Absolutely agree with pbrocoum
The arrogance of the human species to believe that the status quo of this planet's climate must be maintained to support human life. The climate does change, has changed and will continue to change and no matter how hard we try and much governments charge us in taxes, there is nothing we can do about it!
Let's say that global warming is really happening and it is our fault. So what will we do about? Not much I bet. No government wants to leave the oil and coal in the ground. Eventually it will all run out and that will be that. In the meantime the global economy is trashing the planet.
Is the climate is changing? YES....but then it always has been and always will.
Is the average global temperature is rising? YES....statistics support this fact.
Is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising? YES..again thanks to statistics and scientific measurement.
Is the rise in global temperature linked to the rise in CO2 in the atmoshere? Possibly but not proven.....all CO2 related theories to climate change are based on selectively released statistics with little scientific evidence. You don't hear the IPCC mention that the South Coast of the UK has until very recently been unable to grow grape vines because the climate was too cold, however grapes were grown successfully in NORTHERN England during the 17th and 18th Centuries because the climate was warmer. IPCC also fail to mention that the Antartic Ice Cap is actually growing, not receeding. Points made purely to identify that the IPCC does not present ALL the evidence but only selective evidence to back up it's theory.
Is the human population contributing to the increase in CO2 released into the atmoshere? Categorically YES by as a minimu burning fossil fuels
Is the primary cause of increased Greenhouse Gases in the atmoshere due to the use of fossil fuels? Possibly, however other contributors are naturally occuring such as animal "gases" (more greenhouse gases are produced by cattle than are produced by motor vehicles) and volcanic output (a single significant volcanic erruption can and has produced more Sulphur Dioxide than 3 years of European Industrial output at 2006 levels).
Are fossil fuels running out? Categorically YES.
The problem? There isn't enough sustainable energy resources for the global population (and specifically Industrial Europe, Asia and North America).
The solution? To reduce the global population or generate more money to research alternative sources? Reducing the global population is a political minefield - just ask the Chinese with their one family one child policy - so the only option is to raise revenues for energy research!
How do you raise the money required to develop new energy resources? Tax the population of Industrial Europe, Asia and North America to the hilt to pay for it under the moral disguise of saving the planet by scare mongering. If governments were honest and told us the real reasons for charging 70% tax on fuel, then maybe I would be happier to pay it!
Alternatively? Use up the fossil fuels there will be no more increase in CO2 emissions and the planet will be saved. In the time in takes to use up all the fossil fuels, a major war in the Middle East will reduce the global population and the act of warfare will increase the development of new energy resources. As a backup plan, failure to develop alternate energy resources will force the mass use of Nuclear Power Stations and so CO2 emissions will begin to fall and once more the world will be saved.....hoorah!
Problem solved :-)
All I ask is don't make me service some corrupt government's overdraft and pay for the development of new energy resouces to replace the ones that are running out when the obvious solution already exists.....Nuclear!
Now bring on the Eco-Warriors to shoot me down with sob stories about saving Polar Bears, feeding the starving and turning the planet into a radio active wasteland!
Well put. 
Bear in mind that despite pointing out the logical fallacy of a post above that seemed to lay a trap in favor of global warming, I also think it's also fairly ignorant and foolish for those who doubt the reality of global warming to do so.
It's obvious that we've done a lot of damage to the atmosphere. We've been running smoke-stacks for generations. We have cars, and they don't run on sun shine and happy thoughts. We make plastics, we create elements that don't exist in nature. We smash atoms, and we dump the waste in the oceans.
For us to deny that our actions as human beings have harmed the environment profoundly is akin to smokers who prior to a proponderance of research felt that smoking wasn't harmful or in some cases, actually believed that it was good for their health to smoke.
At some stage, plain old ordinary common sense has to kick in. Of course we have done great harm to our environment. And yes, we're probably causing an over-abundance of greenhouse gases to accumulate in too great of a concentration, and yes, this really does lead to a rising overall temperature in the Earth which could very much disrupt the ecosystem in a way that hasn't been seen by mankind before.
Someone above got upset at "the arrogance" for people to say we're harming the environment because it's really only hurting ourselves as people.. "how arrogant we humans are."
If someone genuinely felt it was arrogant to be interested in one's own survival, they'd have whacked themselves long ago to preserve resources for others. It'd be an absurdly nihilistic stance to not understand, value, and be part of the survival instinct, and anyone that truly overcame "the survival instinct" would do the only purely logical thing left to do; Whack themselves.
