Quote Originally Posted by socal_dan View Post
Except that the Earth's own feedback loops are significantly stronger than human borne effects. As an oddity, global warming theorists will say that humans can significantly impact the global climate, while at exactly the same time explaining that Siberia's methane traps releasing could be 50-100 times (or more) worse than any man-made climate warming.

It's absurdly illogical that we're both a major cause, and completely insignificant.
Nothing illogical about it at all. The hypothesis is that global warming was initiated by human-related effects, and when a certain stage is reached the tundra will begin to thaw, releasing vast quantities of methane and CO2. It is also causing global sea temperatures to rise, which can (and is) causing the thawing of methane hydrates from the ocean floor. That would be the tip-over point, leading to possible runaway global warming. At which point, any efforts we could make to reverse the problem would be insignificant.

And while the feedback loops are strong, they also take time. Given the effects of runaway warming, it could take the earth tens of thousands of years, if not millions, to return to something close to the kind of climate we have now, if it ever does. Odds are that human civilization, as we know it, will be long gone by the time that happens.

Make no mistake about it: Earth will survive, one way or another. Life will survive, in one form or another. Whether humanity survives is questionable. We could well go the way of the dinosaurs.