Which of the following statements pertaining to global warming to you agree with and why?

1) We don't have sufficiently good data to even know if the planet is warming to begin with.

• We have various means at our disposal for measuring temperatures – both the instrumental and reconstructed records. The most obvious is the simple thermometer and this has been in constant use since 1643 to record temperatures. Advances in technology mean that we’re using satellite telemetry more and more, unlike the other records, this one allows us to continually measure temperatures at every point on the planet.

On a daily basis each global temperature record will incorporate millions of temperature readings, over the course of a year billions of readings will be incorporated. Unquestionably there will be a few that are erroneous but these are just a likely to be too low as they are to be too high – thus they average themselves out and are swamped by the volume of other readings.

We use sophisticated satellites, extensive chemical, biological and physical analyses and some of the most powerful computers on the planet to create these records. But e could actually do away with all of that.

When I went to primary (first) school in the 1970’s we had a small weather station and each day different kids would go out and record the temperatures, amount of rain and so on. A few years ago I went back to the same school to give a talk about global warming and using a temperature record maintained by 5 year old kids for the last 60 years was able to show very clearly, how temperatures had been rising.

2) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by natural cycles which we don't understand, including over the past 50 years.

• Historically this is quite true, in the 4.567 billion years that Earth has been around the one thing that has been consistent about the climate is that it’s never been consistent.

There are a multitude of natural cycles which affect our climate and it’s probably true to say that the majority of them are yet to be discovered. The ones that we do understand account for at least 90% of climate variability in the past (probably closer to 99%).

The most obvious cycles are the rotation of the planet and it’s elliptical orbit around the Sun – these give us the day and the year. Concepts we’re all familiar with and can understand. The other cycles are no less complex and no less predictable but because they happen over periods of thousands of years they’re not something we can relate to quite so easily

Because they’re cycles they’re predictable and we can say for example, that the obliquity cycle will cause X amount of warming whilst the apsidal precessional cycle will cause Y amount of cooling. By summing up the values of all the cycles we can arrive at a net figure*. Because the shortest of these cycles (excpeting the Sun which is dealt with in part 3) is one of 26,000 years they don’t have a significant short term effect on our climate and over the course of just 50 years you’re looking at a maximum variation measured in thousands of a degree.

* It’s not quite so simple, there are several problems tying climate to cycles and the relationship between the two isn’t as robust as mathematics might indicate. The problems however relate to climatic variations on scales of 100,000 years and upwards and so are not responsible for short term changes.

3) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by changes in solar activity, including over the past 50 years.

• As with point 2, it’s a matter of the time-scale involved. The Sun goes through many cycles, the shortest and most influential of which is the sunspot cycle. This cycle occurs at roughly 11 year intervals, we’ve just started into cycle 24 a few months ago and on this occasion it was a year late in arriving.

Sunspots and sunspot numbers are related to warming and cooling but on a scale much smaller than has been observed in recent decades. However, during prolonged periods of low or high sunspot activity the average global temperature can change quite significantly, sometimes by as much as 0.1°C in a century.

On the whole, these last few decades have seen a slight downward trend in total solar irradiance and it would be reasonable to assume that the average global temperature could have fallen by about 0.01°C. In fact, the average global temperature has risen faster than has ever before been known

4) Global warming has stopped, therefore it's nothing to be concerned about.

• When talking about the climate in this respect, everything should be referenced in terms of trends observed over periods of many years, ideally at least 30 years. The reason for doing so is that there are any number of short-term variations that lead to unusual warming or cooling patterns.

Some temperature records indicate that 1998 was the hottest year and this has led some people to claim that global warming has stopped. 1998 was an exception as it was the year of the strongest recorded El Nino event and this pushed temperatures up by about 0.3°C, in other El Nino years temperatures tend to be somewhat higher than might otherwise be expected, usually by between 0.1°C and 0.15°C (conversely, temps drop in La Nina years).

If 1998 is kept in context then there was nothing at all remarkable about it. After allowing for ENSO then the temperature would have been about 14.323°C which compares to the 23 year running mean value of 14.359°C*, so if anything, 1998 would have been a touch cooler than average.

* 23 years is the max running mean that can be applied to 1998, applying different statistical operators produces almost exactly the same value.

5) Warming of several more degrees would be beneficial to humans.

