Environment

"The real question is whether one has the courage to look at the facts in an unbiased way and to allow science to lead where it will."
Indeed.

Oddly enough, actual climate scientists have noticed the solar cycle and accounted for it.

It was still clever of you to think of it.

Blah, blah, blah. I appreciate the mental contortions you must have put yourself through to come up with this argument, but despite the protestations that global warming deniers who use big words or hold PhDs in something are "credible", and despite the observation that, yes, there is still snow somewhere, the indisputable fact remains that carbon emissions have rapidly and disproportionately increased due to human influences, disrupting the historical cycle of cooling and warming on the planet. We are quickly (in geological terms) approaching a tipping point, notwithstanding your creative percentage  masquerade, beyond which any natural cooling cycle can compensate. You might want to consider putting away the keys to your SUV, pulling your head out of wherever it is, and looking at your own ecological impact. Please, for the sake of future generations, if not the current one.

Ever heard of global dimming, which is masking the effects of climate change?  Check it out, Kevin.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/

Simply due to the fact that I read too much emotion in the negative responses to Kevin to merit very much intellectual value. I think Kevin brings up a good point that we can't just assume any one theory is right. 
Most scientists try to disprove their theories, and only when there is no contradicting evidence do we consider it fact. Remember that when considering global warming, the research may look good; but it is far from done.

Blake,  I take strong exception to your statement: "we can't just assume any one theory is right."  This has the ring of a political move to prevent moving forward.   For my needs, the research showing global warming is overwhemling and obvious. I understand that for others it is not.  I hope they are right, but I am  not willing to take the chance that they are out in left field.  To get this wrong, or in your terms, to keep researching until "it is done" would the peak of foolhardiness.  I repeat myself:  How will you aplologize to my granddaughter if you've got it wrong and she's yelling at you "Whatever WERE you thinking?!! There were hundreds and hundreds of clear pointers to what was happening and you sat around wondering if "they had it right yet".  You snatched my future cause you weren't "sure"?  etc.
I strongly suggest you rethink your position, given the many, many, many, many clear indications of looming trouble.

I thought y'all might be interested in this:  a friend of mine who is studying the language of climate change debate went to a climate change denial meeting in London.  One of the speakers was the climate-change denier Viscount Monkton.  As part of his "proof" that the ice caps are not melting, he showed three photos of a research centre in the Antarctic, taken in 1986, 1996 and 2006, showing that there was more snow in each case.  When it came to questions, a man in the audience put up his hand.  "I am probably in a minority of one in this audience, as I used to work at that research station.  It was closed down in stages from the 1980s, and is now completely closed.  So the reason there is more snow is that the heating was turned off, and no-one shovels the snow away any more."
I hope someone will be keeping an eye out for this trick in New York City!

Of course it's biased, Kevin - unbiased reporting is very rare (in the deep minority, IMO) because everyone has an opinion or an axe to grind.  The deniers are also biased because they have an agenda to push, one best expressed at the Republican National Convention last summer:  "Drill, baby, drill" and, as Sarah Palin herself added, "Mine, baby, mine."  Let's deny it so that we can keep blowing through natural resources at a ridiculous rate with no thought for the existence of future generations, and blame somebody else when all this stuff goes away.

Global warming is at least partly a natural phenomenon, and as the archeologists have pointed out, every period of global warming is followed by one of global cooling, most recently seen some 10,000 years ago.  They've also pointed out that we're overdue for some global cooling, and it usually takes a natural disaster to bring it on, such the eventual explosion of the caldera (i.e. super-volcano) under the ground in Yellowstone National Park.  This one could be powerful enough to bring on another Ice Age, or it could result in something like (I believe it was) 1833, the "year without a summer."  (Seriously, look it up!  This actually happened.)  But it might also show us that Charles Darwin was right after all - that the species best suited to adaptation to cataclysmic climatic changes would survive to keep the Earth's population of creatures both animal and vegetable going once that Ice Age ended.  Either way, we're overdue and need to be on the lookout for what happens next.

I love the contortions you deniers go thru to make a certainty (global warming, evolution) seem questionable.

I had a Fox-watcher tell me that sea levels COULDN'T rise, because if you watch a glass of ice-water melt, the level in the glass stays the same! 

Amazing.

I KNOW that wasn't his idea, so some propaganda think-tank (like Heartland) no doubt came up with the argument to influence the opinions of the science-challenged.

Thomas ~   I tried it!!  (ice water, that is) and he's right!!  It didn't move a whit.  Wow!  Who knew it??  Just like Feynman.  His proof involved ice water too, you know!
BUT, and this is important.  We're talking science here.  DID THAT FOX-WATCHER PUT SALT IN THE WATER????  Ah-ha! I thought so.  I'll get back to you in a few minutes.  I gotta rerun the scientific experiment.  Hmmmmm. I wonder how MUCH salt I should dump in.  According to one of our bloggers, if a little is good, a lot is better.  I can handle it...
Stand by.

They do use the ice-in-a-glass argument, it is weird. Actually a large part of the ice that is melting is not floating in water, it is supported by land.  So it is melting, draining into the ocean, and causing the sea level to rise.  To recreate this you would have to pile ice above the water level in a bucket and let it melt into the bucket.  It fills the bucket up.  Of course they would never show this on Fox News because their corporate sponsors wouldn't benefit from it.

To be fair, having a PhD and a dissenting opinion doesn't automatically disqualify them either...

I haven't taken a side yet on this issue, because both sides have very good and scientifically viable arguments. 

I'm as much of a lay person as the rest here (including the author of this article), so how is it that everybody has come to a conclusion?

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reasoned comments regarding an issue that has great financial consequences for myself and my family.

Yes global cooling is an actual phenomenon. The current trend is caused by industrial particulate pollution and occasionally natural events such as volcanic eruptions, that dump huge quantities of particulates into the atmosphere which reflect solar energy thereby reducing temperatures.
But at the same time, there is the constant spewing of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by increased industrialization and the East keeping up with the West.
It has been observed that when these reflecting, cooling particulates have abated--as when after the 9/11 attacks all commercial aircraft were grounded in the U.S. for a couple of days--there was a surprising amount of warming in the U.S. over those couple of days, due to the absence of the reflective-cooling effect of aircract contrails, which have a similar cooling effect as industrial particulates.
When industrial nations begin to clean up their filthy emissions and reduce their contribution to global cooling, yet at the same time continue and even increase their production of greenhouse gases, there will be a surprising warming of global temperatures.
And, once the CO2 we unabatedly dump into the atmosphere causes the warming of the Russian tundra and other permafrost sufficiently so as to release the humongous amounts of CO2 and methane--an even more potent greenhouse gas--stored there, it'll be a cause of exponential global warming, a greenhouse-gas party if you will. But if we wait to watch that happen, it'll be too late for many species on Earth, and crop failures, famines and worldwide starvation will be the news of the day, not to mention increased severe-weather catastrophes and their concomitant suffering.

Pollution-caused global cooling and its accompanying swing, increased global warming upon tidying up our filth, is a very simple observation which has already been confirmed.

David ~   I like your style and agree with your premise, altho I'd add one small piece.  As to the global warming after 9-11 .... it wasn't just the USA that felt the effects.  One of the first to realize that warming had occurred (and before he realized it was from the 9-11 ground stop) was an Israeli.  They track surface temps closely for their desalination plants and he noticed the very unusual spike right away and then it's equally sudden return to "normal". But until he realized that others around the globe had discovered it in their data also, he couldn't understand why it happened.
In a sense, how lucky we were to have the ground stop, for we surely wouldn't have ordered one just for the sake of science, now would we?  And you can bet for sure, that if scientists postulated that this would occur, there would have been plenty of deniers to label them as nutty. 

Science is not about "supposed to be". 
That's a moral question, and not answerable with facts. Some people think there are "supposed to be" only people of one race or religion.
What facts and science can tell you is that if we keep messing with our climate, there will be VERY expensive results.
And, contrary to your implication, global warming experts have produced plenty of facts on that subject. Try reading the CIA's assessment of the national security threat global climate change poses.

Mike, THANK YOU for asking the obvious questions. I think we should get solid answers to them before passing laws regulating ourselves. Limiting pollution is a good thing, limiting productivity is not. But then, what is pollution? Certainly not CO2, or we'd have to cap all those latent volcanoes...

There is no "supposed to be."  There is only what is most viable for our present biosphere.  Since our biosphere adapted to temperatures slightly less than the present, the "supposed to be" is slightly less than what we have.
Focusing on things like how many polar bears are there supposed to be is silly.  The number of polar bears, or spotted owls, or frogs is important not for themselves but because they indicate whether conditions are deteriorating or not with obvious implications for everyone.  When we have massive extinctions, it means something is drastically wrong and we better set it straight or we are next.
The rest of the questions are equally pointless, but it should be noted that the globe has in fact warmed in the last decade with seven of the last ten years being the hottest on record.  Just because George Will says that it hasn't means nothing.

Mike:  In your list of questions, you ask:  "Why has the globe not warmed in the last decade?"
Mike, if you can't see the myriad ways in which the warming is, not only proven, but obvious .... then I suppose you'd question if anything is true or fact.
Check with the people of Fairbanks, Alaska and ask about the problems being presented by the thawing of the permafrost ...  something they've never seen before (collapsing roads, sinkholes, broken water mains, etc., etc.)   You'll have a hard time convincing them of your doubts.  Then go to check out some of the missing south seas islands. They had to be abandoned as the sea levels rose (and more are soon to be).  Tell them there's no global warming.  Then watch the time lapse videos of the ice sheets disappearing.
I guess there will always be some that can face the facts or the hands-on proof. 
As to your question: "How much energy is the sun supposed to produce?"  That's easy.  Lots.

Dirk,

You're hitting the AGW talking points.  Unfortunately, besides being wrong, you are missing the point. Yes, I know that Al Gore claims that this is all new and novel, but that is simply not the case. There have been no South Pacific Islands evacuated or disappeared.  Gore was challenged in a UK court on this point (and many others), and since there was no evidence to back up this claim, showings of Inconvenient Truth in schools in the UK were subsequently ordered to provide a clarification before the film that this point (among eight others) were false.

This is not the first time that permafrost has melted. Alaskans and northerners have faced collapsing roads, sinkholes and broken watermains many times before.  Receding glaciers and ice sheets the world over have this inconvenient habit of revealing organic material dating from anywhere between 1400 and 4000 years before present. That means that no only were those glaciers covering prevously bare lands, but that there were trees growing in those areas. There is abundant evidence that recent recession of ice is far from unprecedented.

Every major global surface temperature compilation (GISS, HADCRU, RSS) has shown stable, if not cooling global temperatures this decade.  Does this prove that global warming has stopped?  No. Does it prove that the AGW hypothesis is false?  No.  But it does show that we do not properly understand what is going on with our climate, and that the computer climate models upon which much of the hype is built are not particularly reliable.

Rob - you can always pick a few factoids out of a complex system and use it to "prove" that an overall trend is not occurring.
However, it is beyond rational dispute that atmospheric greenhouse gasses have increased due to anthropogenic effects. It is also beyond rational dispute that this increases the heat retained in our atmosphere.
In a complex system, few things go directly from A to B. The fact that a rubber balls bounce doesn't dispute the theory of gravity.

Rob Tamaki:   My error.  You're right.  It appears that you are always right, even when you're wrong (it's cold, hard fact that islands have been evacutated and more will be soon. And, no, Fairbanks has never seen permafrost loss of this magnitude in the city's history). So we'll defer to you, the global warming expert, but fully expect you to find the right words to apologize to my granddaugher (and millions of others) when she discovers you goofed and wants to know "....what in world WERE you thinking!??? Hundreds and hundreds of indicators and you argued that nothing special was happening!! Were you daft???"
Fortunately, most of the public, and science, can spot the obvious and so may save you from yourself.

r winn,

Of course atmospheric CO2 levels have increased due to anthropogenic activities.  Of course the physics of CO2 absorption results in retained heat in a closed system. I am not disputing these things at all.  What I am disputing is that the current generation of computer models are reliable predictors of the future climate systems.  Current measured temperature data is not consistent with the projections of the models. 

Dick Faigre: No where did I deny that the planet has warmed.  However, I did state that all official global temperature indices in the past decade show no discernable positive trend, and may be interpreted to be negative.  What does this mean?  I don't know.  It's too early to tell.  But when I hear people shouting that it's getting warmer faster than predicted, I cringe, because the data says something quite different.

I also make the point that the current warm period that we are experiencing is not unique in recent history.  There is monumental evidence that the earth has been as warm and even warmer than present in recent times (geologically speaking).

I am raising a five year old and a seven year old.  I also care about their futures and the world that they have to live in.  But I want them to be able to think critically about the information passed on to them through a mainstream media that feeds upon alarmism because that's what sells commercial time and ad space.

And would you mind passing on to me the reference for which islands have been evacuated and have disappeared?

Rob doesn't dispute that more heat is being retained; he just doesn't think the computer models are good enough.
That's like noticing a house is on fire, and advocating against the use of a fire truck because fire is a complex phenomenon and it's best to wait until the computer models catch up.
Rob's observation that the earth was at one time warmer than it is today is relevant to the crisis in only one way: as with the house fire, it is only to notice that once there was a clearing where today there is a house. 
One might conclude that a housefire is never a crisis because it merely restores the pre-existing clearing, but there remains the little matter of where to shelter the house's population.
Likewise, to return our earth to the a time of greater average temperature leaves us with the problem of how to move all those cities built along coastlines, et cetera.

r winn,

Note that I claim that heat is retained in a "closed system."  The earth's atmosphere is not a closed system.  For example, recent published papers by Roy Spencer suggests that water vapour, considered by the IPCC to be a positive feedback (i.e., it increases temperature) is actually a negative feedback.  This is not incorporated into the computer models.

I observe that historic temperatures were similar or higher than present because it tells us that there are natural processes that are capable of yielding the types of temperatures that we are witnessing today. Until science has properly understood the causes for those temperature increases, then we need to be cautious moving forward.  Right now, the computer models, upon which all of the forecasts of doom and gloom depend, do not include these historic climate drivers.

While I believe that there are very good reasons to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels (especially given the horrendous actions taken by global powers to secure access to them), I think that there are a lot of reasons to be very cautious about this as well.

Millions of people in coastal cities are not about to be drowned by rising sea levels.  The IPCC 2007 projects a maximum 100 year sea level rise of less than 2 ft.  If this is true, we have plenty of time to build dykes and move people around. No one has yet died from this.

But the mad rush to transition to alternative fuels has had the unintended result of driving up food prices as lands formerly used to grow food are now used to produce fuel for our cars.  As a result, hundreds of millions are now suffering, and who knows how many have died.

We need to get the science right, because drastic actions can have disastrous unintended results.

Rob ~  Thanks for the thoughtful post.  However it's usually fruitless to try and convince someone who's mind is made up in spite of the science and the facts.  But let's take one more shot at it with a few well known, well covered, basic facts.  This is an excerpt published by the International Herald Tribune of May 3, 2007: 
Dire climate change predictions may seem like science fiction in many parts of the world. But in the tiny, sea-swept Pacific nation of Tuvalu, the crisis has already arrived.... villages have already been evacuated from low-lying areas in Vanuatu and the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea. Ben Namakin, an environmentalist and native of Kiribati, says that, in his homeland, saltwater intrusion is already ruining taro patches and spoiling well water, houses are being flooded, coastlines are receding, and a causeway whose beauty he had appreciated since he was a child collapsed last October.

Now .... moving right along, here's an excerpt from ABCNews of Nov 11, 2008:
"... Maldivians wouldn't be the first population displaced by global warming. That distinction probably belongs to the half million residents of Bangladesh's Bhola Island whose homes were swallowed in 1995 by rising sea levels. In 2005, the 1,600 residents of Papua New Guinea's Carteret Islands began evacuation, as the advancing sea contunued to destroy gardens, sink homes, and contaminate freshwater supplies. Also that year, 100 residents of Vanuatu's island of Tegua had to be evacuated as their homes became permanently flooded.

Lastly, altho it's not an island, some natives in our own state of Alaska have been forced to flee inland as their shorefront has been eroded by heightened sea levels.  You could have seen their homes washing into the sea on the evening news.

And, of course, there's Italy's Venice. 

So, stand by.  Lots more examples to come soon.

Dirk,

I was planning a reasoned response to your examples with a discussion of the science of sea level change. But I thought that I should independently verify some of your examples. My search revealed some rather surprising results!

I had not heard about half a million people losing their homes at Bhola Island due to sea level rise in 1995.  After reading your link to the Washington Post article, I wanted to better understand what happened from a scientific perspective (especially since I am a water resources and hydraulic engineer by profession). I searched for other stories relating to this incident.  Surely an evacuation of this magnitude would have to have received a lot of attention.

What I discovered, though, is that while this story is widely cited throughout the internet, all the stories link back to the same article you gave me, in most cases a direct copy and paste (just as you did in your post).  At best I was able to find a short story about a few families that had to relocate because of erosion near their homes. There was NO INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION of this story anywhere.  There is only one conclusion that any reasonable person can come to:

IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!

