Collegiate Times

You make it sound like the world has never warmed before. Keep in mind that not 30 years ago, the major crisis at the time was global cooling. My, how times have changed. I'd point out also that it isn't the 'skeptics' who attempt to stifle debate, but those busybodies such as Al Gore who insist that the debate is already ended. The fact that not everyone (including many leading climatologists) aren't buying part and parcel into the global warming 'crisis' doesn't necessarily imply that these renowned, internationally recognized scientists are somehow small minded and intellectually feeble - it simply demonstrates that there likely is not enough information right now to reach the sort of scientific consensus that the more environmentally friendly among us would like to have. There isn't a single thing wrong with being a 'skeptic,' especially about a 'crisis' which has occurred numerous times throughout the history of the Earth.

My 2 cents worth on this is that we are making all kinds of projections on what the future will hold based on about 150 years of recorded weather information, and a few thousand years worth of ice core samples. While that sounds impressive to humans since we live for maybe 70-80 years, the planet is several billion years old. Thats several thousand orders of magnitude larger than the data set we have to work from. To use such a small sample and then say it's the flat truth, no question is pretty absurd and dangerous. Sampling may work in some scientific areas like polling, air and water quality determination, and quality control for a factory...but for something that could impact the whole of the planet, I'm not willing to lay down everything for something that can't possibly be confirmed or denied based on the data available. Do I think the planet is warming? I do. I don't think it's to the magnitude that the political types like Al Gore claim it to be though. And I also think the role of humans is massively over-stated. Could we do better? Sure we can. Is it worth the economic and social costs? Probably not given that the U.S. and Europe have been leading the way for years while the 3rd world has built more coal-fired power plants and dirty industry than Al Gore has taken Leer Jet flights. When I want to know the truth, I look at the actions of those people speaking the message. Al Gore, Leonardo Dicaprio, and many of the other "Climate Crisis" folks are some of the biggest human polluters with the worst possible track record. If this was really such a problem, then why do they still live in massive energy sucking mansion, jet around the world on private planes, and have entourage convoys of Suburbans? It's not a problem, it's the next religious craze, with Pastor Al Gore at the pulpit begging us to make a "difference" so he and others like him can feel good about their lavish lifestyle. I don't buy it.

um... it's more than a few thousand years of ice-cores. try hundreds of thousands. scientists *could* still be wrong, of course, but that's probably not the way to bet. let's say you couldn't care less about this issue (and most americans don't): if on the one hand you believe the skeptics and act on their head-in-the-sand-this-isn't-happening advice, and you're wrong, what happens? end of the world. if on the other hand, you act on the scientists' tree-hugging-alarmist-sky-is-falling recommendation and you're wrong, what happens? energy independence and a cleaner environment. hmmm.... tough call.

End of the world? That's a bit dramatic and scare-tacticish isn't it? To think the world is going to end because it's a little warmer is a massive overstatement. Humanity, plants, and animals will adapt to the changes. Sure, some may not make the transitions quick enough, but life will not end. On the other hand, global cooling would be far more devastating. Crop yields would drop, people and animals would starve, and social unrest would be tens of times worse than with warming. And yet, the world still will not have ended. The planet is a tremendously dynamic place that changes all the time. That's really the only constant. Are we humans so egomaniacal to think that we can single-handedly destroy or save the planet on our own? Nature has time and time again shown that we cannot control one thing on the planet for any amount of time. We are always trumped by the planet. Why all of a sudden do we think differently now? But back on to what you finished with, sure...a cleaner environment should be a goal to achieve, especially given the oil and coal limitations we face. My problem is lumping that with global warming and trying to scare people into change. It won't work, and it really muddies up a cause for new technology that people will refuse to embrace as long as it's linked to a neo-political-religious movement.

It's interesting to note, bxl, that one of the most famous scientists ever to walk the Earth, Blaise Pascal, made precisely the same argument about why it is better in the end to believe in God. I don't disagree that bing nice to the environment is a good idea; I just don't think that the crisis is anywhere near as imminent as the alarmists might have us believe. Fundamentally, I doubt that a crisis truly exists, since climate data tends to indicate that the current rise in temperatures is likely part of a cyclic climate shift.

Wow! How did this article even get published? The earth goes through ice ages, then it warms up. In the warm times, there are temperature fluctuations. Temperature goes up, then it goes down. Climate changes. If the earth is not warming, then it is cooling. If the earth were cooling right now, Al Gore would be outspoken about Global Cooling and that mankind is responsible for it and that we alone have the power to stop it before we all turn into popsicles. But we have been going through a small warming trend that in the grand scheme of things is hardly a blip on a graph, and that gives Gore reason enough to say it is our fault and we are all going to die unless we do something. Let me ask you something Matt. Do you believe the climate changes, or do you believe it stays the same throughout all time?

There is no proof that global warming is man made. You can throw around the "scientific consensus" all you want, but what does that mean? How many is a consensus? How did the last ice age begin (a drastic climate change)? The earth has natural cycles of climate. Al Gore won't even have a real debate to answer questions about his movie because he couldn't win one. It's all politics, and very little real science. Sure, it could end up being that humans are the cause, but there is absolutely no way to prove it at this point in time.

