I do not think that climate change and topics like that are something that the public should agree upon until at least the scientists agree upon it. Public opinion on science does not make it any more or less correct as they have not gone through the scientific rigor that the scientists are supposed to go through. Science is self-correcting as well, if a fact is wrong, other scientists will eventually find it. In general, the public treats science like it is an opinion as if there is the option to disagree on a scientific conclusion and have it be perfectly acceptable. That is like disagreeing with the theory of gravity and then jumping off a building. No body likes gravity or finds it an acceptable theory just before they impact the ground...but that does not make it not true as their relatives find out.

Science is not perfect. As more knowledge is gained, some theories must be over turned and some are cemented into reality even further. As Feynman would say, we can never know that we are right. ... Just that it isn't proved wrong.

I do not think the general public really understands the mathematics behind the science...because there is more to it than just what politicians would have one believe or can even be covered in a 30 second or 5 min news story.

JTR,

I do not think that climate change and topics like that are something that the public should agree upon until at least the scientists agree upon it.

That's prudent - but here's the problem. Scientists do agree on climate change - 97% of active climatologists agree that the planet is warming, and human activity is driving it. Our own National Academy of Sciences calls it 'settled fact'. So does every other accredited scientific organization in the world. The Pentagon is now drawing up plans to address the threat to National Security posed by climate change - as is the CIA.

Were you aware of those facts? Most people aren't. They don't get a lot of press. But there's no controversy about whether climate change is actually happening in scientific circles. There's no controversy about it in the Pentagon.

Human-caused climate change is indeed 'settled fact'. Politicians place values (and votes) over that fact at our peril.

JRS, not JTR.

PR: "Our own National Academy of Sciences calls it 'settled fact'. So does every other accredited scientific organization in the world."

That's EVERY SINGLE scientific body of national or international standing; the National Academy (or its equivalent) of every nation on Earth, as well as ALL other scientific bodies. The VERY LAST scientific holdout - The American Association of Petroleum Geologists - accepted the position in 2007.

To deny climate change is to put ones self at opposition with Science. It is no longer a question of "is it happening and are we the cause?" - that is now proven beyond a reasonable doubt; but rather a question of "how bad is it going to be, and what can we do about it?"

"What are we going to do about it?" is where the debate NEEDS to be, but that question is hard, so it's so much easier to ignore the problem and deny, deny, deny.

Hi Michael: "What are we going to do about it?" Indeed! IMHO, the answer is twofold. First reduce use of fossil fuels, especially oil, because that is a really good thing to do for many reasons. But, second, stop worrying so hard!

I subscribe to the part of the Gaea hypothesis that suggests that the entire Earth's ecosystem has evolved in the same way as individual organisms - to survive. I believe that it is well adapted to to survive such frequent events as global warming and cooling, and will continue to do so.

I dimly recall a Scientific American article about a paleontological study of Colombia and Venezuela during a global warming episode far more severe than today's. The author's hypothesis was that because that region was the hottest on the planet at that time, that making it even hotter would have caused serious loss of biodiversity, since there were no species better adapted to heat that could move into the area from somewhere else. They were surprised to find that the amount and diversity of pollen grains in the fossil record both actually increased. Their revised hypothesis was that the increased stress had caused an increased rate of speciation.

Oh - and one more thing: I would really appreciate just one more week of above-freezing temperatures in the fall so that I could finally enjoy a crop of tomatoes.

In the response to the global climate change discussion, the question I would like explained would be the underlying mathematics of the trend line often cited in relationship to the current accepted conclusions. Drawing any trend line on a stochastic process is dangerous. Instead, the mathematics should focus on the processes responsible for creating the time series that we measure as temperature. For climate change to be due to anthropogenic causes, the underlying physical processes must have changed. If the physical processes have remained the same, then the cause is something going on with the inputs into the climate system, not a change in the physical process itself.

As a species, I don't think we have the luxury of "time to reach a consensus." I just hope the "deniers" are right and this is just a "phase." If they are wrong, we may already be way past the point of no return. Technology and science may be our one last card to play.

"GOP hopeful Mitt Romney slipped into scientific doublespeak this week when he told a rally that "we don’t know what’s causing climate change" — seemingly contradicting his earlier statement that "I believe humans have contributed" to the increase in global mean temperatures."

This is silly. What's contradictory about saying that, while mankind is likely causing SOME increase in global warming, we may not know whether he is the MAIN cause?

I guess msnbc seems to think you have to have an extremist view on everything.

The interesting observation is that Republicans believe in 'listening to the generals on the ground' because those generals know the conditions and have a better understanding of what is required. A considerable amount of tax dollars have been spent based on trust in generals.

Yet the Republicans discount scientists on climate change or 'global warming'. The same criteria for generals apply to scientist.

War on trust -- science on individual belief.

Well, the scientific community is near-unanimously in agreement over man's disruption of the global climate. The scientists have no doubt, but Big Business has spent a LOT of money fabricating uncertainty in the public discourse.

Romney may very well win the nomination but there's no question this guy will say anything to get elected. People wonder why Cain is leading in the polls? Its simple, Perry and Romney are snake oil salesman and Cain its just being honest about what he thinks, like it or not.

I understand we cannot completely understand the exact causes of Global Warming, but why the hell wouldn't you weigh on the side of caution? Its our only planet, we can't build another one!

Director of the Goddard Institute, James Hansen, recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that Obama has "only four years left to save the earth" from "runaway warming." He told the London Observer in February that "The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death." Hansen maintains that recent warming has pushed the planet close to a "tipping point" for runaway warming. What recent warming? Three hundredths of a degree C over 30 years, with temperatures still declining, doesn't seem worth ruining the world's economies. -- April 20, 2009

"The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won't be there. The trees in the median strip will change." Then he said, "There will be more police cars." Why? "Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up."

ROY

MSNBC has NOT taken an extremist view. The extremist view is opposition to the position held nearly unanimously by climate scientists .... that human activity is indeed causing very rapid climate change. This view has been hindered by the disinformation campaign waged by the Koch brothers, Exxon Mobile and others who have spent $millions funding fake "research institutes", lobbying efforts and advertising campaigns. You fell for the lies and now are a proud lackey speaking up for the dishonest energy companies who stand to continue to rake in $billions because we refuse to adopt a rational energy policy in this country.

"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers." Michael Oppenheimer, published in "Dead Heat," St. Martin's Press, 1990.

In response to all those who have commented, I think that there is a huge misunderstanding. The issue is not the reality of global warming/climate change. It is in the delivery. The public, layman, average Joe doesn't have access to labs and official reports. What they have is the modern media... which they don't trust already. Then you mix in the politics and you could be saying that stop signs are red and there would be a segment that fought back.

