"an inconvenient truth"

[straycat]

Yeah kick whiteys ass

[withmyshadow]

Exxon's research is no more likely to be biased than is that funded by governments, the potential biases merely run in opposing directions.

wrong!
government's research funding system is a part of the peer reviewed system, too. so government funded research is more reliable than exxon mobile's. it's certainly not perfect. nothing is. but today's medical science, computer science,... are all products of that peer reviewed system. there are mistakes of course. but largely it's an evidence based system so as long as people face reality it's not gonna go too much far off.
the way the peer reviewed system works is that you can't get something published just by going with the popular opinion. you have to have something new. so if you disagree with the popular opinion and give evidence for others to check it it's something new so it's easier to get it published.
the key here is evidence. if you look at the long history of the sun and the range of sun's fluctuation it's impossible for sun to cause the exponential increase of co2 and temperature on earth within the last 20 or 30 years.
'nuff with the science, since global warming is undoubtly a part of us politics people are always gonna look at it that way. that explains the "kill the whitey" so nothing gets done until it becomes so undeniable which will be too late.

[straycat]

And to answer your other post on medical doctors I do have back injuries and was told I would have to stop working and live on painkillers ,nothing could be done.I said screw you and sought alternative medical advice.I am glad to report chiropractic care makes much more sense in my case and works wonders.No dope I work everyday in no pain and have a life.If I had listened to that mainstream dope peddeling ass hole doctor I'd be 6 feet under right now.I do drive an SUV and don't feel at all guilty.I can haul all my gear at one time and dont waste gas making two trips.

[SeventhSon]

personally, i'd put more faith in the objectivity of a nobel laureate than a shill for exxon.

btw, how many of you who believe that global warming is not happening also believe in intelligent design? just curious.

[SeventhSon]

And to answer your other post on medical doctors I do have back injuries and was told I would have to stop working and live on painkillers ,nothing could be done.I said screw you and sought alternative medical advice.I am glad to report chiropractic care makes much more sense in my case and works wonders.No dope I work everyday in no pain and have a life.If I had listened to that mainstream dope peddeling ass hole doctor I'd be 6 feet under right now.I do drive an SUV and don't feel at all guilty.I can haul all my gear at one time and dont waste gas making two trips.

many medical doctors are now shills for the pharmaceutical companies. i don't trust them in the same way i don't trust scientists on the payroll of the tobacco industry or the oil industry.

[straycat]

The earth goes thru heating and cooling cycles it has for mellinia.where are you global warming dicks in the dead of winter?Inside complaining its so much colder than it used to be.

[toejam]

When I die, I want to go to hell. I hear it's warm down there, and better than Florida!

[Wayniac]

My .02 .. haven't seen the movie..
But when i was studying environmental science (yep - back in the dark ages in the early 90's - yes, 1990's - not THAT old lol)... It was thought that it may be the effect of industrial exhausts which were accelerated during & after the industrial revolution, automobiles, trains, planes, etc.. as WELL as natural sources (herd animals, volcanoes, the RAPIDLY growing human population) plus massive deforestation (removing trees which SCRUBBED CO2)... all combined. Add that to the fact that we may be in a natural cycle, that we may be accelerating.. there you go. More being produced, with less to scrub it out = net gain...
Or - that could all be just hypothesis...
Regardless - I agree - US should get more efficient, and the developing 3rd world countries should learn from the past mistakes of Europe, Canada, and the US...

[PowerTube]

I only have one question for the "global warming" crowd: why is it that both this year and last year, it was still cool overnight up until almost June?

[Big D]

I'm not saying that I do, or that I don't, believe in global warming. I've not really studied the subject yet. But anyone that blames SUV's for global warming needs to get their head examined.

The notion that SUV's are responsible for global warming places way too much focus on one very narrow problem. Unfortunately SUV's have been targeted as the root of all evil by the green community because SUV's represent affluence, which of course they hate.

[RacerX]

BTW, Gore never said that he invented the Internet ().

Corrected link

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[RacerX]

Excuse the cut&paste...here's The Straight Dope article:

Dear Cecil:
Robert Essenhigh, a professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State, has written an essay disputing the idea that human activity is causing global warming. He is part of an academic group that opposes the Kyoto treaty. Although I have a PhD in physical organic chemistry and have done some work in environmental areas, I cannot dismiss his arguments out of hand. Is Professor Essenhigh right and can we all go out and buy SUVs? Or are there convincing arguments to the contrary? With the Kyoto treaty on the rocks, it'd be nice to know. --Jon Kapecki, Rochester, New York

