I'm an engineer and not a climatologist (is that a word?), but I do feel I am fairly informed on this issue because I attended a forum in which I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" and talked with three researchers who were part of the studies Al Gore used. I am also a conservative Christian and understand the skeptical arguments as well (read articles, etc.)
What I do know for sure:
1. The Bible does not explicitly say the earth will burn up
2. The earth is hotter than it has been in a long time (a few thousand years minimum, maybe much longer).
3. Al Gore's simulation of the earth flooding is nonsense and is not backed by the science community
4. C02 levels and high temps are related, but CO2 levels always rise AFTER temps have gone up
What I think:
I'm not convinced either way, that's for sure. Remember, there was a global cooling fad in the 1970s, but that doesn't mean humans aren't causing global warming either.

Yeah, it's a word. By the way, can you show me evidence of the 4th thing you said?

If you take a look at the graphs Al Gore presented which show the temp vs time and C02 vs time graphs, you will see that the C02 always rises first. This was confirmed by the climatologists (thanks for the heads up)who were part of that study who I spoke with at the seminar I attended at my university in 2007. I will spend a few minutes trying to find an internet link that supports this, but I see these scientists as reliable sources. I think a bigger question is "Can CO2 levels rise and not affect temperature?" I don't hold the answer to that question.

"you will see that the C02 always rises first"

I think you misspoke in your previous post when you said that temperatures rise first. That would explain my confusion

Originally posted by Belial

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Global Warming

So what do you think, as a bunch of conservatives?

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A way for scientists to get money. They job is to discover s***, so if they don't come up with something they lose their job. Look at weather facts the come back. Global warming is false and I read recently that they forgot to account for a bunch of huge glaciers when claiming a lot was melting.

Um, how about some proof? And studies show that Glacier National Park won't have any glaciers left within the next 100 years at the rate the planet is warming (and that place obviously has a lot of glaciers, all of which are melting). And the weather facts point towards global warming more than not

warming stopped about 3 years ago though.... I would find a link but I don't care enough right now.

I've never argued that the earth isn't warming and that CO2 might be part of it.... but I'm tired of the alarmist crap that people like Al Gore spout. The scientific evidence points to 1-2 degree celsius warming over the next century not 6-10 like alarmists are saying. This amount of warming will barely be noticed by most people. And more than likely in 25-50 years we will have developed technology that actually works to reduce emissions and clean up the air.

Science shows a stronger link for the majority of warming and cooling to the sun than to CO2.

Yes, CO2 is having an effect temperature but it's not catastrophic and won't be for hundreds of years. We should spend time and money cleaning up the air of actual pollutants that cause actual problems for people right now and worry about CO2 when a viable alternative comes along.

"And more than likely in 25-50 years we will have developed technology that actually works to reduce emissions and clean up the air."

Thank you for actually saying that. I mean, it's probably true. We still need to cut emissions and find better fuel to use, but yeah, technology will probably come around in the semi-near future that will help to fix this mess

well, trying to cut emissions is a noble goal.... but a rather useless one. China's growth will more than cover any achievable emissions cuts by the rest of the world.

And by clean up the air I mean real pollution and not CO2.... but still, there is a lot of improvement we could do to keep our air cleaner.

So did I, and keep in mind that the pollutants you're talking about do have CO2 in them in addition...

But yes, China will be and is a huge problem

there was a thing on the news here a few weeks ago.
i didnt pay it much attention since i hate tv and "news" but i remember it said that either one or both of the ice at the poles is expanding.
in other words more ice. colder. sorta sounds to me like the planet may be trying to fix itself.
either that or an ice age is coming...

Originally posted by ziggy

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"you will see that the C02 always rises first"

I think you misspoke in your previous post when you said that temperatures rise first. That would explain my confusion

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I did make a mistake. the TEMPERATURE graph rises first, and that's what I meant to say. Here is a link to support that.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11659

This is what the scientists who were apart of the study said. I apologize for not seeing my mistake and not fixing it sooner. Temperature always rises before C02 levels rise.

for some reason I do remember reading somewhere that the cases that they've found where that is true is true because a lot of the CO2 that was released was trapped in ice and as the earth warmed the CO2 was released as the ice melted.

Now, that does go to show that the temperature increase was not caused by the CO2 increasing but that there is just a correlation. When temperature went up so did CO2.... but the increased CO2 was not responsible for the temperature increase.

We don't have that sort of a situation today though so it doesn't really solve the problem.

that doesn't show anything except that more CO2 is released when temperatures start to go up for the exact reason you said. And how can you say that CO2 isn't increasing the temperature of the planet, when it IS a greenhouse gas and like water, that's what it DOES. In fact, the article simply says that the INITIAL temperature increases aren't caused by rising CO2 level, and THAT is true. As the planet warms up back to normal temperatures, more CO2 is released from the melting ice. Add that to the CO2 released by humans and all of the things we do.

basically, it showed that temperature increases back to normal on it's own after a cold period. that isn't news

I think the one thing that proves more than anything else about how little we actually know about the complexity of climate is to look at the computer models predictions of temperature and compare that to actual data over the last 5 years.... nearly every model predicts much higher temperatures than we have experienced.

Yeah, I know a lot of the stuff about global warming is exaggerated, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25401759-5000117,00.html

Go read it.

I stopped after the first couple "myths."

In the first one, he takes a quote from something a man said but does not show the context the man used it in. He doesn't say what time period the man referred to

For the second one (about the ice caps), this data sort of disproves the case about ice expanding in the last decade

I skipped the third one and went to the more obvious to disprove fourth one. Last week, we (in Pennsylvania) had a record high temperature and 3 straight days at, above, or very close to 90 degrees. That never happens here in April. Also, the record temperature we broke was set earlier this decade.

Geeogree, that was a much better article than what I posted earlier.

Ziggy, do you really think three days of weather in Pennsylvania can prove or even support global warming? Not even Al Gore would make such an argument. Use scientific studies with large sample sizes to support your claims, not how the weather was in Pennsylvania this part week.

I can not say that I am certain global warming is a myth, but I do see that there is reasonable doubt, at least.

I found this argument from the article compelling,"Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University, point(s) out that so many years of cooling already contradict the theory that man's rapidly increasing gases must drive up temperatures ever faster."

exactly CPM. The simple fact is that the recent years of cooling go against absolutely every computer model out there. They all predicted warming and we didn't get that.

There is obviously another force out there that has more impact on climate than a greenhouse gas that comprises less than 1% of the atmosphere.