I am really surprised, in a way, that there is such a lack of comprehension of these truths. It's like... you should believe us just because we say it is so. Life doesn't work that way. The message has been lost and turned into a political issue because it was so seriously flubbed from the outset. Making it worse is all this debate that doesn't even address the main issue of public opinion.

If climate change is real... and it is not my intent to argue that point here, then the effort should be redirected and repackaged or the whole thing is gonna be lost.

Old Mitt, New Mitt, Red Mitt, Blue Mitt

He has convicition and stands on principals following the release of every new poll.

Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

roger, you are a perfect example of the problems this article is addressing. You actually think that the climate change idea was started by liberals, so automatically you are agoanst it and grab whatever sound bites you think might help your political viewpoint. If you actually had an open mind, you would discover that there is a very strong scientific case for anthropogenic climate change. But you have shut yourself off from even considering the probability, and even now are looking for a new denier talking point to throw at me.

Tell the dinosaurs how resilient the Earth was back in their day.

There is no problem jocko, he is trying to point out the truth to you. We also don't trust unsubstaniated comments made on forums like this.

In regard to the comment that "the mathematics should focus on the processes responsible for creating the time series that we measure as temperature," physicists worked out the math for the thermal radiation properties of CO2 back in the 1950s, using theory and reliable experimental data, and that math is incorporated in almost all climate models today. In regard to the exaggerated statements made by a handful of scientists, those are unfortunate, but don't in any way change the reality of what's happening. There is plenty of research showing that climate is already being affected, for example more frequent droughts in some areas, floods in other areas, in addition to the temperature trend.

If Al Gore really believes in Global (fill in the blank), Why does he fly around in a PRIVATE jet while leaving his big SUV running? Why does he not give up his Mansion that uses more energy in one month than most third world countries use in a year?

Add the fact that every fifteen years they change from crying global warming to global cooling and back again. It HAS happened in my lifetime.

These things are why people cannot believe in Global warming or cooling or whatever they chose to call it at any give moment.

The only reason this is a political issue is because big oil and big coal stand to lose a lot of business if renewable energy takes off. For people who deny global warming, it's a special interest issue. For the rest of us, it's not political at all.

I subscribe to the part of the Gaea hypothesis that suggests that the entire Earth's ecosystem has evolved in the same way as individual organisms - to survive. I believe that it is well adapted to to survive such frequent events as global warming and cooling, and will continue to do so.

I certainly wouldn't disagree with that statement. However the more important question is, how well will mankind survive in a vastly different ecosystem? Comfortably, poorly, or not at all.

The more correct way to understand evolution is that only those organisms which are adapted to the environment will survive, and to understand that the history of the Earth includes at least five major extinction episodes, plus the extinction episodes that is currently underway. We are changing the environment of plants and animals by expanding into their ecosystems, and we change the environment by altering the climate.

Humans have wiped out a large percentage to plant and animal species over the past couple of hundred years by destroying habitat ..... the human-caused global climate change will extend that mass extinction for the foreseeable future.

The deniers have let the the agenda of the Koch brothers drive they're their dialog. The vast majority on climate change denial material comes from sources funded by the Koch brothers. The reporting of the denial-based viewpoint is only by right-wing owned and operated media.

Unless you have a direct interest in Koch Industries, are a paid lobbyist for the oil and gas industry, work for a right-wing media outlet or are a Republican operative, why would you actively deny climate change? Why would actively support the pollution of the environment? It makes no rational sense whatsoever unless you are directly profiting from it...but even then it doesn't really make sense...

This is true. A variant of that might be that scientists deal with working theories while politicians put forth theories that don't have to work to be useful for their purposes.

Another problem is the dumbing down of America. We pooh-pooh the intellectuals, the ones who do well in school. They're dismissed as the Intelligensia, the Elite, living in irvory towers and out of touch with reality. Kids idolize rap and sports stars, not Einstein or Hawking. How many engineers and scientists are we graduating? How many people even understand what a theory is, never mind a hypothesis or the scientific process.

Such people see science as a threat. They deny the increasingly obvious claims of climate science because they don't want to know.

That's absurd. The best estimates are that the so-called Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago was only about 0.1 deg C warmer than normal (globally), versus 0.75 deg C today. Don't believe everything that Google turns up.

Actually Roger, there was no GLOBAL Medieval Warm Period. Period. Some Northern Hemisphere warming at different places and different times. I've read the papers, you haven't. Deal with it. Go find some other denialist lie to peddle..... I'm sure you will.

edandbunny,

You obviously don't understand how science works. There's a process called "peer review" which means exactly that, it's review by your peers and btw your peers are not paid by the same people you are...

If you're some grand conspriracy theorist then I feel sorry for you but if not then you need to understand how science works before you make statements like you just made.

I just read that the scientist the Koch brothers hired to disprove climate change has concluded it is real.

Oops. I'm sure the brothers were not happy.

@affable100 I am quite well aware of how peer review works, my concern is that too many dont. Another concern is that our Govt will make policy decisions without demanding peer review.

Scientists arent perfect. Mistakes can happen, biases can creep in, and there is always the factor of the unknown, therefore the need for peer review.

A good example of data a without peer review is from the Gulf oil spill. Scientist made predictions on the dispersal and damage of the oil spill. Reality did not match their findings. They cant account for a large amount of oil they say should be there but isnt. I see 4 possibilities:

A They didnt calculate the oil flow rate correctly.

B They didnt properly account for the dispersant used on the spill.

C There was an uncounted for deep current which took the oil to a yet unknown area of the sea.

D Mother nature had a trick up her sleeve and dealt with the oil naturally.

Personally I hope the answer is D and scientists can discover the mechanism so as to use it in the future to help clean our environment. The point is they were wrong and their numbers needed peer review. In this case it needed to be treated as fact as the damage was already being done, but not all cases are like that. I dont blame politicians so much as I blame the news media. They love to sensationalize preliminary findings as facts. When the data doesnt hold up we blame the scientists, which is really not fair in all cases.

Why don't you document that- Ed&Bunny. What I've read in my journals says the opposite. The "error" if there was an error was that the oil dispersed at middle depths....and was found there in vast amounts.

So who said how much was predicted, who said what was find... your sources please.

And why the P)(*U)_(* in the middle of a )(*)_* crisis like an oil spill of this magnitude are you raising the phoney issue of peer review? Are you going to do an EPA environmental impact statement while the house is burning down too?

You should in no way be comparing the Deep Horizon mess with peer review (which is abundant) for climate change.