In the end, the main reason why there is all this publicity is that Al Gore needed a job when he lost the 2000 election. And the global warming folks (who stand to make a ton of money if people beleive what they say) needed a spokesperson. Enter Al Gore. And the rest, as they say, is history. Follow the money, and you'll see the real answer and find the truth.

Regardless of whether global warming is a natural or man-made process, we as human beings should do what we can to conserve natural resources and protect the environment. Unfortunately, utility and automotive companies use their money and lobbist to squash many new and innovative ideas before the public gets a chance to see it.

In the worlds of Al Gore: "There's no more debate. We face a planetary emergency. . . . There is no more scientific debate among serious people who've looked at the evidence." Now which side is it that's attempting to silence the debate again?

Nobody is going to think this is eminent until it impacts them literarlly in some way, or, at least when it is so bloody obvious that your feet are wet. The article does seem a little alarmist because it doesn't mention any time frames. But, if man is forcing this warming, does it matter what the time frames are before we should start doing something? Excect for the Younger Dryas (TD) period, historically speaking we have not seen cooling nor warming at the rate we are seeing it. The YD cooling & warming occured over the course of decades. The cause of the YD cooling event is most likely multitudinal but is linked to the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation of the ocean (ice break up in the arctic most likely, also potentially ice damn which release a massive amount of fresh water). The rapid warming was most likely cause by a rapid release of methane (GHG) from calthrate solids in the sea floor. It is very much possible that man is providing a catalyst, a forcing mechanism in the form of CO2 which may cause such events again. Even if abrupt climate change is a 1% chance and flooded coastlines within 1000 years is a 90% chance. Shouldn't we do something about it if (and yes we are) causing/facilitating it? By the way, most ice ages were brought about by changes in the earth's eccentricity. See Milankovitch for this. It is true that warmings historically have happened but there always has been a cause and effect. And a forcing (sun eccentricity), amplified by a feedback mechanism (GHGs such as CO2 and methane).

One of the issues up for debate is whether or not co2 really does cause temperature changes. Nobody doubts there has been a cause and effect that brought about past warmings and coolings. Climate change doesn't happen by itself. What is simply outrageous is that we are supposed to believe co2, a greenhouse gas that makes up less than 5% of all greenhouse gases, is the one thing that causes the warmings and coolings, and that we can singlehandedly cool the earth by going green. Perhaps the next time global cooling is an issue we can say the solution is to breathe more and drive SUV's everywhere we go. You say historically speaking we have not seen cooling or warming at the rate we are seeing it now. Of course not, since we haven't been keeping accurate records for very long. We didn't have weather stations when dinosaurs were around. All we have to go by is ice cores, and while that's all well and good, it isn't as accurate as the recording instruments we have today, or even the ones we had in the early 20th century.

Global cooling 30 yrs ago was caused by air pollution - specifically large numbers of particulates and sulfar dioxide in the atmosphere. If Kyle prefers, we could return to those emission standards to address warming if you don't mind a bit of sulfuric acid in our lakes and streams.

Climate Change Geo-enginering can stop global warming in short order. I believe that mankind has caused this problem, but whatever the cause, it can be stopped in short order, one approach being to emulate what happens when there is a large volcanic eruption. Paul Crutzen, a Nobel prize winner among others over the past 30 years has suggested placing long lived particulates (1 to 3 years) into the upper atmosphere to reduce incoming solar flux by about 1 1/2 to 2% and rebalance the Earth's energy interchnage This has been endorsed by Ralph Cicerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences for study and deployment as needed. Efficiency and a change in the world's energy base make sense, but they will take a century or more to be implemented. And so we need a short term solution, in addition to this energy base change to give the world the time to change. Geo-Engineering can give us this time. Let's talk about it and fund study so that we truly understand its benefits and side-effects.

Ok, let's accept global warming as a fact. Now there are only two question that need to be debated. 1) Is climate change a good thing or a bad thing? 2)How much effect, if any has mankind had on climate change? But we can't have any meaningful debate. The Left are a bunch of Luddites that want to smash the industrial world and have everyone, except themselves, living in the Middle Ages. The Right is in total denial that the climate is changing today, even though they readily admit that the climate has changed in the past. Our political leaders are too concerned about their political careers to be care about the fate of mankind. Our scientists are too concerned with billions in grants to be objective in their studies. It seems that for every prominent and eminent scientist that one side brings out, the other side brings one out with an opposite point of view. This tit for tat is hardly the kind of meaningful debate that we need.

clint, yes the amount of co2 is small but to put some perspective on quantities don't forget that co2 is measured in parts per million. when cfcs took chluorine from the naturally occuring 0.6 parts per billion to 2 parts per billion an ozone hole appeared. such is the nature between tipping points. at 32.1 degrees you have water and at 32 you have ice.