Denial of our right and nature to be self-preserving is childish and elitist, and most of all, a total lie. Anyone who meant that being concerned about the environment meant that we were arrogant would have to have, by default of logic, already taken their own life for the benefit of the planet, the species, and other life forms.
In other words, shut the Hell up with that crap. It sounds great in philosophy class, but it's a pile of bunk and the mere fact that you're alive to type it means you're full of crap.
Global Warming Hoax:
As some savvy sage so succinctly stated seriously somewhere, " It is the ecology jackboot on our energy throat".
Yeah.... Those emails are taken out of context, and they're not even sure none of them have been fabricated yet. There's a bi-partisan panel being put together in Great Britain to have a look at it and see what to make of it, including some harsh critics of global warming along with some staunch supporters.
Even they don't know what to make of it so far.
Really, those emails appear at first glance to be taken pretty far out of context. That's why so far it hasn't gained legs as a story. They do have a panel being put together as we speak that's made up of both critics and supporters, however.
Right now, it's really too early to jump to conclusions based off the "hacking."
I'm not denying the global climate is changing.
I'm not denying humanity has not contributed to this change.
I also agree with the previous thread that rightly says we have "screwed up".
What I'm saying is taxing your typical European/Asian/American worker to pay for alternative fuel sources is wrong. Why not charge the oil companies that make BILLIONS of dollars of post tax profit an additional "Green" tax to pay for the "research" towards finding the ultimate clean fuel? Oh hold on....how much "Green" taxes that we pay actually go towards paying for "Clean Fuel Research"? Answer: A very small percentage.....therefore governments cannot justify charging powerful and influential oil companies any more taxes in the name of "Saving the Planet!"
Quote of the thread?
"Denial of our right ...... to be self-preserving is ..... elitist" - classic
The simplest statistics make it perverse for anyone to take the viewpoint that human activity is not a major reason for the increase in CO2 in the last century, and ever more blatantly in the last 40 years. Simply put, we have pumped a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, and the amount is rather similar to the amount by which the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased (22% since 1960, if I recall correctly). What rational person could claim that human CO2 production is not a major factor in the increase? What do they think would have happened if we had not burnt fossil fuels? Obviously, the increase would have been much nearer zero.
Byker_chick may be a bit confused about the emissions from volcanoes and their role. Sulphur dioxide has an opposite effect to CO2 through a different mechanism (high altitude aerosol formation), and is part of the reason that the largest volcanic eruptions cause the temperature to drop for a relatively short time. I recall that CO2 emissions from volcanoes were estimated at rather less than 1% of those from humans, so volcanoes are not a major cause of the problem.
It is of course methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) that livestock produce in amounts significant to global warming. Yes, this does make a significant contribution to the greenhouse effect (small compared to that from CO2), but it makes only a tiny contribution to CO2 levels when it oxidises after 8 years or so.
With regard to the UEA e-mails, it's an interesting story but is only of tiny significance to the business of understanding climate change. UEA is a very minor player in the world of climate research. I have never heard of another case where an local example of alleged academic malpractice has been used in an attempt to deny an entire subject's validity. Having seen the contents of the e-mails (they are very easy to find on the Internet), I was a little disappointed to find how mild the content was. I would describe them as "putting a spin" on their work, probably wanting to give a somewhat exaggerated impression of results without actually being untruthful, and being a little too unwilling to let naysayers attempt to put their point in an rational way. Real science welcomes rational debate - a problem with climate change discussions is that too many people start with a political viewpoint and view evidence from scientists that appears to threaten their political beliefs as hostile. Galileo would be familiar with such a lack of openness to a new rational viewpoint. To me, rational truth is paramount and not to be fought against, and everything else needs to be constrained by that foundation. I can understand how "inconvenient" this can appear to people to whom other things are far more important.
Well said, Elroch. Nice posts.
Global warming is not just a hoax, it's a scientific and financial FRAUD perpetrated by so-called scientists and governments who twist the facts, manipulate/fabricate data to fit THEIR theory, not the other way around.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html
No doubt humans have an impact on the environment, but it's not the doomsday scenario the fanatics predict.
Climate changes are cyclical, and we had ice ages/warm spells long before humans came on the scene.
We're more likely to be exterminated by a meteor impact, or when the sun runs out of fuel and becomes a red giant, swallowing the minor planets in the process.
