But I’m glad the GOP chose her as a witness for a climate hearing

Only three things in life are certain:  Death, taxes, and the grim consequences humanity faces if we take no serious action to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

Now that I think of it, though, lots people on this planet don’t pay taxes.  I guess only two things are certain after all.

Then again, who wasn’t certain the anti-science crowd in Congress would get around to inviting Judith Curry as a witness for the prosecution of their case against climate science?  I suspect they’ll be disappointed.  More on that at the end.

My one-time lecture-circuit companion, Dr. Judith Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, has now taken the crown as the most debunked person on the science blogosphere, which is quite a feat considering the competition.  But she invites debunking by her tendency to make scientific-sounding pronouncements without having actually read the relevant literature, and then backing down the minute she is challenged by someone who has or who has actually contributed to that literature.

And then there’s her tendency to libel people, such as this whopper in an interview by Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle:

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Last month, NASA reported it was the hottest January-September on record.  That followed a terrific analysis, “July 2010 “” What Global Warming Looks Like,” which noted that 2010 is “likely” to be warmest year on record.

This month continues the trend of 2010 outpacing previous years, according to NASA:

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The three worst direct impacts to humans from our unsustainable use of energy will, I think, be Dust-Bowlification and sea level rise and ocean poisoning:  Hell and High Water.  But another impact “” far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog “” may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habitable land.

We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don’t leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding decades if not centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source “” if not the source “” of two of our biggest recent wars. As the NYT reported last year:

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This repost is from World Resource Institute’s Franz Litz and Nicholas Bianco.

With climate change legislation stalled in the U.S. Congress, all eyes have turned to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for emissions reductions. According to our recent report, Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action, EPA can make significant progress to reduce emissions through implementation of measures under the existing Clean Air Act. Yet the prospect of EPA action has caused some in Congress and industry to express fears that EPA will go too far by imposing unreasonable regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Given the built-in limitations on EPA authority contained in the Clean Air Act, these fears are misplaced.

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