This is a prime example of uncritical nature of global warming alarmism.  Here is an internet-based myth that has gone viral, though it has no basis in reality! But it doesn’t matter, because it supports the dogma.  ABC willingly reports it without confirming its veracity.  All of the Global Warming Alarmist web sites happily quote it. But it is wrong.  It doesn’t matter.  It serves its purpose, which is to scare people. The victims here are not half a million Bangladeshis, but the public who are fed this nonsense.

Rob ~  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  You seem to know it all.  You know when others are being dumb. You know you are right.  You're just special. You win the prize for arrogance.

So once again YOU declare what's real and what isn't.  No facts, just the truth according to Rob. Whew.  It's a heavy burden you carry.

Would you stoop so low as to do me a favor?  Plug "Island evacuated rising sea level" and then count the discreet media pubs that reported these stories. Then tell (you're good at "telling"), tell me that they are all from one simple source that just happens to have made it all up and are wrong.

And I have checked some of the urban legend sites (like Snopes) and they don't have anything about it being legend.  Maybe your fact checking is a bit off the mark today?

I happened to watch some of the evacuation and the devastation on television. Oh, I know. It's a conspiracy and it was just a Hollywood set. Sure.

And how do you know that ABC didn't do fact checking? Ooops. I forgot.  You just know. You know things.  Lots of things.
Same for the Christian Science Monitor and Scientific American and the International Herald Tribune and 60 Minutes and ..... the list is long. I won't expect to hear back from you for a couple of days. It should take that long for you to do YOUR fact checking.  I'll be cooking the crow for you.

The point that the models aren't completely accurate is well taken, but not for the reason you would like. The models don't show that the Greenland icecap should be melting as fast as it is.  They don't show that the intensity of storms over the North Atlantic should be as strong as they have been.  They don't show that the polar ice cap should be disappearing as fast as it is.  In other words, the models have been giving us an optimistic view of the situation, and when you compare them with what has been happening, it is definitely worse than predicted. It does your argument no good when reality is even worse than had been thought.

Daniel,

Just checked up on this site after ignoring it for a few days.  Don't know if you're still checking yourself.  You have selectively chosen a few examples to illustrate your point that the models are under-predicting some phenomenon.  Notwithstanding the fact that the examples that you give are not as resilient as you seem to believe (for example, August 2008 set a record for the global polar ice extent, and there is no evidence that North Atlantic storm activity is increasing in intensity, in spite of what Al Gore may have to say), the validity of the models has been seriously challenged. 

Koutsoyiannis et. al. 2008 reviews 8 models for their correlation to actual temperature and precipation records over an 18 year period, and they conclude "The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported."

You can find their paper here:http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.53.4.671

Even if valid, your claims for real-world divergence from model results only re-inforces my point. For every phenomenon that the models appear to underestimate, there are many others that they appear to overestimate.  The bottom line is that they are unreliable predictors of global climatic variation and they do not accurately anticipate the results of the addition of carbon to our atmosphere. Yet, we are preparing to commit hundreds of billions of dollars to changing our energy use practices on the basis of these models!  This will have notable economic impacts on the developed world, but will be disastrous for the developing world if fully implemented.

Look at the science, and not just who is shouting louder.

Dirk,

I presume you are still roaming around this site.  As for the evacuation of 500,000 from Bhola Island, I searched further for confirmation of the story.  I have found none.  I then did one better.  I asked my Bangladeshi friend.  It turns out that he has probably visited Bhola Island one hundred times during his work with an NGO.

Bhola Island experiences regular flooding and erosion problems and has been experiencing these for many decades.  Every couple of years there is a major evacuation because of flooding, and residents frequently need to relocate because of erosion.  After the flooding, they return to their homes.  However, my friend has never heard about a massive permanent evacuation of 500,000 people due to rising sea levels. This simply has not happened.

What did happen is that 500,000 people were killed in 1970 when Cyclone Bhola struck the island. This story seems to have been conflated possibly with other stories of flooding, and has now become an internet-based myth that is repeated over and over again without any critical external validation. As I said before, these kinds of stories are endlessly perpetuated by AGW alarmists because they support the mythos, not because they are verifiably true.

In regard to another of your examples, you need to check out the following:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/

And yet another of your examples, it is widely recognized that flooding in Venice is not attributable to sea level rise, but subsidence of the land.

I don't intend to come across as arrogant, and forgive me if this is the way that it appears.  But I become very frustrated with claims by those who have not carefully scrutinized the science and the data behind it all. And I see a lot of this amongst the AGW alarmist camp.

Rob ~  I followed your link to debunking the Maldives sealevel thing.  But ... then I followed a link within it to:
 http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=118
wherein Morner (and his "tree thing") is solidly debunked. They even claim that Morner admitted falsification. 
Of course, even within the link you provided there are plenty of grievous errors -- like the map showing the Maldives that is really Sumatra. 
The bottom line is that this stuff is goofy and not much related to science.  Everyone is racing around trying to "prove" his or her accusation(s). It's tiresome.  I would also mention, I got very interested in your link as soon as I saw the "dead tree" pic which was captioned (something to the effect) 'students tore the tree down'.  It they tore it down, why was it still standing?  Then I looked a bit more closely at the pic (black and white) and it sure looked suspicious. Indeed, later in the posts was a pointer to some shadows that didn't comply with the laws of physics. Morner claims he had trouble with the exposure or some such.  !!  I'd say all the posts provided and their various links don't prove squat.
Actually, I don't care.  I'd like to know if the Maldives are 1) sinking or 2) being flooded by sealevel or 3) something else, but I don't expect to find out the solid truth anytime soon.   Seems to me they need to be using GPS and not tidal stations resting on the sea bottom, eh??  (That's not rocket science)
In the interests of goodwill, I'll give you the Maldives for the time being.
But not Venice.  Venice has been in trouble for hundreds of years ... slowly but surely.  But their current troubles (like so many global warming issues) is happening at warp speed (figuratively speaking).  When something that has been happening slowly, suddenly starts happening a lot faster .... you'd do well to question it and not come up with a quick solution (and me too). 
Many of these various "occurrences" may have readily explainable answers.  And we may find ALL of us wrong on our past snap judgements.  Won't we be red-faced then?? 
So let's go on reviewing the science, listening to good people who have credentials and see what we can learn.  As to melting ice ..... I hope you all agree ..... it's melting and melting faster than we've ever thought it could.  And in that lies a message.  We may not yet be able to decode it but nature is generous with her clues to help us discover, what will likely be, in retrospect, obvious. (embarrassingly so)

In the interest of reviewing the science and listening to good people, the following paper by Carbognin et. al., presented at the Geological Society of America 2008 conference suggests a far more complex situation at Venice than "warp speed" inundation by sea level rise.

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2008AM/finalprogram/abstract_146406.htm

Rapid subsidence has been halted with the cessation of groundwater extraction, and recent changes in relative sea levels have been oscillatory, and have actually declined at 2.64 mm/yr between 2001 and 2007.

As for the Maldives, there is some contention about a tree that Morner uses as an example, but there has been no dispute about evidence of benched historic shorelines that are indicative of past higher sea levels.

And from what I can tell, the Maldives are shown in the right location.

Rob ~  Last communication with you .... it just isn't worth it.
It always seems that I know nothing and you know everything. (ex: "From what I can tell the Maldives are shown in the right location")
For pities sake, man.  Read the posts in the link YOU provided!!  They pointed it out, numerous times. They also show (as I already said) that the picture is doctored.  If you read further, they document where Morner admitted to falsifications.
(Scientists that admit to falsifying data and info are not to be trusted, no matter WHAT they say.) If you follow some of the links, within the link you provided, the whole story gets ugly and is nothing like the original proposition.  You are very quick to blame me for "cherry picking" and ignoring truths, etc.  But, somehow when you do it .... it's solid science.  

Anyway, this has, again, become a waste of time.
I implore you to watch NOVA tonight (delayed due to Obama press conf, but still on most stations and likely repeated later in the week.)
Then we can see how Chris Deckrow will deny global warming.  He's bound, like others, to come up with some spiffy reasons that NOVA and live action cameras are wrong and he is right.

Nature bats last.  Over and out.

Paul, using of the phrase "global warming hysteria" around here makes my delete finger itchy.  However, if you want to discuss the pros and cons of using models to estimate the impacts of climate changes, that would be great -- in my experience, credible scientists are very wary of the terms "prediction" or "forecast" when using those models.
By the way, the OCO satellite did not self-destruct; being a scientist, I'm surprised you'd say something so inaccurate.  The rocket taking it into orbit malfunctioned, bringing both down into the Southern Ocean. 

Paul ~  Some may resort to hysteria, others may just feel that the indicators are too numerous and too conspicuous.  Often the obvious is ignored (sub-prime, no-doc, no-job, no-income loans, for instance).  But this time we have lots of low level, first rate proof that the globe is warming.  To ignore this means that you're not thinking clearly, or have a hidden agenda.
It seems almost like a waste of time but let me try to respond to your questions.  To your "never saw permafrost thaw before" ....  It's highly notable that this is happening. It's not a joke. It proves (to your next question) that it's first rate proof of overall warming.  Then to your third question about permafrost in the S. hemisphere:  "We are fully aware of the problem penguins are suffering and we know (saw it with my own eyes) that huge ice shelfs are breaking up down there.  No ... it's obvious. And glaciers and ice sheets melting fast.  I could list for hours, a long inventory of happenings around the globe that are eye-popping (like, for instance, the huge number of species moving up mountain habitats to find cooler weather).   But, if like, rob Tanaki, you just believe what you do in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary .... then you will.  But, like Rob, you need to start working on your apology to my granddaugher when she demands an answer to:
"Whatever WERE you thinking!??  You messed with my future just because you didn't want to deal with hundreds and hundreds of items of clear evidence to the contrary?!"   Your gonna be horribly embarrased but the worst of it is not your feelings but all the people suffering because you were "smarter" than the evidence.

Emily, In saying your delete finger gets itchy are you inferring that you censor what is posted here in the comments by some personal view? Since in much of what I see and read in the mainstream media and certainly in Gore's movie the above mentioned Hysteria applies. While name calling and offensive language should be censored, calling a spade a spade should not

Emily and Dirk:
The issue is not if the earth is warming or not, the issue is whether it is caused by mankind or by nature. And I choose to say the satellite self destructed since the observational part can't arrive in orbit without the rocket...it is not self-sufficient.
Hand waving, emotional outbursts against people wanting facts and outright  accusations do not make for scientific endeavour. Incidentally, Galileo was persecuted because he believed in the Copernican Theory contrary to consensus  propagated by the "learned theologians" who held it was wrong and immoral.
To Dirk, I say this.....Do you have any evidence that this hasn't happen before? The fact that the ice field breaks up no more indicates the warming of the entire earth than the current bad winters in Europe indicate the arrival of another ice age
. For your "hundreds" of items of evidence, I offer this: From 1500 BC to 550 BC the temperature of the earth rose significantly, peaking at about 1100 BC, about the time of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt. From 900 AD to 1335 AD there was another warming cycle which included the Viking explorations of Greenland followed immediately by the Little Ice Age from 1340 AD to 1845 AD when the average temperature dropped 0.7 degree. Please explain these variations based upon CO2 emissions. I'm sorry, you are allowing observations of local issues to dominate your thinking. Local anomalies have always been part and parcel of the earth's climate and current sensationalism of the details, once again, doesn't make for science. Most of your points involve "low level" evidence (your desciption) that cannot support scientific theory which by necessity requires withstanding the exaination by peers. Those peers include skeptics, not individuals who stand to profit either from research grants or Cap and Trade revenue.

Paul ~  Interesting post.  But to your point about good info ....    You say:
"Incidentally, Galileo was persecuted because he believed in the Copernican Theory contrary to consensus  propagated by the "learned theologians" who held it was wrong and immoral."

This is true (and very sad). But there are literally billions of examples where the "learned" people were right. Lots more than where they were wrong.  So it's more likely (on a statistical basis) that the scientists have it right this time. And there's plenty of proof. Of course, we'll always have those who are self-appointed to disprove anything.  Elvis lives!

As to your question to me: "Do you have any evidence that this hasn't happen before? The fact that the ice field breaks up no more indicates the warming of the entire earth than the current bad winters in Europe indicate the arrival of another ice age."

Answer:  I've sat thru lots of scientific meetings, conferences, lectures regarding global climate change.  I have the clear sense that what is happening now is nothing like what has happened before.  Not even close.  As I said in an earlier post, of course there have been global climate changes before. Any 5th grader knows that.  But none of them came anywhere close (except volcanic eruptions) to the speed with which climate change and CO2 concentrations are increasing now. Not even close. Not anywhere IN the ball park.

As I look at the charted evidence of CO2 and/or temperature changes .... it's sobering.  And the rate-of-change charts are downright upsetting. This is good science ... just a simple plotting of the information gleaned from our past (ice core samples for instance).  I might doubt some of it, indeed, I might doubt all of it.  But then there are all the subsidiary things going on.  Glaciers disappearing way too fast, ice sheets falling apart, species adjusting and dying off, islands 'sinking'. the whole Global Dimming surprise (see PBS NOVA: Global Dimming) which is irrefutable and completely obvious (Note: this is where scientists around the world independently discovered that when the 9-11 ground stop was ordered, surface temps from sunshine, shot UP -- markedly, and then went right back down a few days later when the planes started flying again. It was irrefutable.  If all planes stop flying at once, we'll be in a helluva mess in no time!)
I digress.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of pointers to the change and there is no evidence that in the past that it happened anywhere nearly this fast (excepting volcanos and asteroids/meteors).
Your examples help prove the point. You quote time frames in the hundreds of years (for change).  But our changes were happening in the 10's of years but are now down to EVERY year.  The scientists go back to Greenland (and lots of other places around the world) and measure the thickness of the ice sheet and are utterly amazed by how much it shrunk in one year. Rinse, lather, repeat. Just a few days ago reports came in from this summer and they now expect the arctic ice to be gone by 2013 (that is FOUR years from now!!) A few years ago they predicted it would happen by 2100.   To me it's a no-brainer. To those who can't accept the overwhelming proof, I say, "How lucky are you feeling today?"

Other long lived civilizations have crumbled for (what is now) obvious reasons.  I'd say these times are no different. For those who survive they'll be looking at the evidence (maybe even these emails) and saying:  "Whatever WERE they thinking? All that brilliance of man ... they were being poked in the eye .... and couldn't see it. Amazing."  Strange creatures we are.............

To the question of whether i delete comments to this blog, the answer is yes.  Relevant factors include but are not limited to: is the comment relevant to the topic of the blog post?  Is it abusive?  Is it a link farm or some other form of spam?  Would it disrupt the conversation if I deleted the post?
If you hang around for a while and participate, I think you'll catch on to my style of moderation.

The editorial position of Change.org is that human-propelled global warming is a fact.  People can ignore or misinterpret the abundant, credible scientific evidence that supports this, but most of the time that discussion is not relevant to the information posted here by myself and guest writers. 

So this isnt a free speech zone its a propoganda site. There is little room for disention here. Agree or be deleted. Says a lot about this site and the Obama stratigy.

Your question about "when some one disputes human caused "global warming" hysteria by pointing out the fallicy (sic) of consensus science " is meaningless because no one has pointed out the fallacy of consensus science.  All that has happened is that the deniers have distorted and misrepresented data the same way that George Will did.  
Presenting just part of the picture instead of the whole picture (half truths, if you will) is debating, not arguing scientifically.  By the way, "A half truth is the blackest lie" - Tennyson
  And boomeranging in the Bush mode about no warming in the last ten years doesn't make it true.

Mike ~   Thanks for the note that you accept that the globe is warming (some others on this post don't agree with you).  And, I take no argument with your statement: "The earth has been much warmer ... and colder too."   Most 3rd graders learn this in public school ... for the last 50 - 100 years (no insult intended).  However, when you go on to say that our planet has not warmed in the last 10 years ..... well then, how do you explain all that's happening to the contrary (it's a very, very long list).  You say: ""Perhaps" the earths recent warming trend is due to ...sun activity"   Yeah, maybe. Do you have some evidence to support this?  I have a lot of evidence that it IS CO2.  If you won't accept the science .... well, then you believe what you want. 
And lastly ... and this is goofy .... you say "It would be pretty foolish (un-natural) to attempt to change it."   If I get your drift you mean.... the planet may be doomed for human inhabitation but we certainly shouldn't try and do anything about it.  This reminds me, in some ways, of the Spanish Inquistion.  Hopefully your way of thinking won't prevail.        --Dirk

You've got it right, Don! It's the old divide and conquer tactic. Works for invading counties (Iraq, Afghanistan, et al.) It works for elections, and for the the transmission of information in the media. It creates the gridlock necessary for maintaining the status quo. Distract the people with non-issues and diversions from real issues, and "change" just becomes another word in the jargon of propaganda. The real issues are the ones we can pretty much agree need to be addressed. We don't have to have consensus to work together, but a simple majority isn't enough either; with the exception of a minority of extremely self-centered people, it is pretty clear what we as a species need to make this planet a better place to live: cultural institutions which question, challenge, regulate, and, most importantly, stigmatize human greed. Isn't this  something most of us can get onboard with? So why do we perpetuate institutions which thrive on greed and glorification of the individual?

