Hal asked where I got the info...

Sorry to do an independent blog on this, and not respond in the comments, but I rarely go back and check up on comments I made on others blogs, and I think this is important...

In a recent post, I was venting about climate change (not surprisingly). Hal noticed and commented that I hadn't cited my information regarding storms getting worse. I apologize, the article I'm refering to specifically is by Kerry Emmanuel and was published in Science in June. I can't attach it here -- sorry, but I googled the name and 'hurricane' and information about it (although no links to the article) immediately came up. Interestingly, there is a lot more interest in this now, and I think we'll see some interesting critiques of his article in the coming months. He has some good points and makes strong connections, however.

Also, there is a lot of discussion regarding whether or not climate change is human induced or exacerbated, as you mention, Hal. I'm blunt on this: Although it may be important to know what the causes of climate change are in order to mitigate it, I don't actually care whether it's humans or not. The fact of the matter is, the climate is changing, and we had better figure out how we are going to deal with it.