• For some people it would undoubtedly be beneficial but the number of people who would lose out far exceeds the number who would gain.

The two parts of the world that have already suffered the greatest as a consequence of climate change are Africa and Asia, more than three quarters of the world’s population lives on these two continents. To date, many millions have been forced from their homes because of desertification, millions more have seen their glacier fed water sources dry up and been forced to relocate elsewhere. Crops have failed more in recent years than ever before and today there are more people on the planet facing starvation than there has ever been.

6) The climate isn't very sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2, so even though humans are the primary cause of the current global warming, it's nothing to worry about because the planet won't warm very much in the future.

• It’s not as sensitive as some people make it out to be and it’s certainly not as simple or as dramatic as the media have depicted in the past. The relationship between levels of CO2 and temperature is a complex one. They’re part of a closed coupled feedback mechanism in which one is consequent to, and a consequence of, the other.

During the last 100 years or so the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 40%, However, that doesn’t mean that temperatures or the heat retaining capacity of the atmosphere will increase by the same amount. This would at least require a proportional increase in water vapour levels and this is something that is dictated by atmospheric pressure and the temperature above the freezing point of water and in this respect the relative increases have been small, thus the increase in water vapour has been small and thus (again) the effect of a 40% increase in CO2 has also been small (comparatively).

Different greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for different lengths of time – they have different atmospheric residency periods. The overall average of the cocktail of gases that we’re emitting is 85 years and so, the gases we emit today will, on average, contribute to global warming until 2095. Even if we reduced our emissions to zero with immediate effect the planet will keep on warming for many more years.

7) Climate scientists as a whole are so dishonest that I just don't know what to believe.

• This is something that the skeptics would like people to believe but so far have been able to produce very little to substantiate their claims.

The work of climate science is a multi-disciplinary science and frequently involves experts from many different spheres. If the claims of the skeptics were true then they would have to include meteorologists, marine biologists, botanists, demographers, hydrologists, astronomers, economists, and probably just about anyone who had a professional qualification.

8) I'm going to die before global warming is a major problem anyway, so I don't really care.

• For a great many people this is probably true. In the developed world we have the technology and resources to mitigate against many of the effects of climate change and we can ‘buy our way out’ of many of the problems. There are some things of course that no amount of money can prevent such as the increased frequency and intensity of adverse weather events.

However, as mentioned above, it is the people who don’t have the resources who are already being hardest hit, will continue to be hardest hit and are least able to do anything about it.

b) The planet has warmed 0.5–1°C, but humans did not cause any significant amount of this warming. I suspect the amount of warming over the 100 years is closer to 0.5 based on historical SST I beleive the LIA, caused by low solar activity (well accepted), left the climate system out of balance, the oceans where left out of equilibrium and hence cloud albedo, evaporation and humidity where reduced to enable the sea to return to its equilibrium state (observed behaviour), now as it approachs that state, cloud cover is increasing to stabilise the system. You could call it a recovery from the little ice age. Its why the earth has been warming for 250 years at a fairly constant rate, even though co2 emissions didnt really take off until 1950. The PDO and solar activity also play an important role in the fluctuations on warming and cooling in this overall warming trend, as well as solar insolation etc... Its the reason why Tmin and Tmax have become closer over time, and why satelittes have observed changes in cloud cover over time and more recently increased outgoing SW energy. Unfortunetly climate models are far to simplistic and have too large a grid scale to incorporate this, though many recent peer reviewed papers have been recently published on this subject. I also believe the suns role is amplified within the climate system, this was recently confirmed in a paper in Nature from work by NCAR which found that there is a mechanism and clear evidence that this occurs within the climate. Again, IPCC climate models fail to represent this affect on climate, hence I believe the role of humans has been over-exagerated by the IPCC by relying on simplistic models that fail to capture most of the natural climatic variation. I believe much still needs to be resolved before we know anything conclusively such as the role of aerosols and land use change on climate and resolve the ACRIM gap I do agree Co2 does play a small role and could account for a further 0.1 degree of warming, based on the Idso's empirically derived formulae for co2 induced warming.

1) While I have some trouble with the NOAA data,

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/BOMBSHELL.pdf

I still think the satellite data has been fairly good. I don't know about this whole idea of an "Average Global Temperature".

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/07031...

