Slashdot Mirror

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 and/or turn the sun down by a few percent (to measure solar effects) all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

1. www.fsf.org:

  Created by johns
Last modified 2007-01-16 12:43 PM

Why do we need read Reuters redacted newsfart instead of some hard information on their website? The whole website is pretty useless when it comes to finding out what current political affairs are hot within the scope of fsf's audience.

2. Eben Moglen

http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/blog

Last entry 26 Sep 2006

Where is the place I can read his actual thoughts on this matter? Again, just Reuters?

Sheesh.

If you'd like simulate a water world yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

It is a very general GCM so included in the download are paleo-earth configurations. You can run a simulation of the earth from 750 million years ago when it was mostly covered in water (but also very cold) to see one possible scenario. As mentioned above, you can add CO2 and turn up or down the sun or any other GHG to see other scenarios.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

If you'd like simulate a water world yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

It is a very general GCM so included in the download are paleo-earth configurations. You can run a simulation of the earth from 750 million years ago when it was mostly covered in water (but also very cold) to see one possible scenario. As mentioned above, you can add CO2 and turn up or down the sun or any other GHG to see other scenarios.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

It's not just the "Climate Skeptics" that should have issues with conflict of interest. It was on March 19th of this year that "60 Minutes" profiled NASA scientist and alarmist James Hansen, who was once again making allegations of being censored by the Bush administration. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minute s/main1415985.shtml. At the time, Hansen was given a one-sided glowing profile.

The 60 Minutes segment made no mention of Hansen's partisan ties to former Democrat Vise President Al Gore or Hansen's receiving of a grant of a quarter of a million dollars from the left-wing Heniz Foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, There was also no mention of Hansen's subsequent endorsement of her husband John Kerry for President in 2004. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf.

Many in the media dwell on any industry support given to any so-called climate skeptics, but the same media completely fail to note Hansen's huge grant from the left-wing Heinz Foundation. http://222.heinzawards.net/speechDetail.asp?speech ID=6. I guess ketchup money is different from oil money.

If you'd like to do some of the same experiments that these scientists do, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

For example, our model shows increased snowfall on Greenland (a common skeptic retaliation). This does not mean global warming is not happening, but rather what was predicted: Warmer air can hold more moisture, so there is increased snowfall. The melting on the edges is occurring faster, so overall we have mass loss of the ice cap.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

Here's a pdf of his presentation at SIGGRAPH. I've had to dabble a bit in fluid dynamics for wind modelling, but I confess that most of what's in there is over my head once they depart from more traditional discrete models.

Definitely not true at all.

The TLS key derivation function is hard coded to use SHA-1 and MD5 and there is no way in TLS to specify requiring or denying specific key lengths, asymmetric algorithms or hash functions in the certs for client or server authentication.

This paper from Bellovin and Rescorla covers the issues with TLS, SMIME and IPSEC:
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/new-hash.pd f

If this is the same story referenced here, it's bogus. To quote Not Even Wrong,

It is based on a paper which has nothing to with string theory and doesn't do a string theory calculation at all. The paper first appeared on the arXiv last April with the title Falsifying String Theory Through WW Scattering, and was extensively discussed here. In October a new version of the paper was put on the arXiv, with a changed title Falsifying Models of New Physics via WW Scattering (and this was discussed here). I'm guessing that the removal of the claims about string theory from the title was due to a referee at PRL not being willing to go along with such a title [...].

If this is the same story referenced here, it's bogus. To quote Not Even Wrong,

It is based on a paper which has nothing to with string theory and doesn't do a string theory calculation at all. The paper first appeared on the arXiv last April with the title Falsifying String Theory Through WW Scattering, and was extensively discussed here. In October a new version of the paper was put on the arXiv, with a changed title Falsifying Models of New Physics via WW Scattering (and this was discussed here). I'm guessing that the removal of the claims about string theory from the title was due to a referee at PRL not being willing to go along with such a title [...].

