Rich, the last Ice Age ended without human action. That doesn't prove that the next one won't be delayed or accelerated by human action.
Cyclically speaking, we are OVERDUE for an ice age. Please explain to me how DELAYING one, by human action, would be a BAD thing. Please explain how Global WARMING can cause enough Global COOLING to cause an ice age.
I don't know that it is mans actions, and I don't know that it isn't.
Because the last Ice Age ended - and it wasn't because Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal Man were driving Suburbans and Explorers to their jobs at the coal-fired electric plant.
Perhaps some research is in order. Start with this - how do you even APPROXIMATE taking the temperature of the whole Earth - from core to the tip of the atmosphere, including all levels of the ocean. How long has mankind had the ability to do that? What is the primary greenhouse gas on Earth? Is increasing CO2 level a LEADING, or TRAILING indicator of global warming?
You tell me.
OK - you asked for it!
The ONLY way you can APPROXIMATE whether the Earth is cooling, or heating up, is to measure the amount of energy supplied by the Sun, by the decay of radiocative elements in the Earth's crust, and by tidal friction in crust, make your BEST GUESS about how much of that solar energy is absorbed by the Earth, measure by satellite the amount of infrared energy radiated by the earth, make your BEST GUESS as to how much to adjust the radiation figures for things like sensor error or satellite orbit decay over time, or satellite skew angle not being constant, (or even known for certain at all times). Subtract the radiated total from the sum of all the heat produced by all sources, and see if it balances out, or which way it doesn't. Ground measurments are biased, in that they tend to take place where people either are, or can easily get to - (i.e. not on top of Mt. Everest, at the bottom of the ocean, or deep in the Earth's crust. Balloon data agree with corrected satellite data (scientists are still arguing over how to correct the satellite observations), and the computer models that predict "global warming" (similar to the flawed models that falsely predicted "nuclear winter" cannot, when fed CURRENT data, replicate CURRENT conditions. Short version - we only have 30 years of data where we can even ATTEMP to calculate a net energy loss or gain for the earth - only 10-15 years of really good data, (that the scientists are still arguing about) and even in THAT data global warming stopped in 1998 - even tho we kept right on burning fossil fuels. Global warming a hoax - a scare tactic to get research funding and control over businesses and people that otherwise could not happen.
Point is that I'm not a scientist.
...but you are reasonably intelligent, AND have the Internet. Of cource, I have the advantage of having been through many of these "Chicken Little" scams in my life - I'm 44, and lived through:
1. The "Unsafe at any speed" scam.
2. The 'Silent Spring"/DDT scam
3. The "Mercury in the Fish" scam.
4. The "Population Bomb"/famine scam.
5. Alar.
6. Tris.
7. Asbestoes.
8. The "Exploding GMC/Chevy Pickup Scam".
9. The Coming Ice Age.
10. "Nuclear Winter"
11. The "Hole In The Ozone"/ Freon's gonna kill us! scam.
12. Phosphates in detergent.
13. The "Great Lakes are dead" scam.
14. Heterosexual AIDS epidemic.
15. Swine flu panic.
16. "Cell phones cause brain cancer" scam.
17. "Power lines cause cancer" scam.
& a host that I'm overlooking, I'm sure. Guess why I tend to demand HARD PROOF before I panic now....
I don't know whether CO2 is a trailing or leading indicator of global warming.
Don't you think thats an important question to answer, in the process of deciding if anthropomorphic global warming is evn possible, much less actually occuring? And for your info, CO2 is a TRAILING indicator of global warming - one of the major carbon sinks in Earths chemistry is the ocean, in the form of dissolved CO2. When the water gets warmer, (just like your soda pop left open, or the water you boil to cook eggs...) it can't hold as much dissolved gas - so co2, along with other gases, are released. This results in a net increase in CO2 in the air, as more if it is dissolved, so more releases. This is verified by polar ice core samples.
I'll submit that a lot of people that believe in global warming haven't the faintest either. And vice versa. And there are those who choose to believe one over the other. My whole point is that the strident voices are arguing for two as yet unproven cases - that we are causing it, and that we aren't.
There used to be strident voices in the '70s saying that Mankind, with his colored tiolet paper & other industrial uses, was putting so much mercury in the environment that tuna, marlin, swordfish were becoming unsafe to eat. Then acheologists found the remains of a 10,000 year old settlement - including remains of fish that they were eating. They tested the mercury levels, and found them IDENTICAL to the current ones. At the time, (early 70s) ALL the mercury EVR used by man from the dawn of time would have fit into 14 railraod boxcars. The idea that 14 railroad cars of ANYTHING could noticiblay effect the level of a mineral in the ocean that is constantly being eroded and deposited naturally from the same mineral sources mankind obtains it from is ESACTLY the same kind of hoo-haw that the global warming blissninnies push.
Yep. So? Scientists have been wrong before ergo they are wrong now because I don't like their conclusions?
Their conclusions don't MAKE SENSE - if the Big Light in the Sky brightens, or dims - (and it does periodically) - whether I drive a Corvette to work or ride the bus - whether we ALL drive a Corvette to work or ride the buss - makes no difference.
Well there you are. You choose to believe that a large number of scientists are charlatans, and I don't.
...you do KNOW that almost 20,000 scientist signed a letter urging the US not to ratify the Kyoto accords because:
1. They felt that global warming was not proven, and...
2. They felt that even if it existed, there was no proof that man caused it, and
3. Even if it existed and Man caused it, it was minor and had beneficial effects in terms of longer growing seasons, higher crop yields, more arable land, delayed Ice Age, etc.