These of course are not things we can settle in scientific arenas, and we must transcend this one specific philosophy as though it were Truth and raise the level of discussion to ethics, aesthetics, and the nature of truth, itself. Of course, few people make time to listen to philosophers and artists, but the solution to man's problems is not to be found in scientific and political endeavors. Accepting uncritically the word of a scientist is not all that far from taking the word of a priest. When are we going to get past acceptance of ideas based on faith and begin to experience existence first hand? Let us trust our gut feelings, at least as a check on what our rational minds are telling us. If you must have faith, have faith in the ability of the planet to look out for its own interests and stop trying to fix problems you can't possibly understand. So often, particularly with regards to technology, the solutions have implications far worse than the problems.

This seems to be the story with our worship of the god of technology. It is certainly happening with what "alternative" technology is proposing to fix "fossil fuel" technology." E.g., energy from ethanol is too expensive to use in the process to create ethanol, so fossil fuels are used. Duh! And the global warming consequences of monoculture of corn could be worse than using petroleum in our cars. It looks like livestock is more a problem for greenhouse gases than autos. The impact of wind turbines on the health, safety and economy of our citizens is being underestimated because of creative bookkeeping on the part of those who are profitting from their propagation. Don't even get me started on nuclear energy. These "alternative" technologies are scams, boondoggles. What is wrong with technologies that replace electrical energy and automobile travel? We certainly will never be able to afford them by throwing all our money the way of investors in scams and boondoggles!

Technology got us into this "problem," and we're expecting it to get us out of it? Reality check! Time to engage a bit of the right side of the brain. The left side is getting us in deep doodoo!

Ron Reimer

Don ~ I believe I detect a flaw in one of your arguments. Let me elaborate.
You say: "Do you think we will all survive long enough without our health, without food/water/breathable air to actually need to worry about the temperature change?"   I say, yes!
It's clear to me that climate change is coming fast (and it comes on faster each day) and so it IS a health issue and a water issue (precipitation changes are already here).  I fail to see the link between corporate/money and the fact we've caused global climate change.  Seems to me we became so entranced with entertainment and pretend money (credit cards) that we just coasted thru life.  The fact that we have a mess on our hands with garbage, nuclear waste, insecticides/pesticides, water, ad nauseam ... is no argument for ignoring the biggest of them all.  Personally, I am of the opinion that we went over the tipping point about 30 years ago, but I'm not a fatalist and so will do what I can to help our poor beleagured planet recover. Altho, adding a billion or so more people every few years makes the struggle almost hopeless.

We've screwed up our environment many times before (check out the air pollution of early London with coal smoke -- huge numbers of people died from the "miasma") and I'm sure we will continue to stupid things. But we've also made technological corrections like banning DDT, substantially lowering pollutants from vehicles tailpipes and thousands of others.  We need to live on hope and change  ....  hopefully brought about by education.  Right now the science couldn't be more clear (to me) that we have a mess on our hands and waiting to see how bad it gets is a pretty poor solution (on this we agree, eh?).

Me?  I recently bought a electric hybrid car, and altho retired, went back to school to learn energy auditing and building shell remediation (recently reduced a typical old home here from 1900 gallons of fuel oil per year to under 900 -- seems like a good thing to do, eh?) 
Wish us all lots of luck.  After all our lazy, foolish spending sprees, it's time to pay the piper.  It could be our biggest challenge ever.  It's a shame that we have to begin by trying to convince some that the cauldron is already boiling.

Helen ~  It's very cute to say "Follow the money" but you must admit that it doesn't apply in every case of everything!! Not even close.  And then you go on to say  "If scientists KNEW everything".  Never have, never will and nobody ever suggested they do or did. Whatever gave you THAT idea?
You question their data.  Perhaps you should take a look at it.  Ice core samples go way, way back in time and are extremely accurate (but they have to hurry as those sampling mechanisms aren't going to last long, indeed, some are already gone).
Your complaint that you had the coldest winter in 8 years and therefore global warming is not happening only goes to show your shallow understanding of the process.  Do some reading and you'll find that it's not just a one-to-one simplistic result.  In fact, some places will experience more cold. But OVERALL the temp IS increasing and effects are everywhere.
You go on to say we could do wind and solar and then disavow this idea because most people can't afford a windmill.  Sure. But you dropped the solar part.  Some places don't have much wind. Some don't have much sunlight.  But those that do could take action.  I have.  I'm retired and not rich but figure I owe it to my granddaughter.  I bought a used hybrid car too, upping my mileage substantially.  It ain't killed me. But global warming might.
You go on to say:
"Global change is a fact of life, it runs in cycles, it always has and always will, and as humans we adjust."
True. But you miss the major point of our current global change.  This is that it's happening at unprecidented rates. The rates of changes are staggering. That's why so many scientists are worried and warning us.  The typical natural changes to which you refer are in the hundreds, if not thousands of years to effect.  But the current changes were thought to be in the 100 year range. Then were reduced to 50 years and this past fall, results from summer investigations lowered some predicitions to having arctic ice be gone by 2013.  That is but FOUR years.  No, we've never seen change at this speed.  If you just want to disbelieve. That's fine do it. There have been plenty of cases before you.  But if you want to make informed comments ... do a bit of research first.  The numbers are sobering.
You completely lost me on how books would be "FREE"  That's just dumb.   Get off the money and get onto the science.
Note:  Results don't go to the highest bidder (in this case) they go to you and me.  Hang on for a rough ride.

I agree you should follow what you feel is right, I will for my grand daughters sake teach her to think,use common sense and logic NONE of which are being used with this global warming scam.. By the way I also taught my kids to listen to both sides of every arguement and using logic and common sense to come to their own conclussions.. As for me I was hoping for some global warming this winter to help keep the heat costs down. Didin't happen again this year. So I guess I'll wait for the next so called sign of global warming SUMMER..

Helen, as I'm sure you know, weather and climate are not the same thing.  This is why one single especially cold winter, or especially hot summer for that matter, doesn't mean much in terms of charging the overall trend of global warming.  

Rebekah:  Nice job of putting down everybody and everything .... but not a lot of value to the reader. How about some less incendiary talk from YOU.  If I believed all our leaders, I'd have believed Geo. Bush. I think it's pretty safe to say that what he spewed out was about 90+% garbage and much of it dangerous.  Yes, I have enuf indivdualism to question most things .... but some are so obvious that there's no point.
Global warming isn't quite there yet, but it's getting pretty darn close. 

LWOL @Dirk Fegre the self appointed thread know it all and moderator. How about this for facts. The earth Is warming, But, so are all the rest of the planets. A lot of ver respected scientists feel we are actually going into an Ice Age. By the weather where I live I would tend to agree with that more than anything. Most articles of this kind assume that when they say global warming that the audience believes it's man made. Most global warming advocates think taxing an already failed economy into the ground will fix it. How about the idea of taxing farm animals? When can people start to see the fascism that's under all this. The corporate desire to take over every aspect of your lives because they know better than you do about whats good and not good for you is whats at the heart of this whole debate. I urge to research what smart grid tech is really all about, it's about big brother. Most Americans have been dumbed down by a failed government policy and education system that was put in place not to truly educate but to deeducate. Try looking up a 9th grade examination from before the turn of the twentieth century. I guarantee you most college grads couldn't pass it. and don't get me started on fluoride and its effects on the mind and brain. I would have to assume either one of two things about you Dirk, after reading all your hectic replies and attempts to control this thread, either you are paid by some force to come in here and post or you are one really obsessed individual with getting your point across with no life. Now call me some names like wacky, conspiracy theorist or whatever and say that I haven't given anything to back up my, so called facts. If anyone has half a brain that's reading this can get online and search everything I have said and find mounds and mounds of evidence. The problem is most are so immersed in who is gonna win dancing with the stars or what Hollywood star did this or that,  why? because they have been injected over and over with mercury laden vaccines, brush and drink flouride daily, and are the total victims of a society taken over, and bought by, and paid for by corporatism. They have bee so brainwashed and propagandized by MSM that they can't pay attention long enough to research anything longer than a few minutes. The American attention span is minimal these days. I work with the public everyday so if I have a bad view of the American public it's because I deal with them daily and they are a sad shadow of what they used to be. Global Warming being a product of Mankind is pure myth foisted upon a government can and should fix everything mentality public so the Powers that be(international Bankers)(corporations) can tax us for even breating and take over all food and water so they can control us down to our very breath.

Ah Rebekah.  Aren't you sweet to see me as the know it all moderator? (Best you look up the meaning of moderator.) But, truth be known, I'm just one of millions trying to get thru life ... and working to make it better for us all.
It's true that there are some very respected scientists that don't subscribe to the idea of global climate change and warming.  However, there are lots more that do. LOTs more.  But it's not a game of 'the one with the most, wins'.  Rather it's a debate in which one would hope for the 'best result' wins.  And that would be all of us.
I agree with much of your rant --- esp. the ones who watch really dumb TV.  But you sure go down the tubes on floride.  I, and my brothers and sisters, were among the first to get floridated water (Chicago suburb around 1950) and were tracked for many years.  We don't seem to have any of the side effects you espouse. And we all have very good teeth.    You can disagree all you want but it won't change the facts. And there are plenty to disprove your arguments. 
I get the sense that you think taxes are awful. I have a super solution for you.  I can accurately report that there are a number of countries in the world that you can live in that won't tax you one red cent (heck, they don't even have a government that's functional enuf to collect any).  It's just a thought.
However, I will concede that you're right that you think you're right.  And maybe you are .... but it appears highly unlikely.
Good luck.

"We don't seem to have any of the side effects you espouse. And we all have very good teeth."
Well i would say thats debatable however I will give you just a few true sudies that would say you are probably not as smart as would be if you hadn;t been subjected to industrial waste. I know it's off subject here but its on my top topic list. CAn you show me this many studies that weren't funded by corporations and foundations that contridict these findings? http://fluoridealert.org/iq.studies.html

and btw, Flouride use was started in german goulags because it made the prisoners complacent. The PTB want Americans complacent so we don't actually get off our lazy arses and figure them out. They want us to be happy in our little materialistic, entertainment centered matrix after all they cant make as much money off us if we are actaully spending time improving our minds instead of sucking soda and reading up on brittney or octo mom.

Rebekah ~  Yeah, it's bit off topic, for sure. But provided the rest of the gang will grant us leave for a moment ....
I looked over the data you supplied.  Unfortunately, I'm no flouride chemist or scientist so I don't know what to look for or how to interpret the results. But one thing's for sure ... it's important to know what sort of concentration the floridated water has and what sort the testers were using.  They often go for the high concentrations.  The first one reports: "the effect of fluoride poisoning on intellectual ability is negligible".   Poisoning??? Poisoning!!!  Do I misunderstand the meaning of the word poison??
 
The results of the IQ tests showed extremely wide disparities in the amount of IQ lost and some are clearly within the realm of standard error.  One says: 
"Children's intelligence and growth can be affected by high concentrations of As or fluoride."  (note: "As" = Arsenic) Yep. I'm convinced.  cianide will too.  and mercury and iron, and lead and pick your poison. 

Fact is, I suspect you couldn't stand it if I were any more intelligent, eh?? !!  So lucky thing I got dumded down at a young age.

As to "we all have good teeth" .... yep. It's because of the flouride in toothpaste and water.  So there!

As to "The PTB (whatever they are??) want Americans complacent..."   Hoo boy, it sure didn't work in my case!  I doubt you'd find a single person who knows me well that would subscribe to describing me as complacent.  Not even close. And as to them (the PTB) they are as hooked by our little materalistic, entertainment centered matrix as the rest of them.  They aren't anything that special, believe me.

Here's what I found when I looked up PTB:
PTBPhysikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany)PTBPartido Trabalhista Brasileiro (Brazilian Labor Party)PTBPhosphotyrosine-BindingPTBPowers That BePTBPower Tab (computer program format)PTBPulmonary TuberculosisPTBPlace to BePTBPenn TreebankPTBPortuguese Brazilian (language)PTBPatellar Tendon BearingPTBPassenger Terminal Building (aviation)PTBPush the ButtonPTBPortland Trail BlazersPTBPosition Task Book (wildfire qualification system for firefighters)PTBPetersburg, Virginia (airport code)PTBPass The BuckPTBPre-Term BirthPTBPtahhotep's Team Balancer (Counter-Strike)PTBPart Time BasisPTBPhotonics Tech Briefs (magazine)PTBPlease Text BackPTBPartial Test Ban (nuclear weapons)PTBPsychophysics Toolbox (vision reserach software)PTBProto-Tibeto-Burman (languages)PTBPhysical Trade BalancePTBPounds Per Thousand BarrelsPTBPassenger Transportation Board (Canada)PTBP-Town Ballers (band)PTBPush to Break (electronic switch type)PTBPuro Tango Blast (Texas street/prison gang)PTBPortadown True BluesPTBPeer Transaction BusPTBPersonal Touch BankingPTBPrevent the Bite (dog bite prevention program)PtBPaul the Bankie (Scottish football fan)PTBProgram Time BasePTBProtective Technology BranchPTBPower Turbine BalancePTBPatrol Torpedo BoatPTBPrimetime Ballers (Youth Basketball)PTBPaul Thomas Band

And now ..... back to Global Climate Change.

LOL ptb is Powers that be and I'm sure you have no Idea who the PTB are. I'm sure as I said you will look no further than the page I presented on fluoride although there is a whole movement against it. Why? Because you are complacent. You accept what you are told by your government and industry. Thanks for proving my point. You don't have to be a scientist to take a little time and try to understand data from testing. All the tests there whether the end resulting sentences that sum up there work spin something different show that fluoride is detrimental in amount to intelligence. But hey if I were you I wouldn't really search the topic because if you do you may get your mind changed and actually find you are wrong. heres a nice little dity on fluoride. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3y8uwtxrHo
If you search fluoride On google video you will find over 2000 entries. Go ahead dirk try and learn something instead of posturing intelligent take the real intelligent route and actually research it. BTW My Mom refused fluoride since I was a kid and I have had only 3 cavities my whole life and as a matter of fact 5% of all dentistry visits are for the treatment of fluoridic decay. Thats right it actually causes decay.
The PTB is another topic and I assure the PTB is not the governments we think they are but the Banksters, Industrialists, elitists and richest groups of people in this world. They meet once a year and are part of a group of folks known as the bilderberg group. I know you never heard of them so they must not be really anything to be concerned about.

Rebeckah ~  Ah I fear our relationship must come to an end.   Conspiracy theories .... they're not worth the time it takes to read the theory, much less delving into them.
Flouride causes cavities?  I'm old enuf to recall when the frightened Communist fearmongers had "them" doing it to us to "get us". Those people looked under their beds each night and insisted that we were in immediate danger (I'm still waiting). The bilderberg group?  Me fears your life might be built primarily on fear.  Don't you get a sore neck looking over your shoulder all the time, looking for the next coming attack?  And the worrying must be a terrible burden.  Well .... better you than me.
I'm shutting down our communication on the basis that you know so much more about me than I do and I'm not finding any value from your musings.
Best of luck to you.  Over and out.

HAHAHA Just like the article that started this thread you must resort to the same tactics. Conspiracy theorists? Fear Mongering? OMG. What the hell is the whole global warming agenda if not fear mongering? Of course you must try to reduce me to just "another fear mongering conspiracy theorist" because you know I have facts and I know what I am talking about and you will be wasting your time on me. I am convinced Dirk you are a paid blogger/propogandist. Just like Humes. I could care less whether you talk to me anymore. I will get great enjoyment from knowing that others with sensible thinking and open minds will read our little, back in forth and see you are full of hot air. Hot global warming air at that. bye bye dont let the door hit you in the arse. To anyone reading this. What you are reading is a good example of those that are trying very hard to get you to believe the man made global warming tripe. When they run up against someone that knows the truth they call them CT's and run off. Learn. Please go watch the videos I have posted and learn the truth. Don't listen to paid blogging tools like Dirk.

Dirk, forget people like rebecca.  They don't have the background to think logically, but instead think in a religious fashion.  Arguing with them and pointing out their fallacies is useless due to a psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance.  Their psychological structure is such that disturbing any piece brings down the whole, so they refuse to think and instead go way out in left field with some specious argument (e.g. fluoride) that is so far out that it can't even be addressed.  Trying to deal with those types is just a fruitless exercise in frustration.

Dana:  Nice post.  But ..... you say mankind has only been tracking weather patterns for  about 170 years.  Altho that may be technicallly true, we have some very sophisticated methods of learning what the weather was way back.  Ice core sampling is an excellent one -- we can clearly see, in them, the recent weather patterns with which we know what happened and thereby verify the interpretation, and those further back, such as recorded volcanic eruptions.  So, it's all well and good to refer to recent records, but ignoring the far, far past which is now solid evidence of past happenings is a bit selective, don't you think?

