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I read your article and many more like it. A meteorologist is not a scientist. The U.S. does have it's own independent evaluation of the global warming science, it's called the American Meteorological Society and they support they theory of global warming. Just go here: www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html Why do they naysayers all think that they are smarter than all the scientists actually conducting real research into global warming/climate change? When you have 90+ percent of scientists that are actually global climate scientists supporting global warming, that should tell you something (per a recent survery, IPCC I think). Again, look at the scientists actually involved in the field, not a mathematician that is not involved in the research. Don't look at the decision by the UN, look at the science underneath it all. Read the published papers, the vast majority points to global warming. Don't believe random internet sites which can say anything, look at the published papers. Don't believe a petition web site that claims 30k scientists have signed it against global warming. Most that have signed it are not scientists, and those that have are not involved in global climate research. So again, look at the published papers, not what other people say. Do your own research.

Though a fun movie, the only problem is that the "science" in the latest Trek move is really bad. Not much is based on what we know about black holes, matter, etc.

Ok, so you say that 2 are scientists. So that would still validate the phrase "most are not scientists", which most were not. I find it interesting that people think they are smarter and know more about subject then such a vast consensus of experts which have been studying the topic for 30+ years. Despite all the skeptics claims they have been unable to show that global warming is not happening. If you do the research you'll find all the arguments you state have been addressed. Just go look it up for yourself, since you wouldn't believe me if I gave you links. So where is your proof that Gore and Obama are out to dominate everything? Just drop the X-Files consipracy theories. I don't like Gore much myself, but that doesn't invalidate everything he says. Obama wants to pull out of Iraq and actually work with other countries, conceding to some of their needs, I would say there is evidence that he does not want to dominate everything. You can post away, I won't post any more comments since pretty much everyone has made up their minds on this topic.

The only problem with waiting and gaining knowledge to the point of irrefutability is that it could be way too late. A couple of degrees change most likely won't change things too much but when you get into more significant changes it will start to have effects on the world food and water supply. The longer we wait the more potential there is for catastrophic changes. It's difficult to say by how much CO2 emmisions would have decrease to make a difference, but most likely significantly. On who to believe, my opinion is to go with the consensus of the experts. I have conducted some of my own reading and I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but I am no climatologist. Experts on climate change generally do not include meteorologists, but the scientists that conduct the research into real climate change. And yes, there is a general consensus. Many of the aspects of global warming has been tested again and again by research from various scientists, and so far it has stood up to scrutiny. So I will go with the consenses in this case. Yes there are a few dissidents, but a consensus has been reached by the majority. Who on this board can say that they are an expert in climate change to the point they can really refute the consensus? I'm not saying debate is a bad thing (it's good), but you really can't debate unless you have something to debate with, such as an expert knowledge in the topic being debated. Otherwise the debate is subject to heresy. At this point I have to trust that proper debate has occurred and is occuring among the experts. After all this debate has been going on since the 70's. Until the consensus changes I will tend to beleive that global warming is occuring and human activity is at least partially responsible.

Here's the graph data from NOAA: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html Here's the one from NASA: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ As to the question as what causes the global warming is that the question has been asked for the past 30 years and more. A couple of the things you have to look at is that one the global temperature change over the past 40 years or so has been drastic. On a global scale such changes typically take hundreds or thousands of years, that has been one of the reasons why human activity has been suspected. Even the studies that try to pin it on solar activity say that solar activity can only account for some of the warming, and most of it would be due to greenhouse gases. You can find a paper by a pair of Duke scientists in 2007 that discusses this. Also check out the web site: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ For articles and references to more research.