CO2 is now classified as a pollutant....

[shearload]

They're a small, but growing, minority, according the the polls I've seen.  Last year, about eighty percent of Americans believed human activity contributed to global warming.  Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independants.  Now, a little over 50% of Republicans believe human activity contributes to global warming, a drop of about 20%.  Republican belief in human contribution will likely continue to drop, since the party leadership believes cap-and-trade legislation will be a net loser for the Democrats, helping Republicans retake the House next year.

Democrats and independents still accept the human contribution theory with large majorities, but not as large as last year.

We'll see how things turn out.  Or the grandkids will.

[kiwi]

TCups - 12/14/2009  4:41 PM

kiwi:

My views are based on a lifetime of higher education including a BS degree in Chemistry, a Doctorate in Medicine, and a strong interest in the sciences of geology and astronomy.  It is unfortunate when politics dominates science and governments with a political agenda fund the vast majority of research grants.    The notion that the UN and a bunch of politicians can "Save the Earth" from the imminent threat of global warming is laughable -- as laughable as Algore.

Here is one hypothesis -- global warming is occurring because of man-made CO2.

Here is another hypothesis -- all swans are white.  Go count thousands of white swans to support the hypothesis -- you may not see a black swan.  But the hypothesis is false, because there are black swans, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary.

Anthrogenic climate change proponents can build as many computer models as they  wish and try to predict the long-term global temperature trends.  Nonsense.  They can't even predict next week's weather.  If global warming is occurring, as it has many times in the earth's past, then it will surely be followed by global cooling, as it has many times in the past.  The "science" supporting the hypothesis of man-made global warming is deeply flawed, it is driven by political dollars, and is strictly for the purpose of transferring money and power for political gain, not for saving the Earth.  And when politicians fly their private jets off to Copenhagen and proclaim that there can be no debate and that man-made global warming is a scientific fact, you should be alarmed.

Environmentalism,  like charity, begins at home.  Conserve, recycle, and practice moderation in all things, yes!  But cede all personal freedom (even the breath you breathe!) and any nation's sovereign power, and submit to confiscatory taxation by the UN to save the planet while India and China are laughing all the while?  I think not.  To bad so many do-good'ers buy the save our planet "bull", spun by man-made global warming opportunists, and blindly accept their self-serving lie that all those who question their "science" and their motives are only out to rape the environment and destroy the Earth.  The hypothesis of man-made global warming is just that - a hypothesis based on a political agenda and government-funded "research" -- not solid science.  It is certainly not proven, it is, in fact, very unlikely, and as a scientific hypothesis, it is almost certainly wrong.

Ok we say you are right....so we do nothing....50 years down the track its found that global warming is happening
then what ?... 50 years wasted...Is it really worth keeping a  closed mined....And if its not happening "I hope" any & all
changes made are only going to benifit yours / my family & the planet in the years to come..
IS THAT SUCH A BAD THING..?
I would rarther not sit around doing nothing waiting to be proved wrong.....

After all wasn't the earth flat once.....according to the best science of the day...?

Pete

[TCups]

Kiwi:

"Closed mind"?  See. there you go again.  It is those who question man made global warming that have the closed mind, right?
.
Is global warming really occurring?  Not proven.

If global warming is occurring, then is it necessarily bad?  Debatable.

If global warming is occurring, then is CO2 the cause?  Not likely.  CO2 is less than 1% of the atmosphere and about  4% of the total greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere, and man-made CO2 is a small fraction of that.  CO2 affects temperatures primarily in areas were there is no water vapor.

If global warming is occurring, and if CO2 is the cause, is man-made CO2 production the primary cause.  Unlikely.  Geologic causes of atmospheric CO2 release - volcanos, warming of the oceans, and decomposition of biomass are much more likely causes of atmospheric CO2 change.  Further, it is far more likely that increased temperature leads to increased CO2 because CO2 is more soluble in cold water than in warm water, and warmer temperatures increase biomass and CO2 production.  The atmospheric CO2 content more likely reflects warming global temperatures than is the cause of warming global temperatures.

If global warming is occurring are other explanations more likely?  Yes.  Solar activity.  Variations in warm and cold weather have been linked to sun spot activity since the days of Galileo.  As a driving force of global warming, in terms of total energy, the sun's energy (solar flux) that is absorbed by the earth is on the order of a full-size car traveling at 70 mph, and the contribution of CO2 to global warming (theoretically) is on the order of the kinetic energy of one lug nut in one wheel.