Mankind may have been tracking weather patterns for a relatively short time, but thanks to tree rings and ice cores, we can follow the weather for thousands of years before that.  As for trying to imply that natural factors are as strong as anthropic ones just doesn't fit the data.  To put as much CO2 in the air as man does would take between five and ten Pinatubos a year.  It doesn't happen.
The number of hurricanes forecast gets changed but up, not down.  It was only a few years ago that we had to start over in the alphabet in naming tropical storms.  And there have been more category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year than years ago.
To say that we can't predict the weather five days from now means that we can't predict the average yearly weather (climate) 30 years from now is a classic case of confusing weather with climate.  The deniers love to do it while knowing in their hearts that they are guilty of deceit.

Mikey,  

eu-gen-ics             (yoo-jeniks)n. n (used with a sing. verb) The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.

---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary

Not sure I get your point (and suspect you don't really understand eugenics).  Are you really bold enuf to say that if we limit the production of CO2 we will all die from the lack of O2? And the that the more CO2 we generate the better off we'll all be?  If it takes a PhD to figure this out ... may I never have a PhD.  Are you one of those people that still believes flouridation of our water is a commie plot?  And vaccines kill more than they save?  Whew.   Time for you to get caught up with the modern world, my boy.  Lots has been happening out there in the last 60 years.  J Edgar Hoover is dead (and Joe McCarthy too).  Polio is, for all practical purposes, gone from the USA. Diptheria, tetnus and a raft of others too.  It's a better world than old iron lungs and kids on crutches now.  Dental cavities are way, way, way down.   You got some serious work to do.

Dirk,  forget Mikey, too.  He's another rebekah.

WE urge the United States government to ratify the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would begin to rescue the environment,  advance science and technology, and improve the health and welfare of mankind.

There is sufficient scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many harmful effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

This petition could easily be signed by millions (and in various venues, it has).

Forgive me, Douglas, but I'm gonna ramble a little.  I like your post, though.

You're point, as I understood it, that we shouldn't be dumping our pollutants on the ground, in the water, or in the air, is a great one.  Pollutants equal poison, not ONLY to humanity, but to the ecosystems on which we depend for our very survival.  The technology exists to easily filter them from the enviroment well BEFORE they enter it...IF us lazy humans (and the political bodies that SUPPOSEDLY represent our BEST interests) are willing to take the sometimes painful steps to do so.  Considering what's needed to build something with any complexity (such as, say, a motor vehicle), why can't the process be reversed (detailed disassembly, instead of bulk crushing and/or dumping in a landfill), and made profitable?  The bulk of the cost could (and SHOULD) be included up front, at the time of purchase.  It would be the MANUFACTURERS responsibility to take care of this 'reclamation' (FORD makes the car; FORD reclaims it), and The People's responsibility to see that the products get back to the proper manufacturers.  Of course, initially, the price of reclaimable products would spike, but as the tech improved to 'break them down', the cost would come down, as with any other technology.

Could we do this without bankrupting our economy?  Yes.  Will we do this?  Not if the current politics are allowed to define our actions.  For the most part, the Republicans and Democrats are only concerned about one thing: getting reelected.  They'll twist the enviromental issues to the lowest common denominator of 'us vs. them' every time, if we let them continue to get away with it, the bastards.    

Like you, I'm of the opinion that it'll take a lot of empiricle evidence to convince me that human activity could have any lasting effect on the global climate.  To date, I've seen no evidence that couldn't be explained by a differing theory.

Michael ~  How's come you know everything?? Political argument?  Not for me.  I'm just debating with those who I think haven't researched it well enough and/or don't recognize the obvious.
And, B), How's come you know that there is nothing we can do about it??  You may well be right .... but suppose, just suppose, you're wrong.  Ever been wrong before?  I was, once.  :-) 
It's a complete mystery to me how your analogy to a summer rainstorm is supposed to work. The one is an immediate occurance with many very local variables involved. The other is a phenomonem gleaned over thousands of years and planet wide.  And yes, we can do a reasonable job of predicting rain to the hour --- my dad was especially good at "reading" the weather and could certainly accurately predict rain when the conditions were to his experience.  I can too.  I've seen it coming across the plains and I'll bet I can get it to the nearest minute or two.  Which is to say ... your grumbling isn't worth much. 
There are millions of tipping points we can measure with great accuracy (adding pennies to one side of a teter toter, for instance).  If things keep going like they are .... YOU will even be able to clearly realize that we passed some tipping point. This stuff is so stinkin' obvious that many already can. Think, for instance, the absorbed heat from ice sheets that used to reflect heat.  And that these ice sheets covered massive amounts of the earths surface.  Now, suppose the temps were climbing anyway, inspite of the ice sheets (that's where the melting came from) and very quickly (maybe, say 10 years) they're gone.  Could you not project some possible tipping point, where one thing leads to another, to another, to another and suddenly realize that it got rolling and isn't likely to stop without outside forces?  I'll bet you could.

Last I knew God wasn't esp. interested in supercomputers -- and probably couldn't figure out how to run one, even if she was.

Good grief, Dirk; you either give me far more credit than I deserve, or think me the quintessential idiot of all time.  "Know everything"?  Unh-uh.  Far from it.  I'm just a 'reg'lar joe' with a job, kids and bills.  I don't spell well, and I sureinhell don't know jack about global climate change, DESPITE my more than casual efforts to research it.  But I do know this:  I trust politicians as far as I can throw one. You, on the other hand, like thousands of people by the way, have allowed yourself to be  swayed by a political argument between two factions whos' only interest in you is your vote, and the money and power that goes along with it.  I know this because of how you frame your argument...emotionally and with a certainty that doesn't reflect the complex pros and cons of the entire phenomenon.

If, as you say, I"m wrong about global climate change (though my argument was intended to be more about the politics of it; obviously I failed to get that point across), well bro, I'm wrong.  Guess what.  There are millions of wrong decisions and opinions made on a daily basis...and humanity doesn't come to a grinding end as a result.  Sure, wrong  decisions and opinions are a pain in the ass, even cause wars, death and destruction, but hey!  Welcome to the human condition.  We all die, eventually, not that I'm in any hurry.  And God knows, be God a She, He, It, Something Else, or Nothing At All, I don't want humanity reduced to abject poverty and misery.  But the struggle to survive will always be with us...and so will it's end.

And, I would point out, even well-meaning politicians (rare as the breed may be) are wrong at least half the time.

I can see a tank coming down a street with it's 'gun' blazing...but I can't predict what it'll hit, where it'll hit, when it'll hit it, or with what ferocity of damage, and that's something VERY tangible.  If you can look across a plain (your words) and predict the exact outcome of an approaching storm, then brother; you are DEFINITELY a better man than I.

Speaking of which, since you're in the industry and all...how's that 'cloud seeding' thing going?  Little as I know about it, I've 'heard' that it's all the rage in Texas and Arizona right now, considering the massive drought they're having.  But, I'd expect that the drought would be taken care of by now, if that were working.  Yeah, humans sure can 'correct' climate behavior.

Ever heard of the path of a hurricane being altered?  A tornado?  A godsdamn dust-devil?  Gimme SOMETHING that shows we mere humans can make a climate difference on even a SMALL scale, much less a massive one.

Alright, forgive me the dripping sarcasm.  My 'He Said WHAT?!' meter pegs out when I see intelligent, and I mean YOU, Dirk, intelligent people seduced by the chicanery of the body politic.  You remind me of my boss.  How's the saying go?  "You're the 'stupidist' smart person I've ever met"?  However, far from being an opinion on your intelligence specifically, it's more a commentary on folks like you, and your willingness to almost BLINDLY follow a bunch of charlatans and political snake-oil salesmen over a cliff with fiscal ruin and socialism at the bottom of the chasm.  I have to admit, I don't understand  it.  Perhaps I pride myself too much in my own independence of thought and action.  But when I see someone, for example, ask the President to 'take care of us', it makes me cringe.  I'd sooner ask a cobra not to bite me in the face after knocking it on the head.

Not sure about your God comment...mine was meant as a sort of tongue-in-cheek comment on the complexity of global climate.  But, just so you know, I'm an Agnostic, and even far less qualified to comment in any EXPERT way on the existence of God, or what 'She' does or doesn't know or think, than I am on global climate change.

Michael ~   Well, you know .... it sounds like you were beaten by a politician when you were young! Lotta hate there for just one guy, it would seem.
I can get mad at them, and do, but I know the difficult position they find themselves in (but not personally).  Plenty of them are crooks and worse, but there are a good body of them trying to do some public service. Oh, and then there's the electorate ... god forbid... the ones that elect them!!  Not a particularly bright lot now, are they?  How did Pete Seeger say it .... "and we elect 'em again and again".  Not too smart I'd say.  We here in Maine have elected a decent lot that doesn't appear to be in it for themselves. 2 women Senators (R-ME) and two male Reps (D-ME).   I'd put my reps up against the very best of them any time (sorry about your state wherever it may be .... many have much to be ashamed abou)t.   But here's the thing. We live in a democracy ... yup, we do.  And we can throw the bums out anytime we want. How a guy like Geo Bush ever got elected in the first place I'll never understand ... he wasn't even presidential material, not even close ... and in the second place??? Well, fear is strong motivator and he played it for all it was worth. Sadly, the electorate fell for it... the suckers. It was to their loss.  But they caught on (after about 7 years of idiocy) and today you don't find many singing his praises.  Just be happy you don't live in some Africian countries or Eastern Europe or other places.  You'd come to appreciate our political system pretty quickly, I'd guess.

Now .... with that said .... there's global warming. It's a mystery to me how you draw the line from me to 'tricky' politicians.  They don't seem to get it either. Me? I predicate my beliefs (in this case) on the the science, some simple observation and some damned smart people. A lot smarter than I.  But I'm smart enough to put 2 and 2 together and come out somewhere near 4. I often say in my posts that "it's obvious" and darned if I don't truly believe it!  You might (or might not) be surprised to learn that I told my boss in 1970 that I thought we would know by 1976 (admittedly a 'cute' date) we were in deep trouble and that by 2000 (another cute date) we'd be doing something about it.  I was too optimistic.   Too many are still not sure that there's any problem (sort of like after 3 years of Bush).  It all started for me back in the 60's when I read "The Population Bomb".  The author did some very cute arithemetic. You can too.  He said that if you assume the avg person weighs 100 pounds and then project the population ahead by it's current rate ... you'll find that the combined mass of all those people will exceed the mass of the planet and soon. (With apologies, I can't recalll that 'future date' but it wasn't all that far off .... maybe a few centuries).  So I did the arithemetic and, golly, he was right!!   Now, there aren't many that will argue the point that the mass of the population ON the planet won't exceed the mass OF the planet. And if you extrapolate a bit, you might come to believe that we will never, ever even come close. So something has to give. Bigtime.  The curve developed by plotting the human population over time, has the line going straight up (or about as close as you can imagine).  It's the same for CO2.  It coasts along primarily flat for centuries and then it begins curving up and before long it's straight up.  No joke.  So I come by beliefs without help from the politicians.  Nope, I do it myself or lean on the scientists. 
So many things are happening right now, towards climate change, that I can't even begin to keep track of them all.  But here's an example:
I went to a George Mitchell (oops, another politician; sorry) University Maine Environmental Lecture Series last summer.  It was given by a fellow that had gotten his PhD at U-Maine and then gone onto Marine Studies at U-Texas, San Antonio, I think (I know, I know ... marine studies at Texas? It's true). Anyway, he has been studying plant growth off the north slope of Alaska for about 30 years and done hundreds of dives. In the last few years, he pointed out, the season for diving has been gaining about a week on each end for a few years now.  However what really upset him is that the turbidity of the sea was increasing F-A-S-T.  It turns out that this is due to the many large rivers that flow north into the sea along the northern shore.  The melting of various stuff (ice, snow, permafrost) is carrying junk down them and into the sea.  It's getting worse every year.  He can no longer see clearly when he's diving. ( I can't recall his scale for measuring but I recall that it's gone from 3's and 4's to 53 last year, a massive leap). Now .... get this... in spite of a lengthened dive window each year he's forced to do fewer and fewer dives because the frequency and intensity of storms.  And the storms are stiring up the silt and muck coming down the rivers even more.  In 2003 he witnessed almost no plant growth in the sea.  This is not good.  Whole seas have a major impact on our weather. Major impact!  He doesn't do wildlife, he's a plant guy, but even he could detect the changes in land and sea wildlife thru simple visual sitings.  So .... for 25 years not much changes. Then in the last 5 (or so) the changes are marked.  That should make anyone sit up and listen. And no politicans involved. Just hard, slow science. Pounded out year after year.
Michael, these stories are pouring in at a rate so fast, from around the world, that we can't keep up with just logging them in. 
To me, it's just plain obvious. Couldn't be more obvious.  I don't blame the politicians, they aren't that smart (most of them anyway).  No, the markers are there for anyone who's not so jaded as to ignore them (yep! We're speaking about you, old boy).
But don't fret. There will be more stories tomorrow and even more the next day.  The snowball's rolling down the hill and it's growing fast and speeding up. You'll come to notice it one of these days  --- it's a sure thing.
Best of luck to us... our kids and grandkids are going to need it.
By the way, mark me down as an agnostic too.

Oh yeah. And as to local weather systems .... don't be silly about "exact" prediction. I said he could predict it would rain within a short time period (hours) and he was right almost all the time. But then he lived (Ontario) in an area that weather is somewhat predictable. He was also good at reading the signs ... much like native Americans could.  As to show where we effect weather changes ....  I'd suggest there are many.  I like the London Coal Smoke, since they spewed it out like a volcano; some days the daylight never really showed up much. Lanterns were lit at noon and everyone was coughing all the time.  If you think that didn't affect the weather .... then I can't help you.  Any large city in the world has warmer temps than the outlying areas around it. We have power plants that dump hot water into the surrounding rivers or sea and develop heavy fog banks from it.  Cut down massive amounts of a rainforest ... well, it's too obvious.  The list goes on and on.  Why wouldn't the amount of CO2 we dump into the atmosphere have an effect?  Why would it be that we can pour CO2 out from exceptionally effective generators (factories, home furnaces, cars, etc., etc.) and it NOT have an effect?! We have conclusively proven that the airline jets plying our skies, all day, every day, have a direct effect on all surface temperature ... and it's not small.  We've come to learn mother earth is not infinite.  In fact, it's gotten pretty small, given our impact.  I suggest we're steering this big rock into a mess -- and people argue that it's real.  We'll know soon.  Latest predictions (just a week ago) are that the arctic ice will be gone by 2013 (down from 2025, which was down from 2050, which was down from 2100 ... all in a few short years).

there ain't one godsdamn thing that we humans can do about it except get out of it's way.  
Excuse Me!!!!  We are responsible for a tremendous increase in CO2 in the atmosphere to the extent that the CO2 dissolved in the oceans have measurably decreased the pH.  We have put enough synthetic chemicals into the water that it has affected the sexual development of all kinds of aquatic vertebrates.  If we have done all this, don't you think we should be able to UNdo it?!


And once again there is the famous "confusion" (deliberate or otherwise) between weather and climate.  ("what's the 'tipping point' for the formation of a summer rainstorm in one given area?")

Dana: Thanks for the reply.  You suggest we go back to when man was first on earth --- wow, that's a tall order, esp. since we're not sure when that was.
They have, of course, already factored in the industrial revolution to their numbers. 
Here's the thing.  We have large numbers of datum from ice core samples, ocean/lake  sediments, tree growth rings and more.  They all point to the same place.  We have never experienced the rate of change (emphasis on "rate") in CO2 or temps rising right now.  Not even close.  Now, you may be right in your idea that, say, a few millions of years ago some similiar climate occurence had happened.  But, I ask you: Did that occurence wipe out the then homo sapiens?  We don't know, of course. But it could have.  If we knew, we might have even more evidence to support (or deny) our current position in time.

Anyway, we got lots and lots of datum that point to trouble in the offing.  We can sit around and argue the point while nature settles it for us.  Or .... we can make a best guess and see if we can't affect it to our gain.  I'm for doing the latter and not having to apologize to future generations that we were not absolutely sure, so we held off.  The beauty of my choice is that it includes actions that we should have taken decades ago on general good sense (like fixing leakly houses so we don't waste fuel heating the outdoors, or, upping the mpg on our cars and not going backwards on that, like we did during the Bush admin!)  The list is long and will provide for a better life for everyone and disregarding the climate change argument.
I recently became a certified energy auditor and have been absolutely amazed at how much houses (even brand spanking new ones) leak air. It's shameful and dumb and easily fixed.  It's not uncommon (in the northern climates) to have a homeowner pay to remediate heat loss and have the net outcome be a financial gain for the homeowner!!  That is to say, the monthly cost of the loan is LESS than the savings in fuel expense.  Fix your house and make some money in the process.  It's a no-brainer.
Wish us luck ... I think we're going to need it.

