Steve,

First, all nations that burn fossil fuel are contributing to the global warming - capitalism, socialism - it doesn't matter.

Secondly, several studies of our old ice caps and rocks can show that this global warming is different than the "natural" ones.

I think we are fools if we just keep telling ourselves that it is ok to mess around with huge quantities of matter. If you lived on one of the islands that soon will be under water, I bet you would like to limit the greenhouse effect, right?

First off philkev, the 97% number is pure fiction, stop the lie. Second one must only notice there is not one time in the entire history of our earth, not just the last thirty years the chicken little therorists want to focus on, that the earth's climate has not been changing, fact.

First off philkev, the 97% number is pure fiction, stop the lie

No, StoAm, it is entirely correct.

A survey by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - the single most prestigious science organization in the country, and arguably the world, 97% agreement.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

Before using harsh language and calling someone a liar you should check the facts.

Interesting that when four out five dentists recommend Trident gum it's good advice from your dentist, but when 97% of climate scientists stand up and say "Houston, we have a problem" and we should talk about what we wish to do about it "it's pure fiction".

(As for the 3 percent of scientists who remain unconvinced? The study found their average expertise is far below that of their colleagues, as measured by publication and citation rates.)

Ah, the old "the earth has warmed before" mantra, that every amateur skeptic has memorized, without the slightest understanding of what they are talking about.

Backyard shade tree science, that misconstrues everything about actual science.

Here's something that has never happened before. Please take the time to read the following. It explains much of what confuses people about climate change. And i already posted this and don't want to be accused of spamming.

Global warming is NOT just a natural warming like the earth always goes through.

There has never before been a large species on Earth, 7 billion strong, burning fossil fuels and speeding up the natural short term carbon cycle.
( 20% of human caused emissions are from land use impacts. )

In the short term (or active) carbon cycle, carbon cycles through the atmosphere, water, top soil, and living things. We are made of carbon compounds.

This cycle has been in a kind of balance or equilibrium for at least the last 10,000 years, and maybe as long as humans have been on earth.

That balance made possible the Holocene, during which agriculture and civilization emerged in a fairly benign climate regime. Carbon effects all life, the climate, geology, the chemistry of the oceans.
(the Holocene is the epoch since the last ice age about 11,000 years ago)

Have you heard of clean coal technology? It's called carbon capture and sequestration. The idea is to capture CO2 from power plants and pump it deep underground to sequester it. In other words, take it out of circulation, take it out of the short term carbon cyle.

Nature has done a kind of carbon sequestration. The carbon from former living things gets deposited underground, where after many tens of millions of years, it becomes coal. This locks it out of the short term carbon cycle, helping keep it in a balance that has made life, as we know it, possible
.
We are now taking maybe 65 million years of coal, burning it, and releasing all that carbon back into the active carbon cycle, in a few human lifetimes. That's a blink of an eye in geological time scales.

So carbon from fossil fuel emissions are ON TOP OF the normal carbon that naturally cycles through the carbon cycle.

That is Not just a natural cycle that the earth is going through.

In the natural carbon cycle, nature adds and removes carbon from the carbon cycle through natural processes. Humans are adding 30 billion tons of CO2, or about 8 billion tons of carbon, to the atmosphere and the oceans every year.
And we are not removing any. That overwhelms the natural systems ability to keep the carbon cycle in balance.

And for those arguing that there isn't a consensus on AGW

Here is the big list of professional science organizations that Deny AGW

American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Canadian Associations of Petroleum Geologists

--

And here is the other list of science organizations

Remember, this is who the GOP candidates and most GOP congressmen think they know better than.

The following scientific organizations support the findings of the IPCC.

------------
78 GROUPS
There are at least 30 more organizations of national or international standing not listed here.