>Bullshit propaganda
>This is total crap.
>Chinese propaganda.

Published research, reviewed and confirmed by other cryptographers. Check the archives of any crypto mailing list.

The NIST has started a hash function working group to replace SHA-1.

"it is clear that it will be necessary to [move away from SHA-1] in the not-too-distant future", according to the Bellovin-Rescorla paper about the impact of cracks of hash functions.

A work factor reduction to on the order to 2^63 operations puts SHA-1 collision generation into the realm of possibility. 2^80, which people used to believe was the number of trials needed to generate an SHA-1 collision, would have been out of reach for decades.

Every time I see a social science study posted here on Slashdot, everyone comes out of the woodwork with "correlation doesn't equal causation", or "this study is obviously [true|false] because of so-and-so obvious effect", etc. Please give the authors some credit. They did consider various biasing effects, such as Nobel nominee age, the fact that nominees may die before being awarded the prize, they examined alternative causal factors such as the possibility that the winners' longevity was due to their increased income, and so on. Sure, correlation isn't causation and this study doesn't prove anything, but it's not as shoddy as the Slashdot armchair experts seem to think. Read the paper, or a brief summary by a statistician unrelated to the study.

Every time I see a social science study posted here on Slashdot, everyone comes out of the woodwork with "correlation doesn't equal causation", or "this study is obviously [true|false] because of so-and-so obvious effect", etc. Please give the authors some credit. They did consider various biasing effects, such as Nobel nominee age, the fact that nominees may die before being awarded the prize, they examined alternative causal factors such as the possibility that the winners' longevity was due to their increased income, and so on. Sure, correlation isn't causation and this study doesn't prove anything, but it's not as shoddy as the Slashdot armchair experts seem to think. Read the paper, or a brief summary by a statistician unrelated to the study.

The authors performed a survival analysis (see here) to correct for nominees who might have won but died first, as well as other methods to reduce possible biases.

Penn & Teller are great when it comes to con men, but on other subjects they fail it. Hard. They were wrong about glass recycling. They were wrong about second-hand smoke, using as their sole sources of information a "think tank" run by a woman whose reports echo whatever her tobacco and oil companies want them to as well as to a court case which was vacated by a higher court. They were also as wrong about global warming as Michael Crichton in his horrible passion play, State of Confusion which was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This doesn't mean that anyone challenging a popularly held idea or even accepted theory should be silenced. Far from it. Science needs theories questioned. However, when the questions are being raised by shills in order to confuse and are based in fallacy and reference already disproven works, that's when such "scientists" should have their credentials stripped.

And the term of copyright continues to increase, which means that independent songwriters don't have a vibrant public domain on which to build. Those who attempt to write a song from scratch run the risk of subconsciously copying a copyrighted work. For instance, George Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord", got sued, lost, and had to pay 1 million USD in damages. Michael Bolton lost a similar lawsuit.

The Internet still does not reach motor vehicles such as cars or school buses, which expose a captive audience to major label music every day.

And the term of copyright continues to increase, which means that independent songwriters don't have a vibrant public domain on which to build. Those who attempt to write a song from scratch run the risk of subconsciously copying a copyrighted work. For instance, George Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord", got sued, lost, and had to pay 1 million USD in damages. Michael Bolton lost a similar lawsuit.

The Internet still does not reach motor vehicles such as cars or school buses, which expose a captive audience to major label music every day.

Actually climate models are *not* 'teh suck'. They have problems just like any other piece of incredibly complex software, but they allow us to learn about things that we otherwise could not study. As for hurricanes, that comment shows a general lack of understanding of climate, weather, and climate models. There is scientific consensus that there is no (know yet) link between climate change and hurricane FREQUENCY. Due to the scientific method being what it is, this may change. That does not mean we are now wrong or teh suck, merely that the scientific method works. There is a known link between hurricane STRENGTH and LONGEVITY and ocean temperatures.

