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So here, you are postulating some unidentified physical mechanism that will somehow "kick in" to keep global warming well below the range of plausible projections under scenarios of unrestrained CO2 output, as discussed in the AR4 report.

Well, it would definitely be interesting to determine the exact physical mechanism which has created the sawtooth saturation pattern in the ice core records - it's most likely a matter of the physical properties of CO2 and the limits of its transference of heat to other gases, and the reaction of water to increase temperatures (evaporation), causing a maximum heat level possible. Here's are some interesting pieces on that:

http://nov55.com/gbwm.html

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/limitations-on-anthropogenic-global-warming/

If you have reasonable grounds for taking issue with the AR4 summary, feel free to state them (although I've yet to see any indication that you've even read it).

Sure, how about this opinion, stated very clearly by Andrew Lacis:

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7798293?n=17

"There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted."

This was pretty clear from the outset, and two separate inquiries have reached the conslusion that the stolen correspondence provides no evidence of falsification.

Bull pucky. Both of the whitewash inquiries specifically avoided addressing the real issues, and you're a man enough to admit that.

Have you read the Climategate emails? Or the HARRY_README.TXT? Be honest :)

Just as the various climate models provide predictions that are very similar at a large scale, but differ in the fine details, the gravitational theories make similar large-scale predictions, but diverge at small scales

Whoa, unjustified generalization alert! The scales at which gravitational theories diverge are orders upon orders upon orders of magnitude greater than the scales that climate predictions (i'm sorry, "projections") are made on. If you were going to measure earth's climate change the same way you're comparing gravitation, you'd be talking in geologic time scales versus human time scales, and FWIW, none of the models have any way of reconciling with the geologic time scale history of the planet, much less give us any ability to predict future geologic time scale events.

Look, it's obvious you're a smart guy, but how is it you've got such a blind spot on this? Is it just an emotional attachment to the idea of environmentalism? Was it just that the warmists got to you first? You're not the only obviously intelligent person I've seen taken in by this, but it drives me bonkers to see an otherwise rational person making the same kind of arguments creationists do

It's not the effects that are in doubt, but their magnitude.

Not quite. There's doubt not only of the magnitude of effects of C02 concentration in the real atmosphere, there's doubt of the causal correlation between anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric concentrations. Most specifically, as I think you noted above somewhere, no other greenhouse gas is significant next to the effects of water vapor. And the positive feedback between C02 and H20 alleged in the IPCC projections is not only unproven but appears to be contradicted by most real world observations.

Everything I've read indicates that CO2 absorbs a significant amount of infrared radiation and that this climate sensitivity is important -- on the order of 3 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. Why would this heating not be important as a positive feedback mechanism?

Because C02 is not in isolation in the real atmosphere. For it to absorb radiation, radiation of the appropriate wavelengths must be available. It is not clear that is actually the case, and it is definitive that C02 absorption is intricately tied to water content in ways that make the feedback numbers assumed by the AGW models somewhere between "not obviously unproven" and "baseless nonsense". A good paper to start with is "Infrared absorption by CO2 and H2O" here, if you're really concerned about the topic from first principles,

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978fac..rept.....G

but if you want to skip into the heated-argument bits, go straight to the Hug paper discussed here that alleges the IPCC overstates radiative forcing by 80x or so.

http://nov55.com/ntyg.html

So you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Global Warming is the result of mandkinds 3% CO2? I can't prove the opposite, but this page is worth a read to counter the propaganda and fud spread by politicians.

Because that is exactly what they are told.... over and over and over again. Many scientists, geologists and meteorologists disagree.

What, five of them?

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

This petition has been signed by over 19,000 American scientists.

Also, JunkScience.com is offering $125,000.00 to anyone who can PROVE that humans are causing catastrophic global warming.

Those are the ones that don't get grants and do get fired. No wonder they don't speak out.

Ah yes, it's the great conspiracy. So tell me, when Republicans controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, were these same scientists being denied federal grants? It seems to me that it's the Conservatives complaining about the silencing of critics, but they were being silenced by officials of an all-Republican run government.

Sorry, but Republicans do not rule the world.
From HERE:
Several years earlier, in a peer-reviewed article published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Dr. Jaworowski criticized the methods by which CO2 levels were ascertained from ice cores, and cast doubt on the global-warming hypothesis. The institute's director, while agreeing to publish his article, also warned Dr. Jaworowski that "this is not the way one gets research projects." Once published, the institute came under fire, especially since the report soon sold out and was reprinted. Said one prominent critic, "this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute." Although none of the critics faulted Dr. Jaworowski's science, the institute nevertheless fired him to maintain its access to funding."

and HERE:
In a paper issued Jan. 3, 2007, UCS accuses ExxonMobil of funding "front groups" opposed to the climate-alarmist agenda of groups such as UCS and of former Vice President Al Gore. The company, said the UCS report, had distributed $16 million to 43 advocacy groups from 1998 to 2005 "to confuse the public on global-warming science."
Let's leave aside the fact that $16 million over eight years can't match the $2 billion that the federally funded Climate Change Science Program spends each year on global warming, or even the $4 million annual budget of just one of the many well-funded global-warming advocacy groups, Strategies for the Global Environment (the umbrella organization for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change). Moreover, the UCS document is hardly an investigative breakthrough. ExxonMobil itself publishes its philanthropic contributions to nonprofit organizations online.

And HERE is where the state climatologist in Oregon gets fired for questioning global warming:
In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change.

Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist...

So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.

Then there is THIS one where a scientist was fired for correcting bad data:
University of Washington climate scientist Mark Albright was dismissed on March 12 from his position as associate state climatologist, just weeks after exposing false claims of shrinking glaciers in the Cascade Mountains...
Cliff Mass, a professo

I bet you were eating cooked food. You should try again and the healthiest option is a raw food diet. Cooking damages essential nutrients and minerals, saps food of energy and creates by products that are completely indigestible.

It was posted elsewhere, where I saw it.

So remember, as with any other computing problem, the results you get are entirely dependant on the quality of your data. Propanganda is concerned with making sure that the data you think with generates the results that the propogandists want.

Fortunately, even compared to the Gulf War, the availability of alternate data is much more open than it was back then. The main problem seems to be that perpetual problem of the criminals trying to intimidate the ethical with concerns and worries of un-ethical actions against themselves, the criminals.

It is like saying that police cannot do their job because of the possibility of upsetting the neighbors, etc. You have to be able to take effective action. The caveat is that once you step in, you got to clean up the mess you made after the fact.

It was posted elsewhere, where I saw it.

So remember, as with any other computing problem, the results you get are entirely dependant on the quality of your data. Propanganda is concerned with making sure that the data you think with generates the results that the propogandists want.

Fortunately, even compared to the Gulf War, the availability of alternate data is much more open than it was back then. The main problem seems to be that perpetual problem of the criminals trying to intimidate the ethical with concerns and worries of un-ethical actions against themselves, the criminals.

It is like saying that police cannot do their job because of the possibility of upsetting the neighbors, etc. You have to be able to take effective action. The caveat is that once you step in, you got to clean up the mess you made after the fact.

Get the facts and don't believe everything your government spoon feeds you. Even if Anthrax was an a terrorist attempt (which the CNN article denies), it's not an effective bio-weapon.

You are being fed Fear and Lies from the media. Make sure you know the facts.