"So I would gather that you don't think that industrialized nations should enter into binding carbon trading treaties, as was the goal at Copenhagen? [snip] I don't want my electric bill to go up, or jobs to be lost in my country because China and India aren't trading carbon emissions like everyone else, and are selling product for half as much as the rest of us. Not on something that hasn't been proven, and as of late has actually for no small part been proven to be fraudulent."

This was the post that offended me, looking back maybe I was out of line calling you out on it. Because of the nature of the second part of the post where you ranted at me about carbon credits, I took your first question as sarcasm, which I took as a condescending. If it wasn't sarcasm I apologise and I withdraw my argument there.

But I was mainly retaliating to some of the mean comments I have seen you post to Leo-J and Megaman. And it's not just me, a few others have picked up on it too.

It is fairly unbelievable because what's been stated are fairly simple and damning matters of fact.

If you followed them up... your opinion really should of changed.

The "not statistically signficant in the last 15 years" itself is ridiculiously damning if you know anything about current global warming theory.  It pretty much destroys all the climate models that currently exist.

One major reason is that the tempeture measuring records like the tempeture stations methods were VERY problematic and unscientifically done.  They didn't account for ubran sprawn and urban warming effect, stations were dropped and re-added etc... the oceans were generally ignored.

Satellite data is the only good form of tempeture measurement.  Which has only been used for like... well 10-15 years.

All the science is based on very poor methods of unrepresentive tempeture measurement.  In reality we know... pretty much NOTHING.  Except that there has been no global warming trend for the last 10-15 years.  Yet people are 100% sure global warming is happening.

If something isn't statistically significant yet says they're 100% it's happening... they are no real scientist.

I agree with most of what you say there and I'll try to keep my response brief as I know we're getting slightly off topic here.

The problem with science (and this has become obvious in the case of the IPCC) is when it becomes politicized. The backlash in the scientific community against the IPCC is just as great as in the public community. I have always regarded the IPCC as a political entity as opposed to a purely scientific one as evident by its misrepresentation (and sometimes complete ignoral) of some of the scientific advisors to the report.

On the issue of people being mislead and losing trust, again I hope people realise that it isn't the science that is misleading rather the way it is used (or mis-used in this case) by people with an agenda. Most scientists simply work to publish data so that others can further develop the knowledge. Obviously there are some on both sides of this debate (and others) who seek to have their work accepted as the grand truth which reflects badly on others in the field.

As for peer-reviewing, you are correct that it would warrant a whole other debate. Breifly, I think it largely ensures published work is accountable and accurate but there is also a lot of internal scientific politics involved in submitting a paper for review and perhaps more so in how other scientists use (or ignore!) that work.

I think most of the concern about global warming comes from data which goes back a lot longer than those 15 years. Climate records from the past ~500,000 years show that there is a clear correlation between CO2 increases and temperature increases. Most current climate research is focussed on how the Earth will respond IF the temperature does increase (i.e sea level rise, ocean circulation and heat distribution ect). It's clear from the graph (below) that temperature and CO2 are related and according to the data, CO2 increases precede temperature increase. However, the error in the measurements is more than large enough for the opposite to be true. So for me the biggest question we need to solve right now is which of the two cases is true.

I'm inclined to lead towards temerature being the driving force behind CO2 increases as there is a clear mechanism we know off that allows for this (orbital variations which correspond to the cycles seen in the graph raise the Earth's temp which in turns causes the oceans to release more CO2 into the atmosphere). As far as I know there is no mechanism which could account for CO2 increasing before temperature. If that is the case the only issue left to be resolved is how large an impact the CO2 had as a feedback role in further rasing the temperature. If the CO2 did act as a feedback mechanic then that presents problems for us as our CO2 levels are currently far higher than they have ever been over the past 500,000 years.

Just tagging this thread to keep an eye on it.

Which is the point however, if the CO2 plays a HUGE feedback mechanic then the problem should be worse because of record outputs with less carbon sink abilties.

Yet there isn't. Though the problem with the historical records is... they aren't exact and a prone to alteration and interptetation.

