The flaw in this reasoning is that not all major climate changes have taken ages. Also humanity has been working on achieving this global warming for millennia. CO² releases are only the latest.

A lot of us have dreams similar to yours Locally Pwned,and wish for a cleaner world.
I like your Philosophy.A number of things bother me,one being every time I ask the younger generation what they think of the way our planet is headed,I get the same answer."DOESN'T REALLY BOTHER ME,I'LL WORRY ABOUT THAT WHEN THE TIME COMES"It seems that we older generations are the only ones who are worrying our selves sick about the state of our planet.I believe more education in schools is needed to make the young generations more aware of the serious state our planet is in.Also our Governments are doing too little in my opinion to put the brakes on global warming,instead to me,they are opting for the easy way out.
I live in a pretty hot area and because the authorities will not let me alter my house in any way outside their building codes,I have to run the Air Conditioning almost all the year round,if I want any relief from the blistering heat and the cold in winter.
Electric cars would be ideal if the power needed to charge them came from a pollution free power station.
We are supposed to be going nuclear in the future,and and I am not in favor of that either,mainly because of the rods which have to be disposed of somewhere.Also the problem of disposing of the batteries in electric cars at the moment.When they make a recycleable battery,I can see a future for electric cars.
The Sun and Wind are a must for energy of the future, but I feel we should be finding more ways to harness
them.Another energy source with a great future, which has not been touched much yet is huge Turbine Generators in the oceans,in the gulf stream for example where the ocean currents move up to 75 miles a day.Imagine the pressure of this water generating pollution free.The potential is huge in my opinion.
Most oceans all over the world have currents fast enough to be an energy source.I only wish more countries started to get serious about our global warming problem.

I cannot say that global warming is the cause, but due to the major climate changes during the past decades, i think it is quite easy to conclude that human race intervening (couldn't find the appropiate word) with nature is messing up the planet. Not only global warming, but major changes in water recourses around the world, desertification process of vast lands, huge increase in hurricane activity, increase on earthquakes activities, etc., are indicators that nature is trying to adapt to our living style. Until a few thousand years ago, organisms in this planet lived IN nature, but we try to live OVER nature, by changing the actual landscape of earth so quickly that it is messing up several natural cycles.
I think it is quite obvious what the problem is...

Another day I discovered that global warming it's a phenomenon that is happening in the whole solar system.
With this, I am not advocating that releasing harmful gases, and chemicals in the oceans and atmosphere are good, but now I'm thinking that Global Warming it's a much more vaster problem.
You can see here:
Mars global warming

Plutos global warming

How Strongly Does the Sun Influence the Global Climate
Regards,
Darthy

Another interesting article:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

The Sun's output doesn't vary enough to make a huge difference. It's output does fluctuate cyclically, though. But, imagine this: increases in gasses that trap solar radiation...coupled with increased radiation...it's a 2 pronged problem! Increasing greenhouse gasses causes changes in solar radiation to have a greater effect.

As for Pluto and Mars, the researchers don't seem to know the causes of the increase in temperatures; but they sound unrelated.










Interesting stuff though, thanks for the links Darthy...

Oh, by the way:



NASA has indeed sent a probe to explore Pluto. It's called the New Horizons project; the probe has just reached Jupiter. It will use Jupiter's gravity to accelerate it toward it's eventual goal...a Pluto fly-by in 2015. The probe will then to explore the Kuiper belt in the outer reaches of the solar system.

There are still a few hold-outs. If this person has studied the data and come to this conclusion, he should continue to try and demonstrate his points via experiment and observation.

Keep in mind, there are always scientists who "drag their heels" on various theories and discoveries. Einstein, for example, would not accept quantum mechanics...even though it was supported by evidence when it was first formulated and has been shown to be highly accurate to this day. Why did he deny it? Because he couldn't accept the world portrayed by QM...a world where uncertainty rules at the sub-atomic level. "God doesn't play dice," he used to say.

