Quote Originally Posted by quimbian corholla
For every 3 climate scientists that write an opinion that you feel is an accurate reflection of the situation those nasty liberals will produce 97 climate scientists that disagree.
Of course they will......that's what a bandwagon is. They are hysterically defending their position at any cost. The response to Ball (and anyone else who disputes the "data") is typical. Attack the messenger and try to discredit him, while ignoring the inconvenient message, he and others are sending out.

This entire matter has long since been turned into a political football and it should not be so. For time immemorial it was agreed by "science" that stomach ulcers were the result of stress, lifestyle, poor eating habits etc. You could not have found a medical "expert" anywhere who did not share this wisdom just a few decades ago.

Then a handful of unconventional "scientists" who did not subscribe to the "settled science" discovered that in fact the ulcers were caused by a certain type of bacteria.....oops. This is now the conventional wisdom of the medical profession as far as I know.... So much for the majority opinion always being the right one in the world of science. There are plenty more examples throughout history of conventional wisdom being turned on it's head by a minority of objective thinkers.

Personally, I have never denied that the earth has seen an apparent warming trend in recent decades. Few people actually deny that. What is in serious doubt is (a) the cause of this trend, and (b) has the trend started to change and (c) what are the real prospects long term of very minor incremental increases in temperature if in fact the trend continues.

The projections keep changing as does the apparent direction of the trend. Each time these things are questioned, there is a flurry of new "data" pulled from the hat to support the argument on both sides. Politics and various interest groups drive different agendas so the only thing that is clear is that it's not really very clear what's going on,

What can we do? Well we are doing something about things like air pollution; high carbon emission rates, and other things that may or may not be the cause of the warming trend, but of course we will never be able to do enough, or do it fast enough, for the climate fanatics....

It makes perfect sense to clean up the air; clean up the oceans, increase forestation and generally make the world a healthier and nicer place to live in. What all this would do to change the increasing temperature is simply not known...and there is a body of opinion that it will change again anyway regardless of what we do or don't do.
At least a carbon dioxide laden atmosphere is good for plant growth so everything from your garden veggies to the Boreal forest will do better and the more we plant the more carbon will be extracted from the air. I've personally planted over 200 trees in the last year.....so I'm doing my bit...

I'm actually more concerned about currency exchange rates and the stock market than the weather right now.... another degree Celsius in the 23rd century is not that urgent at the moment.......