The Great Global Warming Swindle

This is a quite different position. In fact, your expert says that public policy must be based on probabilities, especially when "proof" concerning human modification of climate is a ways off. He goes on to say there is a high probability humans are already effecting the temperature. I really do not see how you deny the warming effects already in Greenland. I think to answer Simon's question just add other green house gasses into the mix besides CO2. Really guys, how can you think such massive injection of carbon into our skies (among other things we are doing) will not degrade our environment (from a human point of view)? By 2050, experts predict 10 billion people. What is your expert opinion as to how many humans this planet can sustain given the rate they pollute? The idea we should wait until oceans bloom with fish and oxygen-killing sulfur bacteria, temperatures rise and weather patterns become more violent is hardly the prudent thing to do. Again, I do not understand why one would be opposed to cleaning up our act. Certainly, you would agree that waiting for the sky to fall will leave us zero options. Such large scale events can not be fixed by short term technical solutions like artificial volcanoes injecting sun- reflecting gases into our upper atmosphere. Yep, I don't get it. And yes, the world was covered with ice at one point. Is that good for us? No. There was no Van Allen Belt several times. Was that good? No. Hell, if an asteroid comes at us will some argue it happened before so don?t worry? No. Foresight is a precious human quality. Yes?

Not unless he wants to delve into specifics of the IPCC draft report and the underlying research and modeling. The summary is not acceptable--it's a political document that actively misrepresents the draft report itslef.

Choice quote:

Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties.

How could we ever doubt?

Deleted because the purpose of this thread is not to lob the propaganda of the polar extremes back and forth (we could do that until the next ice age shows), because we don't do anonymous drive-bys (and thanks for ID'ing on the rebound!), and because I'm tired of Dr. Mann's self-serving BS after being caught screwing the scientific/statistical ewe, followed by his explanation of just helping that sheep through the fence--and Mann is one of the principals at RC. Yes, they're quite political. I did not say they were partisan.

As I said above, I don't need any more popularized opinions from politicized researchers defending their funding. And I won't host a link-fest duel. Anyone who wants to present rebuttal can do it themselves, in their own words, referring directly to the base research--NOT the dueling rants. Without directly referring to the base research it's all a "hot air" fest. From both sides. Like sitting in the middle of an abortion debate.

For the best of the "True Believer" party line and their responses to criticism, go here. For the best of the "denialist" party line, go here. For an excellent take on the politicization of science by Roger Pielke Jr., go here [pdf]. The current IPCC draft (as yet not officially released, and reportedly being edited to conform with the summary) can be found here.

I'm not fond of the usage of the "denialist" label for the dismissive skeptics (as opposed to the quantitative/methodological skeptics, of which I'm one, and which every real researcher should be). The "True Believers" are pretty darned adept at denialism and dismissal themselves. That the debate rages on shows in itself that the claimed "consensus" is bull.