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I probably won't respond to anything else you say on the politial part of this subthread since what I'm really interested in debating is the global warming part.

Agreed. Anyway, as much as I enjoy this challenging exchange (I do, really), it's probably time to move on. I would just like to say one last thing about the whole Chavez affair. While I agree with you that Latin America government are corrupt in general, that paints only half of the picture, i.e. that businesses in those area also tend to be corrupt. After all, to use an appropriate analogy, it takes two to tango. This is why sticking to due process (and in the case of Venezuela, the constitutional process) is essential, and should be encouraged. In my view Bush failed to encourage the constitutional process because his administration clearly dislikes Chavez. That was a blatant faux-pas on the government's part.

In other words, "Global warming is probably real. But if it isn't, we should act like it is since all it means is that it isn't happening now but will probably happen someday." I can't argue with that logic. If that's the way you see it then we might as well abandon all research--if our actions with or without global warming are the same, there's no reason to research it.

Well, that's not exactly what I meant. What I believe would go more along these lines: "Global warming is probably real. Until we know for sure that it isn't, we should act as if it was in order not to make the situation worse. It just so happens that in changing our habits in order to avert this probable catastrophe, we also solve another problem: our dependence on fossil fuels, which has dire economic and geopolitical consequences. So we kill two birds - or at least one and possible other one - with one stone (to use a non-politically correct saying... :-)

If the satellites and radiosondes for the last 23 (satellites) to 50 (radiosondes) years are showing a slight cooling and the surface record shows heating, the surface measurements are not reliable.

Read the stories again: radiosondes measure atmospheric, not surface, temperatures. In the NASA papers, they clearly show that the difference is not between recorded surface temperatures, but between recorded surface and atmospheric temperatures. The surface indeed is warming up, but the atmosphere is not warming up at the same rate, and parts of it are cooling instead. As I said, this shows that the computer models used to predict atmospheric changes are incorrect, which may mean that global warming is slower than expected (let's hope that's what it means). However, the radiosonde data does not invalidate surface temperature records, because it doesn't measure surface temperatures. The discrepancy is with the expected atmospheric warming and the actual recorded one, which is lower than expected. Thus the question of reliability does not apply to surface temperature measurements (save for the so-called "asphalt effect"), but rather to the computer models used to predict atmospheric changes.

In one section it talks about reducing emissions by 17% while in another part it says that it's emissions have increased by half the rate of growth of the economy.

Actually, the arctile says the country's energy consumption has increased by half the rate of growth of the economy, not its emissions. Those are two different things. Emissions did increase in the first part of the 90s, mind you, but they have been decreasing in the second half. A few more links about a piece of news that was quite underreported in the U.S.:

World Carbon Emissions Fall

Carbon Emissions Data | China

China and Climate Change

And here is an analysis by the US NGO that published the original report. In this analysis the researchers said they cross-examined their data a second time after the Washington Post claimed that China had underreported its actual emission figures while inflating its actual economic growth. The NRDC still found that China had in fact decreased its carbon emissions while enjoying a healthy economic growth. So the two are not irreconcilable, and the "China excuse" is not a valid reason for the U.S. to drop out of Kyoto...unless you are suggesting that americans are somehow less capable at taking on the environmental challenge than the chinese are...

Sure, there will be short-term costs, but these will be quickly recouped, and the goal is quite worthy of those small sacrifices (energetic independence and reducing the likelihood of a probable global warming).

Anyway, that's my opinion. We probably won't be able to see eye to eye on this, but still I respect your position.

'Just consider Aids, and then look at chimpanzees,' says Jones. 'You find they all carry a version of HIV but are unaffected by it.

'But a few thousand years ago, when the first chimps became infected, things would have been very different. Millions of chimps probably died as the virus spread through them, and only a small number, which possessed genes that conferred immunity, survived to become the ancestors of all chimps today.

'Something very similar could soon happen to humans. In a thousand years, Africa will be populated only by the descendants of those few individuals who are currently immune to the Aids virus. They will carry the virus but will be unaffected by it. So yes, there will be change there all right - but only where the forces of evolution are not being suppressed.'

I took a look around. Here's some evidence for the statement google turned up: an (extremist?) article from Earth Policy Institute.

Millions of people have to move out of the way of the dam

oh yeah? 13 million had to move out of the way of the *river* during one of the Yangtze's floods. The dam will control that - so in my opinion it's a good thing.

