After skulking around nytimes.com message forums and reading exasperating commenters on The Atlantic, I decided to enter the “argument-by-comment” war on climate change by posting a comment on a Jim Manzi’s current meta-discussion of the climate debate. Typically, when I read these things the particular discussion is either so out-of-date or so dominated by nutjobs that I don’t feel like it’s worth contributing.

I don’t really know anything about Jim Manzi. But on this particular blog the level of discourse was pretty high and the latest post was fewer than four hours old. Plus I had just attended the Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology (about which I can tell you nothing or I’d have to kill you– well, let’s say, “sequester” you). So I felt both qualified and compelled to respond.

I used my real name and linked to my blog, so I decided I had better go ahead and own up.

more))