Tell me about it. I don't know how often I have to tell students not to use it as a source for their papers.

That being said, it's great for certain things like acronyms and I really like the idea that it is the an accumulation of knowledges across the world. It's a fascinating, if sometimes unreliable source of knowledge.

On topic of his article: Dear lord, I despise the National Post, a very, very, very conservative paper... Anyway, while this shows that there is indeed propaganda at play here by many orginazations and groups and that while there are some who dissent, the majority of the scientific community believes that we may have a hand in climate change. There are many, many articles where the authors, mostly implicitly, suggest that we have some hand in an irregular increase in temperature. I'd provide some examples but I'm sure you don't need me to. Use JSTOR and query climate change or whatever database your university has.

As I mentioned eariler, I do not consider myself any bit of an authority on the issue, and to be honest, I haven't done any major research on the issue since 2006. That being said, I had done quite the amount of work on the issue and would not accept with 100% certainty that we are indeed speeding this process, but I sure as hell would not feel comfortable disregarding hundreds of accounts of compelling evidence.

I really must dig out the old notes to become reacquainted with the issue as I've forgotten most of it. I really shouldn't be having this conversation without doing so first.

I believe climate change is a natural thing but I also believe that itm is possible to speed the process up. The more green house gases added to the atmosphere the hotter this planet will get. China exapnding isnt helping much on efforts to slow down what we caused to speed up.

There Fixed it

The fact is, global warming, as well as global cooling are BOTH natural phenomena. If you look at the geological record, earth's average temperature has NEVER been a flat line, but has fluctuated both up and down many, many times without our help. Because of this, it is impossible to know whether or not our actions are actually causing global warming, or even affecting it in any measurable way. The only way to scientifically prove that one factor CAUSES another for certain is to eliminate all other potential factors from the expiriment. This is impossible, as we cannot regulate water vapor levels, volcanoes, sunspot activity, cloud cover, solar winds, and the myriad of other natural causes for temperature fluctuations on this planet. For that reason, anybody who says that 'man made global warming is a fact' simply does not understand the scientific processes necessary to call something a fact. It is a theory, nothing more.

Because the computer climate models used to predict global warming really only focus on the human element (mostly from CO2), they have been proven very inaccurate many, many times. Just look at the original 'hockey stick' curve created in the 90's. Meteorologists can't even accurately predict the forecast more than five days in advance, so what arrogant scientist really thinks that they can predict the climate years into the future with any certainty?? Computer models are subject to the programmers & operators, a climatologist can spin the numbers, data & equations any way he/she likes in order to get the desired result.

Another issue is, we have only recently begun to collect accurate measurements from around the globe, and that capability is still very lacking (especially when you concider deep sea temperatures). How are we certain of the global temperatures from 100 years ago, let alone 1000 years ago when there was no reliable way to get global numbers at that time? The global temperatures scientists use from these periods are merely educated guesses.

My point is, there is simply not enough REAL understanding and data to draw such a certain conclusion as 'this is fact'. It is a theory that is still being tested, and we as a species should work to clean up our act REGARDLESS of whether man-made global warming is a reality. There is no need for panic, but calculated, intelligent, long term decisions that do not destroy world economies. Panic and fear NEVER lead to good decision making.

Yes. Thank you for being logical. Everyone should read his post.

you are being al goreish there is no such thing! jk

well what i think is that the so called war on terror waged by President Bush is the cause of it thousends of people have died.Millions have been affected from both sides but still there is no outcome.This war is just helping to spread global warming.
If these millions of dollars would have been spent on anything good or for welfare of people it would have been good.

Wha???? How you can relate the war on terror to global warming is beyond me. There's so little logic in your post that there's really nothing that can be said to debate it. It's like trying to debate a statement like "Waffles are really bad for you because the ground is made out of dirt".

@ Timmah!
I greatly enjoyed the conclusion of your long post.

Much more then for global warming, I am above all an energy diversity and efficientcy advocate. To me the debate about global warming is irrelevant as long as we all start working on a long term goal of clean sustainable and cost effective energy that does not require the burning of oil, which is better used as a building block for materials such as plastics.

Thanks, I agree with that 100% on moving towards clean energy. I would add, however, that in the short term we should still drill for more oil due to the fact that mainstream alternative energy sources are still 10-20 years in the future (as far as implementation) and we don't want to destroy the world economy by neglecting our current energy needs, but this drilling/refining should be done to suplement the energy needs of the world as we move towards cleaner energy. Besides that, oil will inevetably run out.

It's really all about balance. We can't panic about Global warming and make stupid decisions that will lead to a breakdown of our economies and societies, but we also can't just pollute blindly forever and claim there will be no ill effects. We need to move towards cleaner energy sources, but not completely neglect oil, as our current infrastructures depend on it. It needs to be a smooth transition from one paradigm to the other, and it does not need to be lead by fear mongering zealots who constantly run around saying the sky is falling.