Tom Toles for January 10, 2013

Washington gives the people what they want. Most o “the people” still have their heads in the sand.

Read Night-Gaunt’s comment. One degree is actually quite a jump.

The difference in average climate temperature between now and the last Ice Age was about two to three degrees.

It was 122 in Austrailia last week.It is ironic to consider how climate deniers are going to react if droughts continue to effect our food supply, the Mississippi River become the Mississippi Creek, & storms increase in strength and number. Fortunately, very few people look at what is happening and say, “I used to believe in Climate change, but now I think it’s just a bunch of hooey.” Even if climate change isn’t man made, there are actions man can take to slow or even reverse it’s consequences. An immediate action would be desalination plants on the gulf coast to pipe fresh water up the Mississippi, Missouri, and other Rivers if for no other reason to keep the barges moving. With overflow stacks, these same pipes could take flood waters to areas where water is needed.We can improve the economy, provide jobs, and prevent losses by fighting climate changes worst consequences.Respectfully,C.

I think these comments are typical of current public reaction, probably more on the “pro” side. What I’d like to do is take Readers Comment pages from various sites and put them in a time capsule to be opened in 50 years. .The existence or not of predicted climate change should be apparent by then. If any of you are still alive and GoComics records could be accessed and your identities revealed – honestly, would you change your presently posted opinions? If not still alive (I won’t be) would you fear possible posthumous embarrassment? (-.Sometimes I have that creepy feeling somebody’s walking on my grave – doubly disturbing because I’ve asked to be cremated.

Where I live it was the second warmest 74.8 degrees, 1990 was warmest.

If someone is walking on your grave, maybe they spilled your ashes? I expect to be accidentally vacced up and tossed in the trash after cremation. As to the ice in Canada, it’s still January, it’s still Canada, and it’s still the arctic! IDIOT!

The problem is that temperatures go up and down. The fact that 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last 15 is more to the point.

We melt the permafrost, huge amounts of CO2 are released, and then we see big changes. Things do not necessarily happen on smooth lines.

As one climate scientist put it, we are driving toward a cliff in the fog; we are going downhill; we know the cliff is out there, but we don’t know exactly when we will reach it; and we are accelerating. Might be smart to put on the brakes.

There is a pond, and there are lilly pads on the pond. The number of them doubles each day. It will take 30 days to completely choke the pond. On what day will the pond be half full? On the 29th day.

There is such a thing as a geometric progression, and such a thing as a feedback loop, and such a thing as a tipping point. Things might not be too bad right this minute, but we ignore the evidence of science and the projections of experts at our peril.

If nine doctors out of ten tell you you have a life-threatening cancer, even though you are feeling few symptoms now, would it be wise to ignore the nine, hope the 10th is right, and refuse treatment?

Good one! “Mr.” Ima is a horrible little pest.

I just quit using the name. Kind of like the mass murderers… quit broadcasting their names and showing their images. It just excites some of them. The commenter to which you refer is not evil, just unhelpfully strident. If a child is screaming on the plane, you just gotta tune it out.Respectfully,C.

You’re aiming kinda high, TM…I believe we all know people w/pieces and parts of “Mr.” Ima—-sad, insecure and uptight haters that equate negative attention with some sort of affection, warped as that is.Folks of such description who claim to follow Jesus truly disperse a polluted haze throughout Christ’s teachings. How about we simply chat w/one another concerning “Mr.” Ima’s foolish posts? Consider the entity he/she/it represents as nothing more than a laboratory mouse, bred for our observation…

One degree in a survivable range of about 100degrees, in a time frame of about 200 years of records. The cores from Antarctica go back thousands of years. In 10 years @ one degree per year, 10 degrees plus. It’s like money…it compounds. As always, science is our candle in the dark, and the money interests seek to blow it out!

"Until the “right” people are in a position to profit from climate change the republican party will continue to deny it. "It would not surprise me in the least if the Koch Brothers’ long term plans include selling us clean air & water at a profit.