And why the P)(*U)_(* in the middle of a )(*)_* crisis like an oil spill of this magnitude are you raising the phoney issue of peer review? Are you going to do an EPA environmental impact statement while the house is burning down too?

Do you even read what people say or do you find something you dont like and then go spouting off like a dumbdonkey without reading more? Try looking at the third sentence in the final paragraph.

As for who predicted, I most certainly hope the EPA did. Its hard to plan a proper cleanup if you dont know what amount there is to clean up. Its not rocket science to figure out either. All you need to know is the rate of flow from the well and how long the oil flowed. You then multiply the two numbers.

My sources, are the AP wire. last I had read there was not as much oil as the expected. If that has changed since I last read a news article then thats the way it is. Although I will admit disappointment if all the projected spill was accounted for. I did hope for the possibility of an unknown process in nature that dealt with the oil.

@checkitout

Source Scientific American article title"One year after BP oil spill 1.1 million barrels still missing"

Your sources please.

roger ramjet44060

Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

This can also be found on "the Daily Mail" in their science and tech section. if you then google snowfall in the UK you will find that this prominent scientists predictions did not happen. In fact on Dec 1, 2010 areas of the UK received as much as 44cm of snow. Where was the peer review? If it was done can we say massive fail.

Dont get me wrong, I do agree that man is not just damaging but in places outright destroying the environment. I also do not disbelieve that global warming is real and is a danger to humanity. But can anyone wonder why many people do doubt it when there are cases like this. Peer review my backside. Scientist arent perfect and do make mistakes. They are only human. But lets not hand the complete disbelievers more sensationalism to crow about.

Oh Mitt stands for something, Wall Street...

Just like Obama

Like any politician.

I am a scientist and I reject your reality. While I agree that you do have to look at the source of funding and I always do, I also understand that what you are referring to are the people in the scientific community who practice pseudo-science and give all scientists a bad name. There is a book called "How to Lie with Statistics" and it offers several examples of how one can work the math of statistics to get the answer they want. That is something that real scientists would reject.

There are scientists that seek scientific truths. For example, there is a theory of gravity and it has been well established. Yet, scientists would not say it is right, but that it has not been proved wrong. Science is a self-correcting field. The whole thing about Climate Change and cigarette smoke...well, what happened is that science corrected the cigarette smoke (after a long process as knowledge about it improved) and what we are experiencing now in the global warming debate is the middle of the self-correcting process. There is a saying in science for a new theory to take hold or a paradigm shift in the status quo, you have to wait for all the people latched on to the old one to die off...because some are stubborn. Or take Alfred Wegener who discovered plate tectonics back around 1915...he could not prove it, was laughed at and died never knowing that years later, in the late 1950s, the evidence of the mechanism was discovered that later proved him right. Science eventually came through for him though sometimes, it takes more than a lifetime. Some things do follow mathematics...very good mathematics that are sound in principle and theory...which is why you have the internet, a computer, an LED/LCD screen, smart phones...that is science as well.

My point is that you cannot just stereotype all scientists based on the actions of a few. Many scientists do work hard and reject any outside influence because we are interested in scientific truths. Take the Challenger disaster and Richard Feynman,NASA and the politicians did not want to admit that the O-rings caused the disaster because it would be bad public relationships. Feynman, a scientist, refused to sign the report unless they admitted it, it came out in the press, and Feynman was able to force their hand to admit things so that people could learn from their mistakes. After all, nature cannot be fooled nor does nature recognize man made political boundaries called countries.

JRS - a A+1 post; well said.

Excellent post JRS.

What you spoke of regarding an open-minded attitude, is what I find most refreshing in science. People that truly seek the truth in science allow let that pursuit take them wherever it needs to - regardless of the consequences to traditional thinking. Discovering everything you know is wrong is a frightening proposition for some; however it is ultimately beneficial when it leads to not only why a previously accepted fact is wrong / not correct for all cases but also opens the doors to other possibilities.

JRS
Well said. What concerns me is that likely 25% of our country's inhabitants have forgotten about how science is a self correcting process, and it make take more than 10 years of wasted time for a "paradigm shift" to take hold, assuming global warming is even more real than we will ever understand....

What always surprises me is how global warming and evolution are "debates" that are almost exclusive to this country, currently the world's No. 1 polluter and No 1 worst generation of Americans able to solve problems. People abroad stare and wonder at how our once great nation has fallen so far behind so fast.

@JRS, I can assume your reply is aimed at me. "I am a scientist and I reject your reality" Its about damn time. Now if all the other REAL scientists (the ones who are honest and let the data speak for itself without twisting it) would speak out along with you, the world would improve by so much.

I dont see what I said as stereotyping as such. What you call pseudo science is becoming the face of real science while the real people who invent things like LCD's and smartphones are shoved to the side while the corporations take credit. I see what I said as more of a wake up call. Did it piss you off? If yes then I say good, mission accomplished.

@JRS, you have made the case that Wegner and Feynman were outside the consensus - so they were "deniers". I was lazily going along with the AGW theory until climategate emails exposed the fraud. If the AGW scientists suppress dissent the proper conclusion is even they don't believe in AGW.

@JRS, Newtonian gravity was proven wrong by careful measurement, and Einstein's theory fails at the quantum level. Today, all theories of gravity are wrong.

"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers." Michael Oppenheimer, published in "Dead Heat," St. Martin's Press, 1990.

workingpoor-2370498,

I'm sorry but that's a really, really ignorant statement. Sure scientists can be whores just like politicians but and this is the big difference, science is subject to peer review where others who are not paid by the same folks as you review and try to replicate your findings.

The vast majority of scientists said cigarettes were bad for you long before the government did anything about it because big tobacco would bring in their whores to refute what all the others were saying and since the politicians were also whores of big tobacco (John Boehner being one of the biggest) they drug their heels and denied it until the evidence was overwhelming.

Well the evidence on climate change has been overwhelming for a long time but the whores in Washington and talk radio are still trying to fool ya'.

The moral of the story; don't be a fool...

What is the "overwhelming" evidence?

Our country's governing system with elected politicians being put into a position of power to make decisions and laws on subjects which they are not educated about doesn't seem to be working too well. Like what huge amounts of unnatural pollution put into our ecosystem winds up doing to the natural world we and our children and their children's children are depending on to be able to live. And hopefully our decedents live a good life with plenty of food, room, peace, and opportunity not to mention joy sometimes. Get directions from those who can make the most educated guesses and our % of success goes up....how much? Unfortunately our system puts people in power who are focused on saying what will get them elected and make them $. Too often not the truth. Too often ignorant. Too often greedy. There have been and are some good politicians though. With integrity. A few great statesman. Politicians who are willing to work compromises and actually govern. Ahhh wouldn't that be nice?

