.

I agree with everything in this article - other than continuing to use the right wing's terminology to express the arguments. Conservative? Hah! What would be more conservative than leaving our oil underground for a rainy day?

Imagine implementing the most extreme left wing policy imaginable. All right? Now imagine implementing the most extreme right wing policy imaginable. (Perhaps like me you are thinking this lies somewhere to the left of where we already are.) Now. Imagine that each of these policies is proven wrong - wrong - wrong!

What is the result in each case? Implementing a bad left wing policy simply leaves us with more resources underground - less carbon in the atmosphere - and the ability for our children to extract and burn, slash and exploit, to their hearts content.

On the other hand, implementing a bad right wing policy leaves our world a burned out cinder, denuded of resources. Our children's options are constrained; our grandchildren's futures bleak beyond comprehension.

So what is the truly conservative position? The one that amounts to a zero margin bet that the right wing is so patently right they can't possibly be wrong? Or the left wing policies that in all circumstances preserves the option of reversing course?

As the GOP have demonstrated, every argument - every single argument - should first seize the high ground of the terminology. Either later commentators will pick up on the nuances of language - or they will enlarge the words' impact by discussing the terminology itself.

There is not one damn thing conservative about the Republican party. Not only are they acting counter to the public's best interest, they are acting counter to their own families' best interest.