It's so hot in here....

[Wes]

Did you know that 700 million years ago the earth was completely covered in ice and all life nearly went extinct?
I live in the sandhills band here in Columbia. They're around 200-220 ft above current sea level and demonstrate where the beach used to be. Coincidentally, if all the ice in Greenland melted, it'd raise sea level 20 feet, and if all the ice in Antarctica melted, it'd raise the sea level another 200 feet. Apparently, millions of years ago, that happened.
Man had nothing to do with either of those extreme situations.
When I was a kid, global cooling was all the rage. Now they don't call it global warming; they call it climate change. I just read an article the other day talking about the next ice age in a few thousand years.
Somehow I just can't get too worked up about anthropogenic-climate issues just yet.

[finefocus]

Did you know that 700 million years ago the earth was completely covered in ice and all life nearly went extinct?
I live in the sandhills band here in Columbia. They're around 200-220 ft above current sea level and demonstrate where the beach used to be. Coincidentally, if all the ice in Greenland melted, it'd raise sea level 20 feet, and if all the ice in Antarctica melted, it'd raise the sea level another 200 feet. Apparently, millions of years ago, that happened.
Man had nothing to do with either of those extreme situations.
When I was a kid, global cooling was all the rage. Now they don't call it global warming; they call it climate change. I just read an article the other day talking about the next ice age in a few thousand years.
Somehow I just can't get too worked up about anthropogenic-climate issues just yet.

So, in your highly academic (and electronically assisted) search, which we less academically ambitious sorts don't get, you have discovered that the Earth has undergone previous climatic changes. Bully for you. And if the Earth is in a natural rpt natural warming trend, should we feed this cycle? Is it in our interest for the Earth to warm a few degrees? Many of the conjectures have focused on the fate of coastal real estate. Important to some, of course, but secondary to the perturbations in global weather patterns. So, Professor Wes, tell us about ancient human endeavors squashed (with real human death, real human tragedy) by climate change: ancient irrigation systems, ancient agriculture, by ancient populations who couldn't help themselves, who couldn't see global ramifications. Do you say we should be like them?

[finefocus]

Most Global Warming scientists agree that the Earth has not warmed up in the last 15 years. They admit that it has been a cooling period. They try and and say it's an anomaly, that it will warm up again.

I say DUH !! Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that the earth warms sometimes, and it cools back off.. It is a cycle that repeats itself. Its called freaking mother nature...it's not "man made" All those Libs and thier war on woman... Man made Man Made - Give Mother nature her credit and stop this war on woman

Al Bore took all his data from the late 80's early 90's and has ignored all the recent data...he says the argument is over. I ask Al why are most of the heat records set in the late 1890's and the 1930's ? Where the more cars on the streets back then? I think Mr Bore thinks so...I mean he did invent the internet!!

So to sum it up... it is hotter in some area's and colder in other area's

I think I understand part of what you've said. Liberals, who somehow feel that a political "war on women" is underway, have been flummoxed by Al Gore's (insert knowing snicker here) Internet into failing to disbelieve today's photo of the North Pole, currently underwater from ice-melt, all of which is a damn lie, just don't get it.

[Stan Tabor]

I am really split on this global warming thing. What I really see is more extreme weather. More hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, etc. Heck, I watched a movie the other night where sharks were washing up on shore and landing on coastal California after being blown in on tornadoes!

But back to the point, I am having a hard time reconciling what I see, which is ice melting in both the Arctic and Antarctic and extremely, droughts, very hot summers, cold winters (last year was the exception), and just in general, weather extremes. Something is going on. Maybe this is an aberration. Think about it. Forest fires out west. 90 degree weather in Alaska. In Georgia, three years ago it was in a drought with a high risk to the water supply. I just saw where Atlanta has had historically high levels of precipitation this year.

Regarding carbon emissions and your other garden variety pollutions, it seems like the air is much cleaner in the US as we have offshored smokestack industries and what is left, burns much cleaner.

I think most people are unsure of what is going on and are more middle of the road on this topic. They would rather error on the side of caution and focus on producing less pollution, but in a reasonable manner that does not destroy our industry.