If global warming is occurring and if it is man-made, and if it is caused by CO2 emissions, then is it reversible and if so, are proposed government solutions the best approach.  Doubtful.  The government loves research showing imminent disasters, particularly when their is a potential way to avoid the disaster that involves higher taxes and more governmental control of your life.  You should think carefully about this, keep an open mind, and carefully consider the consequences of not just the theoretical potential for global warming, but the very real consequences of what political greed and loss of personal liberty pose as a danger to you and your family.

Here is a clue:  the sky isn't falling, and if it were, government couldn't fix it.

[TCups]

shearload:

The polls?  Are you nuts?  Polls don't reflect good science.  Polls reflect what people believe.  Do you think Magellan took a poll to see how many folks thought the earth was round vs flat before he set sail to circumnavigate the globe?  Do you think it more likely that decades of political propaganda and government funded "research", bad Hollywood movies, and a public generally clueless about carbon chemistry, atmospheric science, and solar astronomy contributes to your poll results than does fact-based scientific knowledge?  Keep an open mind.

[North Pack]

Most of the earth is water, over 70%, plus there are VAST deserts, one larger than the entire United States, plus huge areas where this is either no human footprint, or it's tiny at best. Only the most self-adsorbed, ego driven could possible believe we have control of the entire planet. We don't ... but many of us think we do, kind of a sense of power. - Where I live right now, 10,000 years ago, was cover by a glacier about 100 ft. thick. - I just looked out, - it's gone, completely, with no one driving suv's, no nasty factories, and more importantly, no human intervention!!! - And that wasn't the only glacier to "come & go" on their own, just the last one... but, now that "we're here" - everything revolves around "us", or we like to think so. - There's no doubt about "climate change" - it's happening, as we speak, and it always has, and will continue, perfectly normal event.

[shearload]

TCups - 12/14/2009  6:00 AM

shearload:

The polls?  Are you nuts?  Polls don't reflect good science.  Polls reflect what people believe.  Do you think Magellan took a poll to see how many folks thought the earth was round vs flat before he set sail to circumnavigate the globe?  Do you think it more likely that decades of political propaganda and government funded "research", bad Hollywood movies, and a public generally clueless about carbon chemistry, atmospheric science, and solar astronomy contributes to your poll results than does fact-based scientific knowledge?  Keep an open mind.

Pete said he hoped your views were in the minority in the US.  They are, for now, according to the polls I have seen.  

Polls do not predict the weather.  They do predict political activity (somewhat imperfectly).  Much like your own profession, the public speculates as to root causes, and, in the end, plays percentages.

[TCups]

Exactly -- political activity.  Political activity does not equal AGW.   Public opinion does not equal AGW.  Global warming does not equal AGW.  Rising CO2 does not equal AGW.

I certainly hope Pete's views become the minority very soon, because I believe that they are seriously misguided and based on political propaganda, not good science.  Something is rotten in Denmark.

[shearload]

Propaganda.  A loaded word, for sure.  Often characterized by cherry-picking and distorting facts.  You can see a good example of it by revisiting the beginnings of this thread.

[North Pack]

A little more - from Casey Research, ...
.
In his speech, Mr Gore  told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr  [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north  polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within  five to seven years.”
.
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was  relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived  at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything  as exact as this.”
Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per  cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowski as a “ballpark figure” several years  ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
.
To be fair to  Mr. Gore, the guy appears to know less science than your average fourth-grader.  Not too long ago I heard him say in an interview about geothermal energy that  the Earth’s core temperature was “several million degrees.” I’m sure you’re  aware that if that were the case, the Earth would be a star and we wouldn’t  exist. The Earth’s core, in fact, can only reach up to several thousand degrees  Celsius. And yet people still consider him an authority… amazing.

[North Pack]

Ya' gotta love these characters, - where ever they go, - it snows.
.
 Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.

“Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days,” Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said today by telephone, forecasting more snow in coming days. “There’s a good chance of a white Christmas.”

Delegates from 193 countries have been in Copenhagen since Dec. 7 to discuss how to fund global greenhouse gas emission cuts. U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive before the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow.

Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI’s definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).

DMI defines a white Christmas as 90 percent of the country being covered by at least 2 centimeters of snow on the afternoon of Dec. 24.