The bigger problem with the data is determining what the relevant current trend is over the background of some randomness and changing conditions.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/#satellite-temps

2) No, we do not understand the natural cycles as well as I would like, but some of the correlations for those are much better than the 800 year lagging correlation that CO2 has with the warming of the earth as an indication of a casual relationship.

http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/graphs/Vost...

3) This has had a better correlation with global temperatures than the CO2 concentrations.

http://lasp.colorado.edu/images/science/solar_infl...

4) There is no good indication that it continued through the last decade. I do not know what is happening right now (cooling or warming), but it is never stagnant.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH...

If it is warming, I think that we have little to fear.

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/13860/S...

5) Yes, very much so.

http://www.co2science.org/

6) No, the climate is not very sensitive to CO2. Humans are not the primary source of CO2.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data....

The climate will change, and we will need to adapt. I do not pretend to know how serious it will be.

7) I fortunately know many honest climate scientists, but I trust my own analysis best.

8) I hope to live a long life, and hope that climate change does not have a serious impact on it. However, there is not much I can do about it one way or the other.

Good, thoughtful stuff.

1) I am a bit skeptical that we have reliable datasets. John Christy has commented that much of the data is from easily accessible electronic stations, with the vast majority of remote stations not included. Remote stations are more accurate as they do not involve urban heat sinks and irrigated agricultural land.

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/EPA_ChristyJR_Resp...

Christy and Spencer's own satellite data have the problem of not having been calibrated (the data may or may not be accurate). The Christy and Spencer data show a different rate of warming which is not so alarming (it has been so long since I tried to verify that that I may not be correct so someone may want to check this).

3) I don't know. I've not jumped on the solar activity bandwagon.

4) See number 1. It doesn't matter to me either way, as I believe global warming has been happening, with a small anthropogenic component.

7) I honestly don't know what to believe. I do not think that the East Anglia emails were nearly as innocuous as the followup public relations damage control campaign made them out to be; it is also possible that each one may be reasonably explained away. Taken as a whole, however, they are damaging. Further, the political and economic components of global warming - and what its purveyors seem to want as a final result - invite skepticism of the highest order. The link above indicates that "the great majority of the IPCC authors were, on the one hand, not climate scientists and were, on the other hand, pre-approved by their governments in a political process." That does not spell consensus to me.

Then there is the EPA suppressed report:

http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004...

Some other stuff...

9) I believe that the earth withstood periods of global warming before the industrial age. We are simply blaming it on humans this time.

10) For the IPCC to be right, CO2 atmospheric residence time must be from 50 to 200 years. The Railsback information I stumbled across yesterday is consistent with Tom Segalstad's work with CO2 indicating a much shorter residence time (2 - 10 years).

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fundamentals/Atmo...

I have also produced a 2007 paper from Ernst-Georg Beck, "180 Years of Atmospheric CO2

Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods" which indicates that the U.N. has been erroneous in measuring the amount of CO2 in its ice cores. Beck's work has CO2 levels much higher than 280 ppm.

If CO2 is not the offending gas in global warming, are humans largely responsible? The CO2 information alone is significant enough to raise eyebrows and skepticism.

11) As one who lives in a hurricane-prone area, I have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of hurricanes in the last several years, especially the monstrous, devastating ones that were predicted.

12) You keep hearing stuff like "the Arctic ice is melting" and then discover that, although it has melted, it has been growing for the last couple of years.

13) You know what? Maybe there is a big consensus. But I think if John Christy, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, or another respected skeptic (and I know that is an oxymoron for some in the "irrefutable evidence" camp) came to eat dinner at your home and discussed global warming all night with you, you may be left with just enough doubt to become a little skeptical yourself. I could be wrong; it depends on what evidence standard you seek.

"As a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios. CO2 and methane are minor greenhouse gases, with water vapor accounting for 98% of the greenhouse effect. The earth is cooled primarily by air currents, which carry the heat upward, and poleward. Present models have large errors

on the order of 50%. These models are unable to calculate correctly the average earth temperature or variations from equator to poles. Fudge factors are added to get the answers they want! The most alarming long range predictions rely on these untrustworthy models, which cannot even accurately

forecast the weather a week from now"! - Richard Lindzen (with apologies to those who hate hearing arguments about the weather)

1) We do have sufficiently good evidence that it has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. There is nothing unusual in that. If the temperatures didn't rise, life would be miserable.