The climate model I work with (EdGCM) doesn't have a dynamic ocean, but that is because it needs to be simple enough so you can download it and run it on your laptop. It does have a 9 layer atmosphere and is in general agreement with the ensemble runs of most of the other GCMs out there.

The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

Actually climate models are *not* 'teh suck'. They have problems just like any other piece of incredibly complex software, but they allow us to learn about things that we otherwise could not study. As for hurricanes, that comment shows a general lack of understanding of climate, weather, and climate models. There is scientific consensus that there is no (know yet) link between climate change and hurricane FREQUENCY. Due to the scientific method being what it is, this may change. That does not mean we are now wrong or teh suck, merely that the scientific method works. There is a known link between hurricane STRENGTH and LONGEVITY and ocean temperatures.

The climate model I work with (EdGCM) doesn't have a dynamic ocean, but that is because it needs to be simple enough so you can download it and run it on your laptop. It does have a 9 layer atmosphere and is in general agreement with the ensemble runs of most of the other GCMs out there.

The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven

Why hasn't anyone picked up on this. Al Gore IS a school teacher. More precisely he was a professor the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

ENSO is the El Nino Southern Oscillation. If you'd like to simulate global warming and El Nino / La Nina cycles yourself you can do some of the experiments discussed in the article. The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

Here's some commentary (pdf) from Hansen himself. He readily admits the sensitivity of temperature to CO2 of the 1988 model was too high, because we've learned stuff since them. Gee, a scientist makes a pretty good prediction nearly 20 years ago, and readily acknowledges the limitations of that prediction? Why again do some people argue that Hansen not credible?

I'd love to see an operating IBM 602A again. That was the last and best of the commercial electromechanical punched card calculators. Plug board-wired, mechanical add, subtract, multiply, and divide, punched card input and output. First shipped in 1948, and in commercial use well into the 1970s. 0.000003 MIPS.

A full tab shop was an IBM 82 sorter, a IBM 407 tabulator, a IBM 514 reproducer/summary punch, a IBM 77 collator, and a IBM 602A calculator. Plus some IBM 024 or IBM 026 keypunches, of course. With that set of gear, and a really big supply of blank punch cards and fanfold paper, you could do invoicing, general ledger, and payroll. The machinery was slow, but highly reliable.

False. Ocean water and sea ice have different densities and salinity, and therefore melting sea ice *does* contribute (a very small amount) to the sea level. For an in-depth discussion of this check out the EdGCM forums here: http://forums.edgcm.columbia.edu/showthread.php?p= 954#post954

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Unfortunately the ice sheets are not fully dynamic in this model for land ice, but you can see ocean ice retreat significantly.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

Have you read Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music and Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton ? At least the latter case was definitely about a single musical phrase, and there are several other cases on Columbia Law Library Music Plagiarism Project that deal with single phrases. What steps should the convicted infringers have taken to prevent their infringements?

Can someone affiliated with a microlabel afford to hire a musicologist to do such tracing?

But when accused, how does one pay for an attorney and an expert witness in the first place?

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM. Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

No. Just because many people and their nations have done so since the dawn of civilization does not make it a valid move (bandwagon.)

The "protection" of economic interests fuel and even are the underlying causes for a great many wars and covert acts all over the world (gaining a lock on mutually exclusive resources.)

Allowing nations to perceive it as a VALID means to their ends will allow them to continue excusing it and perpetuating such actions in the world. (Before you say "welcome to the real world," think about the same reasoning on a smaller local scale in a "civilized" community vs an "uncivilized" community.)

Iraq is about Oil Dollars and finally Americans are figuring that out (well, just the oil part.) Its a complete failure because we are not getting the oil and we are losing oil dollars. We are keeping the large war machine employed; however, its at the gamble of destroying the economy. Four large military bases in Iraq will probably not secure economic interests either (remember, the same people wrote the plan in the 90s-- the few experts I've met said they knew this underlying stuff was wrong decades ago. Wrong for long term empire and wrong ethically.)

