New Year's Eve Cheer

Didn't really think you'd get away from this year without at least one more "global warming is going to mess up everything, including corrections sentencing" post, did you? Here's a good one, I promise. It demonstrates historically what's likely to happen as we approach CO2 levels like those that set off one of the big meltoffs. It also shows again what we talk about here when we point out that, because it's nonlinear and because it deals with experience and data that we've never had before in human history, we don't know how to model it. That doesn't mean that the deniers and obstructionists in global warming are any more right than those we have in corrections sentencing. In fact, it means that our models will likely prove to be too optimistic (as they already are). Those of us who have projected prison pops know how much our success in prediction depends on how well the future models the past data we have. If we don't understand the situation and/or our data are inadequate, it's just luck if we come out close in the end. A bad deal when projecting prison bedspace needs, a global nightmare when projecting warming and the drain it will cause on all our other efforts and resources. Like I said--this is another "global warming is going to mess up everything, including corrections sentencing" post.

Happy New Year.