Co-founder of Greenpeace: Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic

a reply to: 00018GE

Do you think the earth is a closed system? Do you think climatology claims the earth is a closed system?

If the answer to either of those is no then why do you think the second law of thermodynamics applies to climatology?

originally posted by: jrod
a reply to: InTheFlesh1980

Very cute!

I attack the Heartland Institute because they are notorious for using pseudoscience and social manipulation to get their agenda to appeal to the average person.

The typical ad hominem attack has no basis, clearly there are plenty of reasons to question the Heartland Institute and what amounts to pseudoscience and disinformation that they to to pass as fact. You are clearly ignoring the issue here. An opinion piece, essentially a blog does not count as Breaking News.

Ad hominem attacks absolutely DO have a basis - the basis is to divert the attention of the listeners by attacking a messenger (i.e. a "Heartland Institute") while studiously avoiding the actual content of the message, usually because that content is unassailable, and the attacker cannot refute it.

We now know that you don't like this "heartland Institute" on a personal level - is there anything you can say that actually refutes the content of the article? If you can't falsify the argument, we are then forced to conclude that it is valid, and your argument against the messenger is invalid, an attempt at misdirection.

That's actually why ad hominems are a bad idea.

I wonder at what point when the planet is in dire trouble, people might say "Huh.. maybe there IS climate change after all!" A large % of scientists agree with this now.. but still, non-scientists continue to insist they know it's not true.

And for those who believe there is.. but it's just nature.. I wonder what the odds are. The planet goes through cycles.. very 10s of thousands of years.. and this cycle just coincidently aligns perfectly with the industrial revolution onwards.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is WELL above any point.. in the last 650,000 years. Just coincidence huh? It really spiked after 1950. Nothing to see here.. clearly it's a plot to make people stop driving SUVs or force them to buy turbines!

I have a dire feeling that the point at which people will say "Yea.. ok, it's happening.. and sure, it's probably us..." will be far, far too late to do anything about it.

a reply to: nenothtu

Wow! You are defending the Heartland Institute and their 'message' The Heartland Institute!

My opinion is you deserve some special kind of trophy.

How can a rational person just ignore what is going on with this planet?

originally posted by: nenothtu

We now know that you don't like this "heartland Institute" on a personal level - is there anything you can say that actually refutes the content of the article?

I'll take a bite on this (even though I loathe giving Heartland web hits) - let's go look at his article.

1st paragraph:

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

This is a ridiculous statement. There is plenty of proof for man's fingerprint on climate change - it starts with the bare bones physics that were confirmed 150 years ago, and ends with direct observations measured in the modern day. I already provided a couple examples of that evidence earlier in this thread, here.

2nd paragraph:

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

This is just another fallacy. Again, see the link above - the "certainty" doesn't come from computer models, it comes from plain cause and effect physics. Skeptic shills love to point to complicated computer models though to divert attention away from the simple stuff.

3rd paragraph:

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

Again - false. He is cherry picking localized data to distort the truth. Comprehensive datasets of global reconstructions have been put together showing what we are going through now is indeed unique and quite unprecedented:





Source:

Surface Temperature Reconstructions For The Last 2,000 Years

A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years


So I'll stop there - first three paragraphs loaded with memes, cherry-picks and distortions. Patrick Moore is either incredibly misinformed or deliberately dishonest. Considering he takes money from corporate interests to write this stuff, and Heartland's reputation for promoting it, I'll go with the second option.

a reply to: jrod

Again with your fallacious argument... Just because there has been melting doesn't mean CO2 caused it...

Why can't you understand that water vapor is 10 times more powerful than CO2 by molecule, and water vapor is more abundant on Earth's atmosphere than CO2, hence WATER VAPOR is the main ghg driver.

The Earth was warming during the early 1600s, not because of CO2, as the Earth warms, since it had been doing since the last ice age the atmosphere can contain more water vapor which causes a feedback effect of causing more warming which causes the atmosphere to contain more water vapor. The ghg effect of CO2 is too small to cause any noticeable change...

