Don't you get it Kasz216? THE DEBATE IS OVER!!11!!

Global cooling was never taken seriously by mainstream science, it was just a media construct like the millenium bug. Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that global warming is real. I can't be bothered to get in an argument though, because it's quite clear that most people here don't have a f***in' clue what they are talking about.

He did? All I saw were links to site's with a vested poltical interest in seeing that they get the outcome they want.

I don't even know why I bother some times. You show people that even by their own numbers in a scenario 10x worse than is realistic they are still flat wrong and they just ignore it. They don't even bother to refute the numbers they just ignore it.

You know what, I've gone through this discussion before on this site and I really don't feel the need to go through it again. The last debate I had was against Final-Fan and quite frankly nobody here has proven themselves to be even a fraction as knowledgable about or capable of debating the issue as he was.

And that's what, five, maybe ten percent of the scientists that might be involved in that area of study?  You throw out a number as if it has some sort of significance when it doesn't.  If that's 19,000 people out of everyone with a Science related PhD, that's a miniscule number.  If it's out of only environment scinetists, it's a very small number.  It only looks like a big number if you ignore the fact that many thousands of scientists enter their field of choice every year.

Your statistic, sir, has absolutely no meaning.  The international scientific community is outspoken on the matter, and there is certainly a concensus on the matter.  If there weren't, then the majority of the world's nations would not have signed on to the Kyoto protocols.  You cite a small number of hold-outs and only mention their numbers to support your misguided opinion that there is not a concensus.  Do you really expect that "19000 scientists" is such a large portion of the total pool that there cannot be a consensus in spite of those 19000 individuals?  Do you really think anyone is so stupid that they could be convinced that 19000 people in a field as broad as "science" (since no specialty was cited) is enough to break up a concensus?  This year the world will likely see more new scientists graduating from college than that piddling 19000 number.

The worst part, for your side, is that even if that stat could have narrowed it down to the people specifically involved with the issue, which it didn't, it still wouldn't be enough people to compare favorably to the people who say that global warming is real. 

It's worse than that, actually: developing countries have NO limits at all under Kyoto, including China and India.  That is why the U.S. wasn't interested in approving the thing (the Senate said we wouldn't unless it included developing countries, by a 95-0 vote).  China is soon to become the largest CO2 emitter in the world, passing the U.S., yet Kyoto exempts them.  Even if it were enacted by all nations, it is meaningless and would only cause a minimal slowing in the growth of CO2 emissions.  That doesn't even get into the random 1990 emission levels included in the protocol, which would allow countries polluting a lot in 1990 but less now (Russia, Eastern Europe) to make out like bandits with their inflated credits.  Regardless of your views on global warming (I'm skeptical yet undecided and believe we need more real-world research as opposed to models), we should be able to agree that the Kyoto Protocol was/is a stupid idea.

Anyone who uses the argument that there is a "consensus" on a scientific topic in order to stop debate is demonstrating a fundimental lack of understanding of the scientific method. Science is not a popularity contest, and just because more people believe something does not make it correct; in fact, many of the most important scientific discoveries were in contrast to the popular beliefs of the day.

An interesting thing to me is that while the global warming alarmists are preventing debate in order to maintain their "consensus" the global warming skeptics have been looking into the underlying science and expanding our understanding of the climate in order to explain inconsistencies in the alarmists science.

One of the more interesting pieces of data has been related to sunspot activity; in comparison to all other datasets the sunspot activity has matched global temperature variations far more closely. This (of course) has been ignored until recently because sun spots do not increase solar irradiance so no one could explain why this would have such an impact on temperature; that is until recently ...

Henrik Svensmark discovered that the type of radiation released from sunspots has a direct impact on the formation of clouds in our environment. Being that we're in a 1000 year high in terms of sunspot activity ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm )  you'd think that this would have been big news ...

Unfortunately, science is inconvenient when you're trying to maintain a consensus on a scientific topic

I'm not sure I'm convinced with the argument, but it's not hard to understand the reasoning. First you have to understand the typical position, which is that we have not been taking accurate measurements of global temperatures long enough to know whether the current warming trend is abnormal, or part of natural cycles (very few flat out deny that some measure of climate change is occuring). Even the majority of scientists will concede that at least part of the GW phenomenon is natural,given that we emerged from a cooling period in the mid-late 1800s (which in turn followed the medieval warm period).

Second, there are questions as to how long GW will continue, and how "bad" the effects will be. Most predictions are based on computer models with very questionble accuracy. To accurately predict long term weather patterns requires us to understand a whole host of variables, many of which are still not well understood. Thus it is not unreasonable for people to question the validity of conclusions drawn from these predictions.

Third, if you live long enough you'll see many end of the world predictions, and it is rare that any of them come true. GW certainly carries many elements typical of this sort of hysteria, and it doesn't help when you have stuff like Inconvenient Truth blatantly misrepresenting some aspects of the science. In fact, many scientists are concerned that the hysterics are undermining the message. 

 Lastly, XBrawl, oil in water and toxic waste have not a thing to do with global climate change.

SO
@xenophon13 - Faulty Use of Authority
@ChichiriMuyo - Non Sequitur

Obviously you haven't attended many science courses, then.  The environment is designed to sustain certain levels of greenhouse gasses and, like a liver being destroyed by an alcoholic, it can only soak up so much so fast, leaving the rest to deal damage until it can catch up with the "backstock." 

The carbon cycle is rather delicate, and relies on the ability of the oceans and soil to absorb carbon, and both of those reserves can only hold so much carbon before it become an issue.  We cannot force much more carbon into the oceans because it has an open exchange with the atmosphere.  Carbon can move rather freely between the two.  Plus, we'd probably kill sealife it we tried.  We can stick it in the ground, but if it's stored there it'll espace in any sort of natural disaster and if it's used in soil enriching projects (which actually help the environment twice over, and should be supported more heavily) then you can only use so much before the soil becomes saturated and will hold no more.

The Earth can process X amount of carbon, when we make Y more carbon enter the atmosphere than the Earth can process, Y more carbon stays in the air until the Earth can catch up to that amount.  It just keeps building up on us, because we have knocked the natural order of things out of balance and not given nature enough time to catch up.  And environmental scientists have already stated that even if we cut pollution to practically 0 today we may not feel the full effects of what we have done up through today for another 50 years.

Think about that.  Not only are we dealing with a precise, even sensitive, piece of machinary we don't fully understand (our planet), but the reprecussions of our misdeeds will almost certainly not be brought upon our heads but the heads of our grandchildren.

Regardless of whether or not the danger is as severe as THE PENTAGON says, when it takes 50 years to get results I'd say you're better off safe than extinct.