Lincoln, that's really not true. The ozone "hole" was documented in the 50's, before cfc's were in common use. The ozone "hole" is a naturally occurring event that happens over Antarctica, lasts for several weeks, then disappears. There's virtually no variations in ozone levels in equatorial regions, while the polar regions can experience variations up to 50%.

Conservatives don't deny that it's getting warmer, we simply point out that there is no hard evidence that *man* is the cause. Ice cores only record the weather over where they formed, and while some areas are warming, some areas are cooling *right now*. Check it out at National Geographic. And while there is a correlation between CO2 and global temp, as many peer-reviewed studies show that CO2 follows temp as show temp follows CO2. In the '70s, people wanted to geo-engineer the planet by dumping dark material on Antarctica to lower albedo and increase the global temperature. Where would we now be if they had done that? Any efforts to control the global climate would be useless at best, and catastrophic at worst. Making decisions on computer models that can't tell me what the temperature will be in two weeks is absurd. It's getting warmer, so how do we deal with that? It's been warmer before, and history shows these times as some of the most prosperous. And the polar bear lived through them just fine. Want to make a difference? start talking about how to make the air and water cleaner. THAT'S a problem around the world that immediately affects almost everyone.

Mike, I completely forgot that point. If our best and brightest in thw weather, climate, and meteorology fields can't even get a 1-2 week forecast right for one small town, how on earth can we believe that they are somehow able to predict what the whole planet will be like in 20 or 50 years or longer? It's absolutely absurd, especially when so much of the input data is being questioned for its validity.

The alarmists said that their computers predict more hurricanes which has proven false. They said that England would be in a drought by now and that proved false. The southern hemisphere is cooling while parts of the northern hemisphere warmed, except in the US. No warming here since 1998. NASA said that the melting of the arctic sea ice (in the summer) was caused by extreme winds. Now when this was what was blamed for the same occurance on Mars, the alarmists cryed out that they were right, it was not the sun but just a natural process on Mars, but on Earth the same occurance with the same claimed cause is Global Warming.

POLLUTION vs CLIMATE .....It appears that air "pollution" is being confused/associated with global warming. The current political battle over global warming/climate change is a totally different subject and boils down to the fundamental issue of: "Does CO2 cause global warming?" Regardless, carbon dioxide (CO2) can not be a pollutant because there would be no life on Earth, as we know it, without carbon dioxide (CO2). .....Carbon Dioxide (CO2) does not cause Global Warming because there is no past historical scientific factual evidence, data and/or records that link CO2 as a forcing factor or a cause of an increasing temperature rise climate warming period. Any current rising temperatures is not causation. ALL other global warming arguments are irrelevant, since humans are incapable of controlling any natural occurring climate change. Climate has and will forever change. There is no such thing as normal Climate. Enjoy today's climate while it lasts. .....Proxy scientific data from the past few 100,000 year 'Ice Age' terminations, reveal that the rise of CO2 levels trail the relatively abrupt temperature rise by 800-2000 years. This is the equivalent of 11-76 human lifetimes; a very, very long time. .....There is scientific proxy evidence/data from past climate periods that reveal CO2 levels about 18 times greater than the CO2 levels present today; which were concurrent with non-rising temperatures equivalent of those present today. .....Three major difference today, compared to previous climate warm periods, are: (1) there are now millions of humans living in vulnerable areas where there were none before; (2) most of our current infrastructure was built based on today's climate conditions; and (3) the presence of satellite worldwide media coverage for every unusual weather event. One hundred years ago the recent southern California fires probably would not have been covered by any major national media. .....The best that could happen now is for an abrupt short period (30 year) climate shift to cooling. That certainly should put an end to the current global warming Goracle hysteria. .....{Goracle = The self deliverer, self anointed authoritative person who divines the future of Global Warming = Al Gore.}

One of the most eloquent statements I've heard on the issue of global warming and human responsibility is by Dr. Michael Griffin, Director of NASA. He says, "I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

I'd also urge everyone, on both sides of the issue, to avoid using terms along the lines of "proven" and "irrefutable evidence." We are talking about finding correlations among data sets, not absolute causation. I am wary of anyone, regardless of their point of view, who states a view on this subject with absolute certainty.

Posted by: Clint at Nov 8 "Temperature goes up, then it goes down. Climate changes. If the earth is not warming, then it is cooling." Thank you for stating the obvious that everyone seems to be overlooking. Even if we had a steady state climate, I'm sure that someone would find a way into turning it into a crisis for their own personal gain. And then there are the elitist that feel the know more than God or Mother Nature, what's best for mankind and would find something wrong with a steady state climate. Posted by: Jason T at Nov 11, If more people thought the way Jason T does, then we could have a meaningful debate on this subject.

Posted by: Mike at Nov 9 "Check it out at National Geographic." I have been reading National Geographic for years. It is hardy unbiased. For example in in the Supplement October 2007, it clearly states "Climate is changing more rapidly than ever before. Human activity is the main cause." If you accept National Geographic as an unbiased source, than you should accept Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as an unbiased source also.