National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)

NASA

Woods Hole Resesarch Center

US Geological Survey (USGS)

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)

American Association of State Climatologists

American Chemical Society - (world's largest scientific organization with over 155,000 members)

Geological Society of America

American Geophysical Union (AGU)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

American Association of State Climatologists

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

American Astronomical Society

American Institute of Physics

American Meteorological Society (AMS)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Stratigraphy Commission - Geological Society of London - (The world's oldest and the United Kingdom's largest geoscience organization)

British Antarctic Survey

Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO

Australian Coral Reef Society

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Royal Society, United Kingdom

Russian Academy of Sciences

Royal Society of Canada

Science Council of Japan

Australian Academy of Sciences

Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts

Brazilian Academy of Sciences

Caribbean Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

German Academy of Natural Scientists

Indian National Science Academy

Indonesian Academy of Sciences

Royal Irish Academy

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)

Academy of Sciences Malaysia

Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Union of Concerned Scientists

The Institution of Engineers Australia

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

National Research Council

Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospherice Sciences

World Meteorological Organization

State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)

International Council on Science

American Physical Society (APS)

Australian Institute of Physics (AIP

European Physical Society

European Science Foundation

Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS

Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN)

Network of African Science Academies

International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS

European Academy of Sciences and Arts

InterAcademy Council (IAC)

International Arctic Science Committee

Arctic Council

European Federation of Geologists (EFG)

European Geosciences Union (EGU)

Federation of American Scientists

Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies

Geological Society of Australia

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics

National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Royal Meteorological Society (UK)

American Quaternary Association (AMQUA

American Institute of Biological Sciences

American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians (AAWV

American Society for Microbiology

Institute of Biology (UK)

Society of American Foresters (SAF

-------------------

The alarmists are those who want you to believe that they are all involved in some kind of hoax or conspriacy. ABSURD

Funny The Bering Sea was the only area that had normal or above normal sea ice last winter.

"It is amazing how debatable the "science" has been in this area."

It seems it's only debatable by Republicans.

Will Haas

You are confused about a few things.

You are repeating a standard denier myth about CO2 only being a trace gas.

What you don't understand is that scientists have understood that for 150 year, and that it is included in the greenhouse gas effect science, which goes back that far.

99% of the atmosphere is completely neutral in regard to atmospherci temperature - oxygen and nitrogen, neither of which have an effect of warming or cooling.

Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be a giant snowball and about 50F colder.

Yet entire job is done by gases that make up less than one percent. About 0.5 % in fact.

And of those gases, CO2 represents about 20% of the greenhouse effect, but is much longer lived in the atmosphere than the other greenhouse gases, especially water vapor which only lasts a few days or weeks.

CO2 stays resident for hundreds of years, the gift that keeps on giving.

Water Vapor NEVER acts as a climate forcing, only as a feedback. Water vapor does not initiate warming and cannot do so. CO2 can and does. This has been understood for 150 years.

If you want to disprove the greenhouse gas effect, you will have to disprove 150 years of chemistry and physics. good luck

" There is far more heat locked up in the oceans then the atmosphere"

That much you got right, but your understanding of it is not.

Right after you learn to communicate in english, punctuate and spell.

You are misinformed about electric cars and coal and about solar energy

Coal in the U.S. is now less than 40% of our energy. and it is already being phased out. We are not going to replace our entire automobile fleet overnight. Elecric and hybrid cars will be phased in, as coal is phased out. Both will take time.

Who said anything about "a few solar panels'?

We are talking about massive development of solar, both photovoltaic and solar thermal power plants.

Wind energy is already 45 GW in the U.S. , which even after adjusting for winds lower capaicity factor from it's intermittancy, is still the equivalent of 12-5 nuclear power plants.

Solar thermal power plants deployed in the southwest U.S., and equipped with molten salt heat storage technology, can produce steady power day and night. Yes day and night.

The potential for solar thermal power plants just in Arizona alone, is 285 GW, or the equivalent of about 123 nuclear power plants, - more than how many nukes we have now in the U.S.

Denmark already gets 20% of their power from the wind. Germany, Italy and Spain have about 20% from renewables.

Don't believe the misinformation about renewables that is spread by the same people who spread misinformation about climate change.

The Chinese government will spend $450 billion supporting renewables in China, over the next five years and $750 billion by 2020.

they have set a goal of 15% renewables by 2020

their new goal for wind power is 1,000 GW by 2050 and 150 GW by 2020

They have set a goal of 50 GW of solar by 2020

There is a city in China where over 800,000 people are employed in solar energy

There are 120 million installed solar water heaters in China.

