Is global warming fact or myth?

To start, IMO:
Global warming: Man's effect on climate.
Climate change: The natural changes that happen in the enviroment of the earth.

I was just part of the debate on 'global warming' on Talksport. James Whale and Proffesor Stott claimed that 'global warming' is a creation of the media and politicians to increase taxes and create fear.

A Weblog monitoring coverage of environmental issues and science in the UK media. By Professor Emeritus Philip Stott. The aim is to assess whether a subject is being fairly covered by press, radio, and television. Above all, the Weblog will focus on science, but not just on poor science. It will also bring to public notice good science that is being ignored because it may be politically inconvenient. Source

Heres Proffesor Stotts' website, the source of the above quote; and I want to know what members think of this site and its claims.

My call to Talksport was concentrated on the point that there is more scientific evidence for global warming in the past years than there is for climate change over the millenia the earth has been around. My points were kind of sidestepped by Proffesor Stott, as he said there is no concrete evidence in either direction for global warming or climate change.

I like to keep my opening posts short, so the point of this thread is whether members think changes of the earths climate are caused by man or by natural events?

This website is a good read, although I'd like to know what more learned minds make of Professor Stotts claims.

My favourite part of his recent posts is this:

The 10 final proofs of 'global warming'.....

You should believe in 'global warming' when.....

(1) apocalyptic academics stop flying round the world to conferences and for their extended summer holidays - er, sorry - 'field research';

(2) The Guardian and The Independent stop advertising cheap flights and holidays;

(3) the Cameroonian middle classes give up their holiday villas in Provence, Tuscany, the Caribbean, etc.;

(4) the BBC stops flying hundreds of duplicate reporters and staff round the world for each separate programme and channel;

(5) the European Parliament stops 'toing-and-froing' between two parliament buildings of equal glassiness, and the French drop agricultural subsidies;

(6) Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, et al.; Japan; Canada; and all the rest come anywhere near to meeting their Kyoto targets;

(7) Canadians turn off the lights and switch off the heating/air conditioning when not in a room, China gives up coal, and everybody agrees to cut the 'wine miles' to zero;

(8) politicians stop canvassing by helicopter, plane, and battle bus, and Al Gore finds it "inconvenient" to travel about lecturing on 'global warming';

(9) Prince Charles travels about in a G-WIZ with just one member of staff - and squeezes his own toothpaste. Also, John 'Two-Jags' Prescott can fit into a G-WIZ;

(10) the glitterati, the popocracy, the metro elite, and all the politicians really do believe that it all applies just as much to them as to the world's bedint.

There you have it: 'global warming' doesn't exist. QED.

Source

Something interesting is reported in todays Independent as well. It regards a treasury document released yesterday.

They want householders to think twice before they turn on the tap or flush the lavatory, as the combination of rising demand and decreasing rainfall will mean a summer drought every few years, particularly in the south, with its rapidly rising population.

Sorce (the full article)

The striking piece of information was a graph on the paper's back page that had a piechart of the UK's Domestic water consumption. Here's the breakdown:

• Bathing - 32%
  
• Washing machines - 32%
  
• Showers - 14%
  
• Dish Washers - 14%
  
• Drinking/cooking - 4%
  
• Toilets - 4%
  

It'd be nice to know how they got this information, but what I found the striking about the graph was that toilets were the joint least domestic use of water. If the government are really saying they want us to flush less and be mindful of taps then why aren't they also leaning on the bigger domestic uses of water to help reduce domestic water use.

To put domestic water use into context I found this BBC report where there is a graph of global water use. 70% is used agriculturaly, 22% for industry and 8% for domestic use. Consequently, flushing the toilet makes up an even smaller percentage of the contribution to wasted water than many other areas.

I think this gives credence to Professor Stott's claims, as if global warming was a real threat we would see alot more done about it.

My entire theory on global warming is that yes humans are contributing to the climate chainge. But not in such a drastic way. After all we are imerging from the last ice age. and these things are cycles. I think that a long time ago the earth was pretty warm altogether, greenhouse gasses were released into the atmosphere making this planet quite warm altogether. Then things cooled off dramaticly the ice age apeared. What caused this was after a while nature has a way of balancing things out. The Earth is quite an amaising machine capable of repairing major damage done to it.

So I think that yes humans are helping allong the greenhouse effect and this little sphere will get a lot hotter as time goes on. But in the long run mother nature will defend herself and set things back into the right.