Kacey, what concerns me is that 25% of our countries inhabitants believe that the Sun circles around the Earth.

Affable100

Well the evidence on climate change has been overwhelming for a long time but the whores in Washington and talk radio are still trying to fool ya'.

Who ever said I was fooled? I just said any opinion you want you can get by paying for it. It doesn't need to be proven, only create doubt in the public mind.

JRS-619990

You are right to a point. Not ALL scientists are whores. But they don't need to be. Enough are to bring public opinion about the field to that conclusion. Even if they don't dissemble on purpose the "publish or perish" creed does enough damage on it's own.

Eggs are bad for you, No they're not.

cigarettes are bad for you, No they're not.

Global warming is going to bring us into another ice age, No the Earth will heat up and we'll all cook, No the whole theory is wrong.

Nuclear power will give us electricity safely, cleanly and too cheap to meter. Uh, yeah.

The crap mill keeps pumping it out and we're all supposed to take everything at face value because they're (Wait for it! OOOOOOOO scientists.) Modern day gods bringing fire to mankind.

Director of the Goddard Institute, James Hansen, recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that Obama has "only four years left to save the earth" from "runaway warming." He told the London Observer in February that "The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death." Hansen maintains that recent warming has pushed the planet close to a "tipping point" for runaway warming. What recent warming? Three hundredths of a degree C over 30 years, with temperatures still declining, doesn't seem worth ruining the world's economies. -- April 20, 2009

"The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won't be there. The trees in the median strip will change." Then he said, "There will be more police cars." Why? "Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up."

According to NOAA data, the global average temperature was 0.42 deg C warmer in 2010 than 1980 (30 years ago), not 0.03 deg. 2010 tied 2005 for the warmest year on record, so there is no decline, at most a temporary flattening.

Mr Ramjet, I wonder if you realize that science is a self-correcting process; models that were extant 30 years ago have now been refined and are considerably more accurate. Instead of trying to address the accuracy of scientific models 30 years ago, may I suggest that you address the accuracy of scientific models today?

Ramjet is just cutting and pasting to try to prove his personal beliefs. He doesn't understand that citing one incorrect source does not prove that all sources that express similar (not identical) views.

And he thinks that repeating this over and over makes it magically become truth. Actually he'make a pretty good politician.

Unfortunately in the USA the Politicians control the purse strings and the current popular agendas are the ones that receive the funding. The people that have opposing data or want to preform research projects counter to popular perceptions are vilified...

If that were really true, AC, we should have seen a huge flux of 'climate change isn't happening" or 'we aren't causing it' research being published during the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II Administrations. After all, those presidents appointed people to control the purse strings for research funding.

Instead, we saw nothing of the sort. The overwhelming consensus of research has been consistent for decades now. There is no difference in climate change findings as a function of who pays for the research.

You are basically calling scientists as a group 'whores'. Odds are, if you're over the age of 32, you wouldn't even be alive today were it not for the hard, poorly-paid work of those same 'whores'.

AC Robertson has been calling scientists "whores" for quite some time. He puts a lot of time and energy into denying climate change. It is ironic when such people claim to be defending science. It is also very maddening, since my main purpose here IS to defend science.

It strikes me that there are far greater financial incentives in denying global warming is linked to human activities, at least in the short run. On one hand you have scientists who, as AC Robertson states correctly, live or die (professionally) by their ability to get research grants. But on the other hand you have the entire industrial, transport and agricultural sectors of our society which would face expensive adjustments if society as a whole decided that emissions of green house gases must be drastically reduced.

I'm guessing that there is a great deal more money behind this second motive, which is understandable. In the short run, it will be quite expensive to move to greener sources of energy. But, the only thing more expensive will be taking such actions later, if action is justified.

So what does the balance of evidence currently available tell us?

The Earth's climate has warmed measurably in the last 150 years. This rise closely parallels the increase in human-sourced carbon emissions. Yet, the Earth has warmed and cooled, sometimes dramatically, at many times in its geological past. But there must always be a cause for these changes. Increased or decreased solar radiance, changes in the configuration and elevation of the continents, or the proliferation of new plant and animal forms have all been proffered as the cause of past global changes in climate. However, I know of no such change over the last 150 years,which would account for the warming climate, except mankind's increase carbon emissions.. So, yes, I would say there is a very good case to be made that our climate is warming and we, meaning the human race, are largely responsible.

Maybe tomorrow or next year, science will uncover some other, as yet unknown, influence on the climate. But until then, those who discount man as the cause of our climate change are sounding very much like the people who were loudly proclaiming that smoking was good for you back in the 60s and 70s.

Of course, all of this is mostly of academic interest. If there is one thing that recent human history has shown, is that the global community has almost no ability to act in concert, or even to agree on the basic principles for action. Chances are humanity will continue continue to do pretty much what it has been doing, until the wheels are coming off the cart. Then we'll go to war.

@Physicist, Your first sentence exemplifies the real problem. Your statement sets a bar so high no one can meet it. Lets face a some simple facts, the earths climate has been changing continuously since the day it formed, so climate change is always happening. As for Mankind causing changes anyone who has ever live in the desert southwest has experienced and understands the heat island effect. The real problem is when environmental scientist take the attitude of "How dare you question my results". Uh maybe because that is how science is supposed to work.

The real question is not whether our climate is changing, but how much of the change is man made vs. what is happening naturally.

dman...

The Little Ice Age ended about 150 years ago...if course it has been warming some since. No-one can realistically predict if or when the warming will stop, or reverse.

@Dman, My concern with the numbers being used to show warming has to do with the heat island effect
I mentioned above. Man made object retain more heat than natural ones and buildings slow the winds dispersion of heat. The effect is that as cities get larger they get warmer. One must know how much of that heat island effect is localized vs how much it affects the environment as a whole before being added to any climate model. If you add in cities temperatures as one to one on overall environmental effect when the actual number may 1/10 or 1/100th actual effect the numbers will be way off. I have never read or heard of this being factored in so I have concerns about the data's accuracy. Realistically the most accurate numbers will be from temperatures taken from remote areas where there is no direct man made change in temp.

The Little Ice Age ended about 150 years ago...if course it has been warming some since. No-one can realistically predict if or when the warming will stop, or reverse.

No one denies that, wally. The question I posed was why did it end. There has been no attendant rise in the sun's radiance. The continents certainly have not changed their configuration, or mean elevation.

So what's changed?

Sticking a label on an event and calling it the "end of the little ice age", only names it. It does not explain it.

edandbunny - Yes, the effect of cities as heat islands or heat magnets may have a net effect on the global climate. But I've never seen a climate model as to what that effect might be, and whether it is significant as compared to the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. But either way, we are still speaking of man-made global warming.