(1,000 GW of wind power is equivalent to about 300 nuclear reactors, using 30% capacity factor for wind, for it's intermittancy, and a rough estimate.
Nuclear plants are about 85% capacity factor. The average nuclear plant is 1 GW, though some are twin reactors)

Really.

As of 2010 (simply because those are the easiest numbers to look up), nuclear accounted for 807 Twh or 19.4% of total electricity generated. Wind, accounted for 95Twh or 2.3% of total generated. Solar (both thermo and PV) comes in at about 1Twh or .02% of the total.

Potential doesn't mean anything, results do.

For 2010, 106 reactors accounted for 19.4% of the total, whereas 689 wind turbines for just 2.3% and quite a few wind farms are already in some of the better locations that can be feasibly constructed at.

Assuming you can get just as good of areas to build more, you're looking at over 5800 turbines to finally reach what nuclear produces. But the huge problem here is that it is a variable power source and you need to be a dependable source to back it up anyways...so, you are still required to have a power plant which means you might as well use that to begin with and save yourself the maintenance costs of the wind turbines (which is higher than most people realize).

Wind is a great supplement for localization generation, but you can't really use it as a large percentage of an energy policy. Of course, we can also talk about the increasing amount of pushback against wind due to the devastation on bird and other animal populations.

Solar, well, lets just say that you need to start glassing entire states, every last square inch, to get to where nuclear is.

See, this is part of the problem SailRick, unfortunately people on the alternate side quote off numbers that the real world just cannot come close to backing up. This alienates people and that's not what you want to do. Since we are talking about AGW, you should be looking at what needs to be done about the 70% that's being generated due to fossil fuels instead, which your comparisons really start coming up short then.

Mitchell

PS: If you are wondering what provoked this response, it's because you were seemingly picking the nuclear industry without any reason to do so.

worried3333

Melting sea ice does not add to sea level. land based ice does.

Actually it does raise it, but not by any appreciable amount. The reason being the salinity of the oceans give a greater buoyant effect as compared to freshwater but it doesn't amount to that much more.

Mitchell

WOW! Did you get that tripe from Rush L. or the RNC?

from the history books try reading them its fun and educating

You have history books about 10K to 20K years ago?

Oh wait, do you mean the bible?

Golf do you think the Earth has had constant temp for the last million years or so ?

It has fluctuated rather wildly from time to time.

Yes it has but we are causing warming this time and it may not be reversable.

Skip

Nice try at making up your own science. Sorry you are completey WRONG

Where in the world do people get the idea that they have figured out something about the earth's climate, that tens of thousands of climate scientists with advanced degrees and 150 years of research somehow missed?

Look up - Dunning Kruger effect

"The global warming is a hoax believers don't understand the difference between informed opinion, uninformed opinion, misinformed opinion and totally ignorant opinions."
(from comments posted by LeeAnnG at grist.org)

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always
has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Isaac Azimov

"..but how will we survive if we do away with fossil fuels??" How about wind and solar power to start with.

"... How about wind and solar power to start with..."

Not nearly as effective noe reliable, new technology with dark ages results.

StoAmerica completely FALSE

In one recent 2 year period, 18.2 GW of wind energy were installed in the U.S.

that is the equivalent of about 5 nuclear reactors, but built in 2 years!

And yes that is after adjusting for wind's intermitttancy.

We now have about 45 GW of wind energy installed in the U.S. The equivalent of 12-15 nuclear power plants. And this is just the beginning.

Denmark now gets 20% of their electric energy from the wind. Spain, Italy and Germany get about 20% from renwables.

Solar thermal power plants deployed in the southwest U.S., and equipped with molten salt heat storage technology, can produce steady power day and night. Yes day and night.

The potential for solar thermal power plants just in Arizona alone, is 285 GW, or the equivalent of about 123 nuclear power plants, - more than how many nukes we have now in the U.S.

Denmark already gets 20% of their power from the wind. Germany, Italy and Spain have about 20% from renewables.

Don't believe the misinformation about renewables that is spread by the same people who spread misinformation about climate change.

I suppose I should have said it above, but here's a good a place as any.

You cannot use European countries as your examples as they are in a different climate, different conditions, it's apples and oranges.

