Global warming?

Yes, humans are slightly affecting the cycle of heating and cooling. Yes, global warming is happening. No, we are not going to be able to do much about it. Yes, we should do what we can about pollution. I think that about sums it up.

"I cannot agree with the supposition that the earth's natural cycle of warm to cool and back again would continue unimpeded no matter what modern humans are doing." The cycle would indeed continue, no matter what we do, but it would be slightly impeded. Think of how much we could do to affect the tides of the oceans. It's almost the same thing. We do affect the cycle of warming and cooling but only slightly. This is because the main determinate of that cycle is how much solar energy falls on the earth. It is starting to look like changes in the atmosphere only slightly affect the earth's temperature and humans are only slightly affecting that atmosphere. "What if we brought about a nuclear winter?" I actually got to read an article about the computer program that forecast nuclear winter in the magazine "FOREIGN AFFAIRS" back when I use to subscribe. The article was a debunking of the concept. The program was not valid and used false assumptions. Nuclear explosions do put debris in the air that for a very short time block out the sun's rays and lower the temperature of the earth. However, rain washes these heavier than air particles out of the atmosphere in short order. A nuclear winter lasting for years that would kill most life on earth would not happen as a result of a nuclear war. The whole concept of nuclear winter was created with the idea that even though it was a lie, since it might make nuclear war less likely, it was an honorable lie. "What you're really saying is that no matter what we do, our deeds are so insignificant in geologic time that it just doesn't matter?" It matters, but only a little bit. BTW, I am not makeing an excuse for polluting. There are very good reasons to not pollute. Pollution absolutely can kill us. Just not by heating the earth up too much. That is going to happen, anyway.

As to the nuclear winter, there have been plenty enough bombs set off in the past and enough volcanoes go off that there is really good data for how much cooling we get for how much debris thrown up in the air. But as you say, who wants to find out for sure? The thing about the global warming is it is starting to look like a scam to 1) Promote the selling/trading of carbon credits, (Al Gore actually has money invested in such a company!) 2) Give government (UN & others) more power over private industry (by the collectivists) 3) Provide a vehical for unscrupelous politicians to ride to power by scaring people. You know, as in, "Vote for me and I'll save the Planet from my opponent who wants us all to die!" I do not think the global warming thing is going away. In terms of geological time we are coming off an ice age just awhile back and are just starting to heat up. We are going to have to deal with a hotter planet. Take a look at that graph again. But don't worry about it going to the extreme position. Something like 1/2 to 2 million years will pass before the earth gets that hot again. In the meantime, we will have to deal with a slightly hotter planet over the next 1000 years and slightly higher oceans. It is unavoidable.

Just to clarify, the scam of global warming is that man is causing it or can do much about it. Global warming is happening, just not as fast as some would have you believe nor can we do much about it but get ready.