You Know Global Warming is Over When …

February 2, 2011 Duncan Davidson

MSNBC (not Fox!) blames the food riots in Egypt on “speculation” not Global Warming (ie. food shortages due to unusual weather such as the Russian summer heat wave):

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One of my predictions for this year is that blaming every funky weather event on global warming will now get a mocking roll of the eyes not a knowing nod of the head. Happening faster than I thought it would.

Coincidently, I am in a heated debate with a reader over this issue. He blames the food inflation on a series of unusual circumstances that are causing shortages, whereas I ask him why almost all commodities took off in a parabolic surge (a signature of a speculative bubble) just after The Ben Bernank announced QE2 in August. Hard to argue that recent floods in Queensland (coal) or last summer’s heat wave in Russia (wheat) or whatever all caused a spike in commodities of all sorts at the same time. Sure, these events contribute to spikes in particular commodity prices as they occur, and corn jumped a bit after the Russian heat wave, but the parabolic run-up began after the QE2 announcement:

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About Duncan Davidson 228 Articles

Affiliation: NetService Ventures

Duncan is an advisor to NetService Ventures, where he focuses on digital media and the mobile Internet.

Previously he was at four start-ups: Xumii, a mobile social service based on a Social Addressbook; SkyPilot Networks, the performance leader of wireless mesh systems for last-mile access, where he was the founding CEO; Covad Communications (Amex: DVW, $9B market cap at the peak), the leading independent DSL access provider, where he was the founding Chairman; InterTrust Technologies ($9B market cap at the peak), the pioneer in digital rights management technologies, now owned by Sony and Philips, where he was SVP Business Development and the pitchman for the IPO.

Before these ventures, Duncan was a partner at Cambridge Venture Partners, an early-stage venture firm, and managing partner of Gemini McKenna, a joint venture between Regis McKenna's marketing firm and Gemini Consulting, the global management consulting arm of Cap Gemini.

He serves on the board or is an adviser to Aggregate Knowledge (content discovery), Livescribe (digital pen), AllVoices (citizen journalism), Xumii (mobile social addressbook), Verismo (Internet settop box), and Widevine (DRM for IPTV).

Visit: Duncan Davidson's Blogs

1 Comment on You Know Global Warming is Over When …

Panskeptic February 4, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Confirmation bias. You have a set of opinions. You torture the facts until they confirm previously set opinions and proclaim victory. Premature victory.

We have climate records going back over 100 years. The 10 hottest years all took place within the last 15. If you can read a stock chart, you can understand this. Last year tied the hottest year on record. This is not hard to understand either.

Koch Industries underwrites major conservative think tanks and the Tea Party. Of course they dispute climate change. It’s bad for their business. The Koch brothers put private profit ahead of self-evident science and the public good. And the right-wing echo machine repeats their mantras over and over again, no matter how idiotic.

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1 Comment on You Know Global Warming is Over When …

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