You are correct that it is unfortunate the issue has been politicized. But that is one of the biggest reasons to be skeptical of the idea that high CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming. When politics get involved in science, so does money, and when money gets too involved in science... well, you at least have to question the results. Many funders of science (special interest groups) like to hear results that reinforce their agendas... that is a fact! In fact, there are verified stories out there about scientists who have been denied funding, lost their funding, and have even been fired for refuting the idea that CO2 is to blame for global warming.

It is undeniable that global warming is happening, or at least has recently happened (see reports that we are in a cooling trend). What is arguable is that human beings are to blame.

Well, real scientist doubt global warming but thier
work can only be found on the net and not in the latest
edition of Science.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/page2.html

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/comment.php?comment.news.109

Jeff G., you want to talk about the "small snapshot of society shown by the doubters"? What about the small snapshot of time in which most global warming research has taken place. Is that small snapshot enough to make the conclusions that have been made about global warming? Besides, the very article to which we are responding states that the "doubters" not such a small snapshot. 59% of America believes that global warming is a purely natural phenomenon (first paragraph).

By the way, questioning the intelligence of the "doubters" shows true ignorance. Healthy debate of the issues requires there to be people on both sides of the argument. We "doubters" may be wrong in the end, but at least we have enough intellectual independence to doubt in the first place. I would rather be a wrong "doubter" than a wrong follower any day of the week.

If you want to not be a follower and become more educated about the claims of the "doubters", go to globalwarming hoax.com. Whatever conclusions you come to after reading the articles (especially those by Dr. Weinstein), you will at least be educated about what the "doubters" think before questioning our intelligence.

Higher education is so easy and affordable it is sad that more do not take advantage of it.

peter bartner | August 5, 2009 7:52 AM
I bet no one has ever "proven" to you that e=mc^2, but that's because it takes years of study to get to the point where you would even understand the proof. Scientists don't care you don't understand, and you don't care.

But with global warming, for some reason you think that you will be able to understand their work. And show that it is wrong.

Dream on.

The 'hot spot in the troposphere' was a red herring caused by global warming Skeptic Roy Spencer doing his analysis wrong:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/050811_global_warming.html
Now that RSS is doing the same work, and better, the measured data matches the climate models.

You are also wrong about ocean warming:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
It is Argo floats, not Argon.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
The oceans have been warming quickly:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

You are also confusing "weather" with "climate":
http://www.skepticalscience.com/weather-forecasts-vs-climate-models-predictions.htm
Insurance companies can't predict when you will die, but they have a pretty good idea how many people like you will die, when.

CO2 levels were much lower before the Industrial Revolution, about 280 ppm. They are now about 390 ppm. You don't know what you're talking about wrt famine.

And the next Ice Age, cause by Milankovitch cycles, is expected some 50,000 to 100,000 years from now:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

Shaun | August 8, 2009 12:17 AM
Climate can be affected by many things, just like the temperature of your house can. Sometimes it is the sun coming in the windows, sometimes the central heating, sometimes cooking with the oven all day. Showing that the oven heated the house one day last month does not prove that the central heating system is not heating it now.

Likewise, showing that Milankovitch cycles caused the Ice Age to end 15,000 years ago, does not show that dumping billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere is not heating up the planet now.

The Sun is closely observed and measured: it is not a factor in the warming these past few decades:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig4.gif

The seasonal dying and growing of plants does use lots of CO2, but it is in balance. Only the human emitted CO2 from dug up fossil fuels accumulate in the atmosphere.

You are totally wrong about volcanoes: they emit only 0.3 gigatonnes of CO2/year, about 1% of human emissions of 26.4 gigatonnes. (1 tonne = 1000 kg)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm

Why do we only hear about the pro global warming
arguments?