Dman you miss my point. We must have faith in the numbers describing the rate of change before we make policy decisions to fight it. There is a big difference between "We need to everything possible right now to fix this even at the risk of destroying our society as we know it" to "We need to do our best to educate and change the way we do things so we have a healthy environment for our grandchildren". Do we need change absolutely. Who are we supposed to trust for the answers though?To much of science has been whored out to political and personal agendas that many of us dont know who to trust. Right wing scientists? Well anyone who can scientifically believe the earth is only 5000 years old isnt to be listened to. Environmentalists? There is some good science there but Too many times I see they fail to view the whole picture and do almost as much damage as good.

A perfect example is our country's forests. They were being over logged and clear cutting was destroying full habitats. So environmentalist science was forced down the forest managers throats. ( notice I said environmentalist not environmental) Fast forward to today and we find our forests in just as much danger but this time from fire. We had overcared for our forests and left them vulnerable to fires that in earlier times would have cleaned up the forest floor but left the ecosystem intact.

We need good data we can trust so that we can try to form policies that fix our issues without us falling victim to unintended consequences. Environmentalists arent good at this and there are way too many doing the research in global warming.

dman & edandbunny:

The recent pre-release of the Berkely Earth Project (funded in part by the Koch brothers and run by "climate skeptic" physicist Richard Muller) has shown, after analysis of over 1 billion global temperature readings from the 1800s to the present:

1. Heat islands have no affect on overall climate.
2. The average global land temperature rise since the 50s is about 1C
3. The data produced by this study is nearly identical to the similar NASA, NOAA, Met Office, and UEA* studies.

(see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/20/global-warming-study-climate-sceptics)

Long story short: Without a doubt world wide land** temperatures are rising at a precipitous rate: changes the sun's luminosity, and variations in earth's tilt and orbit are insufficient to explain this change. What's left is man's output of carbon dioxide** which is about 30 billion tonnes per year (compared to volcanism's measly 200 million tonnes).

If we take the skeptics position and do nothing about this and the skeptics are wrong, the consequences will be dire a few decades down the road...coastal cities flooded, shift of climate growth zones to unfertile areas, desertification the current drier areas &c. &c.

If we take the alarmists position and do everything to reduce fossil fuel usage globally and the alarmists are wrong, the consequences will be pretty benign...new, cleaner energy technologies, more efficient transport, and a whole slew of new jobs.

*UEA is the source of the much maligned "climategate" e-mails. After an extensive investigation, all concerned have been cleared of any wrong doing.

**Some of which is dissolved in the oceans, thus increasing the acidity of them. This seems to be affecting coral reef ecologies around the world.

edandbunny - I don't think we'll have the luxury to fully understand every aspect of the change which is occurring. You propose that the "heal island" effect may be skewing the numbers, but you supply no supporting data. It is just a theory, and as far as I know, your theory.

As to your pronouncements regarding the timber industry and the nation's forests, I haven't noticed that forest fires are any more common today than at any time in the past. Cyclical drought and periodic fires have been norm in many forested regions in the western states for many years.

So, post some evidence that these heat islands are modifying the measurements of scientists. Then there is some basis for discussion.

I'm pretty much of your opinion, MDH1949. I hope I haven't given the impression otherwise.

@dman, My own personal theory? Wow, that must mean that Berkely spent a lot of time and effort just to disprove my theory. Is that the best you can do for personal attacks?

Next you put words into my mouth, I never said there were more fires, but that the forests were more vulnerable.

This is all a real good example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

As for evidence being posted, I have, MDH has, but you have posted nothing. No you resorted to personal attacks and putting words in my mouth. And we wonder why communication has broken down in this country.

What bothers me most is that I have seen numerous articles referencing the fire issue I have quoted. What I havnt seen is an article stating anything about how studies have worked to eliminate the heat island effect from their data. I could understand this if I was a Faux news watcher, but I am not. Also this study, (here is a better link)

clearly states that the heat island effect is a major point of contention. So why isnt this all over the news?

@MDH, first thanks for the link. Second I am not so sure making the changes will be as benign as you think. If all it involved was hard science then yes I would agree, but when you change as much in a society as the alarmists want and do it rapidly, social science will gum up the works. Our country, no our world cant even come up with a decent reasonable fiscal policy, to think redoing the worlds energy policy will be painless is insane. Figuring out how to pay for it will be a nightmare also. That doesnt mean I dont think we should work at it, but rushing headlong like they did with the forests will likely cause issue we havnt thought about or dont even realize. Take the current darling, electric cars. Has anyone wondered at the environmental costs of the manufacture and disposal of millions of highly toxic batteries every year? Are we just trading one ecological disaster for another? Most important is the cost. Remember people who are worried about if they will have food or not have little care or concern for the environment. We have to make sure we dont bankrupt the world economy in trying to fix our problem. It can be done but it wont be simple, and if we screw up in the process there is a great chance it wont be benign.

As for the Berkely study I hope they are as open to peer review as they say. There are some interesting anomalies in their findings that I would love to see studied. Not to debunk the study, but to find out why.

Great I have been on newsvine for well over a year and it wont let me post links.

Let me try this

ajwaters!myweb!uga!edu

www!perc!org/pdf/Forest%20Policy%20Up%20in%20Smoke!pdf

berkeleyearth!org

just change ! to.

@dman, My own personal theory? Wow, that must mean that Berkely spent a lot of time and effort just to disprove my theory. Is that the best you can do for personal attacks?

Next you put words into my mouth, I never said there were more fires, but that the forests were more vulnerable.

First off, I'm not attacking you, personally, only observing that the theory you pose in this particular thread, which is not widely accepted, and for which you posted no underlying evidence, study or other corroboration. If only have your word that "heat islands" may be skewing measurements, then to whom should I attribute this theory?

BTW: I notice that you say Berkley spent a great deal of money disproving this theory. Have you any studies supporting it?

As to forests and forest fires, if there are not more forest fires, then how precisely do you reach the conclusion that forests have become more vulnerable to such events? Does a danger which is never manifested in real world events truly exist?

It is fun to pose what-if theories in support of your own contentions, but if the theories are not generally accepted, or even supported by creditable scientific studies, then they will be looked on as "your theories', and treated accordingly.

I did attempt to access the links you posted in your last message. One is some sort of pay as you go information center. The others ended nowhere.

dman:

Please be careful when using the word "theory". Part of the problem with the publics perception of science stems from a misunderstanding of the difference between the colloquial usage of the word, and the scientific usage. I'll explain, as much for everyone else's benefit as your own.

