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Temperature over the ages:
here.

It has mostly been much warmer from mid-Carboniferous to now.

I agree human activity is increasing the CO2 levels.

But without human intervention, the ice age will still end, and the unusually low temperature will revert to mean and stay there for over a hundred million years.

http://www.biocab.org/Geologic...

I agree with your point that wildlife can only adapt so fast and many of your other points.

However, in terms of risk/reward and money spent- we would be much more productive spending similar amounts of money on tracking and stopping asteroids.

So it's "compared to what" and "with limited funds- where is the best place to spend it".

Also, since we are not going to enforce these rules on China and India, any costly efforts in the rest of the world will be pointless. I have made huge personal reductions to my own carbon footprint- and at minimal cost.

However, fast science is usually bad science. And many of the models and predictions have been hysterically wrong. After Rita and Ike, we were going to be hammered with season after season of 2-3 super storms and 7+ named storms doing billions of dollars of damage a year. And instead nothing happened.

On one point I agree with you. The scale on the graphic is log scale and misleading. We should probably still be in the trough of the ice age for a substantial period if you look at it with a linear scale.

Explain the Carboniferous. Our CO2 levels are only now matching the Permian. Everywhere else in the time line was higher to much higher.

Evolution is a slow process - it takes millions of years for it to work.

If it took that long most domestic species of plants and animals wouldn't exist. Even evolution where humans were not part of the selection process has been observed to happen over much shorter periods.

But in 200 odd years, we've basically changed the atmosphere enough that historical records show it points to a natural ELE (extinction-level event) that has occurred a few times in Earth's past.

There are no ELEs in historical record. What history (and archeology) does show is that human societies tend to do better in warm periods than cool periods.

Yes, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. But prior to that, there were other events of climatic disruption that killed almost all life on Earth.
And 400ppm of CO2 is one of them.

It's very difficult to see much relationship between CO2 and temperature over the whole of the Earth's history. http://www.biocab.org/Geologic...
Plants also have trouble with concentrations below 200ppm but thrive at levels of 1,000+ppm.
More to the point if there was any validity in these doomsday senarios we wouldn't be around to discuss them in the first place.

There are plenty of drought tolerant species that are quite capable of handling growth even in limited water. There are even species of trees that need fire to procreate.

Don't be so sure so quick. Plant growth is slow, but this planet was much greener in the precambrian era, when CO2 levels peaked at 2500ppm, compared with the 400ppm it is today. Not much animal though. Still, human beings should be able to use technology to adapt quite handily.

"the absolute certain fact that global warming will, if left unchecked for too long, deconstruct civilization"

You do realize that we are currently living in a very cool period, geologically speaking, right? Also that on geologic time scales, there is no correlation (and thus no possible causation) between CO2 and temperature? The temperature is going to spike, and probably sooner than most expect, and there is nothing at all we can do about it.

What we *should* be doing is preparing for it, because it's going to happen, even if we execute every human being on the planet right now after turning every switch on the planet to "Off."

Temperature fluctuations over the past 570 million years.

Lets say "if" it is real, and "if" it is man-made, the question is *should* anything be done?

Lets not forget a few important points before attempting to answer that question.

1. We are currently in a historically (geologically speaking) cool period. If you look at average global temperatures(*) over the past billion years you'll see that temperatures now are not only much cooler than average, but that the cool periods are typically very short. That is, up until the start of the Cenozoic about 65 million years ago, when temperatures dropped a lot and have stayed that way.

2. A warmer climate is not "all bad." There are definitely some bad aspects, but there are plenty of good ones as well.

(*)Looking at these same time scales, the relationship between CO2 and global temperature is not nearly as clear cut as is claimed by some. In fact, on geologic timescales, there is almost no correlation at all. This doesn't mean CO2 is irrelevant, and believe in AGW or not, it's in everyone's best interests to reduce pollution and use energy as efficiently as possible, but it does mean that there is much more to the story.