Not to mention that you, among many others falsely assume that all the increase in CO2 must have been because of mankind when that is not the truth. As there has been warming CO2, alongside methane and other gases are also released naturally. Does mankind have been also adding CO2? yes, but that doesn't meant anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the warming. More so when the majority of the Global Circulation Models get it wrong.



Besides all that you, among the other AGW believers keep ignoring the fact that despite your claims that the "sun was quiet" since the 1960s or 1970s, take your pick, that IS NOT TRUE.

Solar activity reaches new high

Dec 2, 2003

Geophysicists in Finland and Germany have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has been for over a 1000 years. Ilya Usoskin and colleagues at the University of Oulu and the Max-Planck Institute for Aeronomy say that their technique – which relies on a radioactive dating technique - is the first direct quantitative reconstruction of solar activity based on physical, rather than statistical, models (I G Usoskin et al. 2003 Phys. Rev. Lett. 91 211101)

...
Using modelling techniques, the Finnish team was able to extend data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.

“We need to understand this unprecedented level of activity,” Usoskin told PhysicsWeb. “Is it is a rare event that happens once a millennium - which means that the Sun will return to normal - or is it a new dynamic state that will keep solar activity levels high?” The Finnish-German team also speculates that increased solar activity may be having an effect on the Earth’s climate, but more work is needed to clarify this.

physicsworld.com...

That was back in 2003.

Variations in Total Solar Irradiance
The ACRIM I instrument was the first to clearly demonstrate that the total radiant energy emanating from the sun was not a constant, and varied in proportion to solar magnetic activity. However, the sun’s output changes so slowly and solar variability is so slight (less than 0.00425% of the total energy per year on time scales of days), that continuous monitoring by state-of-the-art instrumentation is necessary to detect changes with climate significance. Scientists theorize that as much as 25% of the 20th century anticipated global warming of the Earth may be due to changes in the sun’s energy output. Systematic changes in irradiance as little as 0.25% per century can cause the complete range of climate variations that have occurred in the past, ranging from ice ages to global tropical conditions. For example, scientists believe the "Little Ice Age" that occured in Europe in the late 17th century could have been related to the minimum in sunspot activity (and a correlated minimum in total solar irradiance) that occured during the same period.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic
flux TSI proxy model
Nicola Scafetta
1
and Richard C. Willson
2
Received 10 October 2008; revised 12 December 2008; accepted 13 January 2009; published 3 March 2009.
[1] TheACRIM-gap(1989.5–1991.75) continuitydilemma for satellite TSI observations is resolved by bridging the satellite TSI monitoring gap between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results with TSI derived from Krivova et al.’s (2007) proxy model based on variations of the surface distribution of solar magnetic flux. ‘Mixed’ versions of ACRIM and PMOD TSI composites are constructed with their composites’ original values except for the ACRIM gap, where Krivova modeled
TSI is used to connect ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results. Both ‘mixed’ composites demonstrate a significant TSI increase of 0.033 %/decade between the solar activity minima of 1986 and 1996, comparable to the 0.037 % found in the ACRIM composite. The finding supports the contention of Willson (1997) that the ERBS/ERBE results are flawed by uncorrected degradation during the ACRIM gap and refutes the Nimbus7/ERB ACRIM gap adjustment Fröhlich and Lean (1998) employed in constructing the PMOD.
Citation:
Scafetta, N., and R. C. Willson (2009), ACRIM-gap and
TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy
model,
Geophys. Res. Lett.,36, L05701, doi:10.1029/2008GL036307.
...
This finding has evident repercussions for climate change and solar physics. Increasing TSI between 1980 and 2000 could have contributed significantly to global warming during the last three decades [Scafetta and West, 2007, 2008]. Current climate models [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007] have assumed that the TSI did not vary significantly during the last 30 years and have therefore underestimated the solar contribution and overestimated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming.
...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

