Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere mainly in the last 100-200 years. I don't think you can debate this point. Since the industrial revolution and especially in the last 50 years or so consumption of fossil fuels has increased dramatically. This has significantly increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This problem has been compounded by the fact that nearly 60% of the earth's rain forests have been cut down. These forests act as natural filters for CO2 and replace it with oxygen. Research shows that the earth's rain forests used to provide as much as 30% of the oxygen for the planet. Now it is down to 10%. Is it hard to breathe yet? No, not yet, but you can't deny that there are a lot more RED AIR days during the summer when you're advised not to go outside, especially if you're really young or old. I personally spent a lot of time outside as a kid and hope mine can do the same. I don't deny that global cooling and warming trends do happen on a regular basis. The geologic record is clear on this FACT, but the rate of warming we are seeing now (conveniently since the industrial revolution) is unprecedented. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climate Data Center states that: "Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today, has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years, and likely not in the last 20 million years. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration)." I don't know about you, but these numbers seem accelerated to me and they are not from some quack environmental group.

Back a few years ago the big environmental panic was "a looming ice age".

An article titled"The Cooling World" in the April 1975, edition of Newsweek had this to say. "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically ... Meteorologists are almost unanimous [that] the resulting famines could be catastrophic ... A survey completed last year reveals a drop in average ground temperatures in the northern hemisphere ... The present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way [towards] the Ice Age average ... Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate, [like] melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

Personally, I'm glad the enviro-nuts couldn't coerce the politicans to rush and spread soot across the Arctic. Because just one generation later, trendy opinion put forth by these same folks, had done a complete turnabout and decided the real threat was global warming.

The same magazine now prints [sheaves] of articles depicting the Earth as an overheating greenhouse, an example is given in the the September 2004, Newsweek: "In early August 2004 the remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska was gripped with unseasonably mild weather: 20-degree afternoons, ravenous mosquitoes past prime insect season, and dry tundra in the typically swampy lowlands of the coastal plain. These may be early signs of global warming."

It's interesting to see the same breathless, no-doubt-about-it style being employed to promote precisely opposite apocalypses – without any acknowledgment, much less embarrassment, at how wildly the conventional wisdom was swinging.

It would appear that if one tactic to spread this "control" agenda doesn't work, make up another story and keep repeating it. I would sooner believe that "hell will freeze over" before the predictions of those who can't seem to decide between ice age and heat wave occur.

Hi Karol,

You think information about CO2 from forest fires is hidden? I just Googled "carbon dioxide from forest fires" and came up with tons of information -- not very well hidden.

Since you bring CO2 into the discussion I can only assume you are willing to stipulate that its contribution to global warming is real. (Why else would you mention it?)

How much comes from forest fires? The contribution can be significant. The huge Indonesia fires of 1997-'98 were estimated to have released CO2 equivalent to 13 to 40 percents of the "mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels." (Source). You'll note that while significant, it doesn't "dwarf" (as you suspected) the impact of human contribution.

Now that this "hidden" information has been revealed to you, I hope you'll consider adjusting your position and recognize that a significant impact can be made by addressing human contributions (over which we also happen to have a little more control than natural phenomena.)

Global warming is all part of God's plan to bring about the prophecies of Revelations. Don't fight it.

I've followed this argument for years. I've never seen one single convincing bit of information that mankind is contributing to "global warming" or that global warming is anything other than a cyclic, naturally occurring event.

"Global warming is all part of God's plan to bring about the prophecies of Revelations. Don't fight it."

Ummm... is this sarcastic humor or an astute observation or a sincere conviction?

Without claiming any side in this debate, I wanted to ask you if you understand that there are people in this country that absolutely believe this to be true, and that it gives them the right to not only NOT intervene before potential cataclysm, but that they have a God-given duty to accelerate the drive toward disaster. In any way they can.

Scary as it is to admit this, but too many people in this country have a deathwish.

Personally, I don't believe man can destroy this planet. We don't have anything in our power that could do that. We can make it far less hospitable for us and be forced to take measures that significantly degrade the standards of life that we've come to accept... but the Earth will go on, and life with it. We will too, but our paychecks will get severely docked for being bad managers of the joint.

If you've never done so, go read Jurassic Park, the original novel by Michael Crichton. There's a BRILLIANT dialogue toward the end where Ian Malcolm (the crazy mathematician that Jeff Goldblum played in the movie... then again he always plays crazy science types :-P) tells Hammond how he's as foolish to believe man can destroy the planet as he was for believing he could put t-rex on a leash. Very deep stuff in there: too bad Spielberg glossed right over it :-\

" I've never seen one single convincing bit of information..."

Ah, the old "I'm ignorant of it so it must not be" argument. Powerfull stuff. Not.

"The same groups clamoring for reduced carbon dioxide emissions are the ones that killed the nuclear energy industry, an essentially non-polluting source of vast quantities of energy"

Except for the thousands of tons of radioactive waste that will stay around for, oh, ten thousand years?

/Oh that's just God crapping on America.