I didn't even know there was a DVD version, as I don't see it for 6.06 or for 6.10. Nevertheless, the CD install doesn't give you any of those options. Note that my complaint wasn't that things weren't installed (kcontrol is still there for example, but you have to run it directly), but that they weren't discoverable (ie, in the K menu) unless you already knew about them, the fact that the DVD version is so well hidden merely highlights my point. Perhaps the DVD version is only available through the mail?

Two points, ten years is not a geological time frame. His graph shows very large swings in the observed tack, sometimes falling outside all three of his predictions. I cannot see how this is meant to show how good his models are, rather it gives a very good indication of his models failings.

And geological time-frames aren't really relevant to the discussion. The current change is, relatively speaking, rapid, and most predictions are only looking at the 10 to 100 year time scale. They don't need to be able to predict over geological time scales - they need to be able to deal with the time scale of observed change. As to his graph: indeed, it isn't a point for point match, but it is suprisingly close. The real question is "what is the source of the error"? The largest area, where the observed dips below all 3 scenarios is the year Pinatubo erupted. Hansen's scenario B and C had volcano factored in a few years later - and from that point on we are back to a close match. So the problem that prevented close pointwise matching was Hansen's inability to predict when a volcano would erupt - he could, however, make statistical assessements of the likelihood and factor it in to the long term predictions. He didn't get the year right, but averaging out past that he actually did remarkably well. The reality is that the greatest source of error in current climate models in our predictions of what future emissions will be - that's the big unknown.

The links to a AntiSkeptic FAQ can hardly be considered impartial. The FAQ also seems to fly in the face of good science, claiming that using historical data to prove a models validity is good enough to trust it's forward predictions.

I was rather more worried about the content than the source - the details of GCM predictions that have been observed in practice are referenced so you can follow those up if you care to. The point was simply that GCMs have made a number of predictions that have since been observed; an anti-skeptic FAQ simply proved the fastest easiest way to find that information presented conveniently in one source. As to whether success at predicting the past counts toward ability to predict the future: if the models are no being trained on the data in question, but instead programmed on principles - and let's be clear: these are not neural nets, nor pattern matching machines that are trained on past data - then their ability to predict the past is still a good indicator. Much of science actually works this way. The theory of evolution makes predictions on past data, and yet still claims to be able to make predictions with regard to the future. Much of cosmology uses data of events that have already happened on which to test their predictions. The trouble arises when you make use of the past data to make your prediction; assuming the conclusion if you like; that is indeed rather dodgy. It is also not what is being done with climate models.

The graphs you provide show have the general trend but that's about it. A moving average would also follow the trend. If the models are no better than a moving average why should people use them?

Because a moving average requires the data you are trying to predict to be fed into it to be able to make the prediction. Climate models are neural nets, they are not regressions, they are not predictive analytics. Climate models mathematical and physical models. You don't feed them all your historical data to train them to make predictions. You give them some base points, and you may well use some historical data to verify parameters, but it is a quite different than a moving average which cannot "predict" data it has never seen.

I'm also very interested to see if using sun activity alone is enough to model historical temperature swings, my guess is that it would be. Guess I'll have to bust out GNU Plot again

Actually, more choice isn't always better. Sheena S. Iyengar is a professor at Columbia University who studies choice and in particular, challenges the notion that more choice is always better. A list of her publications is available on her site. For those who believe more choice is always better, I recommend you read a few. In fact, I recommend you start here (pdf).

Actually, more choice isn't always better. Sheena S. Iyengar is a professor at Columbia University who studies choice and in particular, challenges the notion that more choice is always better. A list of her publications is available on her site. For those who believe more choice is always better, I recommend you read a few. In fact, I recommend you start here (pdf).

Actually, more choice isn't always better. Sheena S. Iyengar is a professor at Columbia University who studies choice and in particular, challenges the notion that more choice is always better. A list of her publications is available on her site. For those who believe more choice is always better, I recommend you read a few. In fact, I recommend you start here (pdf).

