miamizsun wrote: 
Hi Jeff!

No, not all all difficult to say. No one doubts that cycles in solar radiation occur, and that they have affected terrestrial climate in the past. But it takes many thousands of years for such variations in solar radiation or orbital attitude to achieve significant change. The relative speed of the warming points towards human causality. It's happening too quickly to be natural.

Read the Scientific American article, and its debunking of the solar radiation hypothesis:

"Astronomical phenomena are obvious natural factors to consider when trying to understand climate, particularly the brightness of the sun and details of the earth's orbit, because those seem to have been major drivers of the ice ages and other climate changes before the rise of industrial civilization. Climatologists, therefore, do take them into account in their models. But in defiance of the naysayers who want to chalk the recent warming up to natural cycles, there is insufficient evidence that enough extra solar energy is reaching our planet to account for the observed rise in global temperatures.

"The IPCC notes that between 1750 and 2005, the radiative forcing from the sun increased by 0.12 watts/square-meter-less than a tenth of the net forcings from human activities (1.6 W/m2). The largest uncertainty in that comparison comes from the estimated effects of aerosols in the atmosphere, which can variously shade the earth or warm it. Even granting the maximum uncertainties to these estimates, however, the increase in human influence on climate exceeds that of any solar variation."

First, I'd like to see this "de-politicized", most politicians are people we pay to lie to us. Politicians(both parties) should be out of this altogether. Opposing something because of another party's take on it makes zero sense.

I like others here want to see the evidence, all of it, and put it through the rigors. I'm also more concerned with pollution than climate change, we can deal with water better/easier than poison.

I'm wondering what caused the planet to go through its cycles before we were here(short of a cataclysmic event). We see glacial striations all over the place, glaciers receding and forming thousands of years ago, yet we weren't using fossil fuels to any extent then.

I tend to think that it is mostly caused by the sun(in all of its flux) and man plays a minor part, much less than hyped. Lots of articles like this which suggest warming coinciding between mars and earth for example, are solar induced phenomena.(this is an older article, but I think that this type of data may gaining traction)

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

It is difficult to say.

Regards

I thought this was good.

Climate Change - the Scientific Debate

Interesting!

 dionysius wrote: 

Doesn't mean anything, Mark. Not a thing...I use big words to make myself sound smart. I said it was my opinion, but what do I know. Take it or leave it.

 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