[Chris]

Follow the money. The scientists that are arguing for global warming have nothing to lose, excepting their jobs. The ones that argue against global warming invariably on the payrolls of big oil or big mining or big something or other. A further issue here is that just too many scientists in too many disciplines (climate, oceanography, etc) are saying that they were muzzled and not allowed to present their research -- in order not to panic people.

From about two years ago, the fact of global warming was established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Actual records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up greatly. This was done through the convergence of large sets of data, looking at the ecological impacts. So, climate scientists put their numbers through the models that we have today for predicting weather as there is nothing else to really measure the impact of the changes.
The fact is that there are climatic changes, staggering changes.

There is however great uncertainty about the effects of these climate changes.
There is great uncertainty about what to do.

We'd be fools not to be quite skeptical about anyone and everyone in this field as we've already seen scientists being muzzled by governments. Quite frankly, I'd rather be 'panicked' and know the facts than to be left in the dark like a mushroom.


The debate still raging is whether the global warming pattern is man-made, or as a result of long term earth climatics.

Either way we are in trouble, because the climatic changes are factual. The historical numbers are real and the methods used to extract these numbers have been with us for at least 50 years. It is not the facts to global warming that is at question, it is the prediction to further climatic and planetary pattern changes and effects that is the problem. No-one has done this before.

Facts
The glacier ice is melting.
Sea salinity is decreasing because of this.
Seas are rising.
Sea temperatures in the North is increasing.
Sea creatures and smaller stuff like plankton show migrating patterns to areas that they've never been before to escape warming waters.
The permafrost is melting both North and South.
Large lakes of water that has served mankind for hundreds of years is drying up.
The groundwater is decreasing in many places.
There is not yet sufficient evidence that the crazy storms that we've seen in the past number of years is as a result of anything else but long-term cyclical patterns. The eminent Western scientist in the field is now devoting himself to studying this.

Perhaps mankind is industrializing ourselves out of existence.
Perhaps the planet is undergoing some kind of normal cyclical change. Perhaps it is man made, perhaps not. Again, that does not matter as we are in trouble any way you look at it, because the climatic changes are real and factual.

Anyway, we can sit on our duffs and debate for years, or we can take one thing out of the equation to verify at least something. If we reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere, will this trend reverse, or not? This is about the only aspect that we (mankind) have control over. Other than that, a new business opportunity soon will be to grow oranges in New York! (For the non US savvy amongst us, this is a joke ... oranges are generally grown in Florida and California)