I read an article years ago about volcanic eruptions in the continental U.S. It concerned fossils found in a prehistoric pond in Texas. It was an entire ecology smothered in volcanic ash, since turned to stone. The animals and plants were preserved in situ, suddenly overtaken by an ash cloud from an eruption. The eruption was traced to a volcano in the Pacific Northwest, tens of thousands of years ago. .This was a remarkable find because of the fossils. But what I remember is the fascinating graphic that showed different volcanic eruption over hundreds of thousands of years. The extents of ash and debris were shown by circles, some so small as to barely cover a state; others that extended almost to the East coast. It really scared me, and open my eyes to the vistas of time preceding me.. Catastrophes of this sort happen periodically, and the ecologies come back – after millennia. Our ecology includes a lot of humans this time. Sure, cooling from a volcano’s eruption will temporarily set back warming trends, but what about the additional CO2, added to that from human sources? Warming will bounce back relatively quickly, I think..There were two big eruptions in the nineteenth century and their lasting influences at this point are debatable. I don’t think we can count on the Yellowstone Caldera to save us, and I don’t really think people would seriously suggest it: It would be as if one looked forward to a tornado clearing his yard of leaves. .I’ve read also that the Himalayan area with its snow peaks and glaciers could be considered as a Third Pole. But this one is over a populated land mass. Over a billion people in Asia rely on seasonal run-off from that area to trickle down through streams and rivers. Some of the glaciers are considered sacred because people know their continued presence in the process of accumulation of snow and then partial melting is crucial to their survival.. Many of the glaciers are greatly diminishing visibly within less than a person’s lifetime. Some of them are now black with dust and this accelerates their diminishment. Instead of snow falling to replenish them, precipitation is falling as rain. Instead of an even flow of melt going to the lowlands, increasingly floods occur. Increasingly big floods..The result of this is something else to consider: ecological refugees. If there are tens of millions of people on the move, looking for shelter, what will happen? It will quickly overcome the financial resources of the region, and the industrial nations, West and East, will be asked for aid..We could barely handle the problems from Katrina, and much less Sandy. How much more difficult will it be to become involved in relief efforts of entire countries? Could we turn our backs on them, not necessarily from cruelty but from scarcity of funds and aid workers?.All catastrophes from now on must take our huge human populations into account. It’s amazing that we squander time to argue about climate change, if it exists and what we should do. .It exists, and we should do everything possibly imaginable – now! Future generations will curse us, otherwise. It could be our own grandchildren.

Guess you missed this:“The animals are thought to have been hunting seals when cold weather hit two days ago and froze the bay, which had remained open late into winter because of unseasonably warm weather.”Source http://www.theweek.co.uk/environment/50918/pod-killer-whales-trapped-sea-ice-struggle-survive#ixzz2HbNJYb9i

Why do I have to come here daily and see youe less than intelligent remarks. “oh look its winter and it snowed, there is no climate change”. So apparently you think climate change happens over night going from 4 seasons to just plain hot. 95% of the WORLDS climatologist agree global warming is occurriing. I guess the sky is falling for you until its 100% eh? I rarely name call on the comment board but Ima you are the biggest idiot I have come across. Never any facts in your comments and just a bunch of blowhard nonsense.

One of the hallmarks of skeptics regarding Climate Change is the insistence that the world itself permanent; it has never changed in their lifetime, therefore it cannot change. Evidence to the contrary (continental drift, ice ages, Snowball Earth) happened in The Past. It is only the present which has any bearing on their lives, they say. This view actually amuses me because it implies a terrible intellectual limitation.

What most people overlook about the Earth is that it exists in Geological Time, which is one continuous planetary lifetime spanning billions of years. The life of a human being is meaningless to the Earth, which will live on long after we have turned to dust. But that does not mean that the Earth will always be the same.

Landslides, floods, tidal waves, volcanic explosions, and shifting wind patterns all prove that the Earth is changing constantly. Climate shifts have happened millions of times throughout the Earth’s lifetime, and will continue to happen in the future. What we humans regard as ‘normal’ conditions represents a tiny fraction of time. For someone to insist that it will ALWAYS be that way is to ignore billions of years of change as “unimportant”. And that is not just ignorance, that is willful ignorance, which is much worse.

No such thing as global warming. Or evolution. That’s republican science. As is, a raped woman can’t get pregnant.You decide.

past tense – the wind shifted and broke the ice so they could swim free.video: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50427029/

But what do you have to say about climate change as a whole?

Clearly, you have no idea what this means. Suggested reading: “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas.

Ima, you forgot to take your meds again.

While there IS a valuable place in the world for “skeptics”, when it comes to our crop of “climate deniers” and “climate change skeptics”, there’s a simpler word, and less desirable role: idots.