"No. This is wrong and it makes no physical sense... There is absolutely no way for this to occur without a similarly increasing forcing behind it. "

It is not wrong, and it follows very well-understood -- elementary, really -- physics. It actually makes perfect sense. Apologies, but I have explained this concept 2 different ways to you in clear English. I don't know how else to explain it so that it makes sense to you. But your failure to understand my examples does not equate to a failure of understanding on my part.

"There are other problems with your logic. For example, the changes in insolation (energy from the sun) are measured (or known by proxy prior to measurements)."

Really? What sources are you looking at? Certainly not this one.

Regardless, this quote from your article: "This is a very straightforward and easy to understand formula - the larger the change in solar irradiance, the larger the energy imbalance it causes, and thus the larger the radiative forcing." is precisely the idea that is refuted by the stove example. The idea that input must change in order to cause an energy imbalance is ludicrous, from the standpoint of physics. I repeat: if that were so, your stove burner turned onto "high" might never boil your water; in order to do that (according to the logic just quoted from that article), you would have to constantly turn the knob up. And obviously that is not true.

"Despite your flawed logic, it really is well known that the sun isn't causing the current warming."

I have 3 things to say about that: First, the logic is not flawed, in fact it is extremely elementary. But: second, here you are arguing with me about whether the sun is the cause of warming, and I stated earlier here at least 3 times that that isn't what I was saying! Do you have reading comprehension issues? I was talking about someone else's logic, not about what actual causes are. And I repeated it just for your benefit. But apparently it didn't sink into your skull anyway.

I could very easily argue with you about that if you like, but it's off-topic. I wasn't discussing actual causes, only why someone else's argument was invalid.

The third thing I have to say about that statement is: bullshit. It isn't "well known" at all. In fact it is very much still a hot topic of debate (no pun intended). See for example Latour's No, Virginia rebuttal to Spencer's attempt to explain physics. The fact is that so far, some "climate scientists" have made some real blunders when it comes to the actual physics of their warming models.

Now, I will state her for the fourth time that I am not claiming that the sun is the cause of the warming. But I do claim that contrary to your assertion, it is not "settled science" or something on which everyone agrees.

"... but in the case of greenhouse gases, we have well known physics that indicate causation. "

Except that you don't. How many of the CO2 models rely on the concept of "back radiation" to explain the radiative forcings? There's a bit of a problem with that: "back radiation" is physically impossible. Again see that link to the article by Latour (a physicist) who shows very clearly exactly why that is so.

And that is just ONE of the problems with the "climate science".

""Skeptics" have been unable to show any other process that: (1) Can account for the current warming, and (2) Can prevent the increased CO2 levels from acting in ways they are known to act."

Wow. What a bundle of unwarranted assumptions. (1) "climate scientists" have not been able to account for the warming, either, in ways that actually obey the laws o

As for Global Warming, I think statistics and physics have proven quite nicely much of these climate change theories are on the right track. The planet is getting warmer overall - it's a fact. That's not to say the ice caps will melt [...]

Why not?
There were no ice-caps in the times of the dinosaurs and with the warm wet climate there was a huge amount of biological diversity.

Might as well hang on and invest in a good air conditioner...and then heater when we inevitably dip back into an ice age.

We have been in an ice-age for the whole of human history, it would be nice to get warmer again.
"Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres.[1] By this definition, we are still in the ice age that began at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

Too much of our water is locked up in ice and these cold temperatures limit the useful productivity of our main energy harvesting system(chlorophyll).
The fact that this ice-age seems to go on for ever may just be our short human memory, and perhaps it is related to the gradual decline in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere since the middle of the mesozoic. ( http://www.biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html )

In any case, while melting the ice-caps would no doubt be a substantial blow to a lot of infrastructure, we as humans would adapt and go on. Also, once the planet has warmed up a little we should have a veritable explosion in vegetative productivity and then general biological diversity as there is more and more energy available so that species that are less efficient can still procreate thus increasing the amount of genetic drift.

Wow... it must be a very well established science if 13 years completely invalidates all figures. Fascinating. Oh, wait... nevermind, that page was updated in 2009 and the source site was updated in 2003, so at worst, 8 years.

It is kind of hard to find a site that shows geologic time scale CO2 levels... I guess it's because it causes people to question the popular AGW models...

but here's a different chart from 2002: http://www.biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html (site updated in 2007) It looks mighty similar, though.