Due to their location, they have the luxury of some very stable wind patterns which could only be compared to the Hawaiian Islands and their tradewinds (though some of them enjoy even more consistent wind than that). Also, per capita, they use far less energy than the US. Finally, their population centers are close by so there is not the transmission loss that you will have here in the US.

Again, don't mislead. For real world application, these details are extremely significant.

Mitchell

show me i'm wrong this has been going on for millions of years and man has been here only 30 or 40 thousand years of it, not millions of years

and all these scientists don't have an agenda like al gore thats why he has set himself up in the kings seat when they pass the carbon credit system and who is clueless??? these people are just out to make a name for themselves by saying that we caused it and it never happened before just beleive us don't read about it in the history books they are all wrong

skip-3645666

The trouble with your crazy conspiracy theory is that you have to keep enlarging it, because you would have to include virtually every major scientific organization in the world, tens of thousands of climate scientists.

It is ABSURD

Al Gore would have needed a time machine, so he could go back to 1859 and get Tyndal in on it, and then move up to 1896 and get Arrhnenius in on it, and so on ..........up to the 1960s when he happened to have a famous climate scientist (Keeling) as a professor in college. That's what got him interested in it.

Over 100 professional science organizations with international standing - have all issued statements saying - AGW science is certain, and that we must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emssions.
This includes every national academy of science in the world.

The U.S. National Academy of Science has issued four such statements.

The prestigious science journal, Nature, issued a statement this year, lambasting the GOP for it's anti science position, especially on climate change.

Do you believe fossil fuels will last forever?

It's not true by the way. There is nothing that man can do to stop the polar ice from changing year to year and season to season.

Dude, putting 100 quadrillion tons of carbon back into the eco-system it took nature 50 million years to take out isn't good, it WILL upset the balance in some way, shape or form.

Well said WilliamOfRites.

Especially when we are doing so in a few hundred years, a nanosecond in geological time scales, like the tens of millions of years nature spent sequestering the carbon

this has never happened before thats why they have found sharks teeth 50 miles inland in north carolina and sea shells in utah

skip And those sharks were there hundreds of millions of years ago, or at least tens of millions.

Long before humans evolved, maybe before mammals evolved. Not relevant -at all

Al Gore donates all the money he makes on carbon credit trading - to non profit groups

As soon as you see a comment from a so called skeptic, that contains the words - Al Gore, be assured that they have no clue what they are talking about.

Al Gore has nothing to do with it.

Climate scientists don't work for him

Climate scientists don't work with him

Climate scientists also do not work for the IPCC
And they are not paid by the IPCC or the UN

Some volunteer their time to the IPCC, on top of their day jobs doing the research at academic and government research centers that have NOTHING to do with the IPCC.

Although some of us have a survival instinct that is a bit stronger than our neighbor's hubris!

earthman12 - what you posted is not factual at all. Volcanos don't pollute as much as mankind does, period. Plus the ecological balances have been changed by mankinds pollution of the air. Ever here of the "straw that broke the camel's back"? Well, that is what mankind has done. We pollute with excrement so much that nature cannot handle it all so we have SEWER SYTEMS that PROCESS it. We even have to do the same with the pigs we raise for food. The problem is we do not do anything to PROCESS the emissions we create at all. But all the world will have to do this and the likelihood of that, especially with China, is nil. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do something even if China does not.

This is terrible! We need higher taxes and a more intrusive government now, or we are doomed.

No, you need to lick my boot and beg. Then maybe I'll care to help you. I don't want your money; I have enough of my own.

I am conservative and have studied global warming for decades. The real problem is idiots that make it into a political issue. I am neither Republican nor Democrat because both are in my opinion idiots led by the herd mentality, and the rah, rah, rah, high school theme that is based on loyalty to some ridicualous agendas like "we are better, because we just are", and are not based on truth and facts.

Liberals ignore facts and truth and are led by their emotions and feelings. Conservatives place too much on "things will just work out fine" attitudes, and though they know the facts they tend to do nothing about things except argue them.

The real problem is that science has become a dirty word to the Republican party.

The real problem is with those the political cowards that refuse to stand up for their scientific principles, or maybe they never really had any.

By ignoring the science, yes. That is as immoral as rape.As traditionally defined.