For example the widespread denial of the europeon warm period because of "relative lack of data in non western areas."

Even though the data that does exist points to it being warmer in other places as well. The problem is, a lot of the historical data isn't really historical data but historical guesses based on climate models.

Sorry just to clarify, is your first point referring to the fact that a run-away greenhouse didn't occur in the historical data? If so then yes I agree that it suggests CO2 probably isn't a huge feedback mechanic. At worst I expect it does act to further increase temperature but that either CO2 concentrations become so great that the sinks become greater than the sources (through oceanic uptake and increased silicate rock weathering). Or, perhaps the temperature begins to drop as the orbital variation changes and CO2 consequently goes down suggesting that temperature really is the main driving force and CO2 is relatively 'ineffective'.

Yes the historical data is based on climate models but these models are reasonable enough to trust the data (within a margin of error) as they are backed up by numerous isotopic and organic proxies.

@the bolded red comment,

Is that a typo on your part? The red line rises on the right side of the blue line and appears to fall on the right side as well (this is clearly seen if you look at the peaks and troughs of each line relation to one another). 

Second, to my knowledge both sides of the climate debate agree that there is an 800 year lag between when temperatures begin to rise and when C02 outgassing occurs as a result.  Warmists believe that C02 acts in the natural system as purely a feedback mechanism but that in the case of AGW is becoming an initiator of that warming. This has been my experience reading warmist opinions like that of Gavin Schmidt of realclimate, but it is possible I assumed too broadly.

For now I'll add that until recently I thought the claim about C02 as a natural feedback for glacial to interglacial temperature transitions seemed logical and reasonable, but a recent mathematic assessment of C02 in Nature asserts that it has second-order stationarity, and that has me questioning the natural feedback concept.  The paper is a recent one though so there hasn't been a lot of reaction to it yet that I've seen, for now it's a bit of a question mark both ways to me, but from my (relatively) limited mathematical skills the paper appears to be solid.

Well, I wont say anything about climate change since I admit I dont know much, but I think some people just want free cards to pollute, I feel some people just want to discredit climate change to be able to do more things that will help their pocket, when these things may not be associated with CC but in the end cause damage anyway.

Though the worlds temperature may not be a cause to stop polluting, there are many, like soil and water contamination, and the things pollution may cause to our health, extinction of some species induced by our actions and such. Besides, polluting less brings technology and a more healthy envoirment, whnch in the long run can favor economy in a great way.

Im just saying just because the effect we cause on the planets temperature may not be as big or present as some people want us to think it doesnt mean we dont cause any effect, good or bad, in a large scale to the planet or ecosystems. Im begining to think the people that warn us so much about climate change and are not scientists just use the term for people to stop pulluting, which may work, but if its not prooved people will think polluting is ok and that is the risk politicians run when they dont speak clearly.

This is a typical viewpoint.  Allow me to point out the biggest problem with it: CO2 is not pollution.  Carbon dioxide is what plants use for food and what animals exhale (including humans).  CO2 is no more pollution than water vapor (which, incidentally, is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 by many times by all accounts).  So when speaking of "carbon pollution," realize that using such a term to refer to CO2 is an oxymoron.

Secondly, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are historically at a very low level.  They are rising now, but before recorded history they were many times today's levels.  The Earth did not have a runaway greenhouse effect then.  One more reason to be skeptical of one being triggered now, with much lower concentrations.

Finally, since CO2 is plant food (it's what you pipe into greenhouses to help plants grow), plant productivity has increased worldwide as a result of increasing concentrations.  In fact, studies have estimated that a doubling of CO2 would significantly increase food production due to more productive crops.  Of course, you don't read about something like this in the newspapers.  Nor do you read that if the theory of global warming is proved true that less people will be under water stress than they are today because of increased evaporation (thus, increased clouds and rain).

There are many pollution problems in the world.  Until more proof is offered as to how CO2 emissions are dangerous, it's foolish to concentrate on them instead of the air, water and soil pollution right in front of us.