Again, if the author has interpreted the data and has different conclusions than the rest of the scientific community, he should continue his work and show us why. That's what's great about science...it's perfectly democratic, anyone can practice it.* But, if he has ideological or personal distaste for what global warming suggests...for example, the fact that humans have an effect on their environment and therefore can't expand forever as we have thus far...well, then he's not practicing science.


*I do think it's sad that the author, or anyone who "goes against the wind," takes so much flak.

More evidences that solar system is warming like the Earth.
Intergalactic Cosmic Rays and "Global Warming" by Nasif Nahle ® November 3, 2005

Australia has a plan to "Ban old-style light bulbs"

(Quote)
SYDNEY, Australia -- The Australian government on Tuesday announced plans to phase out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs across the country.

Legislation to gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs could reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012 and cut household power bills by up to 66 percent, said Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Australia produced almost 565 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2004, official figures show. (Unquote)


Source:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...220?hub=SciTech

PM - just hope they improve the quality/colour these energy efficient light bulbs emit!

Looks like there is a movie out in rebuttal to Gore's Sci-Fi flick.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258993,00.html

I begin to think that man-made global climate change, called GW, deserves a much more detailed explanation.
Like I said in my previous posts, GW it's a much more vaster problem that affects the all Solar System.
My question is:
What has the man to do with GW on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, Titan and so on?
Almost all the Solar System' planets are warming, isn't this a strange thing?
I think one of the possible explanations are here:
The sun is a variable star
Regards,
Darthy

Darthy -

I'm somewhat with you on this.

"Global Warming" to some means "man made" and to others it may mean "cyclic global change".

To me, it's really a combination - there's plenty of evidence that earth, and evidentially the other planets, go through cyclic warming and cooling periods.

There's also plenty of evidence, including common sense, that all the pollution we humans spew into the atmosphere, and all the trees and rainforests that we cut down, and all the rivers, lakes, and oceans we contaminate, etc. is going to have some sort of influence on our environment and it certainly won't be beneficial.

In my opinion, Al gore is a politically polarizing figure, and using him as the "front man" for the movie hurts the creditability of what the movie is trying to portray. A more neutral person would have made more sense, unless part of the concept of the movie was to stir up controversy, whether positive or negative.

BE WARNED, the detail in this is not as plausable as my usual, so feel free to skip my rants and just read what i concluded and enquired in the red and the green!



Firstly, thankyou ddeerrff, this documentry had me hooked and it is a great find which adds some balance to this discussion.

Before going off on my rant, i can prevent you the trauma that some of you may experience reading my babble by just adding my conclusion and basics here in red

I connected the corporate company nike to the documentry.

A full close up of a nike product
(happens when product company sponsors providing funding) ~ Whole scene dedicated to image of prof wearing Nike trainers.

Documentaries Third world "pro industrialisation" arguments ~ Nikes use of Third world labour

Political manipulation of environmental issues ~ Nikes controvertial political views

These connections are so small and this whole peice of writing is quite silly, on a subjective level, the stuff i've been looking at is quite interesting though. Anyway, it has drawn me to the conclusion which i also wrote down below.

There are a web of motives behind all the information that we are given that we are not even aware of. There is no way of knowing the motives of the source of ANYTHING!
Its just as possible that this documentry aimed at showing the inaccuracy of Al gores has inaccuracies of its own. Yeah, i know, you probably already knew this, i did aswell, i just like to take the long way round sometimes for interests sake.

Highlighted in green is something i would really like to know also.


There was one part however, which set me off on a train of thought which leads me to a conclusion of confusion on all elements as always. ha ha your all gona find this funny....it was the trainers, those nike trainers that i saw the professor wearing!

I have a great interest in media, i threw out my television over a year ago now, because i believe that it is riddled with subliminal messages or fnords as some choose to refer. Sure enough i have found that since this time, many of my behaviours, attitudes and values have changed and i do believe there is possibly some correlation. One of things that led to this action was actually my study of media and its methods of communication when i was in college some 10 years ago. Since then, one thing that i always look out for are signs within films, documentries, the news, any signs of funding, for this is the way you can identify just who is funding the project and then theorise as to its possible motives.