NASA STUDY FINDS INCREASING SOLAR TREND THAT CAN CHANGE CLIMATE

Major Magentic Storms 1868-2007
According to the AA* criteria

...
Because of the difference in units of presentation, the values of AA* and Ap* are not the same so that different major magnetic storm onset and end threshold values are used for the two series. However their comparison for the years of overlapping coverage show that relative frequency of occurrence of major storms per year are similar. Another reason for differences is that an index derived from magnetic perturbation values at only two observatories easily experiences larger extreme values if either input site is well situated to the overhead ionospheric and.or field aligned current systems producing the magnetic storm effects. Although not documented here, it is interesting to note that the overall level of magnetic disturbance from year to year has increased substantially from a low around 1900 Also, the level of mean yearly aa is now much higher so that a year of minimum magnetic disturbances now is typically more disturbed than years at maximum disturbance levels before 1900.
...

www.ngdc.noaa.gov...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

So now you are just going to call every point I make a fallacy?

At least you can not deny there is arctic ice cap meltage. However the bulk of the melting has happened after 2007... . Also you are not correct on your assessment that H20 is "10 times more than CO2"....what basis do you have to make such a claim?

Do you intentionally make misleading claims like that?

Interesting how you try to belittle my intelligence and knowledge of the atmosphere, Any luck trying to figure out resident time calculations?

CO2 is going up, CH4 is going up as a result of human activity

a reply to: jrod

Do you forget the fact that Earth's magnetic field is now ten times weaker than it used to be in the 90s?

Do you forget that it has been proven that underwater volcanoes are a major cause of the warming and melting in several areas.

Underwater volcanoes, not climate change, reason behind melting of West Antarctic Ice Sheet

By James Maynard, Tech Times | June 10, 10:43 PM

Melting of a major glacier system in western Antarctica may be caused by underwater volcanoes, and not by global climate change, according to new research.

Thwaites Glacier, a massive outlet for ice that empties into Pine Island Bay, is flowing at a rate of one-and-a-quarter miles per year. The bay opens up into the Amundsen Sea.

The Thwaites Glacier has been the subject of scrutiny by climatologists in the last few years, as new information about the severity of the melting becomes available. Traditional models had assumed heating from subterranean sources was fairly even around the region. New data provides details about areas where little was previously known.

University of Texas researchers studied how water moves underground in the region. They found liquid water was present in a greater number of sources than previously believed, and it is warmer than estimated in previous studies.
...

www.techtimes.com...

More underwater volcanoes melting glaciers.

Researchers Find Major West Antarctic Glacier Melting from Geothermal Sources

June 10, 2014

AUSTIN, Texas — Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where accurate information has previously been unobtainable.

The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.

Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.
...

www.utexas.edu...

Member Snarky, thanks snarky, gave us this video.




Watch it to see how underwater volcanoes are melting the Antarctic, which HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CO2.

a reply to: Grimpachi

Yes, the earth/sun system is a closed system, as far as it relates to climate. Man cannot add to the amount of heat (energy) that is already here. ALL energy driving the climate comes from the sun.

a reply to: 00018GE

Yes, the earth/sun system is a closed system

That is all I needed to know.

I will save my energy to debate those with at least one foot planted in reality.

originally posted by: jrod
a reply to: nenothtu

Wow! You are defending the Heartland Institute and their 'message' The Heartland Institute!

I neither know who the heartland Institute are, nor do I care - the messenger is irrelevant, but very often is the only target for attack when the message itself is unassailable - as you have so ably demonstrated here.

My opinion is you deserve some special kind of trophy.

Do you recall what they say about opinions?

How can a rational person just ignore what is going on with this planet?

That depends entirely on what you think is "going on with this planet".

originally posted by: mc_squared

originally posted by: nenothtu

We now know that you don't like this "heartland Institute" on a personal level - is there anything you can say that actually refutes the content of the article?

