So while it is good to understand what factors will determine our carbon budget, it is much more important to call on politicians and investors alike to get a grip on this issue and face up to the simple and incontestable reality: there's far more fossil fuel than we can burn, and the more of it that we take out of the ground, the greater the risk of an irreversible climate catastrophe.
But what seems incontestable, and a point on which Mr Schmalensee chooses not to dwell, is that even if Microsoft is acquitted of the charge of anti-competitive behaviour, its practices have already been tamed not just by conditions in its markets but also, directly and indirectly, by the antitrust regulators.
Yet one legacy he will leave is incontestable: houses are worth a lot more.The past decade will be remembered not just for Mr Blair's domination of British politics but also for the most sustained housing boom in post-war history.
Just about all the things that Mr Gates says he wants to include in future versions of Windows, such as speech recognition and vision, offer such incontestable benefits that nobody would want to hold them back as long as they are fairly offered.
Nor is Iran's current sponsorship of international terrorism incontestable: all that is sure is that it still has some control over Hizbullah, which fights to get Israel out of Lebanon, and over Islamic Jihad, a tiny Palestinian group that has been inactive for some time.
Presumably this is what François Hollande, the party's first secretary (who happens to be Ms Royal's partner), had in mind when he urged Socialists to make sure that the first-round result was "incontestable".
The Socialists, who have still not picked their presidential candidate for 2012, failed to make themselves the incontestable destination for the disenchanted.Third, far from being a disappointment, the FN's performance was worryingly impressive.
But it starts with an incontestable success: i-government.
In principle, this seems incontestable, but establishing estimates that are generally accepted will be hard.In any case, the ONS still has its work cut out to make less controversial but essential improvements.
It was only in the past few months that a new unity prevailed.But whatever the divergences among Kurds, however quarrelsome some of their leaders, and however sly many of their alliances, the one incontestable fact is their oppression by host governments who, in unreasoned fear of irredentism, often ban their language and culture.
As long as such cynicism persists, the new election technology will be judged to have failed in its purpose of returning governments with incontestable mandates; and governments will remain weak.