2) We understand which natural cycles could be at play but we don't know the exact mechanism as to how the overall climate system reacts to the various forces.

3) It would make sense that global temperatures have risen due to increased solar activity since there is solid evidence that during the Little Ice Age, the Sun had very few sunspots and was at an extended minimum.

4) Global warming appears to have stopped or at least slowed down significantly. However, I don't believe that can be used to predict what the future climate will do.

5) I'm not sure how much more warming would be beneficial to humans. I am fairly certain though that cooling, especially to a level like the Little Ice Age, would be quite devastating.

6) The climate sensitivity is one of the key issues in this debate. Unfortunately, it appears that the theory that sensitivity is fairly high has the most traction in climate science. I'm not sure why that is but it could be related to how research is funded and what results are expected from that funding.

7) Dishonest is a pretty strong word. As can be seen by the Himalayan glacier issue around here recently, a lack of proper scientific process can result in bad science. To me, it appears that when a conclusion is a desirable one, it is more readily accepted with less cross-checking.

8) If I though global warming was a problem, I would certainly care, even if it didn't become a problem for many years after I'm gone.

The first major event that drew me to become skeptical of climate science is when Michael Mann refused to release his raw data and methods regarding his "hockey stick" graph. That graph is (was?) extremely important to the AGW cause because it appeared to show that the recent temperature rise could be considered "unusual". That supposition gives credence to forcing that is not natural, i.e. Man.

Anyways, it was highly suspicious that a scientist refused to release his data so it could be verified. That is definitely not the norm in the pursuit of science.

I'm going to go with my own explanation as my reasons may be a little different.

I have always had an interest in environmental matters, which is why i was aware of the global warming issue fairly early on - 1990'ish. I read about it, and was a believer in it, as at that time i saw no reason to disagree with it.

As time went by, I started to notice the pronouncements on AGW getting more and more lurid, to the point where it started to strain credulity. Things like within a century Antarctica was going to be the only place on earth that would be habitable (this from the UK's chief advisor on science in a national newspaper (1). Really silly statements. To be honest, that's what turned me from a believer to a sceptic - if those who should know better were saying such patently absurd things, then what about the rest of the theory?

I then looked back through some of the articles and books i had bought in the early nineties about global warming and found that their predictions were simply not correct. For example, here's a quote from a book from 1991 by a reputable scientist, Michael Oppenheimer, on global warming:

""Early in the next century global temperatures could be surging at the substantial clip of one-half to one degree per decade. By then, the world will be about a degree warmer than it is now""

That's just one example. But i think it shows that either there are major problems with the theory or that there is a lack of knowledge, whether this is realised or not (to paraphrase Aristotle, they might not know what it is they don't know - I think physicists refer to sensitivity to initial conditions or something similar).So when politicians, scientists and others claimed that there was no doubt at all and that the science was settled, it had the effect on me of making me doubt it even more. If they'd of said "we can't know for certain, but we believe that the most likely explanation is . . . " then i think i and a lot of other people would have accepted it.

There were other reasons. One of them was the fact that so many people were saying it would be the end of the world and that we only had a very few years to address it to avoid catastrophe - they would argue for a step change, massive and concerted action was the only possible way to avoid disaster. But when nuclear power was put forward as a solution, the same people (politicians, some scientists, green groups) would say the risks were too great and talked instead of a more gradual approach involving reducing energy consumption and investment in renewables. These are things which would take a long time to achieve, though. So if the climate change danger was real and looming, and the danger from nuclear only a risk, then why not choose nuclear, even as a stop-gap to a renewable energy future? That didn't make sense to me either.

So, in short, then. It was mainly the over-selling of certainty, coupled with some plain silly claims by people who should of known better, that caused me to go from believer to sceptic. I still have the rest of my 'green' beliefs and i do worry that if the AGW really falls apart then there will be too much of a backlash against all environmental matters. My personal opinion is that if "they" had gone for a halt to deforestation and a massive boost to renewables, instead of a cap and trade scheme, then by now they would have already achieved it and the movement would have been seen as a great success and ready for the next great thing.

.

1. The planet has been warming, just not as much as some scientists say and we are now in a cooling down phase.

2. If we look at the suns cycles they are in direct effect of the temps that have gone up or down.

3. Partly sun and possibly water vapor also. Let's not forget about methane either.

4. It is in remission but for how long it's hard to say.

5. More beneficial to plants and trees. While it would be beneficial to some people it could be devastating to others depending on geography.