In most every day situations, the word "theory" is something of an informed guess or a hunch; which in the scientific process is more or less equivalent to the initial observation/hypothesis stage.

In science, the word "Theory" approaches the pinnacle of scientific thought. A Theory is a widely accepted explaination of how the world works which is overwhelmingly supported by empirical observational data and can be used to make reasonable predictions in the world. Examples include the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and Einstein's Theories of General and Special Relativity.

One of the things that really gets under my skin is when someone dismisses a line of scientific thought as "just a theory". You hear it quite often from creationists when they talk about evolution.

@dman Well just use the link @MDH supplied in post 9.10. At the beginning of the third paragraph is a link directly to the Berkeley earth study. You will find they have a whole section devoted to the heat island effect. It is real and they cite numerous studies to prove it. They also spend a good amount of time showing how they made sure that it did not affect their results. The link is there and does work so you need to go read it. It looks like a decent study and I will be waiting to see how it does under peer review.

The thing is if you at least skim a bit of the data and methodology you will see that heat islands are very real and since humans tend to take temps where they live the is a large amount of temperature data from those areas. A large amount of data for a small area too. Take Phoenix Arizona. It is a known and documented heat island and has hundreds if not thousands of weather stations to get readings from. Both factors could skew data. This is borne out in that the Berkeley study addressed both issues and used techniques to avoid that happening. I was actually pretty impressed. But again it isnt my personal theory, it was a concern. It is also a concern that has been voiced by people with far more credentials than I have or Berkeley would not have spent the time addressing the issue and ensuring it did not taint their data.

As for the things with fires, try

ajwaters dot myweb dot uga dot edu/

It was late and I forgot the final / last night. For that I apologize. There is no need for www. I am not going to try again on the other link because of its length. I found both by typing" increased forest fire damage" into Google. If you do that you will notice it seems to be a worldwide problem. I wish I could do the second link as it references directly to the US Forestry Service.

Basically the gist of it is that with the policy of heavy fire suppression we have allowed or forests to become thickly overgrown. In the past fires would clear out the undergrowth. They did not burn as hot and rarely reached the treetops. The fires also did not tend to burn overlarge areas. Today with all the undergrowth and smaller trees crowding the forest (earlier fires would not let this happen) Fires burn much hotter. This allows the smaller trees to catch fire and spread the fires into the treetops. Rather than cleaning the forest, fire now destroys it entirely and once into the treetops it can go faster and farther than before. Now depending on the article one reads, some only discuss proscribed burns, others discuss the use of controlled thinning with logging. I am sure that has to do with biases for or against the logging industry. In my opinion it makes no sense to not allow the harvest of trees that will be destroyed anyway with a controlled burn.

Just as a quick point, blue dot. I understand your frustration with inexact use of terms such as 'theory', especially when it is done with a conscious intent to confuse or misrepresent a particular circumstance.

The word 'Theory' actually has several meanings (from Dictionary.com):

noun, plural the·o·ries.

1. a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.
2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Synonyms: idea, notion hypothesis, postulate. Antonyms: practice, verification, corroboration, substantiation.
3. Mathematics. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
4. the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
5. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles: conflicting theories of how children best learn to read.

I believe that in the context of Global Warming, the first two meanings are the most relevant. I believe that the first is the definition to which you were referring. But the second definition is also a scientific term, and refers to concepts which are not universally accepted. I believe that the concept of man-influenced, global warming falls into this category. While there is strong evidence, and good logical reasons for ascribing to the theory that man is influencing his own climate, this belief is not held universally.
There is, I believe a slightly more colloquial meaning to the word "theory", where it is used to label conjectures which are largely personal, or unsupported by any strong scientific evidence. This is where I would place the theory of "heat islands" influencing global climate measurements, and also creationism.

edandbunny - yes, I did glance at this article and scan it for its treatment of uban heat islands and their impact on global climate change research. This is what I read.

However, the Berkeley study found that the so-called urban heat island effect, which makes cities warmer than surrounding rural areas, is locally large and real, but does not contribute significantly to average land temperature rises. This is because urban regions make up less than 1% of the Earth's land area. And while stations considered "poor" might be less accurate, they recorded the same average warming trend.

...and this is what wikipedia reports on the same subject:

Because some parts of some cities may be hotter than their surroundings, concerns have been raised that the effects of urban sprawl might be misinterpreted as an increase in global temperature. While the "heat island" warming is an important local effect, there is no evidence that it biases trends in historical temperature record. For example, urban and rural trends are very similar.

I'm not going to refer to wikipedia as an unassaible source, but it is certainly a starting point. And since MDH's site makes a similar pronouncement, I would ask again, what supporting sources you have for your theory?

Take Phoenix Arizona. It is a known and documented heat island and has hundreds if not thousands of weather stations to get readings from.

Sorry, I doubt seriously that Phoenix has hundreds, let alone thousands of weather stations, not unless you are counting every home with a thermometer in the kitchen window. I'll grant that if climatologists were so lazy as to station the majority of their weather monitoring stations in urban areas then it would skew the results. But you've presented no evidence that this is the case. Your statement that there are hundreds or even thousands of weather stations in Phoenix is just your assumption, until you back it up with some evidence.

I just did a quick check on the NCDC website for weather stations in AZ (http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?WWDI~StnSrch). There is a total of 888 in the entire state, most listed as inactive. Some are in Maricopa County. Many are not. And Phoenix is only a small part of Maricopa County.

Basically the gist of it is that with the policy of heavy fire suppression we have allowed or forests to become thickly overgrown. In the past fires would clear out the undergrowth.

Now, originally I thought you were saying that limitations on logging had increased the danger of forest fires. Now, you appear to be saying that supression of forest fires is at fault. Well, this is a side subject, so we should not spend a great deal of time on it. Regulating logging and use of forest fire supression as a forest management tool seem like separate subjects to me. It strikes that forest fire supression was once standard practice, but is now looked upon with disfavor.

@dman, Please explain your point of the quotes on heat islands and the fact they dont affect global temperatures. It has no bearing whatsoever on any part of this discussion. Having an affect on data is an entirely different subject from having an affect on climate itself. Where are you coming from? The point is really moot as I have already stated that the Berkelyearth study took steps to eliminate any possible bias from heat islands, thereby addressing the concerns that I and others had. Why are you still going on about it?

Ok the number is 888 in Az. I begin to think if I said the sky appears blue on a sunny day you would challenge that.

Now as for fire lets lookm at it another way. Lets take an overgrown forest with heavy underbrush that has been determined to be at high risk for total destruction by wildfire.