So of course with my "neurosis" with this aspect of media, when the camera followed the professors "nike" trainers into his office i spotted it. My immediate thought was, "Dodgynous dodgynous i suspect dodgynous " later on it then translated itself into "How do we know that all of this is not bias propergander in some way like Al gores one?". Despite these thoughts, i like the evidence and arguments used in this documentry and feel re-assured in some way by it, but it did wake up my curiosity as to its grounds and purpose other than entertainment.

I have already gone FAR off topic in my explanations for my frames of thought, so i shall just say thoughts came of this path.

Firstly, all the questions answered in these programmes are manipulated and edited in order not only to shorten them but collect the information that relays the programmes "spin" and motive for its project. Half way through the programme, the scientists all claim "we have never recieved any money from companies for supporting our findings". Now seeing as they all said more or less the same thing, they obviously werent self conscious about this point, so we can only assume that the interviewer was. This is good, it means that what the scientists were saying is valid, but i feel there is something missing, i am wondering..."who is funding this documentry?....nike trainers...why did they show this brand?" (Brands shown in a programme without authorisation is considered to be fraudulant unless they are paying the show to advertise)

I saw this documentry yesturday and have been considering these points and only in the last hour i found some thoughts that i wanted to share.

So, i'm onto who is funding the documentries production and if thats the case what is there spin? I still dont know fully, it would take much almost purposeless research, i only take these things as far as they are pleasurable or useful in excersising my understanding. Anyway, i'm terrible ha ha, i go SOOOO off topic , ok, this question helped me to ask "what information is missing from the documentry?" just like they pointed out about Al gores one. They highlighted that what Algore and the GW hype was saying was irrational and inaccurate and did not highlight all the facts. It then went on to explain the planets problems according to the sun, which is why industrialisation should take place in Africa. Hmmm interesting. Whats missing? I would REALLY like to know what diminishing affects our industrialisation really has had on the environment. It debunked elements of the traditional GW view, but did little to replace the inaccurate information with new information about what it had debunked that was accurate, it instead replaced it. So it became bias on this point .

Ok, been thinking now and this could have easily been resolved. It would be easy to get accurate results to find how much industrialisation has affected global warming rather than disproving it, but not completely denying its effects. All they would of had to have done is taken the charts that proved the suns behaviour corrolated with our temperatures and just see how the actual relationship has changed between pre industrialisation and now. Not in terms of measurement of heat and activity, but in terms of how closely they corrolate over time, did they corrolate more closely pre-industrialisation, if they did in what way has it changed. Now i'm just a "thicko" nobody, and if i can suss this out, why did they not include this? I feel this stands as evidence that this programme too has more than a little bias and political/market (?) spin working for it.

When i came to this conclusive possibility (ha ha, never certain of anything haha ) I was just starting the first few lines of this post, and i had a sudden idea! "Why not look up Nike and their policies and plans for expansion, see if i can find some connection" I was thinking this in terms of the programmes emphasis on the need for industrialisation in the third world. I liked this argument, i was attracted to the whole programmes rebelion to the traditional views, but because i had boarded this interesting train of thought i wanted to continue. What if this emphasis had reasoning OTHER than the "for the good of the people" this ideology is used so often by people in power as i pointed out in DSTM's genetic food topic.

SO, i looked up nike. Now, i think i would probably have to dig for months before i could find anything that could bring indisputable conclusions to this point BUT, Nike is a company that is pro making profit from third world low wage employment. When i looked them up i found plenty of articles about this namely in particular about many cases and accusations of poor working conditions. It would be of no surprise to me if a documentry like this was made with the "industrialise third world countries" slant in order to help in the long term, support the ideas which will bring about sufficient resource and advancement for their company to expand and manipulate further realms of the earth. In this article in the link below, towards the end this point is supported.