"State of Fear" is a work of fiction, yes, and should be treated as such. It's been debunked pretty thoroughly, with even Crichton's supporters admitting he botched some key facts.

Michael Crichton's State of Confusion, by Gavin Schmidt, Earth Institute climate scientist and RealClimate.org contributor

Michael Crichton and Global Warming, by David B. Sandalow

If you'd like to recreated a lot of the stuff from the movie, using real data as inputs and getting similar results as what Gore gets, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2, re-arrange the continents, change the vegetation cover, or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM. Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM. Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

This is why people prefer global climate change rather than global warming, because it gives people who read only headlines the wrong idea.

Yeah, "people prefer." People who can't make up their mind on what the "end of humanity" disaster will look like. Grow up with your 'end of the world, fire and brimstone' religion already. Your story changes daily.

What that article refers to is thermohaline inversion and the stopping of the Atlantic conveyor belt, which is responsible for a good chunk of the nice coastal temperatures in Europe. For more details, and just because I can, I'll point you to alink that is in the same article you just quoted.

Bzzzt. The Arctic conveyor belt is the result of the isthmus of Panama and the reason we have Ice Ages.

The Clean Air act is supposedly responsible for this nice little event.

Just like increased CO2 is supposedly going to bring an end to all mankind and doom for planet Earth. Spare me.

Nice little effort at cherry-picking your events. For an actual event, you can go to Greenland and see how their farming efforts are a little easier now.

Really? Because the last time I checked, the ice in Greenland is only getting thinner around the edges due to North Atlantic Oscillation, but is getting thicker in the middle and growing to the tune of a 54 cm net gain in the last 11 years.

However, the bad events far outweigh any positives we've gotten so far, primarily because it takes time to profit from change. Until we learn to take advantage of what Global Climate Change can do for us, we'll have seniors dying in droves from heat waves, pipelines and houses buckling due to vanishing permafrost and crops dying in areas that are getting too hot for comfort.

Gee... really? I haven't witnessed the mass heat waves wiping out humanity. Where are those exactly? Thousands dying a day must warrant news coverage somewhere, no? Ohhhhhh, you said "We'll" As in we will. Meaning hasn't materialized. Meaning pure conjecture. Meaning more fire and brimstone bogey men. Woooo, repent ye Excursion driving sinners and ye may yet be saved!

I'll pass on replying to your last paragraph since it is more religious non-sense. You've supplied no facts worth mentioning. Here are a few facts your brainwashed little mind may be unaware of:

• The largest carbon sink on Earth by far is limestone and dolomite. You see, when plankton die, their little CaCO3 shells get deposited on the ocean floor making lots and lots of it
• The burning of all fossil fuels combined only contributes an estimated 4-5 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year
• Soil decomposition/erosion is the single largest contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere. It dwarfs the burning of all fossil fuels combined by greater than one order of magnitude.
• CO2 can be pulled out of the atmosphere quite easily and cost effectively with iron sulfate fertilization of plankton. In the first year alone, an estimated 8 billion tons of CO2 could be sequestered in the oceans.
• Finally... and this may really break your brain... Has it ever occurred to you that the observed increase in CO2 is the result of our current cooler temperatures? -- "If global temperature cools as a result of some astronomical forcing or tectonic/ocean circulation effect, the lower temperatures will result in lower rates of chemical weathering. Decreased weathering means less CO2 being drawn from the atmosphere by weathering reactions, leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere to increase temperatures."

We are between Ice Ages right now. The planet itself is producing the vast majority of the CO2. I suggest you enjoy the weather while it lasts.

If you'd like to run a global climate model (GCM) yourself, you can now do so. The NASA GISS Model II GCM has been ported to run on Mac/Win computers and wrapped in a point-and-click interface. GISS, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, is the lab that Hansen (mentioned in the summary) runs.

The EdGCM project provides this free GCM wrapped in a GUI. If you want to add CO2 or turn down the sun or whatever, you may now do so with some checkboxes and sliders.