Option 1. Do a controlled burn even though there is a decent risk of losing control of the fire due to the forests condition.

Option 2. Give a logging company a lease to allow them to thin the forest and help remove the underbrush thus reducing the risk when the controlled burn is done, if a controlled burn is even needed at that point.

If you cant figure out how the environmentalists continuous court battles to stop all logging on public lands has contributed to the wildfire problem then there is no use in even discussing anything with you.

Ok the number is 888 in Az. I begin to think if I said the sky appears blue on a sunny day you would challenge that.

If you claim that there are hundreds, if not thousands of weather stations in Phoenix AZ (with no supporting reference), and I point out that there are but 888 weather stations in all of Arizona, a very large state, it is hardly the same as challenging your assessment of a sunny day.

Your statement regarding the number of weather stations in Phoenix was both unsubstantiated and wildly inaccurate and yet you used it in support of your belief that Urban Heat Islands are skewing global temperature measurements. Sorry, but if it is too annoying to actually verify facts in a debate, then all discussion is impossible.

As to the quotes you question, you are correct, the effect on global climate of urban heat islands is a separate phenomenon than their effect on global temperature measurements. The first quote only dealt with the first subject. But it was the link you specified, so I examined it. I found nothing conclusive in it regarding the skewing of temperature readings. That is why I provided a second source, from Wikipedia, which did state definitively that these heat islands are not thought to cause in accuracy in global readings.

The point is really moot as I have already stated that the Berkelyearth study took steps to eliminate any possible bias from heat islands, thereby addressing the concerns that I and others had. Why are you still going on about it?

I don't know. I believe that you are the one propounding the idea that Urban Heat Islands skew global temperature readings and thus exaggerating, or even creating, the global warming phenomenon.

your words:

The effect is that as cities get larger they get warmer. One must know how much of that heat island effect is localized vs how much it affects the environment as a whole before being added to any climate model. If you add in cities temperatures as one to one on overall environmental effect when the actual number may 1/10 or 1/100th actual effect the numbers will be way off.

If you accept this idea as discredited, than I have no particular reason to argue with your further.

As to forestry, current practices, their impact and whether they are inspired by environmentalists, I'm going to step aside from further debate. I'm far from convinced by your generalized statements, but, I see no reason to become enmeshed in what is essentially a side subject.

Hey dide, those scientist are on the take from those politicians as the federal govt funds their research projects. You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you so you tend to give your benefactor the results so desired, and that is to unequivocally support climate change. Corporations want Cap and Trade so bad they can taste it. Think about it, they get to off shore more manufacturing to Asia and get to seel Asia their carbon credits to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in PURE PROFIT!!!!! Maybe even billions!!!.

The same intelligent creeps that want us to invade the world over false pretenses? I thought we already had intelligent creeps in high office. Being intelligent does not mean you are a good person. Lenin and Hitler were highly intelligent. Does that make them fit to rule over people? Intelligent people also can be greedy, and dishonest. Look at Bernie Madoff. Who do you think controls Wall Street? A bunch of simpletons? In America anybody can be bought off for a high enough price. You think scientists can't be bought off, when their very existence as scientists is totally dependent on benefactors, ie donors?

Actually, this is not true. Apparently you don't understand how science is funded. Yes, government money goes to scientific agencies. Scientists must write proposals seeking funding and they undergo stiff peer review FROM OTHER SCIENTISTS. With acceptance rates of ~10% these days, sometimes worse. I have served on such reviews and I have never seen a proposal turned down because it was politically unpopular. Scientists as a rule couldn't care less what politicians think, because we can't change their minds. Politicians are motivated by money and lobbyists, while most scientists are motivated by trying to understand how the world (or whatever) works. This is why in the heyday of "climate change isn't real" most scientific societies were posting position statements to the contrary. Saying scientists can be bought off is a load of crap. We don't make anywhere enough money, if we are being bought off. As we tell students, you don't go into science for the fame, money or glory.

spaceGal. Very true. A huge bulk of scientific research is done by post docs. Their salaries are horrendous for the amount of training they have...

JS, you are so right. Many of these right wingers claim to have the corner on faith and religious knowledge. But what religious text preclude humans from scientific endeavors. In reading religious texts such as the Christin Bible, The Hindu Upanishads and Vedas, the Mamalestian Balenyata and the Muslim Koran, I found encouragement for scientific endeavor. Saint Thomas Aquinas was a perfect example of a man who integrated both.

CO2 isn't the problem in driving warming. It is solar flares that change weather patterns, etc. The last great "Warming" came circa 1400 and melted the N German Plain that helped make it arable land for growing food. Industrialization was still in its infancy circa 1880, so what caused the warming during previous centuries or epochs? You are being suckered into justifying the ongoing de industrialization of the US and West in general via Cap and Trade. Corporations have found a new excuse in their shipping more manufacturing to Asia and getting even more profits from selling their carbon credits to China, Russia, India,etc. For corporate America, the myth or more accurately the selling of global warming as a catastrophe is a big boon for them. Govt wins as they can pass more revenue generating laws on the corporations, but it will be a pittance or a fraction of what the corporations will get from selling their carbon credits to Asia.

Well, let's see ... there were almost no sunspots or big solar flares during the 2008-2010 time period, and yet global temperatures remained essentially at a record high (on average), with 2010 tied for the record high.

You might not, but the scientific community has a pretty thorough consensus about it.

So wait, you're saying that because the name got changed to something more accurate it's now less valid?

Typical conservative logic. When something gets more accurate, it somehow becomes less reliable.

No, saying that the proponents of these theories cannot get their @#$% straight and there is enough dissent, even in the scientific community to allow for doubt. The name got changed because the original theory, that everything was getting warmer, was wrong. It was more of a PR ploy than an accuracy thing. Not one scientist has PROVEN that the changes we have seen in very recent history are not part of a natural cycle.

So like I said, they update the name to make it more accurate, and you take that as evidence that it somehow got less accurate.

Face it, you're making excuses for keeping your head in the sand.

Trained and educated chemist here. I have friends in the field who have shown enough evidence for me to doubt. A name, a theory does not make. They changed the name and very little of the theory changed. the theory still hinges on global warming, but cooling trends in some years did not fit. They changed the name and still say that most of the phenomena is warming with occasional (loosely explained) cooling. When you pull YOUR head out of the sand, we will have some sun screen for your face. It has been a while since it has seen the light of day.

Consensus does not equal fact. Actually, the new name has gone from fairly specific to vague (what kind of climate change?). Toasty's head is stuck where the sun never shines.

When you get consensus from the experts, it's a good indicator of likelihood. General consensus is not fact, but informed consensus is damned close.

