"The Sun Has Nothing to Do With Global Warming"

But Mike, WE are at the center of our solar system, not the Sun.

Its all about US.

Any theory that says otherwise just won't do.

(sarc off).

Actually Mike I think you spoke too broadly there. There are many serious scientists at highly reputable institutions that are studying this phenomenon, and concluding as such,

you just that the Globe and Mail et al has decided that's not the news we should be hearing about.

Imagine if we are about to enter another "little ice age" with the corresponding devastating effects that would have on a country like Canada, (as compared to the relatively beneficial effects warming would have on our cold climate country),

and we ignored those scientists who were warning us about it (correction: we belittled and maligned them), because their theories weren't part of the cause celebre of the day for the leftists that run the UN.

We may not have to imagine too long.

"I am not a scientist."

That's true. If you were, you probably wouldn't refer to "Popular Mechanics" as a "science journal".

'Yet, climate scientists want us to believe...that, the warming trend in the 20th century had nothing to do with the warming of the Sun, and that it was principally anthropogenic."

Could you provide the name of a single reputable climate scientist who has ever said that "the warming trend in the 20th century had nothing to do with the warming of the Sun"? Because any study or summary of studies I've ever read (although I admit I haven't been diligent about following "Popular Mechanics") says that climate change is the result of the interaction of a number of factors, some natural (solar activity, cosmic rays, vulcanism, etc.) and some anthropogenic.

Ah..Balby
Maybe you should direct your questions to
that fruitfly guy or maybe the goracle,
Those two expert climate scientists,
have made hundreds of millions of dollars,
convincing people like you to
"ignore that man behind the curtain"
that man being the SUN.

That fiery ball of gaseous flames, thousands of times the size of the earth, which is the sole source of heat for not only our planet, but the entire solar system,

has something to do with our planet's warming?????

That just doesn't add up.

Clearly the sun is a component of global warming. However, if we had no atmosphere, the global temperature of the earth would be significantly colder (a mean global surface temperature of -15C or less) than it is now. So changes in the atmosphere are (probably) at least as important as changes in the sun.

balbuliCON is a proven idiot.

I always wonder- once these things beging to seriously prove themselves out, as global cooling will do in the next few years- if the likes of balby will even show up again to admit they were clearly wrong- or if they will just disappear, until it is time to ramp up the next faux crisis.

Good post. Keep watching the sun. This is NOT going to be fun.

"once these things beging to seriously prove themselves out"

They'll claim global warming was never disproven, not really, eh?, and it is still influencing climate. This will work well for them since it was never proven to begin with.
And, besides, they meant well. And isn't it better to consume less, regardless of the reason? And what about Iraq!!!

Matter of fact, they're saying that already.

Well, of course, the main driver can not be the Sun. There is no economic opportunities in that. After all, the Global Warming entrepreneurs can't create sunlight taxes or sunshine trading markets. Plus there would be no reason for new government bureaucracies or regulations. Finally, at his point, any deviating from the "settled science" might cause high profile scientific reputations to be harmed.

'balbuliCON is a proven idiot. I always wonder- once these things beging to seriously prove themselves out, as global cooling will do in the next few years- if the likes of balby will even show up again to admit they were clearly wrong- or if they will just disappear, until it is time to ramp up the next faux crisis."

Otter, in all this drivel, I'm trying to figure out what it was I said you disagreed with. My assertion was that climate change is the result of the interaction of a number of factors, some natural (solar activity, cosmic rays, vulcanism, etc.) and some anthropogenic.

What part of that do do you disagree with?

Come On! If the sun affected the Earth's temperature it would be warmer in the day time than at night.
Oh, wait....

While I wait for your response and for clarification from Otter, Mike, another quick question for you. Who exactly are you quoting in parentheses for the title of your post? I ask because I've never come across a climate scientist who ever said anything remotely that stupid. Or is this a silly exaggeration of the AGW position, to make it easier to mock, and not actually a quote at all? Just curious.

For once I agree with Balbulican, if by including anthropogenic effects, he means that if I piss in the ocean, the ocean will rise.

Come on guys, consider the source [Source: Wikipedia "Solar Variation").

