Climategate

[Thorne]

[B][COLOR="Pink"]Besides which, the Earths position relative to the sun and the suns immission intensity have far more bearing on temperature than most of the other factors.

True, but these emissions are will known and factored into the calculations made by climatologists.

Another factor few people like to consider, is that so called "natural events" both geological, and stellar, have had on different occassions much more rapid onsets and durational effects than climatoligists or politicans supporting the current "human only cuase agenda" wish to make known for public consumption just becuase it puts holes in the political agenda behind the current push.

Again, these natural causes are pretty well understood and accounted for. The levels of volcanic activity, for example are constantly measured, along with the amount of ash and dust being put out by volcanoes, and it has been found that, in general, these events are relatively constant, averaging out over the years. There have been some blips, of course. The eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815, combined with unusually low solar activity, caused tremendous problems around the world, during what has been called 'The Year Without a Summer'. But still, these events are understood and factored into calculations.

As a side note: the rising co2 levels still havent been proven, nor does all the evidence point towrds, it being a direct cuase of climate change when it could in fact be an effect, the proccess relationship between them isnt as of yet understood well enough to say with certianty that one drives the other.

This is just plain wrong. CO2 levels are well above pre-industrial levels. While there can be some variations depending on where measurements are taken, the overall average of CO2 concentration has been steadily climbing. And laboratory testing has shown that increasing CO2 levels will cause increased atmospheric temperatures due to the absorption of infrared radiation. What it amounts to is that, by combining the natural sources of CO2 emission with the burning of fossil fuels by civilization and the deforestation of large tracts of land, there is more CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year than the natural processes can remove.

Additionally geologic records alone show countless times where the earth quite suddenly cooled down and or warmed up (well within a short fifty to 100 year period) and to greater extents than it is currently doing (and or projected to do) in both duration and temperature shift...long, long before humanity's presence on the planet could possibely cuase any signifigant changes.

And the problem with this is that humanity may not be able to survive such a shift. Yes, it's possible the globe could be plunged into a deep freeze, or things beyond our control could raise the temperature to unbearable levels in a relatively short time. Those dangers will always be there, and there's damned little we can do about them. But that's not the problem we're facing now, is it?

Even if we could prove that the current warming cycle was not started by mankind, there's more than enough evidence to show that our own contributions are making things worse. The best way to minimize our impact is to reduce consumption of fossil fuels significantly. This would, however, have a very strong negative impact on those industries which depend upon our consumption of those fuels, as well as those politicians who depend upon those same industries for their political existence. And this is the primary reason that there is so much resistance to the very idea of global warming.

PS: The sunspot cycle, which has been unusually silent for the past two years, has recently restarted. In March of this year the first major sunspot activity in more than two years were detected. If this means a startup of the solar cycle, it will mean gradually rising temperatures here on Earth. It will be interesting to see the effects this will have on denialists.