i categorically state the following:
1 ) while it is POSSIBLE that human action may influence the climate, it is not proved.
2 ) the general warming trend currently on hiatus will return, as it has been trending warmer since the last major glaciation, and the peak has not yet arrived.
3 ) the best estimates from CLIMATOLOGISTS is that sometime in the next 100-300 years the current interglacial period will peak, and the northern hemisphere will begins growing colder again.
4 ) solar activity plays a much larger role in climate than any other phenomena currently hypothesized, including massive asteroid impacts.
5 ) we can expect an extended warming trend around the year 5billion or so when the sun goes all Red Giant on us. mark your calendars. bring your sunscreen.
6 ) hysterically demanding an end to CO2 emissions is ridiculous and shortsighted.
7 ) most of the proponents of global warming have discredited themselves, and have shown themselves to be little better than holy relic salesmen during the last great climate doomsday scare in the year 1300 or so.
8 ) during the medieval warm period, england produced better wine than france. england is not yet that warm, so we have yet to hit the shit-your-pants stage, the current climate is still only "medium"
9 ) the real climatological studies are focused quite narrowly on CO2, but the researchers have yet to find a correlation with rising temps, not even in the ice cores. CO2 rises seem to FOLLOW warming trends, not lead them.
10) IF global warming is occurring, it is not yet proved whether it is bad, or good. only fearmongers are claiming desertification and doom.
11) the last time we hit the peak temps the Sahara desert was still a verdant jungle, even Uruk was not yet founded. those high temps were not man-caused in the slightest. the earth endured.
12) and lastly, science is not a game of consensus, nor is it a popularity contest. real climatologists are on it, let them work without the hysterical shouting, and without hurling brickbats if you dont like their findings.
1. It will never be "proven", just as the theory of flight will not be, nor the theory of evolution. Even when we know what is going on, when we can finally measure the particulars of global climate, we will never be able to prove it was man made. That is the wonderful quailty of science where things can only ever be disproven. I will wager that anthropormorphic climate change will never be disproven.
2. the general warming trend is not on "hiatus". I don't know where this idea that the planet is no longer in a warming cycle came from but it is rapidly becoming "generaly accepted truth". Just as those with the most interest in the status quo would like it to be. Or did you not notice all of the 100 year events that have been transpiring from hurricanes to drought.
3. I doubt that climatologists are reasonably forecasting an end to a 100 thousand year cycle in either direction.
4. It is well established that we are not on the cusp of any solar cycle - this "the sun is doing it" is another lay idea spread by those with the most interest in the energy status quo.
5. True enough, but until then it is entirely possible that our world will endure climatological changes that will make us as a species, very very uncomfortable.
6. Hysterical demands for any world wide alterations in the way mankind does business is always rediculous and short sighted. When we see an oncoming car's headlights in our own lane, it is not considered hysterical to contemplate changing lanes, or at the very least, applying pressure to the brake pedal rather than claiming that the lights are an illusion and we should accelerate.
7. No, "most" of the proponents have not discredited themselves or their work.
8. I believe that the last medieval warm period brought an influx of rat infestation and with it, a species of insect that, in concert with a certain bacteria caused the death of one quarter to one half of all humans. One could argue that there was no cause for alarm because the disease didn't wipe out all of humanity and they might even have an argument - but the dead would have one as well.
9. The problem with the cart before the horse argument - that CO2 rise is secondary to warming is one that most dismiss but the essential portion of the debate is the fact that the mechanism of causality is understood in the case of co2 to warming. Warming to Co2 remains unexplained. So long as it is,, it has no bearing on the discussion - again, Occam's razor comes to play.
10. Bad? Bad for whom? parasite bearing insects? those who live in regions that they would like to be warmer? As a whole, we all figure that increases in drought, the spread of other diseases, hurricanes and tornados, loss of valuable shoreline real estate, destruction of reefs, halting the oceanic conveyor, heavy and extended precipitation in areas not accustomed to such downfall are usually considered to be bad things.
11. Because we didn't cause the last warming cycle has nothing to do with our having caused this one. We could as easily go to easter island and state that ten million years before Humans cut down every single living tree in order to put up their statues, there were no trees on the island and therefore it wasn't a problem that the trees are gone this time.
12. WE agree, it is not a game of consensus. There was a time when the consensus in the new science of geology was that the earth was only 8 thousand years old. That God created the earth and that he did it exactly as described in the old testament was a given.
The problem however, is that climatologists are not free to work it out in a political vaccuum. They had their chance at it, certain interested parties caught wind of it and figured that climatologists needed some help - in the way of propaganda. Thus was born the GCC and from that point on what was pure science became a political event. Follow the money and you will find comparatively little on the side of man made global climate change. That is a real problem and results finally in the hysterical shouting you describe.