No university accepts anything from this web site. Anybody can post to it and say they are experts.

I do have a question though. How come the planets [particularly Mars] is getting warmer? Does our manmade pollution reach to Saturn? It is not just the earth getting warmer, it is the solar system.

Interesting correlation. I'm a skeptic of large-scale anthropogenic climate change, but I don't think we know enough to dismiss it out of hand. On the other hand the evidence for a larger role for natural cycles of solar activity seems to be mounting from what I read. I certainly have no patience with the "sky is falling" crowd and those like Al that have turned hyping our imminent doom into a lucrative business.

I'm curious as to what the evidence for lows in sun-spot activity in medieval times is. Were astronomers recording systematic observations back then or is there circumstantial evidence such as variations in relative concentrations of isotopes in ice cores?

By the way, {warning: nit pick ahead] "from the mid 1600s to the early 1700s" would be the late 17th/early 18th century, not the "mid-15th century" as indicated in your summation.

From the Popular Mechanics article:

While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans ...

Balb, you're right, referring to Popular Mechanics as a science journal is bad form. That's fixed. Also, the title is a bit of hyperbole. The main point still stands, and I point to one of the many articles that claim the Sun's variation is a minor or insignificant driver of climate.

So pointing out the cooling during the Munder-mininum and now, I think is fair game. I understand that "correlation is not causation" in logic, but there is a hell of a lot of correlation here, don't you think? We just saw the biggest drop in average global temperature in over one-hundred years (in a 12 month period), and astronomers have noticed the biggest drop-off in solar activity they've seen this century.

So I think it's fair to raise the question, that so many climate scientists have dismissed as "significant'": just how much is the Sun a factor?

"So I think it's fair to raise the question, that so many climate scientists have dismissed as "significant'": just how much is the Sun a factor?"

Absolutely. So which leading climate scientists or studies have dismised solar activity as insignificant? (Serious question - I follow the literature from the perspective of an intersted layman, and I'm unaware of any such dismissals.

Balbulican, this image clearly demonstrates the IPCC conclusions on the influence of the Sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Radiative-forcings.svg

This chart, taken from the IPCC working group, shows both warming factors and cooling factors weighed against each other. They acknowledge the Sun has "warmed", but on it's own, this chart shows the Sun's changes in irradiance as the second-lowest factor for climate change, behind water vapor.

My only question of this scientific conclusion, is why has the Earth's global average temperature fallen by such drastic levels in the past 12 months, if solar variance is considered to be such a small effect? Granted, the actual drop in overall solar radiation over all, is apparently around %0.035, according to measurements from SoHo. But the drop in the Maunder-minimum would have been on an equally small scale. And in the grand scope of things, a drop in global temperatures of about 0.5C is also on a small scale, but can have a huge effect on weather patterns.

I think given these strong correlations between solar activity recently, and the Earth's temperatures following in tow, that the IPCC needs to re-evaluate if solar irradiance is truly the "second smallest" factor.

In fact, on Wikipedia, they admit that "don't know" if solar variation has a big effect on climate. This from Wikipedia, on the correllation between the disappearance of sun spots, and the "Little Ice Age":

During the period 1645–1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. The physical link between low sunspot activity and cooling temperatures has not been established, but the coincidence of the Maunder Minimum with the deepest trough of the Little Ice Age is suggestive of such a connection.

Shorter: it's compelling correlation, but it's not conclusive.

The IPCC working group made similar with the evidence that Mars, Jupiter and Triton were warming... "compelling correlation, but no physical connection."

It's things like this, that make average people wonder, if certain people investigating climate change, are suffering from extreme confirmation bias.

Let me summarize my point.

It's easier to argue against ridiculous position than a sensible one. Your post begins with the patently absurd title "The Sun Has Nothing To Do With Global Warming", (in paretheses, which, of course, implies direct quotation), and continues in that vein. And of course, several of your respondents answer appropriately, mocking the silliness of that notion. And that's certainly fun, and unites the community of deniers in a comfortable amusemement at those scientists who think "The Sun Has Nothing To Do With Global Warming." The fact that such scientists probably don't exist is secondary, right?