There is another quote that drew my attention in the "boycott nike" link here (although it is bias by its very context): http://www.saigon.com/~nike/



I researched these articles to try and substantiate my thoughts a little and see what power was behind Nike, feed my conspiricies some more he he , anyway, what drew my attention to this quote was the fact that somewhere through the documentry it brought in the politics behind the whole GW spin off which Margaret Thatcher used to gain support for Nuclea Power. My brain is too melted to be able to find any connections with this highly disputed statement from nike, but it does show that Nike as a company are politically minded and this gives it as a company even more motive and connection to be involved in these issues when putting this with all the other connections found.

In this link: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0249,cotts,40317,6.html there is an article about some sort of case against nike which incorporated the first ammendment and the whole freedom of speech thing. All the newspapers sided with nike, which sort of leads me down another path of quandery, "could this newspaper connection be related to the documentry?" These thoughts are all very far fetched, the documentry mentioned the newspapers need for "negative" environmental news which doesnt support this quiery, unless Nike has some i've scratched your back now you scratch mine policy relating to the newspaper issue? whatever, the relavence is still there, although i must admit, i am flying off in all directions further and further from plausability and am feeling a little silly, but i can draw conclusion from these examples!

All this stuff shows in conclusion, is that there are a web of motives behind all the information that we are given that we are not even aware of. There is no way of knowing the motives of the source of ANYTHING!
Its just as possible that this documentry aimed at showing the inaccuracy of Al gores has inaccuracies of its own. Yeah, i know, you probably already knew this, i did aswell, i just like to take the long way round sometimes for interests sake




Hey Darthy, i read yours too! i also followed some of its links. I like the fact that its all mainly science, kinda saying the same stuff as the documentry except sticking to the point . Although, some of the science stuff was a bit difficult to visualise, the 11 year cycle thing is somethin i've come across before. I'm sure i saw some documentry about it 10 years ago, goin on about how sun storms send wave thingys down to earth which causes the northern lights and every 11 years or so, the sun has lots of storms, meaning there might be more northern light sightings and thunderstorms...HOORAY! now that was a decade ago and thunderstorms have definately increased in recent years! Am i thinking of the same thing?

i feel myself simply starting to marvel at the changes taking place rather than worry, what we are wittnessing really is quite exciting in some ways. Dont get me wrong, this doesnt mean i shall stop recycling and start dropping litter but i am interested and almost excited about the changes that GW is bringing. and i am interested in the "much more detailed explanation" too m hm.

AND them Nike trainers....dodgy stuff "ITS NIKE! THEY ARE CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING! THE END IS NIGH AND GREEN HOUSE GASES COME FROM ALL THE NIKE TRAINERS PEOPLE BUY.....after a few months wear of course!"

I really can be a terrible moyd

(errr moyd..... ranter? talk a-lot? m hm!)

The "natural cycles" point you hear about is even more ridiculous than most of the GW stuff. There is no law of nature saying the Earth has to go through periodic temperature cycles. Any "natural variations" in the temperature is still caused by something, and unless you actually can tell what that something is, you're only ignoring the issue. Another related issue is the thought that if GW is a natural occurrence, then it can't be a bad thing. I wonder if the Dutch agree.

mmm, are you saying this after watching ddeerrff's video on the other page?
Although my reply to it was a bit far fetched, i thought it did highlight some interesting scientific points if you can seperate them from the social and political perspectives that they relate them to.

While I understand where you are coming from, philosophically I cannot agree. We are finite beings, ultra-finite when compared to the Earth. I once read a journal article stating the Earth was 10k years overdue for an ice-age. I will look for a link, but the data was extrapolated from core samples of the poles. Our addition of greenhouse gases has essentially prolonged the onset of an ice-age. Yet, ice ages (which many contend is the final outcome of GW periods) have been happening before man's industry came on the scene.

Thus, what prompted these earlier onsets? I agree that something must cause variations in temperature. How do we know that there is no law of nature directing this? We don't have the records and knowledge to draw such a conclusion objectively. We are still trying to discover what matter is composed of, let alone what forces motivate it.