More than one of the comments here state that they have never seen any evidence that convinces them that the global warming trend is real. Have you actually searched out the evidence or are do you just assume that you know much more that the scientist who study this every day? I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I have certainly looked at points of view from both sides and made my own opinions. If you want proof of disproof, go find your evidence. Don't look to the Bible, your president, CBS news, or the Sierra Club for information. The bias is obvious! The EPA and NOAA both have good websites with a lot of good information (epa.gov & noaa.gov). Read it and form your own opinions.

Recommendation - www.realclimate.org, "a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists."

I found this in the Australian, the largest daily newspaper in the land of Oz. I find that the folks there don't mind printing things that are not politically correct and go along with the latest hysteria brought about by those who would certainly agree with anything that gives them a hook to hang all things from the ridiculous to the sublime.

ACCORDING to the Kyoto protocol proponents, Australia and the US are the rogue nations. But in the eyes of the absolute majority of the world, they are reasonable and smart.

After all, Australia and the US -- along with nine developed countries and 167 other nations -- are refusing to undertake legal obligations in restricting their greenhouse gas emissions.

The fact is the Kyoto protocol that will be a global treaty within months is based on fraudulent science. Assertions that global temperatures are higher today than any time in the past are completely false. Fluctuations in climate patterns have existed for millions of years -- for all earth history.

Global temperatures were higher in the Roman times when grapes were grown on British islands and Hannibal's elephants walked through the Alps into Italy. They were higher in the medieval period when the Vikings found and colonised the island that they have called Greenland and when Norwegians grew grain on the fields that are 300m in altitude higher than it is possible to do today.

Temperature variations in the course of the earth's history have been much greater than the increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the last century. In the past, the earth's climate was warmer, the global temperature rose faster, sea level was higher, floods were more severe, droughts lasted longer and hurricanes were more devastating than they were in the 20th century. Moreover, the best available temperature data from satellites show negligible temperature changes over the past several decades.

As pointed out by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Richard Lindzen, perhaps the world's most respected atmospheric physicist, if global warming were to occur it would be accompanied by reduced rather than increased numbers of severe weather patterns.

Pseudo-scientific fabrications cost humankind a lot. Y2K cost consumers worldwide $700 billion. But once December 31, 2000, passed, the hysteria behind Y2K evaporated.

The nonsense of global warming triggered by the anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels hypothesis could cost the world economy much more.

The Kyoto treaty means a heavy price in terms of economic growth. Tentative early evidence of this can be seen by examining growth rates of those nations that have and have not enforced restrictions on their emissions.

Since 1997, the 17 pro-Kyoto developed nations (15 EU countries, Canada and Japan) have had slower economic growth rates than the 11 non-Kyoto nations (including Australia and the US) -- 1.9 per cent annually compared with 3.3 per cent. There is no way to cheat economic laws -- increase in wealth creation requires more energy.

CO2 is a natural result of the use of fossil fuels that still account for 80 per cent of energy consumed globally. Nuclear energy today is the only commercially viable alternative. But even if green activists and Euro-bureaucrats secretly desire a rapid expansion of nuclear energy, there are still objective limits to how fast hydrocarbons can be replaced. Therefore, limiting emissions means limiting energy consumption, limiting economic activity and limiting technological progress.

Even with Russia on board, the Kyoto treaty will do little to global CO2 emissions considering that 70 per cent of the world's CO2 is emitted by countries not subject to Kyoto restrictions. Moreover, this share is growing as China, India and other non-Kyoto developed and developing countries grow faster than pro-Kyoto ones. Countries around the world must choose what is more important for them -- stagnating, at best, living standards due to Kyoto sclerotic regulations or the rising well-being of billions of people without them.

The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyoto-ist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. This perhaps explains why it finds such ready support in some quarters. But that's why it should be a warning signal for those who value economic and political freedom.

Last May the Russian Academy of Sciences published its conclusion on Kyoto -- the protocol does not have scientific ground whatsoever. Nobody among Russian decision makers considers the Kyoto protocol either scientifically proven or economically beneficial for the country. The only reasons for Russia's decision to ratify were purely political. For 3 1/2 years, Russia was heavily lobbied by Europeans, Canadians, Japanese and international bureaucrats.

The message for Australians is clear: continued economic growth and rising living standards or make your future and the future of your children a victim of Kyoto-ism, one of the most aggressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism.

Ah, the old "I'm ignorant of it so it must not be" argument. Powerfull stuff. Not.

Yep, Tommyboy. Powerful stuff it is. You see, the old, as you refer to the writer in utter disrespect, have been around to see and hear all of this before. The old were here in the 50's, 60's and 70's when it was the ice age that was going to destroy us if the Russians didn't get us first with the atomic bomb.

The old are the same ones that don't fall for every crack-pot theory that comes along, such as "Roadrunner" cartoons will damage children and make them more agressive and cause them to kill others. Shortly afterward the politically correct crowd allowed those harmless and funny cartoons to be replaced with cartoons and video games that show and allow these children to blow up, kill and destroy all the "enemies" splattering body parts and blood all over the screen. Strange that we had not had a Columbine created by kids that watched Roadrunner, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck etc.

The old learned to read and to research and not grab hold of something because it sounded good.

