[TheBattman]

What scientific agreement? You are trying to tell us that 100% of scientists around the world totally agree that global warming is a "fact"?

You might want to check your sources.

Natural seasonal and yearly changes account for far more variation in climate than any "man-made" climate changes. Right now, where I live, although it's hot, we are experiencing the coolest summer I can remember. Normally by this point (2nd week in July) we have reached 100 degrees at least a couple of times. Thus far, we have not officially been above 97 degrees.

What about the drastic temperature swings scientists claim from historical periods - like the ice ages with in-between heat spells? This was long before they claim that man caused global climate problems.

The real issue is not the use of fossil fuels and the CO2 they release, but the big question of how long will the world's supply of these fuels last. As global supplies drop and prices increase, it will make economic sense to develop other fuel/power sources. I truly believe that we will run out of these natural resources before we do any significantly proovable damage to the climate.

[FreeTheHostages]

What about the drastic temperature swings scientists claim from historical periods - like the ice ages with in-between heat spells? This was long before they claim that man caused global climate problems.

Ah, finally, an intelligent response. I'll respond to this. The Vostok ice core shows 180-280 ppm CO2 cycles for the ice ages -- 2 large and they think 2 small in the last 450,000 years. Current CO2 levels are 360-380 ppm, far in excess of these. But yes, CO2 (and methane!) are part of the natural process for re-heating the earth out of ice age cycles. That natural history doesn't account for these large CO2 numbers, were show that the natural sinks -- plants and oceans -- aren't handling it all now.

The Vostok ice core science -- the ice core itself and yes the scientific consensus that it's a good ice core sample and the CO2 numbers found at different years in the core are legitimate -- is pretty key in the scientific literature. (So, forgive me for breaking with the tradition in this threads and saying specific things backed up by actual science, but the ice core/ice age point you make is a good one. It's just that Vostok -- and other, subsequent ice cores -- show that's not the natural process that's leading to *these* levels of CO2. The ice samples show something else: People here are talking CO2, but you have to talk methane too.) As a purely analytical matter, the question of whether manmade activity is responsible for dramatic and historically anamolous CO2 results is a scientific question, not a political one. The queston of what to do with the answer is the political question.