They have been doing this for a least three decades. This is just the first time you have noticed them doing it to something you have first hand knowledge of (t

They have been doing this for a least three decades. This is just the first time you have noticed them doing it to something you have first hand knowledge of (thanks to the Internet piping primary data into your home). In the early 1980s, Scientific American did exactly the same sorts of things to "prove" that the Soviet technology program was unstoppable, and therefore that we could either retreat or commit planetary suicide. They had a consensus or prominent scientists and engineers showing, with hard numbers and slick charts, that it was provably impossible to do anything about ballistic missiles. Learned professors lectured us on the untenable accuracy limits of missile interceptors; rocket scientists lectured on the ease with which missiles could be spun to keep lasers from burning through. They had a social science consensus that saying "no" provokes aggression. One business cycle later the Soviet technology program went bankrupt and took the political system with it. Edit: And let us not forget the "nuclear winter" scenarios. Doesn't AGW simply reduce to a previously solved problem? ;-)