I don't think those of us who put forth the "natural cycles" argument discredit the human participation implicit in GW. However, the human 'guilt' is counterproductive. We must change, but how can we know that stopping all emissions will stop this process? How can we be sure that the alternative we explore and embrace will stop this onset? I think the natural cycles interpretation at least forces people to realistically accept that the changes are coming. Sure we can make changes and we should, but people have to resolve themselves to the fact that in their lifetime, they may very well see severe alterations in their lifestyle. It precludes people from clinging to some 'magical bullet' process that will pull us back from the changes we are observing.

I guess I am saying that both arguments have credence and the changes each elicits for civilization should be explored.

Salud,
bg04

Now you are running into the whole ad-hoc/Occam's razor thing. You are changing nature, adding a new force, to make it fit your theory. Do not add anything unless you have to.

As i said earlier much of the GW you hear about is equally ridiculous. The GW you read about in the media has little if any relation to what is actually happening. Why? I'll let Monbit answer that: Another problem is that the average Joe hasn't got the faintest idea what climatology, or science in general, is. If Joe Average was told that if everybody would suddenly stopped driving cars GW would increase, he would conclude that driving cars is a good thing, which would be the wrong conclusion.

Between light bulbs and flush toilets I think we got off the main topic, which is the question of whether or not humans are adversely affecting otherwise normal weather changes; and, if we are, what do we do about it? Firstly, I think it's amazing how Gore's movie opened up debate. Of course, if you needed a dramatic edge, how can you do better than melting ice caps? But the scientific community has been churning out dirges on this subject for ages . As an Australian, I have mixed feelings about our position on the Kyoto Protocol - one (if not the only?) internationally-driven agenda on climate change. The Protocol is an agreement between nations to limit carbon emissions, which, they sort-of agree, are linked to greenhouse gases, then to climate change. Just the US and us refused to sign. The government's argument here is that, if we signed, it'd do little good (can't be proven, and if it was, our little bit wouldn't make a difference) but if we signed and undertook to limit our carbon emissions, this would impact badly on the economy (we're resource driven; where we once depended on primary industries - we used to live "on the sheeps' back" - now we're depending on sales of coal, iron ore, uranium etc especially to those Bigfoot Enviromonsters, China and India). Instead, we're going one better: We're developing "clean" coal technology. Jules Vernes or Roald Dahl would've been chuffed to have invented this little lot. It involves pumping the carbon emissions from coal processing into empty fissures deep in bedrock. Just the name makes me giggle - "geosequestration". SERIOUSLY. No one questions what will happen if we manage to do it (still got to figure that bit out) and then there is an earthquake. Will that be a "deogeosequestration"? Or a "fartingbastardofanemmisequestration"? Get your giggles where you can, I always say. Our other big planet saver is to switch over to nuclear power. I'm a simple girl. To me that's like saying, "Eating too much fat is bad, so I'll smoke cigarettes instead." Instead of worrying about too much carbon dioxide, we'll be worrying about nuclear waste, neither of which we can get rid of but the latter lasts a damn sight longer. Even if you say, this is too big a topic, forget global, I'll just do my bit locally, you run into problems. Years ago a friend and I were alarmed at the amount of waste present in a normal shopping trolley (cardboard toothpaste tubes, plastic wrap, cereal boxes etc) so we got the local council to put in a recycling bin at our local dump (refuse tip). We set up rosters and we sorted recyclables, we worked very hard. People got behind us, the next shire got involved, and the idea spread from our small rural region right across the city. We were so proud. It wasn't until years later that we found out that the plastic recycling plant that had been accepting our rubbish had burnt down and, for years, the council had been dumping all our carefully saved and separated recyclables along with the rest of the rubbish, then burning it. You gotta laugh. And, I really want to vote Green, but they're such idealists, none of them can pass my Local Dump Law: the devil is in the detail. That is where attempts to change our energy-burning habits will fall - in the small things that everybody does but nobody counts. Sorry to be such a pessimist but i hate to think what our grandkids will face, let alone our great-grandkids, cheers, Marg

Very well put Mr. Alpha. I had not considered that flaw inherent in my contention.

Still, we do not have the historical accounts necessary to determine whether such patterns have been seen before, and what brought them on.