The piece really underplayed the role of wind generators. The cost of windpower has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years. In the early '80s it was nearly 40 cents per kilowatt hour, it is now between 3 and 6 cents. Worldwide wind power is starting to take off. It increased by 29% in the USA alone between 1998 and 1999. By using hydrogen generation as an energy storage and transportation medium, the benefits of windpower can be extended to all energy using sectors.

For more info, here is an article by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute.

The piece really underplayed the role of wind generators. The cost of windpower has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years. In the early '80s it was nearly 40 cents per kilowatt hour, it is now between 3 and 6 cents. Worldwide wind power is starting to take off. It increased by 29% in the USA alone between 1998 and 1999. By using hydrogen generation as an energy storage and transportation medium, the benefits of windpower can be extended to all energy using sectors.

For more info, here is an article by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute.

The piece really underplayed the role of wind generators. The cost of windpower has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years. In the early '80s it was nearly 40 cents per kilowatt hour, it is now between 3 and 6 cents. Worldwide wind power is starting to take off. It increased by 29% in the USA alone between 1998 and 1999. By using hydrogen generation as an energy storage and transportation medium, the benefits of windpower can be extended to all energy using sectors.

For more info, here is an article by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Institute, California Hydrogen Business Council.

Read "Hydrogen Futures: Toward A Sustainable Energy System", from WorldWatch Institute. Check out its Q & A section.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Institute, California Hydrogen Business Council.

Read "Hydrogen Futures: Toward A Sustainable Energy System", from WorldWatch Institute. Check out its Q & A section.

However several rather frightening changes have been seen in the temperature and saltiness (haline) of various important currents off the northern coast of Scandanavia . One apocalyptic scenario is indeed for the Gulf Stream to shutdown, which would ****up western Europe nicely.

However this is a *local* effect in the context of the global climate. The whole system is *extremely* complex (chaotic, even) and hard to model or predict. Broad, long-period predictions are easier to make than short term ones - we can model nice equilibrium states, but it's highly likely that in the short term (a few hundred years) that the entire planet will see wild fluctuations in precipitation, temperature, sea levels, yadda yadda.

Ob links:

• UN IPCC Third Assessment Report: Summary (PDF) This is especially sobering reading; contributed to by ~1000 leading world authorities on the science)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change main site
• GEO-2000 report
• Worldwatch
• EPA Global warming site
• New Scientist special report

Note to the inevitable sceptics: if you accept (say) evolution, Relativity, Quantum mechanics (random eexamples) as being very very very likely to be true, then at least read the damn docs, look at the scientists who are putting their reps on the line on this, and consider whether it's more likely that we *are* affecting the global climate in unpredictable ways, or that vested interests are funding astroturf movements to try to convince American voters that it's all a commie plot...

--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

It's practically unchallenged in serious scientific circles.

That's no less imbecellic than the statement you quoted. Now, the original poster did not make a clear distinction between "climate" and "weather", that's his fault. You really need to read up on this, there is a huge debate on whether the compositition of the atmosphere is really significantly altered. That a significant alteration will produce measurable effect is obvious, but a different matter alltogether. It is timely to point out that the World Watch Institute has lost all it's credibility by making as bombastic statements and predictions is you just did, their predictions have always failed miserably.

That said, poverty does not exist because there isn't enough stuff being produced. Poverty exists because the resources are being consumed in a monsterously inequitable manner. The wealthiest 5% or so of all nations out-consume the planet's ability in nearly all nations, and most everyone in the wealthiest nations (esp. here in the Good Ol' U S of A) overconsumes.

Yes, in the high-tech nations things have gotten cleaner. Talk to the Ogoni people of Nigeria and ask them if things have gotten cleaner in the past two decades. Europe's population may be crashing just in time to make room for floods of 3rd world refugees. Look at India's birthrate, for example.

For the most comprehensive look at the numbers I've found, check out the State of the World" series from the Worldwatch Institute.

That said, poverty does not exist because there isn't enough stuff being produced. Poverty exists because the resources are being consumed in a monsterously inequitable manner. The wealthiest 5% or so of all nations out-consume the planet's ability in nearly all nations, and most everyone in the wealthiest nations (esp. here in the Good Ol' U S of A) overconsumes.

Yes, in the high-tech nations things have gotten cleaner. Talk to the Ogoni people of Nigeria and ask them if things have gotten cleaner in the past two decades. Europe's population may be crashing just in time to make room for floods of 3rd world refugees. Look at India's birthrate, for example.

For the most comprehensive look at the numbers I've found, check out the State of the World" series from the Worldwatch Institute.