Behind the Curve....

In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Robert Lee Hotz, the new "Science Journal" columnist for the WSJ writes (free for a few days, but hey maybe Uncle Murdy will act on his thoughts of freeing up the online WSJ) about the Keeling Curve which may perhaps become the most iconic of graphs in the climate change debate. The Keeling Curve charts the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and it is undisputedly growing as you can see below.



One of the scary things about this chart is how clear the data is, now I don't have the raw data, but you can extrapolate that CO2 concentration is going to increase, and even by how much. In the trade, we call that good science, you can make predictions with it. Now many on the no climate change is happening side say show me the data, well here it is.

Human success is a very strange thing, often it is our reluctance to face the facts that allow us to excel think the Wright brothers and man made flight, or that housing always goes up the subprime debacle. The trick is knowing the difference. Schopenhauer had many great quotes this seems very apt...

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Let's hope that we get ahead of the curve and accept it before there is no choice.