Dana, 
Weather certainly is fickle, but climate is not.  By now everyone should be able to tell the difference.  
The whole argument is about climate, not weather.  

Arthur.  Yikes!! Some of your arguments don't appear to be very well thought out.  Consider this....
You said:
"The sunlight that is absorbed by solar cells is not absorbed by the Earth's surface."
Huh?  What might be your definition of "the earth's surface" be, pray tell?  If you check, you'll see that on very sunshiney days, solar panels get hot.  Even very hot. And they radiate heat. Same for the farmer's plowed field. I fail to absorb the difference.  Help me out here.

Then you go on to say:
" This implies that we somehow know what the climate of the Earth should be and it is our job to make it so."
Yep. So long as we want to live on it and can safely assume we did something to affect it. And we who can read the news and believe the numbers, think this is the case.  If YOU don't want to do anything about it -- that's your call. But why get so heated about those that think you are missing the point (and the data)?  I see nothing that will affect your life to the negative in what we want to do to avert crisis.

And then:  "Most of the Global Warming and Climate Change "deniers" that I know of take the position that we don't know, and that acting as though we do know is both foolish and dangerous. I concur."
Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. We have huge numbers of examples down thru history where people (in charge and otherwise) didn't act because they weren't sure .... and in some very notable cases the results were humbling and hurtful.  They wanted to wait for "more info" or didn't believe the data being presented.  A nice little example was the Bush Administration and Hurricane Katrina.  Fact was, he NEVER seemed to absorb the facts -- not even to this day.  But I digress.  You wait to see if the doom and gloom comes true (or not). Others of us will take action against the possibility.  I fail to see the pending disasters that will result from people using less and cutting polllution more, that you imply.

Oh and by the way, the idea that if a little CO2 is good thing ... lots and lots of CO2 must be a better thing .... and massive amounts of CO2 would be just terrific ...... well, let me put it this way.  You're going to have a tough time in statistics class and an even worse time in med school. 

Maybe we should kill off all the butterfies in the world.  Then could we predict weather better?  :-)

I'd suggest you rethink (in depth) much of your post.

First, and for the record, it wasn't Bush's, or the feds, for that matter, place to do a godsdamn thing about either the approach of, or the devastation caused by, Hurricane Katrina.  The responsibility for that entire debacle, at least as it applies to Louisiana and New Orleans (Mississippi took a far more devastating hit from her than the "All the press, all the time" N/O did) falls square on the shoulders of 2 people: Louisiana Guv'nor Kathy Blanco, and N'awlins Mayor Ray Nagin, for their failure to properly prepare our people and infrastructure for a coming storm of Katrina's magnitude, DESPITE 4 decades of warning after warning after warning after warning.  They played politics with literally millions, possibly billions, of dollars that could have been used to drill state and city employees, for canal and river dredging, and shoring up levees and sea walls, yet took the low road of vote-buying, wasteful tax spending and populism.  The people who also are culpable with these two bastards, albeit to a lesser degree, are too numerous to name here, but not a one of them is or was in the fed.  If you truly think otherwise, I suggest you buy a civics book and read it, cover to cover, as you obviously missed the classes when you were in high school. 

Then there's the people that DID have the capability to evacuate...and did not, nor did they prepare for the worst, then they cry about being 'abandoned'?  Gimme a break.  I understand that they were concerned about leaving their property at the mercy of hooligans and house breakers (see the second half of paragraph number 1), but they could have, and surely should have, prepared for the eventuality of levee breech.

Now that I've cleared my mind of THAT...

You're statement that Arthur's comments are not well thought out makes me laugh.  They were VERY well thought out, for anyone with independent thought, and not just mechanical knee-jerk Algore luv.  I, for one, found Arthur's comments enlightning and stimulating, to a degree.  Yours I found merely argumentative for the sake of arguement.  Perhaps it is YOU who should reconsider your post. 

Michael ~  Oh for pities sake!  You gotta be kidding! You don't think the Federal Govt had any responsibility for the devastation by Katrina?  Are you firing on all cylinders????!!!  In case you somehow missed it: The United States Army Corps of Engineers had (and still has) all practical responsibility for the dikes protecting New Orleans.  And, for much of the dredging of the low-lying delta areas that protected New Orleans for centuries.  And both the city and state had been battling them for years trying to get them up to snuff. Last time I checked the Corps reports to the Sec of the Army, who reports to the Chief of Staff, who reports to the President, who are ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.  Not a state one among them. Then there's FEMA.  The F stands for FEDERAL.  They were the primary agency to respond (eventually, once they got rid of Brownie) to the disaster.  The agency that responded the best (and it was terrific) was the United States Coast Guard and they just jumped into action and didn't wait for orders -- they could see a need without a pen to push them.  It was awesome.
You getting the idea here?  Feds have a direct and responsible involvement to this day and will continue to. The states do too, but you completely botched the Fed part.
Perhaps it's you who missed something in civics class (we called it social studies in my day) but a quick rehash would demonstrate that the US Constitution, no less, talks about the domestic tranquility. And people esp. like the security thing these days ( and it's NOT just terrorists).  Ever hear about the President of the USA declaring an emergency??  Happens all the time. And just the other day Pres. Obama included the monies necessary for them in his budget (Bush never included them in his budgets, just like the wars.  Which was disingenuous).
If you would only TRY, Michael.  It was obvious that the states couldn't possibly handle the onslaught of that storm -- not even close.  We promise our citizens that we will take care in time of great need.... and we do ... and it's a good thing.  And I'd wish it on you, if your community was hit by a Katrina storm.  I'd be less likely to mandate that the blankety-blank governors were slobs and ignoring their responsibilities.  But you know better.
I'd suggest you go down to New Orleans right now.  Now. And look at the devastation still there after 3 years.  It might be sobering for you.  It ought to be.

And so you too think that solar panels somehow "steal" the power of the sun ... never to be seen again.  Arthur needs to rethink his ramblings and you do too.   And, by the way, how is it that we who think global climate change is real, are really (by your measure) just knee-jerk fools??  You are not God.  not yet. But you keep on trying and maybe she'll assign you as her right-hand man. Maybe.  But, then again..............

There isn't a whole lot of putative fact in your post to be discussed.  On the whole it looks like you have some sort of mystical belief in the bounty of Gaia and the earth somehow is looking out for our welfare.  This sort of romanticism is nice for fantasy stories, but it really doesn't work in real life.  You need to forget the wishful thinking and deal with reality.

The computer models use water vapor in them.  The CO2 that we produce by breathing pales into insignificance compared to what is used to drive to work or to heat/cool your house.  
Dirk has already addressed the foolishness of thinking that sunlight energy absorbed by a solar panel somehow disappears.  That statement alone destroys any credibility you ever had.

As for you being on Nature's side, I see absolutely no evidence for that statement.  On the contrary, at every turn you deny that Nature is being significantly affected by what people do and that we shouldn't do anything to rectify the damage that we've done.  Humans are most definitely NOT "just a modest part of Nature."  They have been able to completely change the ecosystem of large parts of the world, something that no other organism has been able to do since cyanobacteria evolved.  You are being AGAINST Nature, not for her.

Arthur,  
Here's some more condescension.  Obviously you don't have a clue as to what "heat" actually is.  It really doesn't matter if the infrared spectrum is absorbed by a solar panel or something else.  Heat will be produced from the energy in the sunlight.  And within limits, plants aren't interested in the heat.  It is the energy in the light itself absorbed by chlorophyll and converted to ATP that the plant is really concerned about.  
As for your ignorance concerning the relationship of plants and CO2, actual trials run where CO2 has been increased for several years show that about the only plant that benefited was poison ivy.  Other plants are adapted to a "normal" level of CO2 and when it is increased, it throws off the acid/base balance which does bad things to the plant.
Foresight and caution are a very bad choice when you are confronted by a speeding driver going in the wrong lane.  That is essentially the position we find ourselves in now.

Helen ~  Just a quick question in regards to your last post.  Just where is this oven door on the earth? I guess I slept thru that part in science class.  Please provide directions, I want to go see it.  Thanks.

Well, here's the thing.  There are planets like Mars that have cooled centers, but when the sun shines on the face of the planet it becomes unlivably hot.  The stars provide the heat on our surface, the molten center of the planet gives it volcanoes, plate tectonics, and other geologic activity including a magnetic field that protects our atmosphere.  Atmospheric composition is what people are changing by simultaneously releasing unnatural amounts of carbon in the air and cutting down plants and forests that would naturally sequester carbon.  I guess completely changing the composition of a previously balanced atmosphere doesn't seem unwise to you.

Sorry, not mars, but the moon.  I know it's not technically a planet so it's sort of a small example, but mars is too far from the sun to be heated over room temperature on the equator during the day. 

Rebekah,  what in the world are you talking about?
First of all, CO2 does NOT fluctuate with the heat level.  Second, the temperature at the center of the earth has little to do with the surface temperature fluctuations.  That is primarily affected by heat absorbed from the sun and NOT reradiated into space (the greenhouse effect).  The earth's core temperature remains constant to a large extent probably having cooled slightly in the last 4 billion years.

Yo Daniel ~   You just don't "get it"!  You see if the earth's core has cooled slightly we NEED global warming to heat it up again like it's SUPPOSED to be. And if there's flouride in the water, while the PTB are taxing us into subjugation, then this PROVES that CO2 concentrations increase with decrease of stazi in the Obama adminstration which is their plan to dump your liberties and your natural cycles.  NOW, do you get it now?????

Arthur ~ One last shot at getting my thoughts thru to you.... Please, do me a favor and read slowly and with comprehension, OK?

We sure do have a difference about the meaning of facts.  Me, I take it to mean: A real occurence, something having real demonstrable existence.
(and by the way, "what people do or don't do" is fact).
Even Mandelbrot wouldn't have supported, as fact, that your slaughtering a moth in Kentucky would alter the weather in Tonga.   I repeat: It's a metaphor used to make a point.
What IS it with you? I make a statement of fact (don't need no stinkin' computers to witness trouble coming) and you just get stupid. Maybe you need to learn something about fact checking. Here's the thing. I had a dear friend and colleague who entered the mortgage brokerage market in Florida in about 2006.  We communicate often, as friends do, and he told me that he was being ordered to make loans to people with no income, no job, and no assets to speak of.  For fairly pricey homes.  They only had to "estimate" about what they 'thought' they could earn.  I said to my friend, and we recall it often, "You know exactly where this is going! It's like Alice in Wonderland, every is turned upside down."  It's obvious that I wasn't esp. brilliant in my interpretation of the outcome. Most 7th graders would think anyone doing that was completely daft. By the way, my friend thot the whole thing so unethical he quit the industry completely.
I worked in both the retail and commercial banking industry and P&C insurance (in the Info systems depts).  I KNOW that risk ratings are the basis of those industries (that's no secret). They know it (they say it all the time and teach it in their basic 101 courses).  But, I was not the only one. There were some in the business of Wall Steet who could see it coming too. They made killings by shorting the stocks -- it was a sure thing ... they couldn't possibly lose, and they didn't.   So, Arthur, contrary to your slanted view of my communications, I did not make the prediction after it happened.  Not even close.
As to your question: The basic financial model they violated is never to loan large amounts of money to people with super high risk (and expect to get it back).  Any dope can figure that out, for pities sake. 
Maybe if you slow down, read with a bit more comprehension and think about the meanings a bit, instead of racing in to a deep hole, we could have a more effective chat. 
Demonstrate that and I'd be happy to continue on the global climate change front. Otherwise..... ta-ta.    --Dirk

That sounds so nice but not at the expense of small ranchers and farmers going out of business and Obamas green stazi army making lives crap and taxes on everything for what? The solutions put forth by obamas admin arent the answer. Our economy is in shambles and more burdens on the small guy is not whats needed.  

Yo Don ~   Don't take this stuff too seriously. It's more a sport than anything serious.  I agree with your premise and have been working to those ends for many, many years.  I drive a hybrid, work on sealing homes from air leaks and do my composting, recycyling and the like.  I'm sure you do too and to that end we do what we can.
Now, sit back and watch the sea gulls battle over the tidbits.  It's entertainment.
(But skip Rebekah -- she's a bit too rabid, tripped over the edge way back and is just plain goofy.)
Wish us all luck --- we're going to need it.

Dana ~  I can't figure out how to reply to your last post.  You keep asking the same question and I give (roughly) the same answer.  Where am I letting you down?
I get the sense that you want irrefutable proof of everything before you'll agree to it. I'd suggest that we are never, ever 100% sure of anything (did you ever think that in this life you're really asleep and will wake up soon and laugh at the silliness of your dream??).  So we have to adjust and let 'enough' info satisfy us.  I do.  And I'm way, way past needing more info on climate change.  The pointers and indicators are everywhere ... and many are HUGE.
Why is it that so many on this blog are so anxious to show that it "could" be something else, like natural cycles.  If you look at the simple data for glaciers, ice sheets, CO2, ocean coral and more .... it cries out for realization not searches for denial.  We did the denial thing with the sub-prime mess and look where it got us. And we continue to do it with huge bonuses to the guys who got us in trouble by being stupid.  We can do better.
As to ice core samples.  I'd suggest you do a bit of research on this. The technique is very accurate but does deteriorate a bit the further back one goes.  There are enuf known points in time (of climactic events) that they can prove the efficacy of results.  And they get better at it all the time. They can certainly 'see' the start of the industrial revolution without any trouble.  Tree rings are more limited in many ways but still reliable in what they tell -- esp. if they weren't dead!!
As to Europe's deforestation 'centuries ago':  Sure, but a number of things affect that conclusion. 1) the other forests on the planet were not being decimated (like Canada, USA, Amazon, etc., etc.) So just Europe was a small part in the grand scheme.  And 2) more importantly we didn't have 6,500,000,000 people spewing their 'stuff' into the atmosphere and into the oceans.   It was a tiny, tiny fraction of people, factories, cars (cars? What's a car?), garbage, and etc. They did some awful pollution (with soft coal) and it's visible in the sampling today, esp. in sediments and ice.
As to your: 'enough data to lay the blame at our feet' .... I'm not after blame. I'm after fixing the problems that are blasting us.  Blame is a waste of time.  Reacting to a coming disaster is not.  And there are soooo many pointers and indicators everywhere and all around us.  The big ones, CO2, loss of coral, ice melt are irrefutable that change is under way  -- bigtime. Latest estimate from last summer's melt is that arctic ice will be all gone in 2013.  That's only 5 years away.  That's utterly amazing! That's crazy!  That's WILD!  Roughly 10 years from start to finish??  Are you kidding me? That's really impossible ... except it's happening. In geological time that's a spark so fast you can't even see it.  You can be on a plane this afternoon and before nightfall, see it for yourself (coral seas or glaciers). In fact you can go to YouTube and see it from home.   To sit around and debate exactly what's causing it, is the peak of folly.
Remember, Dana, whole civilizations have disappeared and ceased to exist in less than 10 years.  There is no reason that we are exempt from repeating that. But we are smart enuf to recognize we have a very serious problem and our very existence may depend on it.  What I can't figure out is why more people didn't recognize the sub-prime thing (home prices were downright stupid - mortgages were dumb; anyone who half tried could recognize that it was an unsustainable practice that had to collapse with a crash). And now, why can't they recognize the same thing in the climate?  The CO2 numbers a shooting straight up (practically speaking) and we can be sure that we can't live comfortably thru too high a number. Science is telling us 350ppm should be our sustainable limit.  We're at 380+ppm right now and climbing at about 2ppm per year.  They believe at 450 we're in serious trouble. 
You can, obviously, choose to ignore or disbelieve these predictions.  But .... how lucky are you feeling today?  And are you prepared to face future generations when they ask you: "What, in the name of all that makes any sense, WERE you thinking?!!!"  If they're mad enuf at you (figurativly speaking) for missing a few thousand clear pointers, they might set up a lynching party to help assuage their anger.  If you were them, you might.  Time for a bit of common sense, which we been running pretty short on recently.

Dana, 

first we don't need to be 100% sure.  95% is good enough.  And we don't need data from every year that the earth has been in existence.  The last 600,000 from ice cores is good enough plus what we can infer from sea floor cores for years previous to that.

That much of Europe was deforested is not relevant because it is so little compared to the rest of the world, and the deforestation was not all that great anyhow.