No, toasty is making an important point. You really only even have general consensus in science. This is due to the fact that scientists recognize that there may be a better model to explain something. Hence they refrain from calling it a fact out of a sense of humility. It's why we use the term theory for our most tested and trusted models. You can never fully prove something in the space of all possible events. So, requiring higher orders of proof when you have something that makes extremely accurate predictions or has an enormous amount of consensus among experts is rather stupid.

Hey RIC- fellow chemist...

So exactly what evidence did your pals show you? You know it kind of smells when all you deniers won't put up, just make vague claims.

That's quite a tin foil hat you've woven. Did it ever occur to you that maybe all the scientists are right, and you might be wrong?

Melting most of the polar ice (resulting in a 200-foot sea level rise) would take hundreds of years, but it could happen if nothing is done to stop it. And I'm sure Al Gore was talking about up to an 11-deg F temperature rise by the end of the century, which is at the upper limit of scientific predictions.

The entire Arctic ice cap could melt and there would be little or no change in sea levels. Floating ice takes up as much volume as melted ice*. The danger with rapidly melting the Northern Polar ice cap will the the sudden influx of cold, fresh meltwater into the North Atlantic. This might clobber the gulf stream which has a warming effect on north-western Europe.

However, when land ice melts (Greenland, continental Antarctica), then sea levels will rise.

EricH: You're right. The 5C-6C rise is predicted for 2100 if CO2 emissions continue at the same rate. The centuries prediction my end up as decades if some theorized positive feedback cycles actually happen.

*Experiment: Fill a bowl with water and put in ice cubes until the water is slopping over the brim. Will any more water go over the brim as the ice melts?

For them, science doesn't even exist.

Director of the Goddard Institute, James Hansen, recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that Obama has "only four years left to save the earth" from "runaway warming." He told the London Observer in February that "The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death." Hansen maintains that recent warming has pushed the planet close to a "tipping point" for runaway warming. What recent warming? Three hundredths of a degree C over 30 years, with temperatures still declining, doesn't seem worth ruining the world's economies. -- April 20, 2009

"The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won't be there. The trees in the median strip will change." Then he said, "There will be more police cars." Why? "Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up."

How scientific of him! Roger was wrong then as he is now. In another 20 years we will most likely be back in a cooling cycle and they will have to invent some other excuse. The sun controls our climate PERIOD! A control vehicle for the one world government is what it is all about. Don't be fooled! They have a short time to get all there plans achieved before the cooling cycle starts and throws a monkey wrench into their plans for world control!

Uh Charlie? You know HOW the sun controls our climate? Heat retention. You know the biggest factor in heat retention? Greenhouse gasses; perhaps you've heard this term. Now if you get too much of these gasses, we retain too much heat from the sun (that controls the climate, after all), and it violently disrupts our climate.

I wonder if we can persuade Mr Ramjet to address the accuracy of climate models today, as opposed to addressing the accuracy of climate models 30 years ago? It would appear he's not taken the time to familiarize himself with the last 30 years worth of research.

So Charlie ol pal....exactly what has the sun being doing all this time to raise global temperature...and where has this be published in the scientific literature. How did the IPPC miss this phenomenal discovery...inquiring minds do want to know.

Jeez...the continued display of "my prejudice trumps decades of scientific work" is sure depressing.

Yes, Romney knows very well that global climate is influenced by humans and has said as much, but now has to lie in order to get the Republican nomination.

Pretty much.... Republican candidates have to get the tea party support so they have to deny global warming, deny the failure of trickle down econ, embrace religion, and act pissed off about gov'mnt expenditures and complain about the deficit but somehow forget that if you drop taxes to almost nothing you never have the finances to pay down your debt.... Oh, I forgot, they also have to be against abortion.

And of course 99% of scientist do agree on it!

How come none of the 1980's and 1990's temperature projections for 2010 have come true? .3 degrees compared to 7 degrees higher?

Global Warming is false and the 1000 emails from the leaders of the global warming fraud prove it.

Software written to only show upward temperature projections.

Scientists driven from their field by Liberals so their fraud would not be detected.

Less than 40% of scientists believe in global warming. The globe is cooler right now than for 90% of the past 10,000 years (google it).

These progressive scientists need to be thrown in prison for attempting a $50 Trillion fraud while being paid by public money.

Roger

You seem really passionate about your position on this. What are you basing all your information off of? Pleas don't say google. You can find anything you want on google. I am sure that if I try hard enough I can link climate change to the Kennedy assassination and show how they are related. Your google it suggestions are not recommended.

First I would like to point out that a lot of your concerns are inaccurate. One of your claims that the earth was much warmer 1000 years ago is wrong. If your basing it on observations, then your google source is wrong because temperature recordings were not taken until the late 19th century. If you are basing it on past climate projections then your google source is wrong again. Look up NOAA's paleoclimatic data from for teh last 2000 years and you will see that 100 years ago temps were cooler and the earth was actually going into the little ice age which was significantly cooler than today.

your claim that global warming is a fraud is also a little misguided. Regardless if you accept the paradigm that humans are responsible for the warming you can not reject that the earth is warming. the earth goes through natural cycles called the Milankovitch cycles that strongly influence temperature. As scientists have studied these cycles they can see that the earth warms for continuously for thousands of years then goes into a rapid cooling period. We are currently in the point of the cycle where the earth is warming. In thousands of years from now, if this cycle follows past cycles, then the earth will go into a cooling period.

Your other claim is that less than 40% of scientists believe in global warming is also wrong. That too is not true. One, scientists dont believe in something, they subscribe to paradigm changes and accept proposed theories. Second, Scientist is a not an accurate term. Physicists, biologists, ecologists, and chemists are all scientists but neither of which are entitled to make claims on climate. Physicists study the universe, biologists study living organisms, they dont study climate. Climate scientists and meteorologists study climate and 98% of climate scientists accept the the earth is warming and the future projections.

The big question among climate scientists is not wheather or not the earth is warming or if it is human caused. the question is, how will the earth react?

Another bunch of misstatements from Mr. Ramjet. To begin with, the 7 degree higher figure is within the range of IPCC predictions for the end of the century (2100), not the year 2010. The claim about the last 10,000 years is also totally false. No doubt you can find such a claim on Google somewhere, but not from a reliable scientific source.

I live in NJ....It is only October.....We have 8" of snow on the ground and RECORD LOW temperatures!!

I don't need someone to tell me what I can see with my own two eyes..."global warming" is a giant scam. Hell, Al Gore personally profited over $100 million dollars off of his "chicken-little" global warming bit! ...What do you think his motivations were?

You're thinking of weather not climate. Local weather extremes should not be confused with global climate changes.