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If you get a reply, could you also find out why ice core graphs (like this Vostok Ice Core graph show that temperature sometimes leads CO2 rise/fall, and CO2 sometimes leads temperature rise? Considering the ages involved, there is a LOT of time spent with one or the other catching up, which would lean more to the side of the two not really being related but simply both being a side effect of some other active force, when naturally caused, of course. The human influence at the end is pretty much just too short and too much of an outlier in the data to be able to use the previous data as a comparison.

Calling your opponent a fucktard hardly helps make your case. In fact, reasonable undecided readers will likely write you off for using the word.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/facts_and_figures

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/

http://www.ecosalon.com/top-10-global-warming-denier-arguments-debunked-part-2/

http://earthfirst.com/desmogblog-debunks-the-global-warming-skeptics-handbook/

http://mediamatters.org/research/200601250007

Hope this helps.

(bear in mind that the U.S. has much tougher safety and emissions standards than India).

Untrue. Did you pull that claim out of a hat? India has poorer safety standards than the US, but stricter emission standards than the US. Indian emission standards are modeled after the Euro emission standards, which are a lot stricter (PDF, see page 26) than the US emission standards.

Nasa is calling your statistic irrelevant. Not to mention that 1934 was warmer than 2001 by about 0.1 degrees celsius.

Actually, it is only about 0.02 ÂC (according to the link).

Nasa is calling your statistic irrelevant. Not to mention that 1934 was warmer than 2001 by about 0.1 degrees celsius. I'd give it about 5-7 years before that record is broken - which should be right about the time we hit another sunspot maximum.

If that's your metric for calling someone the most liberal Senator then I have some bad news for you. Who knew that John McCain was the most liberal person in the United States Senate?

And when did 'Liberal' become a bad word, exactly?

I'm sure they would have if she had managed to win.

As things currently stand, no state can regulate tailpipe CO2 emissions. When California wins their lawsuit, then states will be able to choose weather to follow CA CO2 regulations or to follow the Federal do-nothing approach.

Except that many states already have:

States Poised to Adopt California Vehicle GHG Standards
http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_states/vehicle_ghg_standard.cfm

Many of these states regs are in effect now or scheduled to start in 2008/2009. Nobodies waiting on a CA lawsuit.

• 6 GtC/year emitted per year
• 100 kilos per 10" balsam fir (50 years old; that's a bit slow
  of a turn-around for the market, but older trees absorb more carbon).
• 800 trees per acre

You appear to be ignoring the data, linked by GP, that China has reduced its CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) emission up untill 2000, on the basis that there is no data available since then? I couldn't find any reports written by McIlvaine, or any other data, dealing with the period since, but its unreasonable to expect such a large trend to suddenly reverse. And, if you want to speculate, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change has published a report stating that China's emissions could reduce by 19% by 2015. By contrast, Western Europe increased its carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion by 4.5 percent from 1995 to 1999 and the United States increased its emissions by 6.3 percent.

Also, you mention the 1998 WHO study, which as well as being in the middle of the study period is irrelevant anyway; everyone acknowledges that China is heaviliy polluted, the point your disputing is that it is attempting to reduce its emissions.The Econimist details the political will to reduce emissions, and the Science study seems to suggest results.

Since you seem to be fond of facts, consider:
America has no emission reduction requirements as it has ignored Kyoto
America is the leading CO2 producer in the world (source: US Dept. of Energy)
America is building at least 94 new coal-fired electricity plants by 2012 (Source, Robert McIlvaine)

If you read the original Science artical you'll also see that China is shutting down many of its old, inefficienct, highly-polluting coal power plants and replacing them with more efficient ones, accounting for some of the new builds.

I'm not in any way trying to say America Bad, China Good, as that is clearly not the case, I'm just suggesting that greenhouse gas reduction can be accomplished without needing the Kyoto protocol, provided there is political will. And indeed, as out of the major polluters only the Europeans and Russians are reducing their emissions under Kyoto, it will require another international agreement in the future to have any serious impact upon global levels.

As to the charge that global warming is a left-wing plot, how do you explain that John McCain, Paul O'Neil (George W. Bush's first secretary of the treasury and former CEO of ALCOA), Sherwood Boehlert (Republican head of the House Science Committe), and all seven of the living current and former EPA administrators (these include administrators appointed by Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes) all agree that global warming is a real threat to the environment and that it's caused by human activity? Even President Bush agrees that global warming is real and is caused by people.

Elsewhere, officials from 30 major corporations, including Ford Auto, ALCOA, American Electric Power, General Electric, DuPont, Whirlpool, and Intel, agree that anthropogenic global warming is a serious problem and have voluntarily pledged to reduce their companies' greenhouse gas emissions.

These people are not Communist or Green Party fanatics. They are mostly Republican capitalists who worry that their grandchildren will not have the same opportunities they had if they don't take care of the environment.

However, the broader point is that transport fuels are not where we should be looking to make cuts in emissions in the short term. this graph of US emissions shows that CO2 emissions from the transport sector are smaller than the emissions from coal in electricity generation. And the nice thing is that there are some feasible technologies (nuclear power and in the slightly longer term geosequestration) that could actually substitute for coal, whereas hydrogen-powered vehicles (and, more to the point, the infrastructure for supplying the hydrogen at a realistic cost) are a long, long way off.

Furthermore, the theory suggests that extreme tempreture variations will be caused by Global Climate Change, so lets get this out of the way. "Global warming" refers to the gradual increase of the Earth's average surface temperature, due to a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "Climate change" is a broader term that refers to long-term changes in climate, including average temperature and precipitation, as well as changes in the seasonal or geographic variability of temperature and precipitation.

Global warming is one of the led- in factors but not the sole cause for "global climate change."

Global temperatures have increased by 1F over the past 100 years. Although this may seem like a small change, it is enough to harm important ecosystems, change rainfall patterns and raise the sea level. Climate models project additional warming of about 2-10 F over the next 100 years. The overwhelming consensus of scientists who study the atmosphere is that this warming is caused primarily by the build-up of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. Pew's Global Climate Change page

Wrong. If actually read the article you posted, it states that American produces more CO2 per Capita than Canada. Canada does produce significantly more than most other countries, however it still is not close to the USA, with regards to emissions. Even per Capita it is .5 (although I think its more 5.2, while the US is at 5.7 or 5.5 I believe)difference (using your stats alone) is significant. Overall, this means a reduction is necessary by both to meet `standards`, a .1 per capita difference is more significant in a country with a larger population and significant emissions.

Also, CO2 tables clearly show the USA as being number 1 in all emissions tables. I could post more statistics or you could read your own. It disturbs me that you seem unable to assimilate the information you yourself find, but maybe this is a form of collective denial.

http://www.cnie.org/pop/intros/globalclimate2.htm
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/fa cts_and_figures/co2emissions_7.cfm
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transport ation_statistics/2003/html/table_04_49.html

Interesting. I have never heard this claim before. Do you have a URL for any peer-reviewed evidence to support this? I see a lot of people throwing out very specific statements with no documentation.

Same question for Maynard -- could you provide a URL for a scientific article worried about global cooling in the 1970s?

Show me the money!