"The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html
Twisting a few points of data is one thing, and reprehensible. But, the broad scientific consensus concerning climate change is rooted in far more than a handful of flawed studies. The so-called skeptics, on the other hand are heavily funded by a few industries, and would rather attack the excesses of Al Gore's rhetoric than present good papers at scientific conferences. While scientists argue the details--and disagree on many fine points--most people get their information from a handful of press releases that confuse trees for the forest.
If the industries that prop up the "global warming is a hoax" mantra would fund the Institute for Creation Research, I would get shouted down by my students for telling them that the oldest human remains in Oregon is 14,000 years old (because the world itself cannot exceed six thousand).
60 miles? With that coat? That's a serious bear.
This is a nice presentation, well worth 2m 27s. Or if you only have 10 seconds, the graph at the start of CO2 levels answers any rational person's questions about the origin of recent very rapid changes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8386319.stm
[Incidentally, in response to Ketamine, who I believe to be on the side of rationality, he is incorrect to claim "logical fallacy" in my straw poll. It might be more accurately described as a pedagogical technique]
This is a nice presentation, well worth 2m 27s. Or if you only have 10 seconds, the graph at the start of CO2 levels answers any rational person's questions about the origin of recent very rapid changes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8386319.stm
[Incidentally, in response to Ketamine, who I believe to be on the side of rationality, he is incorrect to claim "logical fallacy" in my straw poll. It might be more accurately described as a pedagogical technique]
I disagree with your assessment.
Also, I'm not a boy.
I haven't the patience to read from the start. "Global Warming" is a scam. Ultimately hoping to scam the world and be one reason for an eventual global government via inmediary steps such as a universal carbon tax.
Chessplayers are generally intelligent people and should know that. Just as 9/11 was an inside job, the powers that be (rightly) regard the general population as lazy stupid couch potato cattle to be brainwashed with many other untruths.
The earth will continue, life will continue, humankind will perish.
Probably the clearest and smartest single sentence I've seen on this topic; a topic that is mostly debated by those with no training in science, augmented by the 1% of scientists willing to speak out against Al Gore (but timidly shying away from debate at scientific conferences where evidence prevails). I'm speaking of the much vaunted "minority report" at last year's global summit.
Guess which scientists started shooting their mouths off about global warming-the same ones that predicted global cooling decades ago...I find that pretty humorous...first global cooling and now global warming.
On another note on the topic in response to those who believe global warming exists and is caused by humans:
Anyone who is in the field of statistics or mathemats knows that relation is not causation, and in fact there is no way we can prove that humans are responsible for global warming because there are so many factors. Just because CO2 levels and temperatures are rising does not mean one causes the other. Furthermore, even if it did, to say that it is the only or chief cause of something is folly because there are so many millions of things that play into something so large it's incredible.
Has anyone ever heard of Earth's natural cycles of getting warmer and cooler? The Earth has been much hotter than today long ago in the past, but do we get told about this-HECK NO. The media loves to distort things, and so it seems is the same of the scientists who are happy to try and get rid of anyone they can that doesn't agree with what's the general consensus (and it doesn't necessarily have to be proven either). Science is supposed to be challenged, that's the nature of it.
I advise anyone who is like me and challenges the "science" behind global warming to check out this website which has some intersting information regarding it: www.globalwarminghoax.com/
I also find this article interesting. Fudging information is something so easily done: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html
It's the population you need to get down; everything else is easy then.
Guess which scientists started shooting their mouths off about global warming-the same ones that predicted global cooling decades ago... [snip]
I thought I might address the layers of ignorance, errors in reasoning, logical fallacies, and misinformation in this lengthy recitation of talking points of the anti-science conservative hegemony. But why bother? I would be trying to convince those already impervious to evidence. Better to throw some farm raised trout onto hot Crisco.
Climate change (rather than "global warming") has been on-going since the earth was formed. The climate of this planet will continue to change until the earth is no more. All we can do as the dominant race is either attempt to speed it up or slow it down.....nothing more, nothing less. The billions of dollars/pounds/euros being squeazed out of tax payers in the name of slowing down climate change is just a "morally acceptable" method of increasing revenues for corrupt and bankrupt governments. Don't get suckered into the great climate change swindle!
I absolutely agree. In fact, I wrote an interesting blog post about it after doing some research: http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=714
For example, did you know that we are right now in the middle of an Ice Age, and that the earth is pretty much colder than it's ever been with lower CO2 levels than ever in history? People worry about the glaciers melting, but for most of Earth's history there haven't been any glaciers at all!