Hi! I'm gonna do a do-over of the other guys post, with HTML enabled! My way of recycling.

//Begin parent.

A lot of history.

Before the PC, was the Wang Word Processor.

The link shows some of the later ones. I remember one, in the Air Force, the size of an old keypunch machine.

Some of us started coding on keypunch. . . then some rich kid brought some fad called an IBM PC into the dorm. 4.77 Mhz. 16 K of RAM. No graphics whatsoever.

We figured it would never last. Guess we were wrong. . .

//End.

"Scenario A was described as "on the high side of reality", because it assumed rapid exponential growth of greenhouse gases and it assumed that there would be no large volcanoes (which inject small particles into the stratosphere and cool the Earth) during the next half century. Scenario C was described as "a more drastic curtailment of emissions than has generally been imagined", specifically greenhouse gases were assumed to stop increasing after 2000. The intermediate Scenario B was described as "the most plausible". Scenario B had continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions at a moderate rate and it sprinkled three large volcanoes in the 50-year period after 1988, one of them in the 1990s."

"Not surprisingly, the real world has followed a course closest to that of Scenario B. The real world even had one large volcano in the 1990s, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which occurred in 1991, while Scenario B placed a volcano in 1995."

As you can see from looking at the graphs, Hansen's predictions are BANG ON.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_re-crichton.p df

You miss the point. Hansen's argument was that there were various possibilities. For example, one climate forcing is the eruption of volcanos. Since the timing and number of eruptions can't be predicted, you just put in an average number and guess. Hansen explicitly said that he constructed scenario B to be the best guess, so when the article goes around saying that Hansen "predicted" scenario A, they're just lying.

You can actually read Hansen's explanation of all this here: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_re-crichton.p df As you can see Hansen was pretty much BANG ON.

I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious idea which is brought up in great wealth; it is one of a great and numerous think tank, and has many flatterers. When it matures into a hypothesis, he learns that his alleged are not his real creators; but who the real are it is unable to discover. Can you guess it he will be likely to react towards its flatterers and its supposed creators, first of all during the period when it is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when it knows? Or shall I guess for you?

If you please.

Then I should say, that while it is ignorant of the truth it will be likely to honour its father and its mother and its supposed relations more than the flatterers; it will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and it will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter.

It will.

If you'd like to run your own NASA Global Climate Model (GCM) on your own computer, the EdGCM project has ported a GCM to Mac & Windows and wrapped it in a GUI so you can point-and-click your way around. Turn the sun down or add some nitrogen, whatever you want...

We don't have an economics model attached so it isn't 100% relevant to TFA, but it will let you see the physical effects different CO2 and GHG scenarios will have on our planet.

Disclaimer: I'm a developer on the project.

I've been reading on the GPLv3 and I don't like it.

Now's your chance to debug it while it's still in development by providing your input. There is an open invitation to contribute. GPL3 is coming whether individuals here or there like it or not, so at least try to make sure it addresses your concerns.

You can't stop progress, but you can help define it.

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

(you can read the rest here)

Also, Stallman isn't a lawyer, although his intent is well and good, does he really understand what the consequences of his intent are?

imho, Stallman's intent has never changed and he's never hidden his intent ... anyone who believes that GPLv.3 is different than v.2 in intent has obviously never read Stallman.

The EdGCM project is a NASA Global Climate Model (GCM) ported to run on Mac and Win computers, and wrapped in a point-and-click interface. If you'd like to turn the Sun down by a few percent or remove the CO2 you can do so with checkboxes and sliders

So if you want to find out what the earth would be like without humans, you can do so yourself. Download, double-click to install, and then...

You can use the values for paleo-climate to get CO2, N2O, and other greenhouse gasses from pre-industrial and pre-human times. You can set up trends (changes in inputs) for the future. You can take modern values and then at the year 2010 have everything drop to pre-human values. Run the model for a few hundred years (a day or two on a modern computer), and you'll see how long until the Earth reaches equilibrium.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.