I'll take a bite on this (even though I loathe giving Heartland web hits) - let's go look at his article.

I didn't give the link the hits - I still neither know nor care who they are. Still, since this was addressed to my response, I suppose it's on me to respond to it.

1st paragraph:

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

This is a ridiculous statement. There is plenty of proof for man's fingerprint on climate change - it starts with the bare bones physics that were confirmed 150 years ago, and ends with direct observations measured in the modern day. I already provided a couple examples of that evidence earlier in this thread, here.

The careful observer will note that this does not address the original statement - it is a skillful dodge. The original statement is "I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future." The response, instead, addresses whether or not there is a "fingerprint" - which is, at best, trace evidence that something was there, not that it had the major effect stated.

I agree with you - there is most certainly a "ridiculous statement" in there.

If I go to the beach and spit into the ocean, I have technically increased it's volume - that does not mean that I am personally responsible for the tide rolling in.

2nd paragraph:

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

This is just another fallacy. Again, see the link above - the "certainty" doesn't come from computer models, it comes from plain cause and effect physics. Skeptic shills love to point to complicated computer models though to divert attention away from the simple stuff.

We can certainly work with "plain cause and effects physics" if you wish - be certain that's what you want to do first, though.

3rd paragraph:

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

Again - false. He is cherry picking localized data to distort the truth. Comprehensive datasets of global reconstructions have been put together showing what we are going through now is indeed unique and quite unprecedented:

Source:

Surface Temperature Reconstructions For The Last 2,000 Years

A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years

Unprecedented? How much geological history are you aware of? Cherry picked? I don't doubt that a bit. EVERYONE, but especially the climate alarmists, get fidgety when their own pet set of cherry picked data is expanded to include some context. I note in a post above (not yours, but illustrative of the phenomena) the figure of "650,000 years" is used. Why that time span? Surely not because of the ice ages it contains, by which a comparison with the modern day favors the alarmists - who want us all to think, apparently, that ice ages are the norm for Earth.

Fact: "650,000 years" is 1.444x10^-4 of the Earth's history - not much to base an entire mythology on.

Fact: "650,000 years" is 1%, that is 1/100th, of just the Cenozoic, the time since the dinosaurs... yet we are to base a belief in catastrophe and imminent disaster, the end of life on Earth, on such a tiny sliver of time that entirely ignores and bypasses the periods when life flourished the most on Earth?

Frankly, the allegations of using memes, cherry picking, and distorting are not in the slightest limited to one side of the debate.

a reply to: nenothtu

I addressed Moore’s claims directly: about current warming apparently being nothing special in light of the little ice age and medieval warming period – showing that he was wrong about that, and current warming is indeed unique in this context.

That’s exactly what you asked for – regarding the credibility of his claims. But now you are just shifting goalposts and changing the subject.

Same goes for the part about human attribution: the physics alone show undeniable proof that humans can cause significant climate change – that’s the key issue. If we wait around until we are causing catastrophic climate change just to prove a point, it becomes kind of moot then doesn't it?

But if you want to quantify the human contribution to current warming there is also plenty of science on that too:

Advances in Attribution of Changes in Global-Scale Temperature in the Instrumental Period: Atmosphere, Ocean and Ice
New Study, Same Result - Greenhouse Gases Dominate Global Warming

(Once again – debunking Moore’s claim that this evidence doesn’t exist).

Somehow based on your last response though, I’m guessing you will now twist this into something else as well. I’m really not interested in answering questions for people who then change the question to avoid dealing with answers they don’t want to hear.

originally posted by: mc_squared
...
Same goes for the part about human attribution: the physics alone show undeniable proof that humans can cause significant climate change – that’s the key issue. If we wait around until we are causing catastrophic climate change just to prove a point, it becomes kind of moot then doesn't it?

...