Dr Lessoff,  Nicely said.  The trouble is that this is not much of a scientific blog. It's more for entertainment and to work off some stresses of the week.  That said...
I have four parents (from a divorce early in my career as a child) and all are PhDs.  I learned sometime in my teens that they can sometimes get lost in the minutia and lose sight of the obvious.  We will depend on scientists to guide us thru this mess we find ourselves in, of that I am sure.  But in the meantime it's good to have some that just stand back and have a good gawk at the big picture (notice the possiblities with the sub-prime mess.  If someone had asked a freshman high school class about what was happening .... well, you get the idea, I'm sure.)
My point is, that the indicators for serious climate change already being under way, is, by my measure just like the subprime thing. It's plain obvious.  Glaciers just don't melt suddenly (very suddenly) and large numbers of species don't shift quickly to cooler climes.  And CO2 levels don't just suddenly spike upwards in a shocking manner.  And then there's global dimming that implies without it things would be much hotter.  No, for my money we don't need a lot more science to know that we're in trouble. It's kicking us in the face.  We do need a lot more science to figure out how best to deal with it. But in the meantime there's much we can do that just makes good common sense.
What interests me most is why people don't want to admit the obvious (think sub-prime here). How do we get into this silly cocoon and keep our eyes shut and our ears covered and keep saying over and over "I can't hear you."  It's nuts. And it reaches way beyond science.  Geo. Bush was a perfect example.  Executives of huge corporations with large bailouts from us, continue to give themselves massive bonuses and then claim the company needs to retain the talent.  !!  Talent?  With talent like theirs we can't afford any more -- we'll all go broke.  No, we lose touch with reality and come to believe it's OK.  But we pay the piper every time.  If we're going to get going on climate change we need to get the preponderance of people thinking rationally and sensibly.  Right now, that appears to be a tall order.
Best of luck to you and thanks for the in depth comments. I enjoyed them.  But they weren't very entertaining  ;-)     --Dirk

PS  Can anyone tell me why there are not hoards of people marching down 5th avenue in NYC, with pitchforks and axes in hand, demanding the ouster of the execs of AIG who are getting $3M bonuses soon??  Why are we putting up with this?  Have WE no shame.  Do we not care?  Do we secretely envy them (heaven forbid)? What's wrong with us?  We need to put Alice in Wonderland back into her book.

There is a lot to be said for pursuing a disagreement as long as there is still something to disagree about.  In the present case, however, the data has shifted so far to the global warming side that to argue about it would be the same as disagreeing about the germ theory of disease.  It is all very nice to go on about demon possession, but when you are confronted by an AIDS epidemic, you don't put a lot of resources into exorcisms.  The same thing applies now.  We can argue around the edges about the particular details, but we can no longer deny that global warming is happening, and at an ever increasing rate.  The data is just too good.  And wasting time arguing the basics means that we are not doing anything to correct the problem while it still can be corrected if in fact it still can be.

Chris ~  I don't exactly recall Dixy Lee with any fondness. She was a lousy politician and I didn't much care for her at the AEC either. There were plenty of loud cheers when she was gone.
 
But it's nice to know that all the scientists have it wrong and Mt. St. Helens has proved it. Whew. And I was worried?  Dummy me!
Seriously.... you think we only started measuring the CO2 levels in the last month or two?  Sure volcanoes provide a spike in lots of things, esp. particulate matter (my folks lived in Portland OR and their cars and home got covered with ash). But then it goes away. Things settle down and get back to normal.  With our pollution ... it never ends. When it's 3AM here it's rush hour somewhere else. The tailpipes spew without rest.  The factories too.  Six billion people continue to do their stuff.  If Mt. St. Helens could keep it up for a few years ... then you'd see the parallel effect. 
Scientists did many, many measurments (some dangerously so) during and after the eruption. Do you believe that they missed CO2 and we can go merrily on our way?   Oh, that it were so simple.

This seems like one of those, "lets spend our time looking for ways to disprove the obvious."  Could you be so kind as to describe why it is you do this?  I think that's the biggest mystery of all.

I find it sadly amusing how comfortable you are using phrases like "nice to know that all the scientists have it wrong".  "ALL".  I can cite 31,478 American scientists that directly disagree with your all inclusive statement.  Almost 10,000 of which are PhD's. http://www.petitionproject.org/

And to use your wrapup method:
This seems like one of those, "lets use poor logic and broad statements to prove a theory, so some evil men can use it to tax us." Could you be so kind as to describe why it is you do this?  I think that's the biggest mystery of all.

Chris ~  You're right. I should never have said "all the scientists".  A lapse on my part. Sorry. However, you seem to have completely missed my point.  Let me see if I can get do better.

You implied that one scientist (Dixie) had it right. Period.  She knows. 
I was maintaining that lots and lots of scientists were tracking Mt. St. Helens activity and they did not raise the flag about CO2, altho they did report it.
So your 31,478 guys have nothing to do with Mt. St. Helens (that I am able to determine).
And then .... you chose to ignore my continuing comments about the fact that Mt. St. Helens was a single, short incident and that our constant and never ending spewing of CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't compare favorably to it.  Care to address that this time?

As to the wrapup ...
Nice job on deflecting my comment and turning to what YOU want to convey and in the process ignoring my point.   My point was that you seem to be most interested in disproving the obvious (from my persepctive anyway) and not dealing with it.  Care to address that too?

Oh, and why oh why did "tax" enter the conversation?  That's nuts.  And "evil" men?  Who are those guys? This does nothing to further the discussion of Climate Change, now does it?

Hey you didn't pick up a new name did you?  Are you really Rebekah?  It's got that ring to it.

Dirk:

You can't consider the veracity of global climate change WITHOUT considering the veracity of those who promote it: 'Scientists', funded by indelibly crooked politicians (with OUR raped-from-us tax dollars), funded by corporate entities with an agenda.  And what is that agenda?  Subjugation of The People!  And what's the easiest way to subjugate us?  A global threat.

But I'm just paranoid, I guess. ;?)  

Hey Mike ~  You're getting a bit irritating now. Watch it how you badmouth ALL scientists. You owe huge amounts to many of them (think about it).  And a good collection of them are my friends and I don't take kindly to your all-encompassing put-downs. They work hard and they care .... a lot.  This tossing everyone into "Mike's dumpster" is getting a bit old ... and very dumb on your part.
Listen and listen good Mike -- the subjugation of the people in this country will only occur when they want it and do nothing.  Quit your bitchen and get out there and make a difference.   Do it!!

It's beginning to sound like paranoia ... or just plain dumbness.  You can do better.  Lots better.

Dirk,

Unlike many here I do not avoid legitimate, pertinent, and/or pivotal questions.

First up: Mt St Helens vs The Industrial Revolution.
Your implication that our constant drip of CO2 is somehow worse than a Volcanic eruption is a great example of a statement that sounds good, but does not stand up under scrutiny.  If I was to drip thousands of gallons of water onto your land for 100 years, more than likely, the water would be absorbed by the ground, and would never affect your land.  On the other hand, if I was to dump those same thousands of gallons at once, your house would be destroyed, and your land would probably be reshaped. To bring us back to the Mt St Helens vs The Industrial Revolution.  I makes sense that if Earth can absorb Mt St Helens, then it should have no trouble absorbing smaller quantities created over time.

Second up: Wrapup Points and Misses.
You complain that my wrap up ignored your point.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  My clever rewording and use of your structure was and is a direct answer to your statement.  I am sorry you were not able to grasp this.  Perhaps you should read it again.

Third up: Taxes.
Al Gore and Friends are using the Global Warming/Climate Change argument to get us to accept 'Cap and Trade'.  Note the statement.  Not just CAP. If it was just CAP, the case could be made that this is for some perceived good.  But once you add "and Trade" you have stumbled into a system that does not actual CAP anything.  It just sets up Al Gore and Friends to sell you AIR, so you can continue doing business.  You produce no less CO2, you just have to pay Al Gore and Friends for the privilege.

Finally:
No, I am not the actual Rebekah, just an amazing example of another person that can think for themselves.  Had this been the actual Rebekah you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.

Chris ..... OK, so...........

One more time.  Your drip, drip, drip, analogy sure works to prove YOUR point, but it does nothing to disprove mine.  I don't really picture a few hundred million tailpipes and God only know how many industrial smokestacks spewing CO2, as comparing favorably to drip, drip, drip.  No, it's an incredible gush. If you want to compare to my yard, you'd best bring along a few fire engine pumpers and plenty of hose. 
What you did was deflect the argument into an untenable (and unbearable) analogy, derailing the whole idea.
See, I KNOW the CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere are growing at an alarming rate.  The rate of change of CO2 is well documented and I've heard no one (yet) contradict it (altho, I'm sure there's someone, somewhere -- likely Rebekah). Anyway, the big spike from Mt St Helens was a one-shot.  The manmade stuff is not -- it's 24/7/52/forever feed.  (think Giant/Humongous/Distributors-only size).   If you go outside and hold your hand by the end of your tailpipe (with car running please) and feel the flow ... and then multiple by say, 1/2 billion. Then keep it running forever.    See, this way, if what we 'predicters' say just happens to come true -- you can look back and say "Gee, that really was quite a lot of CO2. And 'forever' is a long time, isn't it? Funny I couldn't just realize the common sense of it. Huh!"

OK. It was worth a try.  No, no, I know that you know that if we dumped a quintillion tons of CO2 per microsecond for infinity the only result would be that plants would grow so fast we'd all be killed by their instantaneous spread. 
Tell you what on this one, Chris:  You believe that CO2 is no problem, go to the movies, go shopping, go fishing .... and I'll believe it is a problem and I'll work to get the numbers back down.  You get a good flick and some material goods and a fish.  I get to think I'm doing some important work.  Nobody's hurt (until the CO2 passes 450ppm - but we'll worry about that when it happens).

I never, ever bought into Cap & Trade.  I do see a bit of goodness in that some will do things (to make money, of course) that they wouldn't have done otherwise, and some of that money can be used for good things.  But basically, I'm with you on this one.

As to the wrapup:  It may be a stand-oof.  (yes, oof).  You complain of poor logic and broad statements (see above) and then promptly do it (again).  I think they refer to this as hypocritical (meaning, critizing others for what you do).
I'd suggest YOU go back and read your original bit on this and then answer my original question of it.

Ciao.

Dirk, quick note: there are many scientists I admire, nearly all of 'em astronomers and astrophysicists, though there are a few climatologists in there.  But not a one of them supports the politically motivated, weak hypothesis of global climate change. 

Toodles.

Michael ~  We all pick our heros.  Mine's Feynman.

The amount of CO2 put out by St. Helens was not anywhere near the amount that mankind has put out.  This is a denier talking point that has been shot down repeatedly.

The IPCC'S predictions have been scaled up, not down.  They now say that things are even worse than they originally thought.
Furthermore, trying to throw cold water on the reality of global warming by saying it's just modeling while ignoring the facts that have jumped in your face is similar to Bush saying that SS is just a bunch of IOU's after he borrowed the money.  It isn't just the models, but the measurements on the ground and the changes in the measurements that scare people.  The models are not nearly as scary as seeing what is happening.

Look out.. Geniose at work.  Dirks logical convolutions would fool any 5 year old.  Unfortunately for Dirk, most of us here are not 5.  My list of replies are to this thread, and some of the other parallel threads in this discussion.

1) Pick and Choose:
I noticed you ACC True Believers completely ignored C H's post. His point that your own sources admit this is all an unproven theory, with low reliability, is even more damning because you ignored it.

2) Mt St Helens vs The Industrial Revolution:
Earlier you made the case that it was the constant flow of CO2 that Gaea would have problems absorbing, but a spike from Volcano, No problem.  You did not dispute the fact that St Helens produced as much as we have since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so our constant flow is minimal.  Now you have shifted, and are claiming that we produce more than St Helens,  And that somehow, Gaea can't absorb it now.  Then you throw in funny exaggerations like quintillion tons per microsecond.  This is not convincing in the slightest.  Nor is it a quality debate.  Not to mention it not being good science

3) Wrapup Fun:
You read it again, and still did not see how I was directly answering you!?!   And then you assume I don't fully understand what I said, and ask me to re-read my own statements, hoping for some new enlightenment I had previously missed.   Are others laughing as hard as I am?  My friend, your failure to understand my reply is not a reflection on my ability to answer, it is a reflection on your ability to understand.  

4) Denial Miller's Popular Opinion vs Science:
I am officially pointing out the fallacy of "consensus science".  There, that red-herring argument is removed.  You can no longer state that we are only disputing the data that is used to prove the theory of ACC.  We are also disputing your methods for arriving at that theory, and are disputing your conclusions.  If your conclusion is arrived at via consensus then it is not legitimate science, it is just a popular opinion.

5) Deniers VS True Believers:
I know I prefer to be found on the side of the skeptics.  That is the correct scientific method to approach any and all theories.  You must be willing to accept the data that disproves as well as the data the proves your theory, and must adjust your theory to match the facts. On the other hand, True Believers refuse to acknowledge data that does not prove their theory, or even worse, use the unexpected results to somehow prove that the situation is worse than they had predicted, because the facts do not fit their theory.  This is poor science at best, and even criminal, when these disproved and unproven  theories are used to enact laws.

6) AGW vs ACC and Deniers vs True Believers
Since the facts have forced Al Gore and Friends to stop saying "Global Warming" and instead switch to "Climate Change", I have amended the acronym used.  Instead of :
AGW - Anthropogenic Global Warming
I am using:
ACC - Anthropogenic Climate Change

Hence, ACC Deniers and ACC True Believers.

You will also notice my use of the statement "True Believers".  It sounded to me like a good equivalent to "Denier".  It expresses a similar automatic dismissal of the statements made by ACC True Believers.

Chris ~  OK, you got us.  It's Rebekah ... for sure.  Nice job, girl.   (I knew it all along, but I think you fooled the others!) OK, now make up a new name and let's see how quickly we can fine you.
We have our eyes covered and we are counting 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 .... ready or not, here we come.

You have now completely avoided the topics, and have resorted to personal attack and obfuscation. 

Congratulations, you have lost.

All Your Base are Belong to Us.

BTW.  Despite your protestations, Rebekah and I are indeed two different people.  There is actually more than one person that does not agree with you.  Sorry if that destroys some core belief of yours.

Come on Chris ~  The jig is up.  Admit it.  You're Rebekah.   I mean with a sentence like: "All Your Base are Belong to Us."   That's Rebekah if I ever heard her (or """Chris""", heh, heh). It's classic.  You crack me up!!  And "...you have lost." Like it's about winning or losing. What a hoot ...more classic Rebekah.  Gotcha.

It's been fun, girl.  But time to move on.  Consider yourself dumped for the second time.  Time to find a serious conversation to join.  It's been fun. Bye.

It is enlightening that you cannot even accept the fact that there is more than one person that disagrees with you.  If you cannot accept such a simple fact, it is easy to understand how you are so confused about the theory of ACC.

I hope you enjoyed calling a fat old man a girl, as much as I enjoy being called it.  I especially enjoy it when it is instead of reasoned discussion. 

Another stunning blow for your team.

Chris, you have revealed that you know nothing about science with one glaring mistake:  you believe theories can be proved.  They can't. 

There are not enough large volcanoes erupting to cause atmospheric CO2 levels to rise to what they are. 

Scientists have measured how much fossil fuel has been removed from the Earth and combusted, they have measured forests burnt and land cleared, and the fact is, humans have released more carbon dioxide than the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.  We have also increased CO2 levels in the ocean, and these levels have also been recorded.

Considering that scientists have this data, and considering the lack of data that anything else is causing this massive an output of CO2, it is scientifically accepted that humans are the cause.

So you say that consensus science is a fallacy, but consensus is how science works.  A theory starts as a hypothesis.  The hypothesis is tested.  If data measured supports hypothesis, hypothesis is published for peer review and then tested further.  If data does not support, hypothesis is thrown out.  If data supports, and continues to support, and continues to support, hypothesis becomes theory.  There is no magical method.  It is ALL based on peer reviewed DATA.  In order to have a meaningful dispute, you have to have meaningful evidence that is contrary to the theory.

If your beloved AGW denying scientists actually had meaningful data, i.e. another significant source of CO2 output greater than a large volcano eruption every 20 years or more and geological proof that CO2 levels declined before the last major global warming event or spiked sharply instead of rising gradually or something like that, then more scientists would look at the data and rethink the AGW theory. 

What your supposed experts aren't doing is publishing peer reviewed material.  Sure, they may be making claims, but they aren't collecting data they need to make a case.  All the while, other scientists are publishing peer reviewed material that support AGW.

You say we aren't looking at the evidence that disproves, but all we see are forged petitions and hearsay from religious sources and pastors and other non-factors designed to evoke emotional responses, no hard evidence.  Another source is conservative propaganda, I mean, we may as well call these people serial denialists. 

All the anti AGW arguments I've ever read have been to AGW what "creation science" is to evolution: ridiculous, easily disprovable, and always defended despite the mountains of journals, references, and common knowledge that defies it.  Every skeptic of evolution always thinks they know why evolution is wrong and pride themselves for being a "noble skeptic", but they have no supportable argument.  They always say that supporters of evolution don't consider evidence that disproves it, but there is none and the theory stands.  This is the exact same situation. 

You show me a peer-reviewed journal study of evidence contrary to AGW and I will consider the idea that humans may not be the cause.  Until you do, however, you should question why it is you deny all supporting evidence of AGW without ever having read reliable data to the contrary. 

BTW, cap and trade has been successful for acid rain and other pollutants.  Cap alone would be preferable but it would force many industries who cannot reduce their emissions enough out of business.  Taxing alone does not affect changes.

And another thing, I have never seen Al Gore's movie nor am I his friend.

