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In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).

Would believe James Hansen?

Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration.

Above, James Hansen admits that he used the "extreme scenarios" and under emphasized the more moderate ones.

...
The IPCC, however, does not specify the likelihood of the scenarios or examine the direction of current real-world growth rates.

Here, Hansen admits that they rely exclusively on their models, which use many "unknown" variables that require a best guess, and ignore what's really happening outside in the real world.

Just like there's no such thing as clean nuclear (gotta do something with that waste)

Actually, the French have been recycling their spent nuclear fuel for years.

And "France Acknowledges Massive Radioactive Pollution at La Hague".
Or "PRESS RELEASE"
"Vice-President Cheney Wrong About French Nuclear Repository Program, Independent Institute Asserts"
"French Public's Opposition to Nuclear Waste Repositories as Deep as that in the United States"

Then there's the matter of whether nuclear power is profitable. The libertarian free market CATO Institute has this article: "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business". In it it says
"Given all of this, how do France, India, China, and Russia build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Government officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Either these governments build expensive plants and shove them down the market's throat-or they build shoddy plants and hope for the best."

Falcon

okay.

In addition, the excessive Bt in the Bt Corn (20% of the US corn production, so far) has long-term repercussions to the soil.

Nope. See, in nature a single organism tends to be mutated and either passes on its genes or not, whereas in modern agriculture we create big monocrops and do our utmost to ensure that they survive, and (assuming they don't have the terminator gene or are otherwise sterile) pass on their genes.

Peanuts kill people through an allergy, but toxins kill people because they're toxic.

On February 19th of this year, CBS News's "60 Minutes" produced a segment on the North Pole. The segment was a completely one-sided report, alleging rapid and unprecedented melting at the polar cap. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/16/60minute s/main1323169.shtml

It even featured correspondent Scott Pelley claiming that the ice in Greenland was melting so fast, that he barely got off an ice-berg before it collapsed into the water.

"60 Minutes" failed to inform its viewers that a 2005 study by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showing that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice and mass and that according to scientists, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930's than today.

On March 19th of this year "60 Minutes" profiled NASA scientist and alarmist James Hansen, who was once again making allegations of being censored by the Bush administration. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minute s/main1415985.shtml

In this segment, objectivity and balance were again tossed aside in favor of a one-sided glowing profile of Hansen.

The "60 Minutes" segment made no mention of Hansen's partisan ties to former Democrat Vice President Al Gore or Hansen's receiving of a grant of a quarter of a million dollars from the left-wing Heinz Foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry. There was also no mention of Hansen's subsequent endorsement of her husband John Kerry for President in 2004. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf

Many in the media dwell on any industry support given to so-called climate skeptics, but the same media completely fail to note Hansen's huge grant from the left-wing Heinz Foundation. http://www.heinzawards.net/speechDetail.asp?speech ID=6

The foundation's money originated from the Heinz family ketchup fortune. So it appears that the media makes a distinction between oil money and ketchup money.

"60 Minutes" also did not inform viewers that Hansen appeared to concede in a 2003 issue of Natural Science that the use of "extreme scenarios" to dramatize climate change "may have been appropriate at one time" to drive the public's attention to the issue. http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh 6.html

Why would "60 Minutes" ignore the basic tenets of journalism, which call for objectivity and balance in sourcing, and do such one-sided segments? The answer was provided by correspondent Scott Pelley. Pelley told the CBS News website that he justified excluding scientists skeptical of global warming alarmism from his segments because he considers skeptics to be the equivalent of "Holocaust deniers." http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/03/22/publiceye/ entry1431768.shtml

This year also saw a New York Times reporter write a children's book entitled" The North Pole Was Here." The author of the book, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin, wrote that it may someday be "easier to sail to than stand on" the North Pole in summer. So here we have a very prominent environmental reporter for the New York Times who is promoting aspects of global warming alarmism in a book aimed at children.

Educate yourself. Read the entire speech here... http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id= 263759

James Hansen is the man getting headline news for his claims that Bush is supressing scientific data. This is the same James Hansen that attacked President Bush with a speech one week prior to the presidential elections in the key state of Iowa. Besides taking the unusal step of making a climate policy speech under the employment of the Federal Government right before the election he also recieved $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation, run by Mrs. Kerry. He claimed he was speaking as a private citizen because he paid his own way to the event. Apparently the 250k didn't count.

