Comments

Michael S said: "The duration that CO2 remains in the atmosphere is 100 years on the low end. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00296.htm" ...and 100 years is but a blink of the eye in the terms of geological time, so you are really validating my arguement. Plants will consume the carbon dioxide quickly. "So, global temperatures rise over a very short period of time with no identifiable natural cause while concurrently an atmospheric greenhouse gas reaches its highest level in 400,000 years, and your foundation for inaction is a reliance on coincidence." I agree with GenXer on this one: "The occurance of two events at the same time does not prove causality." Equilibrium is a balance of forcings versus reactions, a balancing of the scales. This balance can be found with 5 oz on each side (for instance a very cold condition) or 5 tons (for instance a very warm condition). Historically, shifts in the balance occur over hundreds and thousands of years, not decades. Simply not true. We have ample evidence for very large and very quick changes in temperature, one of which I gave (the frozen mammoth with grass in its mouth). None of this had anything to do with human activity. "Hopefully, you realize that Mars is a completely different planet with vastly different atmospheric composition, surface conditions, orbital patterns, and so on. In other words, Mars could be warming at the same time as Earth, cooling at the same time, or going in completely opposite directions, all with equal validity. Even the article you link does not attribute Martian warming to solar variance." So what you are saying is that without ample proof of what is causing the temperature to rise on Mars we cannot conclude what is causing it... Think about that.

>It is not arrogance to conclude that climate change could be caused by human actions, quite the opposite. The hubris is found in the belief that the actions of mankind are without consequence. Response: It is hubris to assume that we have power over such awesome scale while we lack any credible data. As for logic over emotion, does it make more sense to believe that a greenhouse gas that is emitted by the industrial activities of mankind in ever increasing amounts year after year and that can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years could influence global temperature or that there exists a conspiracy of thousands of scientists around the world who forge peer-reviewed scientific studies and data in the ideological pursuit of global government and funding protection? Response: First - carbon dioxide is consumed by plants, so it will not "remain in the atmosphere" for long. Second - while I don't doubt that there is no conspiracy by scientists, where they all get in a room and agree to lie, I do think that their opinions can be colored by the fact that they are receiving more research funds due to the hype. The Earth has not cooled over the last decade. Plot temperature data from any of the major sources from 1999 to the present and a continued warming trend is revealed. It is not coincidental that NASA GISS noted 2007 as the second warmest year on record, and this during a solar minimum and without the El Nino conditions that pushed 1998 to record levels. Response: So? None of this means that humans are to blame. Solar activity has not increased over the last 30 years and cannot account for warming during that time. Increased temperatures and CO2 levels have thrown the biosystem out of equilibrium, and it is no surprise that the biosystem is responding. Response: Out of equilibrium of what? There was more carbon dioxide in the atmposhere before, as well as less. Temperatures go up (time of dinosaurs) and temperatures go down (Ice Age). Who is to say what is "equilibrium"? Now tell me this: how are we causing the temperature rise on Mars? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece Hint: perhaps we have nothing to do with any of this, and the sun is indeed putting out a little more energy...