...in what seems like decades or even centuries.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html ...

The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/sydney.sh ...

"Sydney experienced a cool April, with a mean maximum temperature of 21.5 °C which is -1.7 °C below the historic April average 1 making it the coldest April since 1983."

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

UK experiencing the hottest start to May since records began...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1948814/Britain-enjoying- ...

It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.  And he mentions trains!  Oh yeah!

I'd still like to see a huge, multi-trillion dollar program to accomplish all of these things, plus constructing a solar/wind/geothermal energy infrastructure, if we're in as much doo-doo as McKibben and Hansen say we are.

UK experiencing the hottest start

Still, if it does start warming, doesn't that contradict the new, new models that are now predicting cooling for the next 5 years?

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

..........is to soon become unsustainable due to Earth's limitations.

Thanks for so clearly presenting the predicament looming ominously before the family of humanity.

If the human community fails to heed the warning signs regarding global warming, it appears to me that humankind could soon be confronted by a cluster of emerging and converging global challenges.  Taken together, these challenges could shortly present humanity with a predicament of horrendous make-up and colossal size. The Gorgon named Medusa comes to mind, I suppose, because she, too, was a "mother" of challenges.

Perhaps we have to help one another see more clearly, think more critically, be more ingenious, act more carefully and move forward more quickly toward establishing a balance between ourselves and the natural world we appear to be threatening to ravage.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

By telling you about the weather here over the last TWO WEEKS, I was simply trying to point out the futility of using the weather in one month, in one location as an argument for or against climate change.  Too subtle?

No...too hypocritical.  Once again, AGWers want it "both ways"...because you overemphasize 1998 to the detriment of the century long climate data.

If you had taken the time to view the NOAA data in the link presented, reproduced here:

You would read: The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

0.1 or 1F per century.

Not per  decade and not that Euro-numerology called Celsius or Centigrade or whatever.

That's climate.

That's data.

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

One common view of the characteristics of natural equilibria is that they are both stable and singular. An example is a marble at the bottom of a bowl. If you push it a bit in one direction or another, it will return to where it was. Many biological systems seem to be like this, at least within limits. Think about the acid-base conjugate systems that help control the pH of blood, or about an ecosystem where a modest proportion of one species gets eliminated. Provided you like the way things are at the moment, more or less, such stable equilibria are a desirable environmental characteristic. They allow you to effect moderate changes in what is going on, without needing to worry too much about profoundly unbalancing your surroundings.

Of course, such systems can be pushed beyond their bounds. Here, think about a vending machine being tipped. Up to a certain critical point, it will totter back to its original position when you release it. Beyond that point, it will continue to fall over, even if the original force being exerted upon it is discontinued. Both the vertical and horizontal positions of the vending machine are stable equilibria, though we would probably prefer the former to the latter. For a biological example, you might think of a forested hillside. Take a few trees, wait a few years, and the situation will probably be much like when you began. If you cut down enough trees to lose all the topsoil to erosion, however, you might come back in many decades and still find an ecosystem radically different from the one you started off with.

The trouble with the climate is that it isn't like a vending machine, in that you can feel the effect your pushing is having on it and pretty clearly anticipate what is going to happen next. Firstly, that is because there are internal balances that make things trickier. It is as though there are all sorts of pendulums and gyroscopes inside the machine, making its movements in response to any particular push unpredictable. Secondly, we are not the only thing pushing on the machine. There are other exogenous properties like solar and orbital variations that may be acting in addition to our exertions, in opposition to them, or simply in parallel. Those forces are likely to change in magnitude both over the course or regular cycles and progressively over the course of time.

a sibilant intake of breath

Bill McKibben wrote in the OP: gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out

Nope.
google.com/search?q=%22no+gas+shortage%22

google.com/search?q=site%3Ajuliansimon.org+oil+finite

there is no reason to believe that the supply of energy, even of oil, is finite or limited.

Secondly, we are not the only thing pushing on the machine.

Trenchant analysis.

One thing: are you sure we're pushing and not being pulled?  

I think the later...

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

Bill McKibben wrote in the OP: Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.

How would a nuclear "plant" [perhaps you meant "reactor unit"] "melting down" be "dangerous"?
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter6.html

THE FEARSOME REACTOR MELTDOWN ACCIDENT
[...]
In 1978, a movie called "The China Syndrome" [...] gained widespread popularity. When the Three Mile Island accident followed in 1979, it became the news media story of the decade, complete with days of suspense during which the public was led to believe that a horrible disaster could occur at any moment. This combination of events led to very serious problems for the nuclear power industry.

As a result of these developments, the word meltdown has become a household word. We will use it here, although it is no longer used by risk analysis scientists. In the mind of the public, it refers to an accident in which all of the fuel becomes so hot that it forms a molten mass which melts its way through the reactor vessel. Let's use the word in that sense. The media frequently referred to it as "the ultimate disaster," evoking images of stacks of dead bodies amid a devastated landscape, much like the aftermath of a nuclear bomb attack.

