I get confused. Those against global warming seem to say two things. Which one is true?

well for a start ANYBODY who denies global warming generally is a moron....

because Climate change is SOMETHING that DOES occur naturally in any case.. NOBODY can dispute that .....

WHAT is up for debate is man's responisbility for the RATE of Change ...

Now these people can deny that there is any influence till they are blue in the face... I don't need a scientist to tell me their research... I don't need a scientist to fudge their research .. because all it takes or all it should take.. is a little bit of thinking...

How many people populate this planet.. How many areas of natural vegetation have been destroyed ? how much crap do we force into our air and waterways ?

HOW CAN YOU NOT AT THE VERY LEAST CONTEMPLATE OUR RESPONSIBILITY ....

The deniers just have their heads up their bums...

It is very simple really, unfortunately the press, in its usual manner, cherry-picks the parts of the stories that make for the most apocalyptic headlines, thus you and probably most people who do not take or have an interest in science are totally confused as well.

The 'deniers' are saying that they fully accept that recent decades have show shown an increase in global temperature, and both 'deniers' and 'warmists', much to the latter's disgruntlement, agree that the last decade has shown a small, but consistent decline.

The argument is whether the changes in climate are natural ('deniers') or man-made principally as a result of industrialisation ('warmists').

The 'deniers' point out things like the medieval warm period where from about 1100 to 1400 AD global temperatures were significantly higher than today, and the little ice age from about 1600 to 1900 AD where global temperatures were significantly lower than today, ice fairs on a frozen Thames and all that. Thus they conclude that climate is always changing and probably has little or nothing to do with industrialisation and carbon emissions.

The 'warmists' first air-brushed these periods from the picture, the notorious, discredited 'hockey stick' graph so loved by Al Gore, then when forced to admit their obfuscation claimed that it was all totally irrelevant anyway. Oh, and the 'warmists' were at the same time massaging (from the leaked emails and computer modelling code) the temperature record to indicate an increasingly rapid warming from circa 1800 to correlate with their view that man's industrialisation is the cause. They cannot explain why the last decade has not followed their model and seem to claim that as it cannot be explained then there is something wrong with the data or its acquisition as their model cannot be wrong.

There are other special interest 'anti-warmists' around as well, those who believe that present warming is driven by the Sun (not the newspaper), others that it is driven by minor fluctuations in the Earth's orbit or inclination, some who think it is caused by the Earth's transit through the galactic plane (which peaks on Dec 21 2012, that date ring any bells?) and many others.

So the reality is no-one, especially the scientists, actually knows what is happening and that is why there is so much confusion and contrary arguments. Just to be clear, Anthropogenic Global Warming (the 'warmists' position) is a theory, not as they claim, settled science. The only bit of settled science is the recent warming and current cooling.

ALL agree that things have been warming in recent decades, 'warmists' using debased and dubious evidence insist it is man's fault and the only salvation is to de-industrialise the world, 'deniers' more honestly say that they don't know the causes but believe the evidence demonstrates that it is a natural phenomenon that man's activities probably have little effect on, one way or the other.

So there you are, any less confused? I didn't think so.

I doubt that ANYONE can deny or denounce Climate change BUT the fact of the matter is that the Science on the issue is far from settled with many Scientists divided on the issue. Here is a quote from a very well respected Russian Scientist:

"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean".

Climate change has been happening on this earth for millions of years as seen with the Ice ages and prolonged periods of Drought on Various parts of the Earth.

P.S World temperatures peaked in 1998 – ten years ago – and the downward cooling trend has been unmistakable since about 2002. It’s now official that 2008 has been the coldest year this Decade. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/05/...

There is so much money involved that it's not easy to clearly read the science. Obviously, the North Pole is warming, but it's colder than usual here in SoCal right now. We're not climatologists which makes it hard to develop an informed decision. We do understand that science is used by politicians and businessmen to promote their own agendas. Al Gore stands to be the world's first "Green" billionaire. With that kind of money involved, I don't trust anyone!

When Exxon funds scientists to study climate change, do you think all their findings are released to the general public? Or just that which they can profit from?

When government funds scientists to study climate change, do you think all their findings are released to the general public? Or just what benefits the current administration?

So, if the planet is warming, I really want to know if human behavior is playing a significant role. The most honest sounding study I've seen so far suggested that the level of human fault lies somewhere between 0.0002 percent and 20 percent. It would be nice if they could tighten up those numbers a bit wouldn't it.

This much is certain. If global warming is wrong, the world stands to spend an enormous amount of money for nothing, but if global warming is right, the world stands to suffer catastrophic events like we've never seen before, and the worst case senarios suggest the end of the human race.