Yea, the old sure are dumb aren't they. NOT! My advice to the young is that which my grandfather gave to me years ago. "Speak of what you know and know of what you speak, the rest of the time just listen, you might learn something."

OK, let me rephrase my statement.
There is no convincing evidence that global warming exists, only "theories" by those who choose to believe it and who find "evidence" to support their position. No credible scientific evidence exists. For every "theory" that it occurs there is a historical and scientific rebuttal that it is a naturally occurring event. These cycles were documented centuries before SUV's, nuclear energy, or cow flatulence.
Well, maybe there was cow flatulence back then...

In response to mrproduce's long winded comment: Sure we as the richest, most privileged nation in the world may take a bit of a hit for complying w/ Kyoto, but I think it's our responsibility to be a leader in the world. Why would poor countries like China and India even consider posing environmental regulations when the richest country in the world doesn?t? For God's sake we try and lead the world in everything else. Also, limiting emissions doesn't have to put the brakes on energy consumption or our economy. We have the technology to make cars cleaner and more fuel efficient, and we have the technology to make coal fired power plants release fewer contaminants in to the atmosphere. Neither of these options is going turn the lights off or stifle the economy. The opposite can be true in fact. Jobs and economic stimulation can be the result. For instance, in my hometown there has been a lack of high paying ironworking jobs due to the Bush Administration's weakening of the Clean Air Act. There was and still would be a boom in installing flue gas scrubber systems in these plants if (and I can dream) Clinton was still in office. Instead the power company is still jacking up your power bill and doing the bare minimum as far as emissions standards.

Americans need to stop being so selfish and self-centered and take some responsibility for being the world leaders in nearly everything.

Mr. Produce,

Please read for clarity. "The old... argument," as I wrote, clearly refers to the argument, not the writer. So your contention that I was attacking the opinions of crochety old farts is misguided. I was pointing out the ignorance of saying, "I've never seen... so it must not be;" wheter by old chowderheads or young.

I would further suggest you shake the cobwebs loose and apply a little critical thinking to the article from Australia you cite. You'll notice that it relies heavily on a straw man argument, i.e. "If we don't release more greenhouse gases, there will be less economic growth." The optomistic and imaginative among us can envision quite easily continued economic growth (if not stellar growth) fuled by cleaner energy alternatives. Please join us in the twenty-first century and, for God's sake, think of the children.

A couple other observations:

Mr. P: That Australia article points to the money spent on fixing computers for Y2K as an example of "hysteria" and implies, because Y2K turned out not to be that bad, that there was an overraction. Ummm. Could it be that Y2k was not that bad precisely because people mobilized and acted? (Duh. Geeez. Like I said, chowderheads.)

JayCee: "No credible scientific evidence exists?" Wow! You've scoured it all, huh, and discredited it all? Impressive.

I think it's quite ironic that people find, with no scientific evidence (the genius Charles Liebert excepted), justification for supporting the use of a belief in the supernatural to guide public policy, but cover their eyes and ears when faced with real-world evidence of a real problem.

Some of the same people who are certain that homosexuality is "un-natural" and that their faith in that belief should dictate public policy, turn around and dismiss real measurable science so that they don't have to worry about global warming and the notion that they might just be violating God's demand that they be good stewards of the Earth.

Tommyboy perhaps you should read and comprehend if those two things go together in your thinking. No where in the article does it say as you put in quotes "if we don't release more gasses....". Evidently you read past and assumed that this is what the author said. Perhaps you took inference from this statement.".....Therefore, limiting emissions means limiting energy consumption, limiting economic activity and limiting technological progress." This is the only thing close to your imagined inference.

Secondly, if you had read my introduction to the article you would see that I simply offered it up as an example of a different opinion coming from a different part of the world and very plainly stated that in some parts of the world newspapers print something other than the "politically correct" opinion.

My head is very clear of cobwebs. I am very much in the 21st century and at least I can read and think for myself. It would appear that unless you are demeaning someone, whether they be "young chowderheads or old crotchy farts" you have no sense of proper communication. Perhaps if you heeded my grandfathers advice that I set forth previously you could properly respond to others.

Those who think mankind can influence the global climate are not paying attention to the fossil records going back thousands of years. The earth goes through periodic warming and cooling cycles.
All this yammering about global warmins is just that.
Our time and money would be better spent working on things we can and should fix,
like pushing individual freedoms and democracy as a form of government throughhout the world,
like wiping out AIDS and malaria as we have wiped out other diseases,
like helping raise the standard of living of all the world by expanding free trade and free enterprise.

Kyoto is a bad deal for the US. It is the "solution" to a non-problem.

TommyBoy, when you say "belief in the super-natural" I guess you're talking about how some people actually have the quaint notion that there is a God, and actually believe that living with his guidance is a good thing.
And, dude, homosexuality is unnatural.
I think I'm beginning to see where you're coming from.....somewhere waaaaaaay out there....
You've been PLONKED.

Super article Karol - couldnt agree more. I just posted a piece on a WSJ article of 2/15 on the dilemma facing the Canadian economy (couldnt happen to a nicer bunch)

Shoot me your email and I will send along

MIKROUCH@aol.com