I have a conspiracy theory:

The Obama administration leaked this to distract people from the health care debate.  Discuss!

hesjoking

Is he joking?  Given the existence of Palin supporters, it's really quite hard to tell.

keep it on topic folks....

I still see this as getting very close to loosing objective science as we know it.  (maybe it is already lost )

Such is the usual outcome of topics fed into the rhetoric engine.

I think a lot of people are lukewarm on the issue, which calls on the first part of your post, how effective political debate is at providing a spectrum for us to think within. Most especially when it is allowed to form an axis with the idea of the fringe and its mystical opposite: the norm.

The idea of global warming is very much temporal and as such is limited by our understanding of our own purpose. I for one can't see that filling the atmosphere with CO2 isn't exactly what we were raised to do. I would be very surprised if something as self-serving and limited as politics would be able to dam the flow at this point, but it will be interesting to see if the empirical in this instance, will be able to apprehend the emergent.

Reply #99 Mumbles.  #60 is four pages back, you weren't replying to it when you asked if it was my source for the information.

Gracias, mucho gracias.  I couldn't have done it without you!  For those of you that don't read links, it's a treasure trove, somewhat dated, but bloody wonderful.  It also supports my view.  The temperature stations are both less accurate, and there are unexplained differences in the records between them.  Of course, it also says we'd only had a .2-.3 degree increase over the previous four decades, so go figure.  Of rather high importance, it also states that the lower troposphere should be rising in temperature faster than at the surface.  So...

Are you still done jumping through hoops or would you like to take another crack at proving the concensus of scientists to be a bunch of idiots and liars?  In the mean time, I'll continue to wonder why we're getting so excited over a slight increase in temperature that indicates little more, if anything, than the normal shifts.  I'm also still betting CFC's will end up labeled the culprit for the variations in atmospheric temperatures, not CO2.

baha! gold.

birth control?

But whatever, the mystery is now solved.

But you're right, I most certainly did not read the whole thing, I read enough to establish that the MSU data they were talking about showed an increase, as opposed to the decrease you berated me for in my first attempt, and then continued to the point where is seemed that they were justifying the point that seemed to trouble you which was that the temperature increase of the troposphere did not match the surface temperature increase. After that I bailed.

The last thing I read was "Differences between the MSU and surface records are found where there is some degree of decoupling in the vertical between the surface and the lower to middle troposphere." and then a bit beyond where they started providing reasons for this decoupling.

So what about this supports your denial of AGW?

Do you realize that sometimes it seems you less effort than Zyxpsilon into making yourself understood?

I am not a climatologist.

I have no interest in becoming a climatologist.

I make no pretense to completely understanding the entirety of the article that I referenced but given the source I don’t believe that anything in that article denies AGW.

If you fully understood the article then I’m happy for you. I freely admit that your understanding of these climate issues is greater than mine. But I will not admit that your understanding of these issues is greater than that of credentialed, published (in recognized peer reviewed journals) climate scientists.

So if you think something I quoted disproves AGW then as you’ve established you’re free to believe any theory you want but if you wish to prove something to someone else then I suggest you prove it to the authors of the article because otherwise you’ve proven nothing to no one.

http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_backseatdriving_archive.html#111700433898143899

It’s a site where you can put your money where your mouth is and place a bet on any of a number of global warming denialist positions. If you really know so much you should really be able to clean up.

cRAck!!! WE'rE ALL cCRACk babIEs!

Back in 1975 the scientists were saying we were going into another ice age, and the White House backed them.

At that time, the global temp had been cooling for several decades. (or so the scientists said)

You are a few years older than me, surely you must remember it.

You say that a report from 1996 is 13 years out of date, yet the base data has not changed in that time.

And, as well, do the scientists of present day show data that would confirm a general cooling of the planet between ~1940 and 1975?

Around +-1C variance in the last couple hundred years, and everyone cries either 'we are going to freeze to death' or 'we are going to fry and drown to death'.

Sure, our industries and usages produce CO2 - as well as many more (and more) dangerous substances. CO2 is not one of them (the dangerous substances), since it is in the cycle of Life on this planet. The more CO2, the healthier the plant life, which then absorbs the CO2 and produces O2 which we breath in to sustain our own life.

Do we need to clean things up? Yes!

Let's get rid of Mercury in our products, for a start. So, let's ban CFL's and stick with the original, tried and true, fluorescents. We can deal with a little more heat better than we can deal with heavy-metal poisoning.

As for all this 'Global Warming/Climate Change' crap, well, the climate and global temps are always changing due to natural forces (and yes, some due to our own doing, no doubt). But I really think that what we do on a planetary scale is so much less than what nature does on a universal scale that it is near to insignificant.

Haven't you even wondered why the term 'Global Warming' was changed to "Climate Change'?

It's because they can not prove something, and the term no longer applies.

The climate is changing, perhaps even drastically. But, our response should not be to try to change the changing conditions - it should be to adapt to them.

After all, isn't that what evolution is all about? The fittest adapt to changing conditions... and so become all the more stronger.

Trying to control nature through technology for our own comfort? That just reveals our own weaknesses - the concept of which, I'm sure, could begin another heated debate.

The point I am trying to make is this:

We are small in the Universal order. There have been drastic (and sometimes sudden) climate changes in the past that have nothing to do with technology. They simply happened - either for known or unknown reasons. A climate change because of a comet/meteor strike is a known factor - to a certain degree. Volcano eruptions... again a known. How about something outside of that? Like simply flying through the galaxy and universe on our own course, that brings us into an area that has enough dust to reduce the sunlight that reaches our planet and thus causes a global cooling, or an absence thereof that causes the reverse?

There is no 'normal' temperature for our planet. It is always changing, due to more factors than we can factor in with any certainty.

I think you meant original *incandescents*. All fluorescents contain a bit of mercury, although it is on a milligram scale. More importantly, people seem concerned about a few milligrams of mercury in a bulb, or a few grams in a thermometer (damn you eco-freaks for banning thermometers!), yet don't seem to know about or care about the tons emitted from coal plants every year.

If you buy the theories, it makes sense. The globe as a whole may be warming, but that is no indication of what your particular spot on it may do. More rain, less rain, altered growing seasons, temperatures that could be higher, lower, or even both at varying times - all are possibilities. They changed the name to reflect that warming *isn't* the only thing that would occur (if indeed anything occurs).

Exactly.