Do we have enough evidence and long-term data to prove our actions are catalysing current weather changes or are they just a co-factor? There have been warming trends on Earth in the past. I think it would be unwise to perform some knee-jerk reaction, without understanding the consequences of our 'remedy'. And a knee-jerk reaction seems to be just what the proponents of GW are calling for. We must explore alternative energies before fully committing to them. The production of a Prius uses more energy than the fuel saved over a number of years, so where is the eco-friendliness?

Some interesting 'knee-jerk' scenarios are reported on here. Interesting to note that the scientists are themselves extremely wary of messing with nature.

Salud,
bg04

The facts are in and it is clear -

there is not a general consensus on Global Warming,

at least not regarding what is causing it or

exactly what the overall global changes will be as it happens.

or after it peaks and begins cooling.


There are people who say "It must be true, I saw it on the Internet"

and "It must be true, I saw it in a movie".

yet they ignore a lot of what they see on the Internet or in a movie

because it contradicts what they saw before.

Whoever presents facts and information first is right,

and whoever presents rebutal facts and information must be wrong.

Not a good path for any of us to follow, in my opinion.

Hmmm...

This from the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works -

Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research

Are some folks actually coming to their senses?

Is this true? - During the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on March 21, 2007, "Vice President Al Gore's Perspective on Global Warming," former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge" to consume no more energy than the average American household.

Oh, that's right - Gore said that the man-made global warming would doom us all if "we" didn't do something. He didn't say if "he" didn't!

Who to believe??? I surely don't know what's the truth or what isn't - after all, even the scientists can't seem to make up their minds.

I drive an SUV which I keep serviced and running perfectly - and make no apologies for owing it. I pick up litter others have dropped if I'm out for a walk - mostly because it seems an insult to Mother Earth to dump crap on her.

But with all the 'experts' disagreeing, it does leave one wondering if we are not being bombarded by 'the sky is falling, the sky if falling'' when, in reality, it's not. Still, I'd rather err on the side of caution.

That said though, I can't help but smile to myself when I realize that within a couple years we will no longer be permitted to use 'normal lightbulbs'. Sounds good on the surface perhaps, but it would take a heck of a lot of light bulbs burning to compare the pollution that even one normal jet flight dumps into the atmosphere surely? But then again, if we all believe the light bulb solution will solve things, perhaps we won't start nagging at our government officials to stop taking jets so frequently. Or for them to start hitting large corporations with more than minor 'fines' for dumping huge amounts of poisons into our water systems and on the earth itself. Or truly encourage people to stop using disposable plastic shopping bags by the milllions each year (land fill is a pretty ugly thing). Gentle sigh.

Sorry if I seem a pessimist this evening but global warming - or not - all that aside, maybe we should just concentrate on trying to leave Mother Earth in a decent condition for those that will walk upon her long after we are gone.

I don't think you are being pessimistic at all MaraM. I agree with all the points you made. It is such a strange world we live in. Our politicians urge us to make changes, and blow-hard about easy it will be if we all do our part. Yet, at least 8 private jets are flown to a Presidential Candidate Debate . Definitely enough to make one wonder!

IMO, the truth is that we have the infrastucture for our lives now. As we have built our lives around automobiles, electricity, disposable items, etc...; it would seem impossible to expect people to change with no pressing need. By pressing, I mean: no gasoline/diesel, no electricity, no more disposable plastic bags produced. If the same global crisis faced us as a population, yet we were still using fire to keep us warm and cook, and we were still bathing in lakes and rivers; what possible course could we take to avert GW?

I think the same question applies to us now. Yes, we can waste less and should. Especially in America, we are horrible consumers. There will be a painful transition period. But, aside from that, I must drive to get to work. I must use electricity to communicate with all of you. And, unfortunately, not too many products are sold in glass containers anymore.

We all are charged with making small improvements in our lives and our approach to consumption. But, when some politician or famous icon (IMO these are the worst) tries to guilt me into feeling like I alone am responsible for our World's woes, I want to throw them a big &#(% you. I don't live in a 6,000 square foot home, I don't make my way to work in a lavish tour bus or private jet, I don't take vacations every other month demanding a private flight, etc...