But of course, that's a straw man if what he says is true. Mr. Hansen said this in 2003's Natural Science Journal http://www.naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns _jeh.html

Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate...scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.

That seems reasonable except he implies it's ok to exagerrate one's findings when the percieved awareness of policy makers is lacking. This fits in with Mr. Hansen's predictions on Global warming when he initially predicted higher warming trends and has revised those predictions to lower increases recently (at the low end of IPCC model).

In summary, I'd take the "Father of Global Warming" a lot more seriously if he weren't so political himself. They say that passion is poison to science but it seems like the only people that get paid attention to are those that pour passion in to their results.

You said: "That's under simulated conditions. This is not a study saying, "OMFG TEH USIANS ARE TEH PULLUT3RZ! THEY R KILING TEH PLANET!!!!!1111" It describes what could happen were CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to increase by 1% annually. I don't know whether this is actually the current trend.
I'd also like to point out that carbon dioxide emissions should not be confused with traditional pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and surphur dioxide (SO2). The irony is that continued advances in catalyst technology used in ULEV vehicles is eliminating these poisons, only to produce more water and, you guessed it, carbon dioxide. Of course, the answer is to increase efficiency of internal combustion engines until they can be eliminated by a more efficient technology"

In these two conflicting reports, the CO2 concentrations is shown to increase from about 310 ppm to 360 ppm from year 1960 to 2000. About a 0.4% increase per year. Of course the rate of increase is increasing so the current value is higher than 0.4% increase per year; therefore, the 1% increase per year figure is certainly possible. The two reports cited are but an example of several reports trying to understand the connection of CO2 to future surface temperatures. I think you will have to take all these reports into mind before coming to a conclusion on whether the current trend of CO2 increase will affect hurricanes.

I think its pretty obvious from most studies that rapid deforestation, massive livestock populations, and industrialization have pretty much been the cause of the CO2 and methane increases over the past 200 years. If there is a connection between our pollutants and global temperatures and events like hurricanes or if it is sufficiently probable then it is logical to impose some kinds of restrictions on the above mentioned pollutant emissions. Currently, there are no absolutely conclusive reports one way or the other so it is a view of opinion which studies you agree are more probable in being correct. I tend to agree with the global warming hypothesis but I am still going to monitor the other literature to see if it will change my opinion.

Actually, another ice age has been theorized. Europe could enter another ice age because of global warming.

Worldwide ecology is a complicated system, and Europe owes much of its warmth to actions of salty atlantic ocean currents. We don't know if the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation locations will move farther from europe... but if it did, let's just note that in Canada, there are polar bears at Edinburgh's latitude. Of course, it might also move closer, and europe could get even warmer.

Some more information: Natural Science Article, The Atlantic Online

ps - I'm not sure if I really buy all this, but the lack of certainty does inspire some concern.

The nanobacteria subject is fascinating but it's another example of a story that is sometimes associated with extra-terrestrial life - probably to gain publicity.

Hmmmm... interesting take, but I don't follow the logic. Robert Folk ruined his reputation with the original "nannobacteria" proposals, and has only recently been supported somewhat by McKay et al. with the "martian fossils", Kajander and his collegues with nanobacteria as a cause for kidney stones, Miller-Hjelle and her collegues with nanobacteria as a cause for polycystic kidney disease, Uwi ns and her findings on nanobes growing on Triassic and Jurassic sandstones collected from petroleum exploration boreholes offshore Western Australia. The American Society for Microbiology has paid serious attention to the controversy, as might be expected. All in all, it's only been recently that "nanobacteria" findings have provided any good publicity at all; mostly, it's been the ruin of the discoverer (in fact, Folk has been described as "coming out of the closet" with his first papers, some 20 years ago -- strong prejudice exists!).

But now things are changing: there are more findings, and more support for the concept. This might even be a scientific paradigm change... and this was my earlier point, that "common sense" arguments are inherently flawed, because the universe is stranger than we imagine.

When was the tectonic plate theory accepted? They must have been interesting times. Certainly my father thinks it's a lot of nonsense...