I totally accept that climate change happens and that it is happening now. I do find it interesting that the scientific analysis has changed in that it used to be called global warming but they have changed their position to climate change because, although some places have got warmer, some are colder. And although the polar ice seems to be melting, the New Zealand glaciers are actually expanding. No one tells you that do they?

If man really is to blame for climate change, why wasn't there an enormous change to world climate during the Industrial Revolution? We went from virtually zero carbon dioxide emissions to pumping vast amounts of it into the atmosphere from factories, steam engines and power stations over a period of over 100 years. I don't think there is any scientific evidence of one iota of climate change in the 1800s/early 1900s, yet that must have been the period of the most dramatic increase in CO2 emissions in the history of the Earth.

I know we who doubt man's involvement in all of this are seen by many as flat-earthers, but that ignores the vast amount of money that is being pumped into the campaign to force us to believe the science in favour of the argument that "we are to blame". There are a lot of scientists who have a totally opposed view, yet their voices are rarely heard, and they certainly aren't given a voice in the media. Any University doing research that favours the "our fault" view is given lots of money but, if you try and do any research that is likely to debunk it, your funding will be withdrawn. Thus, there are a lot of people earning a lot of money by continuing the argument.

There is no doubt whatsoever that we should find alternative ways of producing energy and with our present level of knowledge the only real answer is nuclear. Wind, wave and solar panels all help, but they won't run the factories or railways. We quite clearly need to be more careful with how we use fossil fuel and what we do with the Earth's natural resources in general.

This beautiful blue gem in the Universe has supported life for millions of years, yet of all the animals that have ever lived 95% are now extinct. We are but another life form and, if the climate changes so that our life-form is no longer sustainable, we too will become extinct. But the Earth will live on, evolving as it does so.

Have a look back over the Earth's history - cataclysmic earthquakes, storms for hundreds of years, collisions with other planets. We are nothing compared with what nature throws at us, and, of course, we are part of nature anyway. What will be will be and, if we think throwing trillions of pounds at preventing climate change is going to work, I think we are vastly over-estimating our position in nature.

EDIT

Oh dear, oh dear. Just when we are discussing it there is evidence that the "our fault" brigade, funded as I said by the government to do research in a University, have been fiddling the figures because they don't actually show what they want us to believe.

This is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of Earth and it is costing every one of us a fortune.

The king's got no clothes but we aren't allowed to say it for fear of being called heretics.

fill a jam jar with water, screw the cap on hard, then put it in your freezer....what will happen?

That's right, H2O expands when it's frozen. Which means it contracts again when it thaws.

So how will melting icebergs cause sea level to rise?

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae371...

If global warming is man made, why are the ice caps on Mars melting?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07...

Why have scientists fiddled the figures and destroyed the original data?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6469714...

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and we only have good data for 50/100 years. So saying it's the hottest, coldest, driest, wettest day/week/month on record isn't really anything that amazing.

Yes it does get confusing, my personal opinion is if you are doing something that could cause harm quit doing it. Facts seem to get overlooked by both sides from the changing of temperature data, to the claim that volcanoes release more carbon into the atmosphere than man. The part about volcanoes is true, but the chemical makeup of the carbon from volcanoes alows the atmosphere to absorb those carbons without any harm. Yet the atmosphere cannot "absorb" the man made carbons. Furthermore "global warming" encompasses much more than a rise in planetary temperature. It is the overall effect on the enviorment due to pollution.

Its true we do have global warming.

But its got bugger all to do with mankind.

As we are now finding out. Tho i did know. And always said its an excuse

for this government to TAX the hell out of us.

global warming? more like global TAXING

1...nothing like a 'photo essay' by an aging supermodel to settle the debate over all things scientific...what's next, expert testimony from Dora the Explorer?

#2-the have NEVER been any cracks in the sea ice at the North Pole...really? taking a brief publicity stunt in water your link calls 'coldest water' anyone has even swum in by means of an ice crack HARDLY equates to 'you can now swim at the north pole'

if this is the sort of hard science backing the 'global warming propaganda industry (along with destroying the hard data collected, 'tweaking' the numbers to support the hypothesis, burying any data that doesn't fit, and trying to ruin the careers of those who don't fall for the hype) is the best you can do, is there any wonder people are waking up?

YOU=LIE=FAIL

At least there are ONLY 2 positions with those who oppose it, I lost count on the number of things those for it are saying.

L8r

Last week, it was reported that pieces of icebergs drifted all the way to the South Island of New Zealand, something that hasn't happened on this scale before.

People can stick their head in the sand and say its not true coz they never saw it. Does it change the facts?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/25/iceberg...

Photographic Evidence of Climate Change

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/risi...

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/07/13/...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15765149/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8379690.stm