To buy into the global warming hysteria requires you to accept ALL of the following:

1. The global average temperature is rising. (Seems pretty clear, though the CRU e-mail scandal casts doubt even on this primary premise)
2. The cause is CO2 emission (maybe partly correct, but certainly there are other explanations like the sun's cycle). Rather than cause, CO2 emission may be the *effect* of warming.
3. We can actually stop global warming by doing something (whether it's cut CO2 emissions or otherwise, maybe it's too late? Maybe we lack the power to stop the pattern?)
4. Global warming will have, on balance, primarily negative effects on human life. (This is pure assumption. The earth has gone through many extreme temperature cycles -- and yet here we are! Warm weather leads to longer growing cycles in certain lands. Fewer deaths due to hypothermia, etc. We can deal with slowly rising seas if we have to, just like Holland has. Warm=bad is universally accepted but cold=bad seems just as obvious to me and rarely do people admit to ANY of the benefits of warmer global temperatures.)
5. The negative effects are so great that they justify the investment of trillions of dollars and/or the diversion and disruption of industry, farming, transportation and commerce that gives us the quality of life we enjoy and that is elevating people like the Chinese from rural poverty. (This can only be speculation, of course.)
6. Even if the effects are, on balance, negative and serious, there are no other more pressing causes, environmental or otherwise, that deserve this money, energy, research attention, and policy making, that has been dedicated to the CO2 issue. (I can think of many others, including real and actual pollution of the air, land and water by dangerous and harmful chemicals, deforestation, overfishing, etc. CO2 is not a pollutant and not a poison. It is a trace element and it doesn't harm humans. Shouldn't we focus on particulate pollution, carcinogens, mercury in the fish streams, nuclear waste, etc? )

So you see, there is a hysteria about CO2 and yet by the time you get to question 3 or 4 out of 6, if you are reasonable person you really ought to wonder whether the hysteria is justified by the science and whether it's worth all this time, money and energy. And yet the mainstream press feeds us the story of "carbon footprints" as if it's an undeniable and catastrophic problem. Once question #1 is answered in the affirmative, the remaining answers are simply assumed to be yes. Yet those points are actually much more important than the observation that temperatures have increase by 0.8 degrees in the past few decades. That's the issue people like me have who are often unfairly labelled as "denyers" -- there is a cultish nature to the activists' positions, and a refusal to take the time and do the science to figure out if what we propose to do is actually something we ought to do.

This entire post is sort of ill-researched. First off, the 'sun cycle' thing you said is bullshit. There's not 'sun cycle' - the heating and warming you see the earth going through during it's lifetime has to do with the tilt of its axis. The axis tilts toward the sun, we have a warming cycle. The axis tilts away, we cool.

The problem now is that our axis is tilted AWAY, yet we're having a warming cycle.

Also, regarding the CO2 - the CO2 created by combustion engines is actually a special isotope, which can be identified. It's not produced by nature. Can you guess what type of CO2 molecules are currently the ones building up? Hint: it's not the ones produced by nature.

Beyond even that, there's even this simple fact: these warming and cooling cycles take several thousand years, but somehow this one just happened to pop up in just over 100, conveniently starting not too long after the Industrial Revolution. HRRRRRRM I WONDER.

At least look up more stuff about the effects of a the temperature change - it WILL NOT be good. That 'it will cause a bunch of plants to grow!' BS sounds like something someone fed you - in fact most of your postdoes, it doesn't read like someone who understands what they're talking about as much as parroting something back.

EVEN given if you decide you'll never ever believe that man caused global warming, give me one reason why the effort that would mitigate the effects of global warming are BAD, or shouldn't be done. Seriously, how could recycling and cutting down on use of fossil fuels and developing alternative energies be BAD things to invest time and energy in? If the earth really i just warming up on its own, we don't really need to be helping it along. At the end of the day, I can't come up with any logical reason not to try and conserve that doesn't involve intense laziness or greed. I can't believe people are this cheap and lazy they'll argue this hard so they don't have to change their habits.

Your response shows significant ignorance. First of all, the sun cycle has nothing to do with the annual change in "axis" of the earth. Rather, it relates to cycles of sun spots (bursts of fire on the sun's surface). These subspots erupt in cycles and do have an effect on how much energy gets to the earth (and therefore, global temperature.)

Second, I am not disputing that there is increased CO2 from industry in the atmosphere. But it is a TRACE amount. One needs to ask what the consequences are, whether we can do anything about it, and what else we could be doing to make the world better. My views are actually pro-environmental.

Many people died this winter from hypothermia due to the extremely cold temperatures. The stubborn refusal to acknowledge that rising temperates have some GOOD effects is exactly what I'm talking about. You need to balance the bad with the good to figure out if the temperature rise is actually a bad thing overall. When people, such as yourself, refuse to acknowledge that there are some good effects to warming it is indicative of closed-mindedness. We shouldn't make a decision if people refuse to consider ALL the facts.

Finally, cutting down on the use of fossil fuels and developing alternative energies are good things to do in their own right. THAT WAS MY POINT. Instead of trading "carbon credits" and spending billions to research carbon sequestration technologies, we need to address environmental programs we know to actually pose a threat today. Lack of fresh water, chemical contamination, smog (not CO2) causing asthma, mercury in fish beds, etc. Countries have limited resources. Al Gore and others want to spend a lot of our environmental budget on addressing the rise in CO2. Until we've established the cause of the CO2 rise, the balanced effects on the world including positive effects, the severity of the problem, whether we can do anything about it, etc., I don't feel we should be diverting dollars away from other serious environmental issues. The celebrity of Al Gore and the success of the Global Warming PR lobby has diverted nearly all environmental attention away from other problems. That is a potentially catastrophic diversion in the short run, and it concerns me.

Perhaps they should take a new poll in Texas, or in the Mid-West, seems folks believe or don't believe depending on the weather!

"World residents' declining concern about climate change may reflect increasing skepticism about global warming"

It MAY also be that mitigation efforts to reduce the impacts of rising temperatures is getting better. Or plenty of other reasons, but saying people are skeptical isn't a certainty

Most scientists not only believe that global warming is happening, but that the chances and economics of halting it are so low that mitigation of damages is the new goal.

What's really scary is that only 21% of Chinese see it as a threat. Even if the US stops cold turkey, who's stopping them from taking our place?

Global warming is a load of crap.

Spoken like a real "expert"

There's no arguing with such an intelligent and substantive argument like that!

Well important issues like bike lanes, Snooki, iPods, iPads, knock off designer hand bags, and American Idol are far more important than the environment

except that Bike Lanes might actually help a little bit.

Keep believing that, hope is good.

Global cycle, would have been a better term men could relate to. Leave it the idiot scientist to even screw up the name.

Ah, the armchair scientist. My favorite kind of troll. You are a rare, but entertaining, breed.

Pot + Kettle = Carbon Footprint

Nice theory, except that I actually am a scientist.

Political Scientist?

No, the real kind. Keep grasping at straws, though. You're almost as funny as Martin, if that is his real name.

Rocket Scientist?

Sometimes when I tell ppl I'm a doctor they ask me health questions related to their heart. Then I tell them I'm a podiatrist. Or or or sometimes when I ppl I'm a lawyer they ask about a car accident they were in. But then I tell them I'm a corporate lawyer. What kind of Real Scientist are you?

You want my social security number too, creep? Look up the word "plesiomorphic". Not only should it give you a hint, it describes you perfectly.

Interaction = over. Bye.