Dirty Business discussed some of the deceits of water opportunists seeking to benefit from our perennial concerns for fresh water. Dark Siders discussed the mess scientists have made of themselves by degenerating into activism and so losing their credibility just as journalists, lawyers, academics and environmentalists have done. In an update to R.I.P. a study was cited that complained about the fact that climate models make dumb assumptions about agriculture even though it is the single greatest terraforming activity on the planet.

"Nearly all models used to predict climate changes either ignore agriculture altogether or assume that farmers behave the same way through time,"

That article goes on to discuss some issues relevant to all the above, tying together a number of ideas and complaints voiced previously.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, the net increase in global cropland during the last 50 years has been about 10 percent. But in existing cropland, over the same period, farmers have doubled irrigation areas, have more than doubled the crop yields, and have increased the number of crops grown in a field per year. As crops become more productive, more sunlight is reflected. A recent trend toward less frequent plowing of fields also has raised the reflectivity, or albedo, of the surface. Each of these factors can cool local temperatures in the climate model by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Irrigation cools the surface through a different effect - by increasing the amount of energy used to evaporate water rather than heat the land. The study found that extreme scenarios of irrigation change could cool local temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and global average temperatures by 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

The authors of the study, which included Livermore scientist Philip Duffy, caution that the changes in the model were extreme, and effects in the real world are likely smaller. But they identified two main implications of their work. First, the past effects of global warming in agricultural regions may have been partially masked by changes in farmers' practices.

"In the context of the ongoing climate change debate, this study clearly shows that a complete documentation of localized natural and human induced changes to the environment will be necessary to understand climate change at the local and regional levels," Bala said.

"Agricultural regions are some of the key areas where we would like to understand and predict climate changes in order to aid adaptation to global warming," added Lobell.

Secondly, the study indicates that climate mitigation policies, which often include incentives to farmers, may be too simplistic. Most proposed climate policies focus only on the ability of farmers to sequester carbon in soils or reduce on-farm energy use.

"This study illustrates that carbon is not the only important way that agriculture affects climate, and so focusing only on carbon may lead to an under- or over-evaluation of agriculture's role," Lobell said.

For example, the study estimated that the increased albedo from reduced tillage had roughly as much of a cooling effect on global climate as the increased soil carbon sequestration.

It isn't that this study trumps all the others by providing the keystone that makes the arch strong, it is that it brings up a whole class of issues that are either ignored or handled in simplistic ways. This isn't the only instance of this. We hear similar plaints from domain specialists often. We don't know how the system as a whole works, we only have bits and pieces and those pieces are merely some of the ones we have managed to shine a light on and so are aware of their existence. Intellectually honest thinkers reasoning in good faith readily admit this, and usually offer their own anecdotes to confirm the notion.

Intellectually dishonest people - which includes all activists whether they be journalists, lawyers, academics, scientists or enviro-political activists - dread the idea of reasoning in good faith and admitting not just to uncertainty but utter bafflement, since their whole focus is on selling a dumbed down packet of positions from which they can benefit even though they know that we will all suffer in the end as a result. Some humans have a remarkable ability to do that - to do destructive things with a smile, carefully not allowing the conflicting parts of their minds to exchange views and kill the buzz. The buzz isn't everything, it's the only thing.

When we look around the world, or look back over history, and notice some of the crushingly stupid things societies have done not just to themselves but to those around them as well, we usually find buzz addicts at the focus, demagogues who whip willing buzz junkies into a frenzy and get them marching about with their fists in the air. When we look around the media, especially online media and especially blogs, we see the same thing. Activist sites will do anything for buzz, and openly practice marketing methods designed not to inform but to deceive, to sell - donate now.

Water is a current buzz topic and hopefully this is a buzz kill. To develop sensible policies about water we need to think big and see its role not just in health and welfare, or just in fisheries, or just in power generation, or just in agriculture, or just in land subsidence, or just in coastal erosion, or just in wetland management, or just in climate change, or just . . . well, perhaps you get the idea. Screw the sound bites (or bytes) and talking points. There are no useful slogans or anything relevant that can be printed on a banner or chanted at a demo. Those who practice this cheap theatrics have no good intentions, no admirable motives. They are doubly dumb in that they have reduced the definition of good to meaning "good for them", and in the process fail to grasp what is in fact good for them.

Politics is stupid. Moreover, I advise that Carthage should be destroyed.