Alfre d Wegener proposed the theory in 1912, but it didn't receive much support (in the U.S., at least) until post-WWII. My college geology text has a chapter written in '65, which concludes "Although the subject is now a respectable one in scientific circles of the Northern Hemisphere, the question is still far from settled." (Physical Geology, Leet and Judson, 3rd Edition; Prentice-Hall, NJ, 1965)

Wilson, a Canadian geologist, brought everything together around '65 with his model of seafloor spreading, which happened to explain the Pacific seafloor magnetic anomalies found in '61 by Raff and Mason (these are reversed-magnetic-polarity stripes, which are embedded in the newly-created seafloor by the Earth's magnetic field, which periodically reverses -- creating alternating stripes which aren't explainable except by tectonic plate theory). This all but cinched it, but it took years for general acceptance to happen -- in '67, my geology prof wasn't yet convinced, and spent a lecture period arguing against it (the students, OTOH, tended to see the light right away, based on the evidence presented). In '68, Pinchon worked out the plate positions, and by the mid-70's, plate tectonic theory was accepted as correct by all but a few lingering die-hards. (It's interesting that similar remnant-field reversals have been discovered on Mars, isn't it?)

Yes, they were interesting times. Overthrow of "established scientific fact" is always interesting, yet it happens often... that's how science progresses, after all. Only some of the time do the revolutionaries get burned at the stake; the rest of the time, they are merely ridiculed in print and reviled in person.

I guess it is the weakest point. When weighing up evidence like this I guess we rely on our own experiences and yours are different from mine. Having worked in string theory related stuff for a few years I know what it is like to have a sceptical audience. But I generally tend to make guarded statements like "Assuming string theory is a good model then...". I would never make a statement like the following from the NASA press release:

METEORITE YIELDS EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE LIFE ON EARLY MARS
A NASA research team of scientists at the Johnson Space Center and at Stanford University has found evidence that strongly suggests primitive life may have existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago. (My italics)

I guess that's the difference between your opinion and theirs: they figured they had good evidence, and you figure they don't. Dave McKay (of NASA) still sticks pretty much by the findings, and Kathie Thomas-Keprta (Lockheed Martin) very strongly supports them; time will tell who is right. My point is that science never advances without people going out on a limb with their conviction that a new interpretation is correct, rather than the conventional wisdom. This is not the equivalent of perpetrating a hoax! -- even if they are subsequently proven wrong.

Given the doubt over the interpretation of 'nanobacteria' fossils it seems to me that the most reasonable interpretation of part of this 'evidence' is that it is a demonstration that such 'fossils' can be produced by inorganic processes in a sterile environment but of course you don't get big bucks for a finding like this.

On the contrary: some people are getting funding to disprove the "martian fossil" findings. The ASM link quotes some of them. With any discovery, confirmation or refutation of the findings is critical to its acceptance, and the controversy is the process through which the findings on all sides are integrated by the scientific community; Mari on Anderson's lecture is a good summary of this particular controversy, and concludes (correctly, in my opinion) "The main drawback to this story is the media focus on such sensational news. Media hype may increase public awareness of science, but the problem is that the complexities get lost in the glare of the spotlights." Her last couple of sections are well worth reading.

I think the jury's still out, and I think you're prematurely making up your mind. But, hey, it's your mind -- do with it what you will.

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People should remember that Europe is as far north as Hudson's Bay in Canada in North America, and would be much colder without the benefit of the Gulf Stream. So anything that messes with this flow could mess with European weather. This is known as "Not a Good Thing" (tm).

My own take on this is that Global warming is basically increasing the amount of energy in a basically chaotic system. Given that, this would probably increase the range of variability in that system. This means that things would not just get warmer smoothly, but that there would be periods of more extremely weather, warmer and colder, wetter and dryer, etc. all around the planet.

While I do not think that this would lead to a new iceage, there are some, especially in the crackpot community that do.

There are also some legitimate scientists who are alarmed by the possibilities. It is certainly worth investigating.

• http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/ironeat.ht ml
• http://daphne.palomar.edu/wayne/ploct97 .htm
• http://naturalscience.com/ ns/articles/01-03/ns_folk.html