Now let's apply this to global warming (DV) and increased CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (IV). In order for us to infer that increased CO2 emissions are causing global warming, the increased CO2 emissions must precede instances of global warming (positive change in average global temperature). As many have pointed out (including scientists who study climate change), there have been many instances of global warming in the history of the planet, the most notable of which triggered the end of the last ice age. Were human beings around before then burning fossil fuels? No. Were human beings burning significant amounts of fossil fuels in the Middle Ages (during which was another notable instance of global warming)? No.

Over multiple data points, we can see that human beings' burning of fossil fuels has only preceded one of several instances of global warming (the most recent). If human beings are not at fault for the other instances of global warming, then how can one reasonably say that human beings are responsible for this one? If any scientist were to conduct any experiment using any other concepts, and find that their IV only preceded one instance of change in their DV out of several, that scientist would start looking for another IV. Maybe scientists should start looking at other potential causes of global warming. HOW ABOUT THE SUN ?!

Did you know that leaves dying in autumn and winter emit more CO2 than all human beings do combined over several years? Did you know that a single volcanic eruption emits more CO2 than all human beings combined in 40-50 years?

Good to see-- just as I thought all Al Gore type hypocrites had taken over

You cannot make judgments upon a global phenomenon based upon 'cold it was in NY'. But keep deluding yourself.

The IPCC can't explain where the missing heat is (real world result, so they turned to virtual reality of play station modeling. In a time when mankind can't predict weather out to 2 weeks, IPCC pretends that they can predict climate 50 years from now; the MET has failed 3 years in a row to predict what the 3 months of summer will be like on April 30; their model can't predict one month in advance, but we are suppose to believe that this model will predict weather in 2100. They say dryer weather with above average temperatures. the real world is wetter and cooler. In science of climatology, an expert is someone who has devoted his whole professional life to gain a little understanding in a specific area of research (ocean, clouds, etc). No one comes close to understanding the over 100 factors already identied and there are still more factors to be discover. Climate is a complex, chaotic system and the capability of developing a unified climate model is far in our future; maybe we will never develop the computing power to accomplish this feat. Therefore, the IPCC modelers over-simplify, make unsubstantiated, bias assumptions and use porly defined parameters as fudge factors. No wonder the MET model failed to predict the weather one month from their prediction. Like everyone else, our knowledge of climate is far to primitive to be used to predict more than a week. Yet goverements want to destroy their economy to prevent predicted unsupported warming by 2100.

Two csutionary notes.
1) We should never lose sight of the fact that CO2 is an essential trace gas in our atmosphere. It is essential to all life; plants require water, CO2. minerals and sun light for growth. If by some miracle, we were able to substantially reduce CO2 levels, we would cause famine. It is mathematically estimate that the increase of CO2 since 1950 has resulted in a increase of 15% in food crop production.
2) We live in an ice age; 100,000 years of glacier expansion, 10,000 - 15,000 years of inglacial relative warmth (a differnce of 7 - 10 degrees centigrade). We are currently approaching the 11,000 year of our current interglacial period. In other worlds, we will enter another ice age in the next 0 - 5000 years. We don't know why it happens, but it will bw sudden. We are unprepared for this event whenever it happens.

Peter

The ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy) Index for the globe is showing hurricane activity is at a 30 year low. Tornado, drought, heat wave trends are all down.

The sun is quieter than anytime in 200 years which was the timje of Dickens and characterized by snow and cold in London just like last year.

New York City just had the 3rd coldest June and July since 1869 with no temperatures over 85 in June or 86 in July. Many other cities in the east and central had the coldest Julys on record. Many areas in both hemispheres have set snow and cold records the last few years and there have been fewer heat waves in the United States than any decades since the 1800s. One or two years doesn't make a trend but 8 to 10 years does.

CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant fertilizer. Instead of bringing the civilized world to a standstill fighting a phoney enemy, we should focus on a developing a sane energy and technological growth plan that brings enables us to help the world enjoy the blessings we have enjoyed.

Less Carbon More Jobs, a series of maps by Environmental Defense Fund that show the companies that are poised to grow once the U.S. limits carbon pollution.

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=33427

what a pile of steaming future CO2.