Again...if the "physics" of AGW were real, Global Circulation Models should be able to do much better predictions than "less than 5%"... Meanwhile the majority of the GCMs predictions fail miserably...

originally posted by: jrod

So now you are just going to call every point I make a fallacy?

When they are fallacies of course I will call them that...

originally posted by: jrod
At least you can not deny there is arctic ice cap meltage. However the bulk of the melting has happened after 2007...

First of all, that is no proof that it was caused by CO2...

Yet underwater volcanoes have been melting glaciers even after 2007...

Underwater Volcanoes Play Role in Long-Term Climate


Feb 7, 2015 by Sci-News.com


Cyclical variations in Earth’s tilt and orbit – occurring at 23,000-, 41,000- and 100,000-year intervals – are known to strongly influence our planet’s long-term climate; they are associated with the coming and going of ice ages that also takes place about every 100,000 years. A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters has revealed that the intensity of volcanic activity at deeply submerged mid-ocean ridges waxes and wanes on approximately the same timetable.
...

www.sci-news.com...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

originally posted by: jrod
. Also you are not correct on your assessment that H20 is "10 times more than CO2"....what basis do you have to make such a claim?

It's called "scientific research", maybe you should read about it once in a while. Not to mention that this has been discussed previously, and YOU were one of the participants in the thread... But it seems that once again you are forgetting this...

...
As a greenhouse gas, water vapor is 10 times more potent than carbon dioxide and its increase is a key factor in the rising global temperatures appearing in the models.
...

www.sciencedaily.com...

originally posted by: jrod
Do you intentionally make misleading claims like that?

lol, the one always misleading is you, in a loooong range of topics.

originally posted by: jrod
Interesting how you try to belittle my intelligence and knowledge of the atmosphere, Any luck trying to figure out resident time calculations?

CO2 is going up, CH4 is going up as a result of human activity

Wait, what intelligence? I am joking, I am joking. Maybe not...

You claim that the rise in anthropogenic CO2 is the cause, but you ignore completely the other causes such as sun's activity, underwater volcano activity melting glaciers at least in the antarctic, Earth's magnetic field weakening, etc, all which change the climate.

The Earth has been undergoing dramatic changes, and unless you are going to claim that CO2 caused the weakening of Earth' magnetic field, that CO2 caused the increase volcanic activity, and the increase in solar activity... There is no way in hell you can prove CO2 caused the warming you claim it caused... Because as it has been pointed out "repeatedly"... The majority of the GCMs which claim CO2 is the cause of the warming are wrong...

originally posted by: mc_squared
a reply to: nenothtu

I addressed Moore’s claims directly: about current warming apparently being nothing special in light of the little ice age and medieval warming period – showing that he was wrong about that, and current warming is indeed unique in this context.

That’s exactly what you asked for – regarding the credibility of his claims. But now you are just shifting goalposts and changing the subject.

Negative, sir. I asked that his claims be addressed, and you addressed what you wished he had claimed rather than the actual claims he made, as has already been pointed out.

So it appears that I'M not the one who is "changing the subject".

Same goes for the part about human attribution: the physics alone show undeniable proof that humans can cause significant climate change – that’s the key issue. If we wait around until we are causing catastrophic climate change just to prove a point, it becomes kind of moot then doesn't it?

Wait.... what? "Wait around"? You mean to now say that we aren't doing it already? Well that's certainly refreshing! Are you suggesting we should fix a problem that doesn't exist then? I'm not even going to get into the world of difference between "significant" and "catastrophic", nor should I bother to point out that mid-stream change of horses, and it wouldn't be very nice of me to point out that during all of my time studying physics at the university, not once was "proof" of anything ever given - the professors said that was not how science works (neither "undeniable" proof nor any other kind... but ESPECIALLY not "undeniable" proof - science is always open to question).

In physics, "proofs" do not mean what they mean at ATS, and they are never "undeniable" - questioning and inquiry are the very basis of physics.