Of course, an accurate statement of the case wouldn't excite nearly so much wonderfully uninformed mockery. "Climatologists Differ on the Extent To Which Global Warming Is Attributable to Human Action" would be accurate, but not nearly as amusing a rallying point for the troops.

Just when I thought Balb could potentially speak reasonably, maybe get into an honest debate, he slips in the the word denier. Well in that case, here is my word of the day - asshole

Here is another article that talks about solar cycles and global warming. The bottom of the article has references

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/global_warming_and_solar_radia_1.html

Yes, I am an AGW skeptic. One of my first suspicions was the way that the physical science was so quickly overtaken by political and behavioral science. It is a grab for power and money by appealing to peoples fear and guilt. There is lots of reasonable doubt about AGW but character assassination, stating that it is "settled science", refusing to debate other possible theories and calling all skeptics "deniers" has confirmed my suspicions.

A person does not need to be an expert scientist to see what is happening with this issue. Just a rudimentary knowledge of human nature and political/religious history.

Greg, Balb can, in fact, speak quite reasonably. We have, as yet, no evidence to indicate that you have that capacity yourself.

LynnH, everyone SHOULD be an AGW sceptic. Dogmatic assertions on either side of the debate need to be questioned, challenged, weighed against the evidence. That's why posts that attribute an absurd position to AGW advocates and then demolish those absurd positions are annoying...they get in the way of a meaningful discussion, and they reduce the debate to bloggy gamesmanship. That may be the intent, and that's fine. But to give Mike credit, I think he's aiming for a higher level of discussion.

I could, of course, be mistaken.

What “meaningful discussion” Balbulican? What I see, and have seen for years, is a very marginal group of scientists, meteorologists, supported by U.N. political hacks, generating near religious hysteria over one of the most prevalent gases on earth, carbon dioxide. This unreasoning mass movement is not unlike the incredible mass hysteria that engulfed the U.S. in the late teens, resulting in the so-called “noble experiment”, prohibition. These madmen actually altered the Constitution of the U.S! What resulted was the vile and ghastly creation and rise of organized crime in the U.S., which we are still fighting and paying for to this day.

Can’t you and your friends get a life? Perhaps become born again Christians or something? The stars are the energy units of the universe, Balbulican. If something gets hotter or cooler, it is the result of energy applied to the subject in question. That, as a mere biochemist, I understand. You, as an obvious religious acolyte, do not! When hot, the earth warms, when not so hot, the earth cools. What exactly controls the sun? Even the most brilliant physicists do not know. But the most brilliant physicists are not among your religious following!

Pat West, Sc.D.
Toronto

Pat, here's an interesting exercise I use in training journalists.

Take a statement by someone, and strip away (a) purely subjective phrases and descriptors not substantiated by later facts or arguments, and (b) insults.

Let's do that to your two paragraphs, shall we?

Here's what's left.

"What I see, and have seen for years, is scientists, meteorologists, supported by the U.N., reporting on levels of carbon dioxide. This reminds me of prohibition, which resulted in a Constitutional amendment of the U.S. and increased organized crime in the U.S.

The stars are the energy units of the universe. If something gets hotter or cooler, it is the result of energy applied to the subject in question. When hot, the earth warms, when not so hot, the earth cools. Science cannot completely explain solar activity."

So in response to the actual substance of your contribution (please forgive me for ignoring the drivel):

a) It is interesting that climate change research reminds you of prohibition. Thanks for sharing.

b) Your description of the mechanism of heat transfer is incorrect.

c) Neither paragraph responds to any of the points I raised, which had to do with the framing of the issue.

Great input. When my wife got her doctorate in biology, one of the prerequisites was undergrad philosophy, where they covered logic. I guess that's not mandatory anymore?

Balbull babbles..."I use in training journalists."

Oh dear, oh my and sweet Jesus...Lord help us all.

Some of your guests really do have a hard time focusing on topic, Mike. Have you noticed?

Debate? Really? The global warming crowd doesn't want to debate. They call anyone who wants a debate a denier, or criminal (viz Suzuki). They just want to shut western industrial society down. Now if not sooner. These guys are dangerous

balbulican
I stripped away some of your comments "not substantiated by later facts or arguments"
and this is what I came up with;

" "

Ed, make up your own insults, would you? You can hire a writer if need be. I'm available.