We are not supposed to do what they do--We are supposed to do what they say.
Until People wake up and demand a change,nothing is going to change ever.
My opinion is all parties in Government should be given their marching orders.
These Parties in office just take turns to screw us.It's Time.

You know, MaraM, I believe you've touched on the big problems -

First, all of the scientists don't agree. So, to start, I wouldn't believe anyone that makes that claim, no matter what the subject - all of the scientists will probably never agree on a wide-sweeping topic such as evolution, the causes of global weather changes, or other similarly multi-faceted topics or concepts.

In this situation though, most of the scientists agree that the climate is getting warmer. What many don't agree on, is what factors are affecting this change, and how much impact each of the factors has. The most controversial of these factors - man's impact on this change - is also the one that seems to be garnering the widest variety of opinions from the scientific community. Some imply that man is the biggest cause, some state that we are affecting it, but they don't agree on to what detail, and others say that we aren't making an appreciable difference at all.

However, from what I can gather, a large majority of scientist do agree that man is not a good steward of the ecosystem in general, and we are having an adverse effect on our environment.

In my opinion, we should separate these two issues. The Global Warming issue has become very devisive. Using a pollitically polarizing "front man" for the movie even makes that devisiveness worse. Distortions, or blatent missrepresentation of facts, don't help the situation either.

Meanwhile, the real issue - our poor stewardship of the environment, doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Another example of man's inhumanity to man, I suppose, only we are extending it to all of our fellow living organisms here on earth.

That man is contributing to GW isn't nearly as controversial in scientific circles as the media portraits it to be. The controversy is largely media manufactured. Another thing the media has manufactured is the though that you are either for or against GW, while in reality the scientific community is spread over a far wider spectrum of positions. Any scientist who disagrees with how the media portraits GW is also automatically classed as not believing in GW at all.

What to believe? Fact checking is a good start. Many articles you find are outright lying about the numbers.

The globe goes through warming and cooling trends. Look at what they keep finding underneath many of the melting glaciers.

Man-Made Global Warming = False. (Yes my opinion, but science is overwhelmingly supportive.)
Global Warming = Inevitable, natural process of the Earth.

The only inconvenient truth is that Al Gore has lost touch with any aspect of reality and really should be in an asylum.

Any time a scientist says "The debate on this issue is closed." That means that it is most assuredly not closed, and the scientist has a clear propagandist agenda. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination, but....follow the money. (Or in this case, the federal grants.)

Yes I'm very worried about global warming. But have I been sucked in to far by Media hype, politicians looking for brownie points, scientist creating more work for themselves to continue getting funding, so they can examine the problem of global warming.

1.There is so much differing data but records appear to show that during the dinosaur periods the average temp of the earth was much higher than it is today. What sort of cars and industry did they have to cause such higher temperatures. It must have been them because the temp dropped when the went extinct, it can be the only explination.

2. Some studies show livestock contribute 18% of greenhouse emissions. Lets kill all the livestock in the world. This will have a dramatic decrease in the effeect.

3. Volcano's emit lots of greehouse emmisions (depend on who you believe, they either emit nothing, or lots of the stuff), so lets go around the world plugging all the volcanoes up just to be on the safe side.

4. The scaremongers pick out selective parts of temperature trends during time to make their case.

I really am concerned, and do try to do my bit though through recycling, walking to shops, energy efficient light bulbs etc.

These are some thoughts to leave you with from a crazy person.

Well stated Mr. Bilko.