Cecil replies:
I get a lot of letters like yours, Jon, basically asking me, a weekly alternative newspaper columnist, to resolve one of the great controversies of our age. Hey, somebody's gotta do it. However, given an 800-word limit, you'll excuse my taking a few shortcuts. So here we go: Are greenhouse-gas emissions from our fuel-guzzling cars, power plants, etc, a significant contributor to potentially catastrophic climate change? Answer: Beats me. But you know what? It doesn't matter even if they are.
We'll start with Essenhigh. The professor argued in a 2001 article in Chemical Innovation that average global temperatures were rising but that, contrary to wide popular and scientific opinion, human activity wasn't the principal cause. Rather, the fluctuations we're now seeing are part of a natural cycle that's been going on for eons. Essenhigh's reasoning appealed largely to common sense: Carbon dioxide, the most widely discussed greenhouse gas, is part of earth's vast store of carbon (about 150 billion tons), which is continually being cycled through the oceans, the atmosphere, and vegetation. The human contribution to atmospheric carbon in the form of CO2 is small, less than 5 percent of the total carbon reservoir. Ergo, humans aren't causing global warming. I omit a lot of ancillary discussion, but that's the nub.
One might raise scientific objections to this reasoning, but there's no point. Fact is, little can be done to reduce CO2 emissions regardless of their impact on the environment. CO2 isn't just an incidental result of human activity that you can get rid of with smokestack scrubbers. Rather, it's an inherent product of the combustion of carbon-based fuels such as coal and oil. The only practical way to produce less in the short term is to use less organic fuel. (Long term we'll switch to nukes, solar, wind, and other non-carbon-emitting energy sources, plus biofuels, where the carbon in- and outputs are a wash. In addition, carbon sequestration technologies may enable us to pull excess carbon out of the atmosphere.)
That brings us to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the U.S. has famously refused to ratify. Kyoto calls for drastic cuts in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases--5.2 percent below 1990 levels, or 29 percent below projected 2010 levels. These numbers alone suggest the implausibility of the goal. To brutally oversimplify, greenhouse-gas emissions = energy use = economic activity. (To repeat, I'm speaking short-term.) To produce significantly fewer emissions now your one choice is to shrink your economy, i.e., become poorer. (Russia, to cite a grim example, is among the few industrialized nations that can meet its Kyoto target due to its economic collapse since 1990.)
Some object to such pessimism. They say that better technology, a modicum of belt-tightening, and purchases of "international emissions permits" (countries exceeding their CO2 reduction targets can sell the difference to those that don't) will enable many countries to meet their Kyoto goals.
Hey, anything's possible. But here's the thing. Even if all Kyoto targets are met, world carbon emissions will continue to rise. Why? Because Kyoto exempts developing nations, and increased carbon emissions in those countries will swamp any reductions the developed world achieves.
Evidence on this score comes to us from International Energy Outlook 2005, a publication of the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. The EIA projects that world carbon dioxide emissions will increase more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2025, from 24 billion to 39 billion metric tons (IEO 2005, table 10). If the industrialized nations participating in the Kyoto Protocol ("Annex I" countries) achieve their goals, the EIA projects that by 2025 their CO2 emissions will be reduced by only 0.6 billion tons (IEO 2005, table 12). Meanwhile, emissions in developing countries will increase nearly ten billion tons. In short, we're going to see a huge jump in emissions no matter what industrialized nations do.
Is the solution, then, to rein in the developing nations? Hardly. While we can advise countries such as China and India on ways to use energy more efficiently, we can't seriously expect them to halt their efforts to achieve the prosperity we already have--and make no mistake, it's precisely those efforts that are driving up carbon emissions. China alone supposedly expects to add 15,000 megawatts of electric power capacity every year.
So, if nothing can be done to reduce CO2, should we quit worrying, buy SUVs, and party on? On the contrary. Fossil fuels are to the developing world today what the American forest was to this country two centuries ago--a cheap, easily exploited resource that permits extraordinary economic growth for the short time that it lasts. The U.S., through its huge trade deficits and job exports, is now financing the industrialization of Asia, a result we didn't intend but may as well make the most of--clearly we want teeming nations like China, India, and Indonesia to become prosperous, stable societies. Making that happen, though, will take decades of steady investment and jigawatts of energy, the price of which will climb steeply once fossil fuels run out. Hastening that none-too-distant day through frivolous use of the supplies we now have would be stupid (although fossil fuel depletion will also end the emissions problem). A more realistic approach is to say, OK, we're going to burn this fuel and cope with whatever dire result, but let's put the stuff to good use while we've got it. That means distributing improved technology to use energy more efficiently and pollute less. Amazingly, just such an approach was agreed to last year when the U.S., Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea formed the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which may go down as Dubya's saving grace after having screwed the pooch in Iraq.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060407.html

[YetAnotherOne]

Not bad Ron but I prefer the explanation of a genuine scientist.

[Deneb]

People emit Co2 also.

[toejam]

I emit lots of gas... I'm sure it's killing the ozone.