This is fun. So much spleen!
Which side are we again? The Catholics or the Protestants?

balbulican:
People are so hurt when they're hanged by their own rope.

Naw. Idea theft is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks, Ed, appreciate the compliment.

balbulican: Or is it "Babble all I can"
First you say it's an insult, now it's a compliment. A little confused are you?
Or are you trying to have it both ways?

Naw. Just basking in the warm glow of your admiration.

For someone who allegedly teaches journalism you are rather poor at verbal jousting.

Oh, that's just one of the many things I do, Ed.

And this isn't "jousting". It's a bit more like stool sample analysis.

"It's a bit more like stool sample analysis. "

Scatological references? Isn't there a corollary to Godwin's Law stating that the first person to introduce excrement to the argument has to clean up the whole place?

You must redeem yourself immmediately with an obscure literary reference. And let's freshen things up with a bit more hauteur, shall we?

God. I can't watch you all the time.

Sorry, Obiwan. But honestly - why deploy Rostand when
Rickles will do?

(There's your OLR, leavened with a cheeky pop culture referent and free alliteration, as penance.)

But I disagree with your dismissal of my initial image. It seemed to me to capture the vast gap separating...no, you're right. I shall let it go. Don't leave, though, you may be needed.

I'll loiter about, but I can't offer any assistance on technical matters, as I recently decided that I don't care whether the earth warms up or not. Nor do environmentally inspired punitive tax measures frighten me, as, by my calculation, I am already paying 120% of my income into government coffers annually, in addition to a surtax of one ounce of flesh per $1,000 in taxes paid. I have therefore moved on to more important issues, like style and grammar, the merits of European cheeses, and whether or not to walk my dogs together or one at a time.

Jesus God.

This is one of those `denialist zombies' that keep coming up, endlessly and breathlessly repeated by new I-Want-To-Believe folks who desperately cling to any talking point they can find and who are congenitally disinclined to look for contrary facts.

You realize of course that the Sun and it's activity is the best-studied non-Earth object in the entire Universe? And that since insolation is the main driver of the Earth being warmer than 3K, that solar radiation is in fact taken into account? And that, quite literally, books have been written about this topic>?

Guess what they find? Go ahead, guess.

Here's a hint. Solar activity: 11 year cycle. Global warming: no 11 year cycle.

Here's another hint: `Maunder Minimums' do not mean an unusual minimum of solar activity, they mean that the *peak* activity is lower than usual. The troughs are the same. We just came out of a trough, and there was no collapse of global temperatures. Why would a maximum that is lower than usual result in more of a global temperature drop than the minimum?

Real, actual to god Science, Mike, is more than holding up two graphs, seeing them both go down, and then triumphantly concluding what you had already concluded anyway. Climate scientists and astronomers look at this stuff every single f-ing day.

Here's another, probably more important point. Let's say that, despite decades of evidence, that you are right and solar activity is considerably more important than generally given credit for. This still doesn't change the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. So as atmospheric CO2 continues to go up, what happens during the next big *peak* of solar activity?

Oh, YEAH, Mr. Jonathan Smarty Pants Al Gore Loving Islamosfascinazihomodarwinian Dursi (sure that isn't DURSOVITCH, comrade?) .... well, Michael MOORE is FAT!!

(Let this be a lesson to you, readers. It's important to nip these "scientists" in the bud before they start confusing the issue with "facts".)

Ditto Jonathan Dursi.

From the same wikipedia article Mike quotes:

"A 2006 study and review of existing literature, published in Nature, determined that there has been no net increase in solar brightness since the mid 1970s, and that changes in solar output within the past 400 years are unlikely to have played a major part in global warming. It should be stressed, the same report cautions that "Apart from solar brightness, more subtle influences on climate from cosmic rays or the Sun's ultraviolet radiation cannot be excluded, say the authors. However, these influences cannot be confirmed, they add, because physical models for such effects are still too poorly developed."[6]"

"Here's another, probably more important point. Let's say that, despite decades of evidence, that you are right and solar activity is considerably more important than generally given credit for. This still doesn't change the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. So as atmospheric CO2 continues to go up, what happens during the next big *peak* of solar activity?"