And last, serial denialists will always, always call for more data, more data, more data... ad infinitum.  In this case, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. 

This issue has the typical markings of conservative wedge issue written all over it.  I don't see how people breathe with this much sand over their heads.

Christen,
Thx for the science lesson.  We all had no idea how hypothesis, theory's, and proof works.   What was I doing thinking we needed some proof before passing laws?

AGW?  You are still using the dated version of the phrase.  Haven't you heard, The hockey stick is broken. No warming since 1998. This fact has made most of your True Believers switch to ACC.

You need me to find data for you that disagrees with ACC?  How lazy can you get? With only a few simple searches on this thing called Google, I was able to find plenty of hits on all sides if this topic.  I am not your secretary.  I am willing to admit to finding published papers on both sides of this issue.  From my reading, it seams about 50/50 papers filed that support/do not support ACC specifically, with the vast bulk of papers filed not showing any leaning.  Are you willing to admit this?

As to who is part of the solution vs part of the problem.  If you are for passing laws before the science is in, you are part of the problem. 

Funny, because when I search for evidence against AGW on google what I find is Heartland-based religious sites and other nonsense, which I mentioned clearly in my previous post exactly because I did google it.  Not only that, but the best site I found so far that actually does reference peer-reviewed journals (which you, of course, could not) plainly says that the study off which the most popular anti AGW argument stems (sun radiation) actually states that the sun has no correlation with the modern temperature rise since the 1970's.  And, in commenting on that topic, no one could prove with other journals that sun radiation is correlated.  The best argument I heard is that ozone depletion is a factor, and gee, I wonder who depleted the ozone?  No one even argues that the surface temps of the Earth are rising anymore.  You are far, far behind on this aren't you?

So I guess we're all supposed to wait on the serial denialist slowpokes.

As I have told children many times.  If you can't find it, you are not looking.  Your inability to find the same things I have found either shows you are incapable or lying.  This professed search ineffectiveness makes it hard to take anything you say seriously.

There is apparently no need to wait for the facts, if you are an ACC True Believer.  Pass a law quick before the public educated know-nothings realize the deception.

Your inability to post these supposed reliable and conclusive journal studies that support your position makes it hard for me to believe that you've read them at all.  People with real proof are happy to share it.  So, here is a summary of what you say we don't already know:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/fr9wrun5bpuprh77/

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20090121/

And, just a little extra for you about volcanoes:

Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes Eos, 72, 249, 254-255.
The annual CO2 output of volcanoes is about 145-255 million tons. The annual output by humans is ~30 billion tons, more than 1000 times the emissions from volcanoes.

Here is a list of a lot of volcanoes:

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm

Good luck hunting for the sixes.

Duck and Dodge... I was talking about the 1980 eruption, not the average "small" seep from the worlds volcanos, but I think you knew that.

I followed all of your links and read enough from each to reach the same conclusion I had before.  There is Climate Change, whatever that means.  I would even be willing to say that despite recent changes, we are in a warming trend.  Of course, since we are coming out of both a greater and lesser Ice Age, I would expect that.  So, are we responsable for it? Probably not.

And here's a few quotes for ya from people who have published papers.  A few are from the sources quoted here to support ACC.


"The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds."-

Award-winning Paleontologist
Dr. Eduardo Tonni,
of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

----------

"CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another....

Every scientist knows this,

but it doesn't pay to say so...

Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot."-

Dr. Takeda Kunihiko,
vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

----------

"The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse.

It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round...

A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid

vanished without a trace.

As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased,

and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact,"

Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher.

----------

"The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil...

I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science."-

South Afican Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer
Dr. Philip Lloyd,

a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.

----------

"Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will."-.

Geoffrey G. Duffy,
a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

----------

"Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall GHG content in accord with the necessary balance conditions."-

Prominent Hungarian Physicist and environmental researcher
Dr. Miklós Zágoni
reversed his view of man-made warming and is now a skeptic.
Zágoni was once Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.

----------

"But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all."-

Chemist
Dr. Patrick Frank,
who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.

----------

"Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC....

The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium...

which is why ‘global warming' is now called ‘climate change.'"-

Climatologist
Dr. Richard Keen
of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-ice-age.htm

http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm

OK, I went to those links and read them.  The first one actually partially addresses my statements.  And it clearly shows that we are in a warming trend coming out if an ice age.  Even the discussion below it mostly supports this warming trend.  The discussion below also point out that there are multiple theories about the causes of the current 30 year warming trend.  Many of which do not point to man.

The second link is interesting, but does not seem to contribute to this discussion.  Unless you are making the case that we should increase green-house-gas emissions to counter ACC.

I meant to say:
Unless you are making the case that we should increase green-house-gas emissions to counter SGW (Solar Global Warming).

Dang it, the acronyms can get the best of you.  Unless you are making the case that we should increase green-house-gas emissions to counter SGC (Solar Global Cooling).

Arthur ~  Nice demo with the boat (I'm a sailor) I like it.  But what about:
We predict what will happen in the future and make dramatic changes all the time. Constantly.  I'd hazard a guess that every major decision is loaded with this. Lots of times we miss and get it wrong and the results are disasterous.  But more often, I think, we get it right and are thankful we took action ... without 1000% surety.
Here's an offsetting analogy.  You're driving down the road and an animal runs out in front of you (say a chipmunk).  Now some will hit the little beastie with joy, others will hit it and feel sick. But some will do anything not to hit it and crash (and sometimes kill themselves).   And the last group will never have seen it or knew they even hit it.   The question to you is:  Do you take some time and consider the possibilities?  No?  Why not?  Not enfu time?  Yep.  Me too.  And we find ourselves in that position now.  All Arctic ice gone in 5 years is a good bit faster than the chipmunk analogy.  I don't think we should do stupid things, including sitting around and waiting to see what happens.  Think wartime. You don't get all day to make decisions without consequences.  We've been ignoring the smaller indicators for decades.  That was our "thinking time". We mostly blew it. Now we gotta make the best decisions we can and get moving.  And shutting off some of our CO2 generation is hardly scary.
 
As to your "playing God by regulating the atmosphere".  Huh?  You mean we been dumping more pollutants than we can imagine, for years and you accuse us of 'playing God' cause we want to QUIT doing it.  I don't get it?  This doesn't make any sense.  We're for changing the atmosphere back to the way it was BEFORE we started playing God and dumping all that stuff into it.  Ever see SMOG?  That comes from us and it alters things (esp. children's lungs).

I think you're behind the times on flouride and chlorine.  The science on this stuff is huge. What is it that we don't know?  What about mercury? Lead?  Asbestos? Arsenic?  Vinyl?, ad nauseam.  Do I have this right?  You want to have definitive proof of all that could be known about flourine and chlorine before we do anything else.  Why? What's the purpose?   As Obama said to McCain; we can do more than one thing at a time.  Hopefully he was referring to big ideas and important stuff and not the minutia of life.

Good show on the planet vs mankind's future. I agree 100%.  The planet doesn't care much.  But I get the feeling that much of mankind doesn't either.  They're more interested in getting perfect science and looking to play devil's advocate (for the devil).  Or simply not interested at all.  Huh.
Remember, doing nothing has consequences too. Nature bats last.

Dirk:

Still goin' strong, I see.  I admire your stamina, though your trust of and belief in the honesty of politicians and their 'games' leaves much to be desired.  You raised a question yesterday evening that I'd like to answer, despite it's being 'off topic'.  It won't change your mind, but it might give you better insight into why I, and many others, feel as I/we do.

Dirk, do you realise how much money in taxes are STOLEN from you and I to pay for both legitimate and stupid, wasteful government programs better funded by PRIVATE concerns?  Any idea?  Would you be surprised to learn that it's over 55%?  I know, I know...you've 'heard' or 'deduced' that it's 'only' 35% or so.  That's the 'popular lie' that the politicians, 99% of them, count on.  Consider, even when you count what's taken from your paycheck (I assume you work for a wage or salary like I do) in FICA, SSI, State, Ins., Local (if you pay local from your paycheck), property taxes(if you pay property taxes), and taken from what you spend purchasing various products, those are just the OBVIOUS ones.  Dissect your phone and electric bill sometime.  There are a few more 'obvious' taxes there, too.  Here in LA, we even pay an additional tax of 13 cents on the dollar at the gas pump (for a total of 22 cents per DOLLAR spent on gasoline (not per gallon, as so many believe).  But, what I'm talking about are HIDDEN taxes, taxes indirectly paid by you and yours truly. 

Any business, I don't care who or what it is, pays taxes.  Taxes are whatever the government (fed/state/local) charges a business to be in and DO business.  Those taxes, as part of doing business, are not 'absorbed' by the business; they're passed on to...wait for it...you and I.  How do I know this?  I was IN business at an early point in my life.  Also, if you consider the chain of manufacturing, those taxes multiply and add up to an enormous amount.   Again, consider: A demand for widgets.  Well, widgets don't materalise from thin air whole on the store shelves.  You have the various levels of creating the raw materials, all of which are taxed.  You have the finished product...which is taxed.  You have distribution...which is taxed.  You have wholesale stock...which is taxed.  You have more distribution...which is taxed.  You have retail stock...which is taxed.  Lastly, you have retail sales...which is taxed.  All these taxes, from raw materials to retail sale, are passed on to the next level of buyer.  The cats that end up actually paying for all these taxes as the 'end buyer?  You and I.

It's been said that there are only two certainties of life: Death and Taxes.  Well, my problem with the latter is that, at better'n 15%, they're obnoxious.  At better'n 30%, they're abusive.  At the actual level we're paying (55+%), they're criminal.  We The People work more than 1/2 of the year, just to pay the godsdamn taxes the government DICTATES we do, or suffer jail time, financial ruin and even physical harm.  Do you know what it's called when you have to work for 'The Man' under threat of life, limb, and financial ruin?  Indentured servitude, or more popularly, Slavery.  Oh, yessir, that's EXACTLY what it is.  So, does that make me angry and distrustful of the very people responsible, politicians?  Yer damn right.  You and I are being fiscally RAPED, our rights to feely PURSUE happiness are being eroded away, and I can't do anygodsdamnthingmore about it than vote, which thanks to folks like you, on both the right and the left, means damn little.  The politicians (Re: Republicans and Democrats) lie to my face, talking about 'reducing my tax burden', then turn around and do just the opposite, justifying their behavior by saying that it's for 'The Greater Good' or to "save the nation from fiscal or physical ruin" (while causing it).  Yeah, I do have a lot of hatred for politicians, dude.  Ask anyone who's been held up at gun point if they have any luv for the thief (which, BTW I have).  That's how I view politicians.  With very rare exception, they're scum-sucking leeches who's only interest in me is money and power.  If they did their job without bias or trying to be populist, we'd have no problem.  But their actions are swayed by what they think is 'What the people who will reelect them want', not what's actually best for the Nation.  And dude, don't get me started about politicians 'taking care of The People'.  THAT'S NOT THEIR JOB!  WE'RE NOT CHILDREN!  Have you READ the Constitution?  Nowhere does it GURANTEE happiness, or ease of existance; it only gurantees the PURSUIT of said same.

Now.  You know why I feel as I do about trusting the government, and the minions that serve them (like Algore).  On to your latest tome...

YOUR RIGHT!  We SHOULDN'T be dumping toxic wastes into our air, water and on the ground!  Now THERE'S a problem we should be addressing, NOT because it'll cause 'global warming', but because it's POISONING US!  To HELL with CO2!  The mercury, lead, platinum, and countless other toxic 'pollutants' being dumped into our landfills and ground water is increasing at an exponential rate, and represents a far more tangible and monstorous threat.  Which brings up this question:

Dirk, why don't the politicians press for mandantory universal recycling & reclamation?  Hmmm?  I mean, you and I, and a definite majority of everyone else, agree that waste is a P. R. O. B. L. E. M.  Given that, why aren't the politicians jumping on THAT particular issue?

Lemme let ya in on a little secret: The issue doesn't give 'em enough power and money to gurantee reelection and a majority hold on Congress.  So, it's virtually ignored.  Besides, it'd cost THEM, and the corporations they're beholden to, extra money and effort (especially effort, since the cost would just be passed on to us), and we can't have THAT...oh, no...just ain't right...uh-uh...nope...landfills are doin' fine; a little clay lining, and we're right as rain, people...yeah...mmm-hmmm...no need to go to all THAT trouble...

Dirk, don't you see?  The bastards act in their own self-interest, and could give a FRAKING DAMN about you and I, "The People"!  They are, almost to each and every one, corporate shills, and no more believe in global climate change than I do.  Listen, go to a website called OpenSecrets.org and look at which of your political 'buddies', that you have so much confidence in, accepted corporate monies for their campaigns, and from WHOM, THEN come back here and dispute me.

Yo Mike ~ Yeah. I'm still hanging in there but I'm reaching my limit for this round pretty soon. 
Hey, you never responded to my admonishment that Katrina had to have lots of Federal involvement and that it was appropriate, for many reasons.  You remember ... FEMA? No comment?

So .... now it's the tax rant. I gotta tell you Mike I tire of people who wail and whine about taxes all the time (esp. Republicans who blame the Dems for what they always DO. But I digress...)
I know a lot of my tax money is wasted. I waste some of my own money (and hate myself each time I do it). Big business has the premier award for waste (insert AIG, GM, Bear Stearns, Leahman, Chrysler, ad nauseam). How do I know? I worked for a number of different businesses and the ways they found to waste and steal money was absolutley endless and incredibly stupid.  Govt does too.  We all know individual people that make poor decisions with their money.  And then there's guys like Madoff. It's not just a Government thing, they certainly haven't cornered the market on waste or theft. Not even close.  But that said.... I hate the waste in Govt but I figured out who's responsible. Pogo got it right when he said "We have met the enemy and he is us!!"   You ignored this the last time we spoke about this.  What's wrong with you people in LA?  Can't elect a decent politician to represent you in the US Government (and state legislature)? We're not whining (much) here in Maine. 
Me? I don't mind paying much of my taxes. I got a good eduction, my kids did too. It was 'free'. We've have good police departments, fire departments, roads, help for the poor. Then there's the Centers for Disease Control, to which we may owe our very lives right now. The Coast Guard allows our fishermen to sleep better at night and me too as I go sailing. 
That said, I'm not much in favor of price supports for the tabacco industry --- seems pretty stupid and counterproductive.  I work to change expenditures like that.  I just wrote both my senators pleading with them to do what they can to prevent these new million dollar bonuses at AIG. That's pretty sick and apparently coming right out of our taxes. 
Unlike you, I believe in our democracy. I'm active in it and I generally support it.  When I don't like it I work hard (with my feet and with money) to change it.  I know I won't "win" all the time. But I treasure the wins we get and suffer the losses (Bush was one of the biggest losses this country ever suffered -- I'm feeling a great relief that he's gone, and hope we can have a truth commission to hold him accountable for his many treasonable acts ... but that's off topic a bit) and count myself lucky to live in the USA.  There are a few countries that do it better but they'll remain nameless cause you'd burst a blood vessel if I mentioned them. 
If you think "the bastards" only think about themselves, I'd recommend going to "Building Energy Performance News" where you can see what govt and big business are doing to improve their energy footprint. It's quite impressive. That said, it's still a tiny advance ... but I take 'em where I can get 'em and work for more. All advances are slow, in our personal lives and in govt.
I'd recommend you find a way to come down from your shrill soapbox, take a deep breath and find a way to produce goodness. You'll feel a lot better. And spend your money wisely.  You don't want to be counted among the wasteful!!  eh?

Oh, I don't have to look at OpenSecrets.org. I am fully aware that it's impossible to get elected without corporate funds -- flat out impossible. But I know why too.  Because we, the electorate, want them to. Not directly, of course, but we refuse to insist on limited campaign spending and we want desperately to hear the lies they spew as they campaign. If they don't lie they don't get elected. If they're not all over TV, they don't get elected. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves. We don't have to act that way. We have choices.

Hey Dirk, one last comment for ya, to answer the ACOE thing...by strict Constitutional interpretation, the ACOE had no business getting involved in New Orleans and the Mississippi River diversions they did decades before Katrina.  The result, we've seen, your right.  That's more the rule than the exception with fed involvement in any situation.  But, that flooding would've happend anyway, countless times, if the ACOE HADN'T 'interfered' like they did, though perhaps land buyers in the area would've been a little wiser.  You know who should actually be blamed for all those homes and business who were flooded out?  The damn property brokers and the city fathers!  You don't sell flood-plain property as housing subdivisions to people too ignorant to know and prepare for the eventuality of storm-caused levee failure by glossing over said eventuality!  That land should NEVER have been allowed to be used for that purpose!  Again, the city fathers, not the fed, are the ones responsible, but they got kickbacks and whatnot to cophensate for their worry, so I guess that made it okay. 

Also, there WAS (and may still be, I don't know) an actual multi-parish (you call 'em "Counties") "Levee Board" who's job it was to address levee concerns.  They handled millions of dollars toward that end...and squandered them, DESPITE decades of warnings about possible failue from a direct or near miss hurricane strike...warnings from the ACOE. 