On the other hand, the authors of the two principal reports on the Three Mile Island accident agree that even if there had been a complete meltdown in that reactor, there very probably would have been essentially no harm to human health and no environmental damage. I know of no technical reports that have claimed otherwise. Moreover, all scientific studies agree that in the great majority of meltdown accidents there would be no detectable effects on human health, immediately or in later years. According to the government estimate, a meltdown would have to occur every week or so somewhere in the United States before nuclear power would be as dangerous as coal burning.

Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant. That is not to say that it is impossible to have fatalities caused by a meltdown, but it is estimated that in no more than 1 in a 100 meltdowns could any be obviously related to the accident.

Nuclear buddy, you must be using a very narrow definition of "injuries" when you say that "Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant." [My emphasis]

According to this BBC report (sorry, I can't quickly find the original source):

The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has produced the biggest group of cancers ever from a single incident, according to UK and US scientists. Almost 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer have resulted from the reactor explosion at the Ukrainian power station 15 years ago.

The elevated risk of thyroid cancer appears to continue throughout life. Researchers predict that the number of cancers is sure to rise further in years to come.

Granted, cancer of the thyroid is easier to treat than many other cancers, and one's chance of recovery is good. Perhaps even the rate of cancers induced from radiation eminating from normally operating coal-fired plants in Europe has been higher than that (I have no idea). But it makes you look as if you are being highly selective in your facts to say that there were no injuries outside the Chernobyl plant.

These are only my personal opinions.

From Cardis E, Krewski D, Boniol M, Drozdovitch V, Darby SC, Gilbert ES, Akiba S, Benichou J, Ferlay J, Gandini S, Hill C, Howe G, Kesminiene A, Moser M, Sanchez M, Storm H, Voisin L and Boyle P, "The Cancer Burden from Chernobyl in Europe", Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2006:

Study purpose: To evaluate the human cancer burden from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident in Europe as a whole.

Study conclusions:

With the exception of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions, trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe, taken together, do not at present show any increase in cancer rates that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident.
Thus it is not possible to infer the possible cancer burden from the accident on the bases of studies of its health effects to date. The estimation of the cancer burden from Chernobyl must rely on risk prediction models developed from studies of other populations exposed to radiation in other settings.
By 2065, these models predict that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur. About two-thirds of the thyroid cancer cases and at least one half of the other cancers are expected to occur in Belarus, Ukraine and the most contaminated territories of the Russian Federation.
The number of cancer cases in Europe possibly resulting from radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident up to now, and in the lifetime of the exposed populations, is therefore expected to be large in absolute terms.
While these figures reflect human suffering and death, they nevertheless represent only a very small fraction of the total number of cancers seen since the accident and expected in the future in Europe.
It is unlikely therefore that the cancer burden from the largest radiological accident to date could be ever be detected by monitoring national cancer statistics. [My emphasis]

These are only my personal opinions.

please.

But none are to be expected, since we learned the lessons of Chernobyl in the early 50s. The early 1950s. Everyone near Teller-approved designs seems to understand this, including, of course, GP contractors getting quietly onto nuclear boats.

How shall motoring gain nuclear cachet?

This just in today:

World carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years, says US report

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

The Guardian.

a moratorium on coal without CCS
biomass + CCS
reforestation/avoided deforestation
biochar

Now.

" It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo. "

Optimally, the 787 will get 100 miles per gallon per seat, compared to the 76 passenger miles per gallon of a 767. A lot better than one person in a Prius. Planes are not going away.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1641341, ...

Ron Steenblik wrote: Nuclear buddy, you [...] say that "Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant."

I do? Have you read my post, Ron?

Ron Steenblik wrote: Granted, cancer of the thyroid is easier to treat than many other cancers

...And cancers of the future are easier to treat, as well as easier to prevent, than are cancers of the present.

..........as a "forced-choice".

Endless economic growth is the shibboleth of the rich and powerful in our time.  But the days of reckless domination of the Earth and its environs may be numbered, it would appear, because the idolatry, the magical thinking, the wishes and the selfish intentions that have driven endlessly expanding large-scale corporate activity and insatiable wealth accumulation could be about to run their course. The plans of the economic powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians for 'manufacturing' "bubbles" and big-business boom times could lead the family of  humanity to be threatened by the inadvertent loss of life as we know it and the unintentional destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

Hansen et al say 350 ppm is necessary to maintain a recognizable planet.  Joe Romm et al say that 450 ppm is the number to shoot for, even though it may not be politically possible. So why is that? Is it because we think that 350 ppm is simply impossible? Or that Hansen's predictios are overly melodramatic?

Will Hansen really recommend massive reforestation (as Jonas claims)?  But what about the theory that northern forests could actually warm the globe? And if trees make lousy carbon offsets, how are we to pay for the billions of trees required without diverting funds from fossil-fueled industries?

Maybe this is why the "change your lightbulbs" rhetoric is so persistent; because, even here, nobody can agree of where we need to go, or how we should get there.

It's depressing.