If one looks at history, then I would expect a time of great advancements in human invention and civilization. That was what happened during the previous global warming periods. You know the global warming periods not caused by human CO2. Those natural cycles that humans are now able to control because the IPCC tells us so. Forget human adaption and ingenuity, just send money.

``If one looks at history, then I would expect a time of great advancements in human invention and civilization.''

What on Earth does that mean? It sounds like an opening sentence of a particularly horrible 6th grade social studies paper.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can shine infrared light through it in the lab and it scatters a large fraction of it. No conspiracy here; it is deeply well understood why this would be thanks to the miracle of atomic physics, and even if it weren't well understood, it would remain as an empirical fact.

Given the amount of excess CO2 -- almost a 30% increase over preindustrial levels -- you can make testable predictions about what that should do to the atmospheric temperatures, surface temperatures, and oceanic temperatures. And all data sets -- surface, satellite, and oceanic -- now point to amounts of warming completely consistent with what climate change models predict.

You can make further real predictions about what might happen if the human-powered increase in CO2 is effecting the climate. You'd expect a increase in oceanic CO2 levels; check. You'd expect that increase to be consistent temperatures (check) and surface temperatures (check). You'd expect an increase in extreme weather events -- check.

Now, maybe solar activity plays some hitherto unexpected major role after all, and the current minimum will in fact partly offset warming due to increased CO2 levels.
Terrific. But what happens when the maximum happens again? Kazap. Unlike lynnh's sophist pretentions to understaind what history teaches us, we know, and see, what even local warming does; El Niños disrupt weather patterns over an entire hemisphere, causing not only warming but a huge increase in extreme weather events, all caused by a 2 degree increase in a localized region of ocean. Whatever El Niñnos cause, it isn't a huge increase in civilization and invention.

Against that and more detailed evidence, the `true believers' in the `the Earth's NOT warming!!' camp offer only little cherry-picked tidbits. That such-and-such a location is having a local cooling spell. Which is weather, not climate; a small region can `buck the trend' without `disproving' the trend, just like an unusualy hot summer can have a couple mild or cool days.

Or they can grab at increasingly implausible ideas. ``Maybe the sun has something to do with it!'' ignorant and gullible bloggers can say, pretending that they are the first people in the history of investigation to think of this. Or maybe cosmic rays, or some other random piece of nonsense.

When even these tidbits dry out, there can be dark murmurings about conspiracies and how the illuminati, joined by fantastically wealthy climate scientists, are going to drain them of their precious bodily fluids.

The true believers who will clutch onto any flotsam at all to try to keep their beliefs afloat who are acting unscientifically. And it's a shame, really, but there's not much you can do to convince them; they refuse to accept evidence they don't like.

lynnh:

Human adaptation and ingenuity has looked at the situation, and come up with a (partial) solution; use less carbon, as in the Kyoto protocol, etc. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean it's wrong.

This all played out around the Montréal protocol, too, with the banning of CFCs. People raised a hue and cry, saying how important refridgeration was to the global food chain (true) and how banning CFCs was going to hugely raise the cost of food, as well as other costs to industry, and it would be a disaster. None of that happened. The ban was put in place, people adapted, and new technologies were found.

Why are you so adamant against properly incentivizing ingenuity to deal with this problem, lynnh?

I believe the premise is wrong, the science is fraudulent and the proponents are opportunistic socialist inventing a "crisis" to take away freedom. Just another set of "ists" hell bent on making themselves richer and us poorer (in both freedom and money).

BTW being skeptical of AGW/Kyoto is not the same as being anti-environment. I refuse to accept the science and conclusions because the proponents slap the environmental label on it, say the science is settled and yell "denier" and anyone who questions. If the proponents openly debated the science of the opponents, quit the hysteria and went back to following the normal scientific principles then I would reevaluate. The science behind acid rain was far more concrete than AGW's. Unlike this environmental issue that is being driven by politics, carbon capitalists and religious doomsdayers.

