Couldn't Predict This One...

Europeans missing their CO2 emissions targets from the Save the Icebergs Treaty:

Although the US is portrayed as the ecological villain for refusing to sign up to the agreement, 10 out of the 15 European Union signatories - including Ireland, Italy and Spain - will miss their targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research found.

Imagine that. Along this vein, I'm in the midst of reading The Satanic Gases to be better informed on this subject, as well as the global warming chapter in The Skeptical Environmentalist. If I ever get around to it, I might read the actual published papers in Science or Nature just to see what the current research is. It seems Crichton's critique is pretty accurate so far though - predictive alarmist studies usually rely on models, and models always rest on some assumptions. If those assumptions are geared toward producing a particular result, then it should surprise noone that you get that result. I've seen it with molecular dynamics simulations - you can make MD do anything you want.