dionysius wrote: 
Everyone wants simple answers to complex questions. We are now paying for hundreds of years of bad behavior, financially, ecologically, educationally. Whatever the causes, we must stop our bad behavior anyway, if we want anything left for our grandchildren.

 oldviolin wrote: 

What does this even mean?

 dionysius wrote: 
My point was / is, that if we can address the realities of pollution in general, then the arguable pretensions of the effects of human attributes to climate change will be addressed. My opinion.

"Here we go round the prickly pear..."

 dionysius wrote: 
! Oh, of course......

 dionysius wrote: 

We must do something, after all, to help save the gharial.

 oldviolin wrote: 

The two are intimately related in a whole complex of bad human behaviors that damage the natural world. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is itself a form of pollution that (for instance) increases the acidity of the oceans, dooming coral reefs and associated ecosystems. Deforestation is not itself pollution, but is the destruction of (a) habitat for many, many animal and plant species, and (b) one of our main carbon sinks, the destruction of which makes a bad problem worse. *Etc., etc.* History will not judge us kindly if we do not act soon and act decisively to curb our bad habits.

"   c   l   i   m   a   t   e       i   s       g   e   t   t   i   n   g       w   a   r   m   e   r   "

My point was / is, that if we can address the realities of pollution in general, then the arguable pretensions of the effects of human attributes to climate change will be addressed. My opinion.

 oldviolin wrote: 

I honor the opinions of the scientists who make their lives' work the study of climate. The overwhelming majority of them agree on anthropogenic climate change. If you're going to disagree with this majority, you had better bring better arguments than those dealt with in the Scientific American article. Read the article!

 dionysius wrote: 
Pretty cut and dried. I honor your opinion. You must be emersed in the know...

 oldviolin wrote: 

There is no lack of consensus, really, The denial game is to manufacture a seeming lack of consensus. There is no equivalence between the two "sides" in this matter—one is right and the other simply wrong.

 dionysius wrote: 
The extreme politics played with lack of consensus among dissenting opinions.

 oldviolin wrote: 

What do you base your opinion on?

Bogus
Pollution however- very much human and serious

IMO of course...

From Scientific American, November 30th, 2009

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense

Evidence for human interference with Earth's climate continues to accumulate

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 

MrsHobie,
Thanks for the links. The Guardian one was instructive: on the one hand, the emails were obtained illegally. Fair. But not a reasonable defense if the emails show a pattern of deception in order to massage data agreeable to preferred outcomes. Again, no defense in the scientific community can be offered if data is fudged or manipulated. On the other hand, The Guardian, or I should say the author of the article, points to the 3, perhaps 4, scientists caught up in a potentially explosive scam and ponders if that is the extent of this charade within the community that declares global warming an absolute. What is bothersome is that the lab where the deceit may have taken hold is one of the labs The UN leans on for guidance on the matter. From that guidance, come announcements of dread and doom: you have less than two hours before your skin's sloughing accelerates to an uncontrollable pace *I always snickered at the drop dead certainty of such tight time limits...40 days or 6 months or whatever time was set with such specificity* And then, no matter how or why the emails were obtained, we have a serious question on the 'hockey stick curve' the 'curve' Al Gore trumpets in his 'An Inconvenient Truth' as the last-brick-in-place that solidifies the certainty of global warming and by his endless and monotonous droning, ends the discussion and shoos away all skeptics or naysayers. Seems to me the emails now present an inconvenient moment.
mk

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 

From this here Torygraph: "The overwhelming majority of scientists believe the global warming is real and the result of human activity, but a vocal majority maintains that the science is not proven."

Two majorities? This...mistake...is FOXNoose-worthy. Almost missed it, because the brain reads the correct "minority" in passing. And, as we know, only minorities are vocal.

 musik_knut wrote: 
Flying post as I get through some domesic stuff.  Here are some reports from a couple of highly respected British newspapers at either end of the political spectrum.

From our newspaper of choice- The Guardian, which is left leaning, sandal wearing etc. We actually pay for it unlike some RP posters!!

From the right wing Daily Telegraph (known as the "Torygraph" in our household).

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 

This can only be seen as extremely damaging. It is from two British Labs that much of the certainty, a word used advisedly, on global warming, is drawn. Those two labs, as I understand it, are 2 of the 4 labs from which The UN makes an endless series of the  sky-is-falling declarations on the matter.