Lynnh, review your comments, then Jonathan's.

Now tell me...which of you is arguing on the basis of actual science, and which of you is simply denying on the basis of an ideological conviction?

Lynnh:

Now, are the thousands and thousands of climate scientists and geophysicists conspiring to crush freedom in league with the Illuminati, or is it part of the neo-socialist cabal? I have a hard time keeping these things straight. And is this the same thing as the draining-precious-bodily-fluids conspiracy?

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can shine light through a box of CO2 in the lab and see this. When you put that effect into an atmosphere model, you see trapping of heat just as you see in the Earth's well-measured atmosphere; and cooling in the highest regions (the stratosphere) just as expected (because the heat is being kept below!). When that goes into a climate model, you get amounts of increased heating in the oceans, on the surface, and in the atmosphere which is exactly as seen, and is impossible to reproduce any other way. Satellite, surface station, and oceanic temperature records are all in worryingly excellent agreement.

The argument that it's all a secret scientist conspiracy makes no sense. In Science, you don't get research money for writing papers that say `Me, Too!'. You get research money for pushing the football further down the field, expaining something a little bit better than has been done before; and you get *famous* for pointing out convincingly that a previous idea was wrong.

And that they're doing it for the money? Exxon's profits alone in just the last quarter 2007 were $11.7billion. Royal Dutch/Shell was $27.6 billion (although maybe that was whole-year numbers). Arch Coal, a not-especially-huge coal company, was $360 million. NSFs *total* funding for Earth & Environment last year was on order $100 million. If you are joining the conspiracy for cash, which side of the fight do you think *you'* come down on?

The clamoring of the denialist side to find other causes -- like the long-discredited solar activity canard (as if this hadn't thought about 50 years ago! Do you think you're the first person to notice the sun has sunspots?) -- just further points to the lack of any sort of real support fo rthis side of the argument.

In fact, this post and the comments is sort of a perfect little denialist microcosm;
global warming isn't happening; if it is, it's not our fault; and even if it is, it'll be a good thing. The post itself says *both* that global warming isn't happening (see? January was cold!!) *and* that global warming is caused by sunspots; and in the comments lynnh is saying it'll lead to `great increases in human invention and civilization', whatever that means.

I said that I do not believe in AGW but I do believe that climate changes due to natural causes on earth and the Sun. Natural climate change does affect human and warming has coincided with periods of advancement while cooling has caused death.

Do I think this is the work of cloak and dagger. No. I do believe the 'crisis' was initiated by plain old greed from those who will financially benefit from carbon taxes and trading. From there the statists saw it as a way to increase big government. The socialists/communists as a reason to attack capitalists and democracy. If you can believe in the power and greed of Big Oil then why do you refuse to accept the existence of the power and greed of Big Climate and Big Government.

The doomsdayers zealots are the "True Believers" that are just the usual weak minded followers that have always existed among us.

As for my assertions. No problem, I'll give you a few sample links.

totalitarians of the global warming "crisis"
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6878
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=290513

AGW is a threat to democracy and freedom
http://tinyurl.com/2dhubw

Consensus what consensus?
http://tinyurl.com/2ffj6t

Peer review? http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/ipccprocessillusion.html

IPCC deceit
http://tinyurl.com/2dhubw

Global warming is good
http://tinyurl.com/33ntw4

AGW is a threat to democracy and freedom link should be:
http://tinyurl.com/25zydg

Lynnh: If you believe the Earth's climate can in fact be varied by external factors, why does it seem so bizarre to you that it can also be changed by human factors? Why is that so implausible?

The CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere before man caused a perfectly natural greenhouse effect; it keeps the earth about 30 degrees celcius warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. (This is why the Earth's average temperature is about 15C, and the Moon's -- at the same distance from the sun -- is -18C. The Earth has an atmosphere to keep the heat in.)

So why does it seem so implausible that increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere by 1/3 would lead to significant further warming?

The fact that you don't like the consequences of something does not make it untrue.

And does it not seem weird to you that you are arguing *both* that we aren't causing global warming and global warming would be good even if we were?