Dude, it's not the feds job to take care of The People beyond defense from foreign invaders (like the hispanic one in progress now, which the fed is almost COMPLETELY ignoring).  I don't even like the idea of a STATE or local government acting as 'Big Brother', and looking over our shoulders at what we do....we're not children, not all of us anyway, and certainly not the indentured servants they wish us to be, not willingly.  But the State of Louisiana and the New Orleans Levee board had responsibilities they ignored in the New Orleans area, both before and after Katrina, and I'm sorry, but by the Constitution, it was NOT the feds job.

In fact, it's not the feds job to do 9/10th's of what they do, by the Constitution.  And they usually frak it up anyways.  Name a department created to 'prevent' something, and I can show where they failed to prevent that very thing after the fact.  But you don't need me for that...you can research it for yourself, if you care.

That's it for me, Dirk.  It's been intriguing debating you.  You've definitely given me a fuller understanding of what I'm facing when confronted by people enamored of political lies and misinformation.  I remain solidly optimistic that our planet is capable of handling CO2 production without disastorous results for humanity at large, and feel you should shift your focus to more strident concerns of ground, water and air pollutionn (other than CO2, that is...:?).  At any rate, be safe in your endeavors, and be well.

Michael ~  What the heck does this mean? "....by strict Constitutional interpretation, the ACOE had no business getting involved in the Mississippi River diversions".
What "strict interpretation"?  The Army Corps of Engineers have been responsible for the Mississippi River (levees, navigatible waters, etc.) for a very, very long time.

Sorry to hear you're so threatened and anguished by state and local govts and especially any politician. I still encourage you to do something about it and quit whining at me.  I, most likely, won't be working to get the outcome you would prefer, altho it's a mystery to me what that would be.  You could join Todd Palin in an attempt to have Alaska succeed (after moving to Alaska). Go for it.

As to your challenge ... ("name a fed dept created to prevent something and I'll show you how they failed").  Hell, Mike, that's a setup.  You think I'm blind and dumb??  Tell you what, you tell me something you've done and I'll lay heavy odds that YOU screwed up there somewhere!  (I like betting on sure things, I can use the money.)    That's cause where humans are involved ... you can find failure.  But ... in the spirit of the challenge, I'd name the CDC.   You bash 'em if you want but there's a good chance that you're continuing ability to challenge me, is thanks to them.   You one of these guys who believes that vaccines cause autism ... or worse?? 

But, more on topic.  Are you aware that our globe is warming?   Fast!  That our ice sheets are disappearing at an alarming rate?   Even faster! 
And that too much CO2 ..... oh well, you know.  

And good luck to you to.  Be well. 

One of those famous romantics who think that things just happen without being caused.  There are reasons that where you live has been going through changes on a multimillion year scale.  But we're not talking about even 1000's of years.  We're talking on the scale of less than a century, within the lifetime of people alive today.  And the reasons that your area has undergone so much ecological change is related to such things as massive volcanic eruptions that occurred around the end of the Cretaceous.  We are now trying to duplicate those results on our own, hence the global warming.

Glad to hear that you like lush climates complete with mosquitoes and ticks and lord knows how many vector borne diseases that we don't have treatments for.  But how about the Sahara desert?  What happens when there just isn't any rain, but it gets hot?  How much fun is that?  
"And where is your global warming when it's -20F?" How about why isn't it - 21F?

Hey Joby!   You said:If man creates global warming, then why are there other planets without men on them getting warmer too?
Surely you jest!!   I live in Maine and I carry a big stick around with me all the time .... it keeps elephants away.  It's worked perfectly for 20 years.
(Incidently, it seems to keep tigers away too, but I didn't get it for that.)

Arthur ~  You missed the whole point.  The reason there weren't others supporting my position was .... they moved on to other sites where the conversation was at a higher level than taxes, flourine, politicians, subjugation, and a raft of ridiculous ideas about global warming that make little to no sense.   Off the wall stuff.
The smart ones migrated to intelligence. I stayed behind for the entertainment.

Arthur,
Great point.  Only a few ACC True Believers are willing to argue the facts we have been presenting.  Most ACC True Believers do not know how to react to facts that dissagree with their world view, so they avoid them and run away.   And, as you see here, even the True Believers usually attack us rather than the facts.  Their playlist and talking points rely on this type of obfuscation, since they do not really have the truth supporting them.

Matt ~ Sorry you've missed the point. The level of discussion on this thread has been abysmal, at best. Arguments like "sun's heat hitting a solar panel disappears", "Obama's stazi", CO2 concentrations increase with heat, flouride, the Mt St. Helens CO2 thing, taxes, politicians, ad nauseam, ad nauseam are so off topic and/or dumb that it should make a third grader blush.  Whenever a reasoned and sensible argument is proffered,a bunch of idiotic comments are posted that invariably TELL the poster that he's (fill in a bunch of derogatory adjectives here) and then immediately the responder also goes on (TELLS!) the world HOW. IT. IS.  And invariably with some more idiotic ramblings thrown in.  Then a couple of others join in and support the Spanish Inquisition as being "the REAL Science" (or some such equally 'on topic' blathering).
I decided a long time back, to treat it for what it was -- entertainment.  The amazing thing is that when I get completely and utterly ridiculous (naming Chris as Rebekah, for instance), they, get this!, take it seriously!! I can't believe it.  It's like teasing a 2-year old.  It doesn't seem to matter how far I carry it ... they fall, headlong, right into the trap .... EVERY TIME.   These persons can't seem to tell fantasy or a joke from reality, when it hits them in the face. 
It was fun for awhile but it's turned into a fairly sad commentary on this likes of some who would deign to know anything about anything.
A couple of musings from me:  Notice how, when a denier is caught in a complete falsehood, they simply deflect the conversation to something ridiculous (like, taxes are subjugating us all!!) or they simply fire up a new thread, which is not likely to have anything to do with the topic at hand.  They typically throw insults like a boxer throws punches in a prize fight.  They make up stuff on the fly and they NEVER, EVER ask questions to further develop an idea or theory.  They already KNOW ALL the answers about EVERYTHING; why would they ask a meaningful question???
You'd think when a poster makes, what sounds like a good solid scientific point, that there would be some questions and ideas tossed around.  You know, to expand the knowledge.  You'd think if a person was caught completly off base, they'd apologize.  That does not happen here.
For example, read Daniel's or Christen's posts. (and Dr. Lessoff's) They're well thought out and reasoned approaches to the issue. Then read the responses.  Basically there aren't any responses, but when there are, they don't deal with what s/he had to offer.
So ..... when I started here, I had hoped for some good banter regarding climate change (global warming) etc. What I got was a bunch of fools that found someone to listen to them and someone they could dump their frustrations upon. That's OK, I'm pleased I could help them with their discontent in life.  But now it's over and time to move on to something productive.  I had my fun.  They had theirs.   I'm off to see if I can now escape this sillly goofiness and improve my knowledge where there's some to be had.  (actually there was some here .... but it was mostly about psychology)  Oh well.  
Best of luck to you all --- we're going to need it.

PS  Now sit back and watch the response to this post.. Whooooo-eeeeeeee.  It's gonna be good.
Bye everyone.

Wheee he heeeeee.

Dirk, Did you even READ the post you are replying to?  I believe it was YOUR elucidations that Matt found so lacking.  But, nice try to deflect.

And I like how you provide a long explanation to make it perfectly clear you are a Troll.  I was certain before you should not be trusted, and now you have proudly proclaimed your true colors.  Congrats!   I'm so happy you enjoy not contributing.  I'm sure all here appreciate your positions now.

More Admissions to being a Troll!?! Your parents must be so proud.

Look Honey, under the bridge, it's our Troll.  Don 't talk to him though. He will leave you dissatisfied.  Like a mayonnaise sandwich, no meat.

Oh, I know he's not interested in science.  I mean, look at all those statements by "experts."  Not one of them is supported by anything other than the reputation of the person making the statement.  That is what I call public opinion.  I think a lot of people read statements like those and believe that when a scientist who has published papers makes a statement against AGW it is the same thing as a scientist who has published proof against AGW, which is not the case.  Some scientists may disagree with AGW, and they are entitled to their opinions, but opinion doesn't carry much weight in the scientific community when significant, measurable, and geologically unprecedented changes are taking place. 
There's also this big conspiracy theory that scientists are working to keep AGW funding, but the truth is that if any scientist actually found evidence that something else is forcing global warming, they would get even more funding for finding something new.   

You want to have your cake and Eat it too:

A Concensus is when the bulk of papers and theories seem to point a certain direction, and a large body of scientists agree with this direction.  It is the large bodies opinion.  ACC is just such an opinion.  When a single scientist with published papers makes a statement about the direction he sees his papers and theories pointing, I would call that a personal concensus.  It is no less valid than a larger concensus.  And I would argue that it may be more valid, because of the more complete understanding the publusher has on the theorys being proported and used as a basis for that opinion. 

But, don't worry, I understand how it is. The opinion is only valid when it agrees with you.

Oh, and I forgot, sorry to not take the bait.

I was just trying to protect you from sounding foolish bringing up AGW when you should have switched to ACC.  The article we are technically discussing even switches between GW and CC.  I know its hard to keep up with the current propoganda phrases.  I was just trying to help.

I understand your point.  But, wouldn't you call the article itself ill-spirited chain yanking?  Phrases like "a sad little conference", "annual confusion of climate and weather", and "denier" are inherently inflammatory and ill-spirited.   Wouldn't you agree?

emily,
What are you doing? You have a major "denier" here (Deckrow). Why don't you crush him with your knowledge of Climate Change? Deckrow has challenged the article and somewhat entertained. It appears to me that Dirk has made up his mind on the topic and Deckrow is just adding to the debate. I would like to believe that as long as the discussion is going, let it go... We can all agree that both sides have made valid points, unless you are dismissing one point of view and that would be ill-spirited on its own. So mommy please let the men entertain.

Awesome.  I watched the whole video.  And downloaded and followed along with the slides.  It's nice to see such an easy to understand presentation debunking the catastrophic effect theories related to ACC.  Especially when it comes from a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.

Dirk I'm sorry but a NOVA special doesn't prove anything. What I look at is the actual science and global climate models and scientific data.

Climate science is not a simple subject and there are many things scientists don't know yet. Therefore the climate models are incomplete.

You wrote "Then YOU say "anything Al Gore says" is political not science"

That's not what I said. I said that when Al Gore says it's "settled science" it's a political statement. Science doesn't prevent or try to silence oposing views.

If you read that book I suggested above and see the video presentation from the MIT professor you will see why it's not settled science.

And be sure to check out the links to the LiFTR power plants. Whether you believe climate change or not those power plants I think is something we can all agree on.

Dirk,

You asked "where oh where did you get the idea that AGW/ACC is not settled science"? Perhaps you should watch the video Konstantin provided a link to.  The video presented by an actual Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT clearly explains that it is not settled, and in fact mostly political.

And just to make it perfectly clear.  Nobody is claiming there is no Global Warming.  What is in dispute whether mankind is to blame for Global Warming, or if it instead outside of our control.

I think the best piece of info is the slide on page 7 of the linked PDF.  It shows the temperature deviations for the last 2000 years.  When seen  in context, as opposed to the 100 year out-of-context slice Al Gore and Friends usually use, you can clearly see that the phase we are in is still much cooler than the temperature rise for year 250 to 1000.

I wouldn't exactly call the money being wasted on investments in "alternative" energy fixes as losing nothing. I wouldn't exactly call the huge amounts of natural resources being consumed in the name of fixing global warming as losing nothing.

 I wouldn't call the planned 19,000 miles of high tension power lines, connecting the wind turbines of the heartland with the energy squanderers on the east and west coasts, losing nothing.

 I wouldn't call all the water vapor being contributed to the atmosphere by farmers producing ethanol ("subsidized food burning"), which actually consumes 70% more energy in its production than it yields in fuel energy, not to mention the toll on the earth's resources to grow all that corn, as losing nothing.

I wouldn't call the environmental messes created in producing batteries for hybrid cars, losing nothing.

I wouldn't call all the money being used as stimulus for alternative energy technology (government subsidies), to fix a problem that may not exist, losing nothing.

I wouldn't call all the money being exchanged as green energy credits, and the continued pollution by those who buy these credits so that they can keep on polluting with a "green" image, losing nothing.

I wouldn't call all the money being spent on lobbyists to seek legislation to force wind energy down the throats of rural people who neither need nor want the energy produced by giant wind turbines in their back yards, yet must endure the health, safety and financial burdens of hosting them, losing nothing.

 Clearly there is a lot at stake here, and if we think we can afford to be mistaken, we are fooling ourselves. There are plenty of good reasons for conserving energy, number one in my book being: It is simply wrong to waste resources that are finite. There are plenty of good reasons for curtailing pollution. There are plenty of good reason for preserving bio-diversity and protecting species from extinction. There are plenty of good reasons for spreading the wealth around. So what is wrong with doing the right thing, for the right reason?

We can't seem to know whom to trust in either our media or our scientists, so let's start trusting our hearts. Our energy policies are just plain wrong, whether or not they warm the planet. We can't scare people into doing the right thing any more than we can legislate them from doing the wrong thing. This economic reset is a great time to start from scratch and build a culture based on empathy rather than greed. But the change must be based on what we truly know, and not what experts tell us to believe.

We know that farming organically, and on a small scale, is healthy, both to the farmer and to local economies. We know that war is extremely wasteful and fixes only the problems that leaders have, not that the people of warring nations have.
We know that small is beautiful, and that centralized power corrupts. We know that technology is just an increasingly effective way to rape the planet of its resources. We know that our money is just worthless pieces of paper and that there is no real shortages of the things it can buy, so the problem must be the monetary system. We know that the stock market is usury and that usury is something all the great religions warn us will come to no good. We know that you can't get something for nothing. We know the golden rule. We know that money and material things are not making us happy. We know the government is not going to save us. Obama is not the messiah.

What are we waiting for? We can never know the future. How can we continue to worship these climate prophets, when we know what needs to be done and how to do it, without asking the government to give it to us without any effort on our part? What can you do to live more sustainably and set an example for your community?

One correction. I know it's not easy to understand all the technical details of LiFTRs in the video. You talked about meltdowns. LiFTRs don't meltdown. They don't work that way at all. There's no such thing as a meltdown with them

I'll reply more when I have more time.

One problem. With the Obama administration biased in favor and subsuduzung wind and solar power tech they are not letting the market work out the best solution like you said. What we will get is the biased solution of the administration and of the Rocky Mountain Institute which is having an unfair influence on the administration.

I Agree.  With politicians setting the priorities, instead of science and the market, we are almost guaranteed to back the wrong technologies.

Konstantin and Chris ~
Perhaps you missed the current turmoil.  Let me explain. We (well, really it was the Bush Administration, but we rolled over and played dead, to our eternal embarrassment) we let the 'market forces' deal with the economy and particularly the mortgage market.  It didn't go so well, in case you missed it.  The business community didn't take care, not even for their own future (unless you count bonuses). This has placed the economy of the world on a thin edge and most Americans with a future considerably bleaker than it was a few years ago. No, leaving the market to do "it's thing" is a quick (very quick) way to failure.  I know you think all politicians are bad, bad, bad.  But as Churchill said: "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried..."
No ... were I you, I'd quit bashing the duly elected representatives of the people and notice how often business gets us in deep trouble (see: Equity Funding, Long Term Capital Management, Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., the S&L crisis, MCI, GMC, Chrylser .... the list is long and prickly.)  You don't like the way politicians act ... change 'em.  You got the vote and the persuasive powers.  Go to it.

FYI,

You are correct that de-regulation caused this mess.  What made it even worse was the new regulation that replaced the repealed act.  Then when some tried to increase regulation, it was vehemently opposed.

Let me flesh that out for you:
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was created after the first stock market crash as part of the reforms intended to prevent another crash.  It created the FDIC, included banking reforms, and was designed to control speculation.  It set lending standards that were designed to limit bad loans.

In 1977 President Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act.  It was designed to reduce discrimination in the credit and housing markets.

In 1999 President Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which, in his words "establishes the principles that, as we expand the powers of banks, we will expand the reach of the [Community Reinvestment] Act"  This also repealed the parts of the Glass-Steagall Act.

11 Times in his presidency, President Bush tried to INCREASE regulation because many were predicting the crash we are in, if changes were not made.  Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and others fought tooth and nail to prevent the increase in regulation because, in their words, there was nothing wrong.

Which brings us to today.  These government created problems collapsed the banking industry.  Several other companies, heavy with their own problems went down too.  Rather than let these failed companies fall apart, and let the market fix itself, again the government stepped in, and spent trillions of dollars to prop up failed companies.  This caused losses of trillions of dollars in the stock market,

All of these problems are direct result of government interference.  Government has a very fixed role in the constitution for a reason.  They founders knew that when power hungry people in government are allowed to control "us" they invariably mess things up.

WE are the solution.  WE are the market.  WE can only be excellent when the government stays out of our way.