Was this blizzard or that hurricane or that drought "caused" by human-caused global warming? Michael Mann, a climatologist who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, used this basketball analogy to illustrate this causation issue:

If you take the basketball court and raise it a foot, you're going to see more slam-dunks," Mann said. "Not every dunk is due to raising the floor, but you'll start seeing them happen more often then they ought to.

At the recent Doha climate talks, Philippine climate change commissioner, Naderev M. Sano, appealed to his fellow negotiators at a session deciding the contours of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The context is as follows:

“Please let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around,” he said as he choked back tears. Just days before, Typhoon Bopha had hit the Philippines, killing hundreds of people. The typhoon, having been both unusually forceful and out of season, was deemed — like Hurricane Sandy — to be an extreme weather event, exacerbated by climate change.

This is an extremely powerful moment. It plays into my frustration with those around me, and my frustration with myself. With a few extraordinary exceptions, Americans rolling along, not treating the use of fossil fuels as a weapon. We are all going to need to take this problem seriously, and I'm afraid deep down, that we won't, and millions of people by the sea (and many of those far from the sea) are going to suffer horribly, and we will all take the result as "natural disasters." I don't mean to sound preachy. I'm about to get on a plane with my family and burn lots of fossil fuel to travel to see relatives during the Christmas holiday. If I were serious, I would not get on that plane, right? I'd make a statement by not traveling. All of that bicycle riding I do for commuting is for naught with one pleasure trip during the holidays. Further, I don't know how most of us will face down the temptation to exploit the earth unsustainably when this exhaustion of resources described in detail by Geoffrey Miller is intimately tied to our sense of self-worth and our craving to display our worthiness to those around us. My mood was captured by James Taylor in a haunting song from his 1997 Hourglass album, a song titled "Gaia": The sky was light and the land all dark The sun rose up over Central Park I was walking home from work GAIA The petal sky and the rosy dawn The world turning on the burning sun Sacred wet green one we live on GAIA Run run run run said the automobile and we ran Run for your life take to your heels Foolish school of fish on wheels GAIA Turn away from your animal kind Try to leave your body just to live in your mind Leave your cold cruel mother earth behind GAIA As if you were your own creation As if you were the chosen nation And the world around you just a rude and Dangerous invasion GAIA Someone`s got to stop us now Save us from us Gaia No one`s gonna stop us now We thought we ought to walk awhile So we left that town in a single file Up and up and up mile after mile after mile We reached the tree line and I dropped my pack Sat down on my haunches and I looked back down Over the mountain Helpless and speechless and breathless GAIA Pray for the forest pray to the tree Pray for the fish in the deep blue sea Pray for yourself and for God`s sake Say one for me Poor wretched unbeliever Someone`s got to stop us now Save us from us Gaia No one`s gonna stop us now