[Wes]

So, in your highly academic (and electronically assisted) search, which we less academically ambitious sorts don't get, you have discovered that the Earth has undergone previous climatic changes. Bully for you. And if the Earth is in a natural rpt natural warming trend, should we feed this cycle? Is it in our interest for the Earth to warm a few degrees? Many of the conjectures have focused on the fate of coastal real estate. Important to some, of course, but secondary to the perturbations in global weather patterns. So, Professor Wes, tell us about ancient human endeavors squashed (with real human death, real human tragedy) by climate change: ancient irrigation systems, ancient agriculture, by ancient populations who couldn't help themselves, who couldn't see global ramifications. Do you say we should be like them?

I'm not sure who peed in your wheaties, but you can cut the snark.
First off, I posted everything I wrote from memory, as I was on a smartphone. Second, there is a very large financial incentive for scientists to say what they are paid to say. If Globalists bent on world power and world government can get scientists to believe we are the cause and solution of this climate change issue, and convince us to ruin our energy production and economies in an attempt to forestall some major climate change, thereby destroying barriers to complete power for them, this will result in power for them and wars and deaths in the immediate aftermath. The climate is going to change whether we like it or not, and whether we have anything to do with it or not. Ice ages made Europeans and NE Asians what they are today through selective pressure on evolution, for instance. These human tragedies made many of us what we are. Is it in our interests for the earth to warm a few degrees? No. Is it in our interests for it to cool a few degrees? No. Are we masters of the world, that we can make it exactly as we want as long as we want? Again, I say no.

[MasterCrafter]

I think I understand part of what you've said. Liberals, who somehow feel that a political "war on women" is underway, have been flummoxed by Al Gore's (insert knowing snicker here) Internet into failing to disbelieve today's photo of the North Pole, currently underwater from ice-melt, all of which is a damn lie, just don't get it.

And todays photo of the north pole currently underwater, is what happens every year...and if you were to read the articles instead of just looking at the photo you would have seen that this years artic lake is smaller than previous years.

[MasterCrafter]

Over 1000 U.S. cities have recorded thier coldest temps in July.... What happen to the heat wave?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...peratures.html

[Wes]

Anecdotally, this has been the cheapest SC summer electric bill on record.

[Robert Martellaro]

http://www.climate.gov/news-features...climate-update

[fjpod]

NYC had almost three consecutive weeks of temps in the mid 90's, with high humidity and heat index of over 100. I hit a personal high on my home electric bill. My office bill hit about $1300 for the month. I absolutely do not claim that this is a sign of global warming. Somehow, this thread turned into a climate change thread... I see our biggest problem as consumption. We consume or pollute, too much air, water and land. It will catch up to us someday if we continue to increase in population, and rate of consumption of natural resources.

[fjpod]

Over 1000 U.S. cities have recorded thier coldest temps in July.... What happen to the heat wave?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...peratures.html

Yeah, but how many cities recorded their highest temperatures? You're only giving half the facts. And what's really important is average temperatures over time.

[optilady1]

Ummm. I prefer talking about crazy patients over debating global warming. Like the nuts I had last week who were laughing over who lost more money on their vintage Aston Martins. The winner? 100,000.

[Wes]

So CO2 is causing global warming, except when it's preventing it. Confused yet?

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator.* “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...2/22mar_saber/

[Robert Martellaro]

So CO2 is causing global warming, except when it's preventing it. Confused yet?

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator.* “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...2/22mar_saber/

"Yes, of course the upper atmosphere is going to deflect and re-radiate the energy of solar storms, that’s why we don’t burn to a cinder when they happen. There’s nothing new here, this is what the upper atmosphere (thermosphere) does. CO2 (and other greenhouse gases – GHG’s) in the lower atmosphere also re-radiates long wave infra red energy (LWIR) as backradiation coming up from the surface of the Earth as it dumps the shortwave solar energy absorbed returns as LWIR (heat) and makes its way to the top of the atmosphere."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/2...ng-the-rounds/