6. I need to do some more research about this but i think it is sensitive. I just think it's more from natural occurrences from the oceans.

7. I think a lot of scientists know what they are talking about but there are just as many that are in it for the greenbacks and are dishonest.

8. We should all care. We all have offspring and they are the future alarmists or deniers. All i want is for people to tell the truth. Unfortunately i'm afraid we have seen that not all are to be respected, insert a guy named Al Gore here. When the front man is busted for making "Inconvenient Truths" and found out to be a liar about many many aspects in his taking of info from himself and Hansen what does that tell us all ? Of course we know ole Al is no scientist and had very mediocre science grades in college. Add to the fact that he is a hypocrite to the fullest, look at his mansion and footprint with that, lol, i never believed him anyhow.

The biggest problem i have is with the data taken from the temp stations and the homogenization of said numbers to achieve something that is certainly not entirely correct in accuracy.

1) We don't have sufficiently good data to even know if the planet is warming to begin with.

--funny

2) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by natural cycles which we don't understand, including over the past 50 years.

--Humans are interfering with the natural carbon cycle by pumping more and more green house gases,then how can AGW deniers call it as a natural cycle?...they should also provide information about the sources of green house gases in the atmosphere before denying .how did co2 in the atmosphere rise to the level of 385ppm.

3) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by changes in solar activity, including over the past 50 years.

--there is possibility,that can be just another reason for global warming but to confirm it we need more data about the present and past solar constants and other processes/phenomenon that are taking place on and inside the sun .

4) Global warming has stopped, therefore it's nothing to be concerned about.

--Temperatures are rising.this is fact .

5) Warming of several more degrees would be beneficial to humans.

--hahaha ....... skeptics who failed to prove that globe is not warming resort to this idea.

6) The climate isn't very sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2, so even though humans are the primary cause of the current global warming, it's nothing to worry about because the planet won't warm very much in the future.

--no person with a science background will give such statements .

7) Climate scientists as a whole are so dishonest that I just don't know what to believe.

--simple,then they should study basics of science so that they can understand what to believe .

8) I'm going to die before global warming is a major problem anyway, so I don't really care.

--highly irresponsible statement .

edit :: some answers say global warming would be beneficial to humans ,trees . not really ...how can trees grow and how many trees will act as sink when entire forests are being wiped out and moreover there is limit for everything.how can crops grow better with more co2 and global warming?? there will be stronger hurricanes,floods in some regions and prolonged droughts in some regions and increased temperatures will effect the crop duration,yields,etc.we can't compare vegetation and geography-climate of Mesozoic era and Quaternary period.

global warming and melting glaciers will effect the ocean currents which can be disastrous to humans. there will be many other adverse effects .

benefits?--arctic will be ice free and that helps in exploitation of natural resources there . that may lead to geo political conflicts ,interesting!

david b , You do not understand the first thing about climate research. Man-made global warming is settled science. It is a fact and we know this. We don’t waste time on studies that say otherwise, the same way we don’t waste time on studies that assert that the earth is flat. Global warming can be myth or natural in your belief ,it is something personal to you ,so stick to it...don't bother others.get back to school. simple answers given on the yahoo forum doesn't mean there is dearth of data and facts about the anthropogenic global warming.grow up. prove that global warming is beneficial to humans ,give comprehensive answer taking into account all factors or else just ..................

Have a great day

@david b , yeah funny that's how things are explained to dud es thank you .skeptics love that word but it is true...established facts come under settled science,in this case science is settled and also solid...haha

1: I do believe that the climate is warming. However, it's not warming very much. Of course, that's my opinion. Even several alarmists (one of the climategate guys emailed something about him not trusting current methods) have voiced doubts over the temperature.

2: We do understand most of the natural cycles; however, the alarmists have a way of shutting out anything that says those cycles could be the cause of warming

3: That's probably a major driver; however, there are other natural causes

4: Warming itself has slowed down significantly (if it's still warming at all)

5: It would be extremely beneficial

6: I agree with part of that; the climate certainly isn't as sensitive as the IPCC suggests, but I disagree with AGW

7: Climate scientists are often very reliable. Global warming scientists, however, work for the sole purpose of proving/ disproving AGW, and therefore aren't as reliable as they should be

8: If I believed in AGW, then this would apply to me. However, I'd still pay more attention to more current issues such as nuclear bombs in the middle east and poverty

None of the above.