Your links are just summaries of long-dead myths or semi-paranoid rantings. Oh, the Czech president once said something about the same illuminati/enviroislamofacist consipriacy! Ok, you've convinced me, lynnh, the force of your logic is inescapable.

If you accept that the Earth's climate can be altered by external factors, what seems so strange about it being changed by internal factors, such as human activities?

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is a *good thing*; long before modern civilization, the Earth's atmosphere kept the Earth about 30 degrees warmer than the Moon, which is at the same distance from the sun but has an average temperature of about -18C, and the difference between the two is due exactly to the greenhouse effect.

So why do you think it's so implausible that increasing CO2 levels by 1/3 would lead to further warming? Just because you don't like the consequences of this doesn't make it untrue.

The rest of your links are just standard, rehashed, old debunked claims and semi-paranoid rantings. I know you think that scientists and the illuminati are trying to conspire to set up a One World Government and enslave you, but it just isn't true. `Find ways to burn less carbon' is not the same as `Resistance is futile; submit to the islamofeminienvironazifascist government, you peon!!'. Indeed, `find ways to burn less carbon' provides lots of incentives for people to find exciting new technologies and sell them at a profit. What's so terrible about that?

I am not sure how you go from my skepticism of the science and motives of AGW to one world government and Illuminati paranoia. I am simply a libertarian that questions the impact that this issue will have on individual freedom and personal prosperity. One needs only to listen to the likes of Al "Kyoto capitalist but huge environmental footprint hypocrite" Gore or David "go to jail, denier" Suzuki to form that conclusion. Unfortunately your response is pretty typical of an AGW believer. Do they send you folks a book of standard responses or something? (kidding)

To the Science. Natural causes have always been the driver of climate change. From ice ages to warming periods and everything in between. These climate fluctuations have occurred since before the age of dinosaurs right up to modern times. I do not think that it is particularly shocking to think that todays climate is just a continuation of these natural cycles. In fact current CO2 levels and temperatures are not even outside the norms. It has been much hotter and much colder. CO2 levels have also been much higher and much lower. Are you disputing these facts?

The next argument is if global warming is a bad thing. It is a historic fact that global warming periods have coincided with human advancement and prosperity. In contrast it is global cooling which caused starvation and disease. Any disagreement with this?

So, as stated, I believe it is a faulty premise. Humans do not control the weather or climate. This faulty premise is then supported by manipulated and incomplete science . This science is being promoted through bullying and hysteria. Finally It's effect will be an erosion of rights and wealth of individuals. Every "ists" is now using it to justify their particular world view. (All in the links that you do not like but have not debated)

Opposing views is not unusual in science. In fact rigorous opposition is necessary to advance theories and counter theories, debate, correction, etc. It is important that full and open discussions are not only permitted but encouraged.

Yet, AGW crowd is trying to circumvent this by bullying skeptics, equating them with holocaust deniers, and insisting the science is settled. They go one to invoke emotional responses instead of intellectual critique. Basically "save the children". More manipulation instead of science. This type of tactic that initially made me suspicious. Do you disagree about the hysteria and fear mongering of the AGW advocates?

Am I am expert in science? No. I do have enough life experience and education to recognize BS when I hear it. I also believe that as a taxpayer and free citizen I have every right to question and disagree with any movement that will make me both poorer and less free. No advanced degree required. It is one of the benefits of liberty and democracy.

The links, even if you do not agree with them, are just a few examples that support my suspicions of the motives and science of AGW I have no illusions that I am going to change your mind and I doubt that you will change mine.

Bottom line is the science is not settled. There is lots of reasonable doubt that humans are driving climate change. Only the naive would believe that we now know all that there is to know about the interplay and dynamics between nature, the sun, humans, volcanoes and the many other factors involved in climate.

If you really need to blame it all on Big Oil, go ahead. But at least be open to the idea that on the other side is Big Climate, Big Government, Big Environment and a host of other "Bigs". Unfortunately it is the little people that will get effected the most in this power play.

For your last question. There is nothing wrong with new technologies and profit. But the end does not justify the means.

Various lynnh quotes:

the science is fraudulent and the proponents are opportunistic socialist inventing a "crisis" to take away freedom. ...

totalitarians of the global warming "crisis"...

