>>The earth naturally fluctuates it's temperature...The earth has it's own brain.<<
Global temperature fluctuates, but the earth does not DO it because the earth DOES NOT have a brain. Global temperature varies for a number of known reasons. Every natural factor that drives temperature has been scientifically tested and shown to not be the cause of the recent warming.
>>How can you explain the harsh winters we've had?<<
It's called weather - and weather and climate are not the same thing.
>>There have been people on the earth for centuries<<
There have been people on the earth for 100s of thousands of years.
>>and in just the last 10 years it has become a problem.<<
The US Congress held hearings on the matter over 30 years ago.
>>Give me a break.<<
Give yourself a break and get an education.
=====
Bill --
Who has ever said that the Big Bang was random? Oh yeah, lying Creationists.
I don't know what caused it because the intensity of the light from the explosion is blocking our ability to see further back in time and because the physics that define and control our universe break down at that point.
I also don't know what gravity is - or even if it is - but, then, neither does anyone else.
On the other hand, we can measure the variability of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 over time.
In any case, the scientific method is the only epistemology we have for objective human knowledge. It's the only game in town. I don't know that it is infallible, but I do know that when properly followed, it has never once failed to work and, given the correct information, it has never produced a false result.
And, there are not many things we can say that about. In fact, there is nothing else we can say that about.
Because almost all the reasons that people actually GIVE for not believing in it are unscientific nonsense. Much of what people use against it is not just scientific nonsense, it is logically deficient--it could be dismissed EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW ANY SCIENCE.
EDIT: If your "Additional Details" had been present when I asked the question, I wouldn't have answered it--they show that you've been completely duped by the denial propaganda machine.
Here's some advice: take some time to learn real science from real books and classes, and stay away from internet blogs. You've fallen for just about every bit of denial nonsense there is.
Science is not a matter of belief. This question seems itself to be based on unscientific fossil fuel industry denial nonsense.
Global warming is such a problem that it is necessary to deal with all its aspects, which includes the politics. When politicians formulate their policy they need inputs from many disciplines and from science as well. But unfortunately global warming has become an absolutely political issue and politicians do their best to influence even science.
In 1992 at the Earth Summit the decision to prevent such dangerous climate change was taken. The first step was the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which is supposed to come into force in 2005.
Ads by Google
One of the reports of the U.N. Panel on Climate Changes warns that the U.S. and other wealthy countries should immediately cut their oil and gas consumption and agree to get at least a quarter of their electrical energy from renewable resources - solar and wind power; and that they should double their research spending on low-carbon energy by 2010.In 1997 the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to make Clinton Administration not to send the Kyoto treaty to Capitol Hill for ratification. In his first term president Bush rejected Kyoto. Russia ratified it, but most believe that Putting was made to do that as British Prime Minister and other European Union officials threatened not to let him become a member of World Trade Organization, which could cost Russia billions of dollars each year. But the chief economic adviser of Putting - Andrei Illation shows his doubts as for the upholding commit to Kyoto, he says: "There is no evidence confirming a positive linking between the level of carbon dioxide and temperature change. The U.N. Panel's so called scientific data are considerably distorted and in many cases falsified" (Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb? by James Hansen, 2003, pp.2-15). One of the main ideas of Clarion and others is to break the advanced economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan, by persuading the multi-national companies to move plants and jobs to developing countries in order not to comply with emissions restrictions. But the president of the American Policy Center in Washington - Tom Decease doesn't agree that it makes sense, he states as the main concern and the prime target is the wealth of the United States it would not be wise to place factories in Third World countries, as the same amount of emissions would come out from jungles of South America instead of Chicago and in this case we are not talking about the protection of the environment any more. He is right in a way.
The main goal of the meeting in Kyoto was signing the amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Rio Treaty) in order to require the signatory nations to take the necessary steps to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as these gases cause an alarm situation with global temperatures. The costs of signing it for the U.S. could be really high, as the county could be made to reduce between 10 and 20 % of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020 that would cause reduction of gross domestic products by $260 billion annually; it is equal to $2.700 per household. Certainly it was hard to prove that such costs are justified. Besides as millions of American people could be put at risk, several important questions appeared. The first one was about the possible merits or drawbacks of global warming. The World Bank researches prove that about one-third of the whole population suffers from water shortages. By 2025 they say - around 40 % of the whole population could be living in countries without sufficient water supplies. The crops will also suffer from lack of water. Global warming leads to more condensation and more evaporation, thus producing more rains. So it could be in a way an answer to the problem about lack of water. The second positive point about global warming is possibility of agriculture in North America and Europe, the southern regions of Greenland were not covered with ice when between 10th and 12th centuries the temperature was 0.5 degrees warmer than today, and could be also cultivated. The evidence of this was found when: "scientists from the National Science Foundation sponsored Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 extracted in an ice core from Greenland's ice sheet that spanned more than 100.000 years of climate history. Samplings from the core suggest that a Little Ice Age began between 1400 and 1420, blanketing the Vikings' farms in ice and forcing them to abandon their farms in search of more hospitable climates".( Michael Crichton's State of Fear: Climate Change in the Cineplex, by Amy Ridenour pp.1-5). Thus global warming could mean more agricultural productivity and more water resources.
When someone comes to your door and wants you to believe something, they are usually either selling you a crappy or overpriced vacuum cleaner, trying to save your soul for Jehovah, or trying to get you to vote for the latest greatest politician who is only concerned about himself or the special interests that fund him. Sorry, I just don't like it when people feel they have to believe in something. I am quite content knowing their are limits to our knowledge and acknowledging those limits. Those who believe in AGW apparently aren't.
Science isn't about belief.
Simply because AGW is on such shaky ground and the science behind it is unproven, that they cannot allow skeptics to question it, and must resort to name calling in the absence of evidence.
Because, to express doubt about the lack of hard science behind the CAGW hypothesis is to blaspheme against the faith.
In the words of Michael Crichton:
"...one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists...environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths."
"There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe."
"Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith."