What we need to remember here is that there isn't one debate going on. There are two. The first, lets call it the scientific debate, is going on in scientific conventions and journals by climatologists. The second, lets call it the public debate, is the one happening in the public, the media and amongst the politicians. The one we are discussin here is the public debate. The one that matters is the scientific debate.
First of all, no climatologist has ever said that humans are the only cause of global warming. The temperatures of the mesozoic era aren't incompatible with humans contributing to global warming now.
They are actually discussing to tax farmers on New Zealand for animal farts.
Volcanoes are a complicated subject, and they vary much in behavior from volcano to volcano. What they emit depends on what they contain. Worst case a volcano could kill every human being in a month. Besides, there is nothing you can do about them. If volcanoes truly were such big contributors to CO₂ levels shouldn't there be big spikes in CO₂ levels when there is an eruption?
Fudging with the data is something both sides can do equally well. Using it as an argument against global warming won't work. Another thing to remember is that fudging the data only work in the public debate. In the scientific debate both sides have the know-how to tell if somebody has fudged the numbers. Joe Average, Big Shot Politician and Mr Journalist can't tell the difference between god data and complete BS.

Wow, cant believe anyone would take my last post serious. It was meant to be satrical break from the very heavy post previous to it.

That aside I really am concerned about global warming, but am I being conned by the scientific and political world. Either way I dont really care. What I do care about Is the abuse the world does take from humanity in general.

In this order.

1. Reproduction

I believe it was in the film "The Matrix" where humanity was likened to a virus, multipying, destroying etc. I truly believe we need a good human cull. We had the black death in the middle ages, and two world wars. Humanitarians will probably be disturbed by that but the world is getting smaller every day. But I also believe in compulsary euthanasia at 40 years old (joke)

2. Deforestation.

Now Europe has mostly been deforested we are in a strange situation of telling Asia and central America its a bad thing. Do I blame them for not listening, of course not we've rapped the land, now its their turn but it does make me sad.

3. Eliminating "dangerous" animals (well most wild animals)

As the world is getting smaller there is less land for animals to live. People all round the world tresspass into dangerous animal teritory and wonder why the lions, tiger and bears etc eat them. Solution: Kill the animals so humans are nice and safe. Also the oceans of the world are getting overfished, and my prediction is soon we will have fished or polluted the oceans barren.

4. Waste. Domestic and Industrial.

As more people enter the world there is more waste. Domestic waste in land fill sites, chemicals dumped into the sea. Radioactive waste. Not much more to say on that one.

The best solution to solve 2,3,and 4 is to deal with number 1. A mass human cull and 2 to 4 will sort themselves out. Maybe the answer to number 1 is globalwarming, bringing forth a new Ice Age and creating the much needed culling of so called humanity.



Cant believe I prattled on so much, and sorry for being just a teeny weeny bit off topic.

Wonder how accurate this article is:

Global Warming Theories Fizzle, New Studies Show.


Again, we should be better stewards of our environment,

but to use fear-mongering to politicize the situation will rarely serve anyone.



Well, except for the one's doing the political fear mongerring, of course.

A brief history on hurricanes:

The classical theory goes like this: There has been an observed link between SST (Sea Surface Temperature) and the amount and strength of hurricanes. So Global Warming leads ho higher SST which causes more and bigger hurricanes.

This is another one of the Global Warming myths. As the study published in Nature, which your editorial talks about, says SST isn't the only thing changing with Global Warming. There is some clear work pointing to the fact that wind sheer would also increase. (What is wind sheer? The difference of the wind speed and/or direction at different levels of the atmosphere. A big wind sheer can rip a hurricane to shreds.)

The problem with studying the hurricane/GW link is that we have been changing how we study and record data about hurricanse over and over and over again, so the data we have is a mess. This makes making any good study on them a big problem. There are many scientists working at demessifying it, as I am sure the writers of the study in question have tried. I am sure we will see more studies with other conclusions about hurricanes show up. I have seen other scientists claim that this study over-emphasizes the importance of wind sheer on hurricanes and and the increased wind sheer will at most help mitigate the increase of hurricanes with Global Warming.

A problem is that there are scientists who feel Global Warming isn't taken seriously enough by the public unless they can give doomsday prophesies. This only helps take the public debate further away from the scientific debate. They do not make these claims in respected scientific publications.

As a last note I should point out the because something is published in Nature doesn't mean that it is the final say on the matter (which every journalist seems to believe), but rather a worthy addition to the discussion.