Urgghh! The adaptation argument is frustrating.  Looking over the Pielke's post and some of the comments you see recurring ignorance of a critical element of the adaptation vs. mitigation argument:

Impacts from climate change will continue to escalate unless we mitigate.

Accepting the need for adaptation is implicitly accepting that GHG==>climate change, and I'm unaware of any climate change models that forsee a leveling off if GHGs aren't brought under control.

Adaptation is sensible, prudent and will be neccesary as Dave outlines above, but unless we mitigate we're going to adapt ourselves into oblivion. Why in the world would you want to focus on adaptation policies without simultaneously mitigating the the source of the problem? So we adapt to 1 ft sea level rises, then we adapt to 2 and then 3 and so on, all the while failing to reduce emissions that are making the problem worse.  That's the ultimate folly.

Of course we have to adapt, but let's make damn sure we only have to adapt to the minimum amount of disruption we can. I'm not convinced talking about adaptation just provides cover to political interests, but I do think you have to preface adaptation with migtigation. It's insanity to do otherwise.

David, to suggest that you, say, look with cold-hearted indifference at that photo of the roof-bound refugees from Hurricane Mitch, or refuse to support the restoration of the bayou hydrology and ecosystem in southern Louisiana (which I guest counts as an "adaptation"), strikes me as vaguely obscene.

This is a red herring.  It is false and misleading to hypothesize a strict choice between "adaptationist" policies effective today, and "mitigationist" ones the results of which will not be apparent for some time.  (I think it was Pielke's commenter Indur Goklany who wrote something to that effect.)  There is not enough evidence at this point, it seems, to doubt the basic good intentions of Pielke & Co.  Still, it is a cheap rhetorical trick, to claim the moral high ground by asserting one's own compassion for the world's countless suffering, while deploring the lack of it in one's adversary.

I hope you will find it in that creative heart of yours to move the discussion beyond this odd point of confusion.  Your position of refusal to contribute to the political-cover tactic is both clear (even if the Iran analogy is not entirely satisfactory), and morally admirable.