AGW is a threat to democracy and freedom...

The socialists/communists as a reason to attack capitalists and democracy....

I am not sure how you go from my skepticism of the science and motives of AGW to one world government and Illuminati paranoia.

Yeah, it's a real mystery.

Of course natural causes can change the climate, but that's not good news for us here. The fact that the climate is so variable means that human inputs can have big effects. There's nothing majical that separates `natural' inputs from `human' imputs; the atmosphere can't tell the difference between human generated CO2 and natural CO2.

In fact current CO2 levels and temperatures are not even outside the norms.

This is just nonsense. CO2 is highest it has ever been for the modern Earth, and while it is true that there have been higher temperatures in the past, whenever those times have been more than blips, those times have been periods of mass extinctions. Indeed, the last time temperatures were as hot in this in the US, for instance -- even though it was a `one-off' of a year or two, and in a localized part of the world -- was during the
dustbowl. Not encouraging.

Worse, the heating is happening much much faster than in the past; global changes happen over centuries or millenia, not decades. A change that happens faster means that more extreme oscillations have to happen while the system finds a new equillibrium. Again, not good.

You haven't even attempted to refute the basic science. You can look in the lab at what CO2 does to light. Its a greenhouse gas, and that is why the Earth is warmer than the Moon. You can calculate what happens when you dump an extra 1/3 and you can see what the temperatures are in the atmosphere, surface, and in the oceans; whether you `believe' it or not is irrelevant. The reason why all the climate scientists are on one side in this issue isn't because of a conspiracy; it's because the evidence is overwhelming.

Like with evolution (another field where denialists pretend the science is uncertain!), there is real debate over the details, but no doubt at all that it happens. Sadly, those things where uncertainties remain -- like the sign and magnitudes of feedbacks -- keep giving us bad answers when we find out more.

Unlike you, I'm not blaming big Oil, nor do I see shadowy conspiracies to take away my freedom or control my brain with secret messages from the media. But it's ridiculus to claim that a bunch of underfunded scientists are running such a conspiracy; if anyone is going to do it for the money, they'd line themselves up with the industry making a trillion dollars of profit per *quarter*.

At least you admit that CO2 is not the highest and that nature forces have always been responsible. Plants and animals adapted to both cooling and warming but cooling has always been the bigger killer of humans (see little ice age).

There is no conspiracy theory just plain old greed and power hungry tendencies of human nature. But I do see and unmistakable undercurrent of anti-capitalism and wealth redistribution aka socialism. Or are you denying that the AGW/Kyoto advocates are most interested in taxes and regulation? How does this not reduce wealth and freedom? They are talking about population control, replacing democracy ,Suzuki wants to send politicians to jail. The advocates motives speak for themselves. This is the exact opposite of my libertarian leanings - more tax, bigger government, more regulations. There is no other way to look at that. It infringes on individual personal and economic freedom. My view is far from a "shadowy" conspiracy theory from the fringe. Patrick Moore saw what was happening in the environmental movement - a takeover by anti capitalist radicals. As does Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Richard Ball, Lord Monkton .....for more "deniers", read The Deniers series in the National Post:
http://tinyurl.com/329mlc

Don't kid yourself, there is a lot of money involved in this. New taxes, carbon brokers, bureaucracies, new regulations, science grants, and of course movies and speaking fees for Al Gore to name a few. It is big business.

Basic Science. Well then lets get into some alternative theories of the CO2 math, temperature etc. from a skeptic.
http://tinyurl.com/35l8y9

Debate of the "settled science". Lets look what happens when the AGW debates the skeptics. They lose. That is why the declare the science is settled, no more debate. The science is unable to stand up in the face of opposition.
http://tinyurl.com/26hzgt

What I would like to see is a full scientific debate on AGW on an annual basis. Let the science evolve and be evaluated in the usual manner. In the meantime :quit the hysteria, quit the doomsday propaganda, quit saying the "science is settled", quit calling skeptic "deniers", quit calling for new taxes and wealth redistribution. Forget carbon markets, carbon taxes and sending money to other countries.

Stan;
That was the best laugh I've had in days. It is especially true here in Florida.