But if you want to quantify the human contribution to current warming there is also plenty of science on that too:

Advances in Attribution of Changes in Global-Scale Temperature in the Instrumental Period: Atmosphere, Ocean and Ice
New Study, Same Result - Greenhouse Gases Dominate Global Warming

(Once again – debunking Moore’s claim that this evidence doesn’t exist).

Somehow based on your last response though, I’m guessing you will now twist this into something else as well. I’m really not interested in answering questions for people who then change the question to avoid dealing with answers they don’t want to hear.

That is a very interesting position for you to take.

BTW, just to clarify.

The following image is showing the height of the volcanic features in the Southern Sandwich island area off Antarctica.

Giant Undersea Volcanoes Found Off Antarctica
Mount Fuji-size peaks unexpected, scientists say.


By Richard A. Lovett, for National Geographic News

PUBLISHED July 16, 2011

A chain of giant, undersea volcanoes has been found off Antarctica, scientists say.

All told a dozen previously unknown peaks were discovered beneath the waves—some up to 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) tall, according to the British Antarctic Survey.
...


Mount Fuji-Size Volcanoes Unexpected

The scientists were expecting to find volcanoes. For one thing, the South Sandwich Islands are actively volcanic. For another, in 1962, a passing British naval vessel found large patches of floating pumice that could only have come from an underwater eruption.

But the researchers didn't expect to find volcanoes the size of Japan's Mount Fuji.
...

news.nationalgeographic.com...

How, remember that there are an estimated 3 million underwater volcanoes in our oceans, and many of them 39,000 are 1,000 meters over the sea bed, or bigger.

Thousand of new volcanoes revealed beneath the waves

10:04 09 July 2007 by Catherine Brahic

The true extent to which the ocean bed is dotted with volcanoes has been revealed by researchers who have counted 201,055 underwater cones. This is over 10 times more than have been found before.

The team estimates that in total there could be about 3 million submarine volcanoes, 39,000 of which rise more than 1000 metres over the sea bed.
...

www.newscientist.com...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Now you are throwing a red herring(again). The information you have presented does NOT debunk man made climate change.

Also this topic was moved to this forum for a reason.

a reply to: InTheFlesh1980
As far as humans being the main reason behind the absolutely true and provable changes in our climate (just watch National Geographic's Chasing Ice or see it on Netflix... the glaciers ARE disappearing... photos over time are clear proof), I don't know and I don't know how to quantify it all. but we have been reckless in what we are doing to our environment and if that is the Straw the Breaks the Camel's Back, we are in for some terrible times. Humans ONLY live in an atmospheric range of about 3 miles measured vertically. 3 MILES. From the bottom up. Hey! Did you know CO (carbon monoxide) and CO2 (carbon dioxide) are heavier than air? Guess what that means! It stays low. Methane? Propane? Butane? All the volatile gasses we make? Changes the air we breathe. Carbon in the air? Mercury in the air (and the oceans and all our fish, including the pristine area I live in with no industry near by... you can't eat much fish, as the signs say!).... burning coal. Soot carries over the glaciers, is black, absorbs heat, helps melt the glaciers.... we are being foolish with our ONLY environment. We don't have other planets to choose from. Whether or not we are the main cause, we are contributing quite a large amount to the destruction of our planet. Do you care about YOUR children? Anyone else's children? Tipping points sneak up on people. Then what?

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

If I recall correctly, you have posted bad information time and again. Obviously H20 is a powerful greenhouse gas, I have posted this over and over again. I really have to do the research to get a good figure on the potency of H20 vs CO2 and CH4 to get good numbers, I really do NOT trust any stat you through out there. Even if you want to run with that you are still trying to compare apples to oranges here. (another logic fallacy )

Are you aware of the water cycle and the residence time of water in our atmosphere? CO2 too? Water has a short resident time in atmosphere, where CO2's is much longer, apples to oranges.

The industrial age is indeed changing this planets atmosphere and climate. Very few who actually do the research deny this.