Climategate

[steelish]

I used to think this way, too. But evidence is increasingly pointing to the fact that mankind is, at the very least, making a natural situation worse. Possibly much worse.

What's the evidence? Forgive me for being obtuse, but I've never seen/heard concrete evidence proving anything one way or another

The problem here is that we don't HAVE thousands of years! The problem is happening NOW. The future is just around the corner. It's even possible, as some are claiming, that we have already passed the "tipping point" and that there is little or nothing we can do to stop it. The best we can hope for is to lessen the effects and prepare for the consequences.

The future has ALWAYS been just around the corner. In the late 70s, they claimed the next Ice Age was coming...DANGER, DANGER! (it didn't happen) Then they said the planet would be destroyed through Global Warming within the next 10 years (it didn't happen). Now, we're being told that the polar ice caps will be completely gone by 2021 (or something like that) if we don't do something NOW...DANGER, DANGER! Sorry, I just don't buy into it.

[Thorne]

What's the evidence? Forgive me for being obtuse, but I've never seen/heard concrete evidence proving anything one way or another

The evidence is there, in thousands of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, the kinds of things that denialists, and journalists, don't like to talk about. I'm not saying there isn't still some element of doubt, but the more I see, the less doubtful I've become.

The future has ALWAYS been just around the corner. In the late 70s, they claimed the next Ice Age was coming...DANGER, DANGER! (it didn't happen) Then they said the planet would be destroyed through Global Warming within the next 10 years (it didn't happen). Now, we're being told that the polar ice caps will be completely gone by 2021 (or something like that) if we don't do something NOW...DANGER, DANGER! Sorry, I just don't buy into it.

Most of the information you're referring to did NOT come from scientists, but from the media, who condensed, consolidated and confabulated the information to make a more sensational story. Back in the 70's some scientists determined that there appeared to be periodicity in the cycle of Earth's ice ages, and that we were heading towards a new ice age, in a couple of thousand years. That's NOT how the story was reported. Likewise, no reputable scientist ever claimed that the planet would be destroyed through global warming. Habitats will change, species will be stressed, some to the point of extinction, ocean levels will rise. In short, things will go on pretty much as they have been for the last 4 billion years. The problem is, it's OUR habitat that will change, OUR species which will be stressed, OUR homes destroyed in the rising tides.

It's quite possible that the Arctic Ice Cap will disappear, during the summers, well before 2021. <shrug> It's happened before, even without our help. It will reconstitute during winter, just as always, just not so thick. It's doubtful that Antarctica will thaw by 2021, though. That's one HELL of a lot of ice! It may melt, along with the Greenland Ice Cap, by 2100. That will be a problem, for sure. All that extra water, pouring into the oceans. Well, at least it will help to dilute the carbolic acid accumulating from all the excess CO2 absorption.

No, there's no doubt now that the Earth is warming. There's little doubt that mankind is making the problem worse, even if we're not the primary cause. But there's also little likelihood that the worst-case scenarios, the ones the media love to blast all over the airwaves, will come to pass.

[steelish]

The evidence is there, in thousands of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, the kinds of things that denialists, and journalists, don't like to talk about. I'm not saying there isn't still some element of doubt, but the more I see, the less doubtful I've become.

like this one? Or maybe these?

There's little doubt that mankind is making the problem worse, even if we're not the primary cause. But there's also little likelihood that the worst-case scenarios, the ones the media love to blast all over the airwaves, will come to pass.

EXACTLY