I would almost agree with 6, but I think we should be doing something to affect change.

The amount of warming we have seen that can even remotely be linked to man is .4 degrees celcius of the .7 degree increase in the past 100 years. This may lead to some problems. Those problems include a increase in glacier retreat causing some flooding in a small fraction of the world and increased rate in the rise of sea level, which also may cause some flooding in very low lying regions.

There has been no link to increased levels of hurricanes, tornadoes or other potential natural disasters, in fact of late those have decreased, though we have been struck with earthquake in haiti and causing the psunami which have nothing to do with AGW.

The science behind AGW is relatively new, the data has been modified and has many sources of error, and the scientists have shown a heavy bias, especially problematic when dealing with modifications to large datasets with high noise levels and low signal levels. This means that their are many potential areas in which the data can give results that are divergent from the truth.

Much of the science has greatly overestimated their understanding of the Earth and the positive feedback loops between H2O and CO2. Much of this feedback does not truly exist and the idea of their being so many positive feedback loops lends to the belief that the Earth has an unstable climate, which history bares out is not the case. Further the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere would have a logarithmic effect, not a linear or exponential effect.

With these factors, it is still indeed possible that the temp will follow an exponential pattern, but highly unlikely. The certainty that has been claimed is truly not even remotely justifiable. In fact in my area, I would be hard pressed to find as much certainty claimed about what we do, but our data is more thoroughly controlled, is dealt with in a blinded manner, and must obtain matching results from a group that has no affiliation nor could prosper from the development of said drug. Scientists should be more careful.

Lastly, I think you would agree that the idea of London being under water is not a likely scenario for the immediate future (next 100 years). Many of the other lies told in the name of AGW have been gross exagerrations that lead people to believe that we are out of time and must act now. This is very dangerous and can lead to ill-advised actions. Some of these ill-advised actions include, but are not limited to:

1.) Increasing the power of the federal and/or world gov't power greatly enough to cause serious impact. Socialism has shown not to work countless times. There are few things that the gov't can do few things efficiently. While I agree that gov't involvement is sometimes necessary, we should at least be trying other modes of stimulating that sector of business prior to regulation.

2.) Biofuels. Cost more, reduce ability to produce food and do not even reduce CO2.

3.) Adding chemicals to the sea to kill some CO2 producing life in the sea.

4.) Putting up "solar umbrellas" in space.

What I do believe is that we may be looking at a 2 degree rise over the next 100 years and that we should work to avoid this.

Fact is that we nearly have the technology to fix this entirely. Nuclear power plants can be started. By lessening the red tape, we could start to make nuclear power more affordable than coal.

Electric cars are another area. Even given the fact that big oil has been buying the patents on any good electric cars technology that is developed, we are still nearly to the point where they can be sold to the public. I have heard of them going about 250 miles without a recharge, get that up to 500 and they would be able to replace the gas cars. Now I think it is un-American to allow those oil companies to buy up the patents and think the government should step in and stop them, in much the same way that I do not have any problem with the gov't stepping in and stopping monopolies. In fact I think it is un-american to be able to buy up any patents that you have no intention in producing.

My point is that we can fix the problem in about 35-40 years and be down to nearly 0 CO2 emissions. What we are currently looking at, however, could easily lead to us crippling the economy by rushing our reduction in emissions. If we do this and there is too great of a public outcry, you will not be able to get anything through the american public again. Further, while you are claiming much more certainty than anyone should claim for AGW, realize that if you are wrong, you will have subverted science and made it impossible to work on possible future problems that we may find. Claims like a 7 degree increase are likely wrong and if you become to vocal about such claims without scientists stepping up and saying that this is in no way certain or even likely, you will have the effect of causing all to question science.

I'm not well-versed in the science, so I can't really comment on it. But the majority of scientists in relevant fields say it's a problem, so that's good enough for me. I put more stock in their opinions than I do with the conspiracy theorists.

Whether or not GW is true, sooner or later we as a species are going to have to learn how to regulate the environment. Otherwise we are going to be at the mercy of an eventual catastrophic environment change, man-caused or all natural.