Isn't this a great thing, though? I'd think that a significantly lower output would give our planet's defenses a bit of a breather to possibly recharge. And, to be honest, the planet will be fine. CO2 levels are extremely low compared to past levels. The planet was just fine back then when it was at 8-10X the current levels, even. Sure, the ice caps might melt a bit, and you probably should wear more sunscreen, but that's about it until the next Ice Age that we are heading into will get started. Even that will be survivable - just ask the people in Moscow if they are planning to evacuate because of the cold.

Global warming is happening. And so what? The planet will be fine and life will go on.

A link about historic CO2 levels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png
Looks horrible, correct? All it will likely do is trigger the next ice age to start in 30-50 years instead of the normal 200 or 300.

http://biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html
Suddenly it's not so horrible. It takes insanely high levels to actually cause problems in terms of damaging the ecosystem. Even at our current levels, we are only at the "o" in Epoch at the far right of the graph. It seems high to us, but it's a blip in the overall picture.

What's worrying though is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
This damage is man-made and potentially is something that could actually destroy our ability to live a decent life. But nobody at all is doing anything about it. (lower oxygen production, 1/6th of the world's food supply vanishing, and many other ills as a result) We'll "survive" if it gets out of control, but it won't be pretty.

[citation needed]

Global temps cooled and stayed there for 40 years during the post-WW2 economic boom. When carbon dioxide emissions were rising, and atmospheric co2 was rising, temps decreased.

I can go on... the warming-at-altitude problem. Greenhouse-based warming is supposed to heat the mid troposphere faster than the surface. But that's not what is happening. The troposphere is warming much slower than the surface.

The 2500 IPCC scientists who are "all in agreement"? Yeah, quite a few of those aren't scientists. And quite a few scientists didn't agree but got counted anyway.

I'm not saying AGW is impossible. It sure as hell isn't an undisputed fact. And guys like you frothing at the mouth... is that "sticking it to the man"? Toeing the AGW line is so NOT punk rock.

"YES WE DO you FUCKING idiot."

Can you elaborate? That is not particularly scientific reasoning there.

It is known that on geological timescales, carbon dioxide was at much much higher atmospheric concentrations than it is today (here's an example), and yet global surface temperatures were not much different to what they are today at these times. I've still found nobody who can explain how this fits into current AGW dogma.

Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas, anyone who has lived in a humid area knows this intuitively. CO2 is a very weak greenhouse gas, this is well known to scientists, the energy required to cause the 'predicted' temperature rises is understood to be far greater than what can be accounted for in CO2 alone. All predictions are based off a 'catalyst' assumption that minute increases in atmospheric energy stored in CO2 molecules will precipitate greater effects in the more potent greenhouse gases.

I'm not going to pass judgement on the latter part of this argument, but I will say this: Strong evidence exists to suggest that atmospheric CO2 is not an indicator of global surface temperature, it is also known that CO2 itself would never heat up the earth sufficiently to meet predictions. Between these two points I see it as somewhat dubious to attempt to link up the rest of the argument in favour of AGW predictions.

In short: Occam's Razor is not being applied.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/pressrel eases/20031208a.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6985/ab s/nature02470.html

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html#anchor_77

http://biocab.org/Global_Warming.html#anchor_32

Now I'd like to see someone try to blame the system wide warming on our driving SUV's. I'm sure someone out there will. LOL!!!!

Here's a very informative speech delivered this past Monday on the US Senate floor by senator James Inhofe Chairman, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It's not your normal uninformed rant we've come to expect from our politicians. http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id= 263759

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/pressrel eases/20031208a.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6985/ab s/nature02470.html

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html#anchor_77

http://biocab.org/Global_Warming.html#anchor_32

Now I'd like to see someone try to blame the system wide warming on our driving SUV's. I'm sure someone out there will. LOL!!!!

Here's a very informative speech delivered this past Monday on the US Senate floor by senator James Inhofe Chairman, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It's not your normal uninformed rant we've come to expect from our politicians. http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id= 263759