Indeed. LOL. I am not suggesting you don't have the right to spend your money as you wish. I am pointing out the fact that you use what economic power you have to punish those who don't agree with your political views makes you an intolerant twat.

Whenever someone like you barges into some discussion where my political opinions (and my views basically boil down to not wanting people to get bossed around by their government) offend them they say the same thing you said.  

However, if I point out that I have the power to hire and fire people based on their politics (and make no mistake, I do) you guys freak out.  Of course, I, unlike you, don't use my economic advantages to punish those who don't share my views. I think everyone is entitled to their opinion.

That's nice for you.  You are free to be a hater. 

Heh. And yet he provides no links.  My links included the IPCC report, Realclimate.org, etc. If CO2 level changes lag temperature rising and falling, then CO2 isn't the trigger.  I do, however, find it amusing to see someone think name calling someone in lieu of actually making a coherent, logical case for your opinion on an Internet forum amounts to "butt kicking". 

Now, since you have made it obvious that you aren't willing to participate on our forums like a decent human being, you will be shown the door.

Your behavior outlines exactly why I don't like more power being given to the state. The far-left, like you, use what little power you have at the drop of a hat.  That's liberal totalitarianism at work. I can Imagine what they would do if they had the full power of the government behind them to deal with those people they don't think are worthy of tolerance or existence. 

(slaps forehead) I provided some of these same links here.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. If you get enough of it, it will cause temperatures to rise. No one is disputing that.  

Earlier in this thread (repeatedly btw, over 6 months ago and on) I discussed how Cyanobacteria altered our climate by taking CO2 out of it and replacing it with oxygen. Then, dozens of comments later, Geo comes in and provides a bunch of links to me regarding that event as if I hadn't already discussed it in this thread. If the atmosphere of the earth goes from 17% CO2 to 0.4% (this was over many millions of years) you're going to indeed get an affect. 

What we have seen in this thread is a dodging of the key issue: IS the most recent warming trend we are experience the result of humans producing a lot of CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution? And the answer is, we don't know. We do know that historically, CO2 has not *triggered* rising temperatures.

There is a very reasonable hypothesis that warming temperatures unlock carbon traps which results in more CO2 in the atmosphere which exacerbates the problem. That's fine. Warming temperatures unlock Co2, Methane and countless other carbon-based molecules.  And those additional green house gasses magnify the warming trend.

The analogy I gave earlier in thread was this: If I have a room full of old newspapers you can't blame it for starting a fire. Something else started the fire. Having a bunch of old newspapers in your room just made it worse.

Oh, and to people who want to see CO2 then temps go up:

You generally can't see this because of time resolution.

I'm still not a geologist, but I imagine that something like an ice core has a time resolution of years to decades to maybe even centuries.  In other words, you can say that the atmospheric conditions on 3000BC +/- 10 years was X.  There is fairly large uncertainty in what exact date you are looking at.

But, the temperature responds to the greenhouse gases much more quickly.  It doesn't take years or decades for the temperature to change once you change the state of the atmosphere.

So you can't measure a change in our atmosphere THEN see a change in our temperature given the data.  We don't have the time resolution.

Now I could be wrong about all that above since I never practiced geology, but I do have enough experience doing science in other areas to be somewhat certain that that is what is going on.

As for the old newspapers and/or oily rags? Exothermic processes of decomposition cause the combustion.

I really don't see the necessity to split the hair. We know the CO2 is coming from burning hydrocarbons. There are other gasses produced as well (which produce acid rain), and H2O vapor which holds the latent heat of vaporization.

What cannot be claimed is that man is not accentuating and accelerating a trend. The effect will be critical, if not fatal. 

Any effort to decrease the use of hydrocarbons for fuel is good. Hopefully the greater and more rapid the decrease, the better. 

It is immaterial whether the CO2 initiated or accentuates a trend.

What is material is that every effort be made to decrease CO2 production (as well as other greenhouse gasses) as quickly as possible.

I'm with ya on sentence 1.  Sentence 2, not so much; assumes facts not in evidence as my lawyer frenemies would say.

I did go back and read several pages.

With all due respect, YOU are clearly the one who is misrepresenting what people are saying.  You saying that people are "dodging" the issue of whether or not man made CO2 is causing climate change despite the fact that myself and several others have consistently and repeatedly provided links in this thread to multiple sources which discuss this very issue in great depth (e.g. IPCC reports).

To put it bluntly, I find your statement hypocritical.

There is nothing special about CO2 really - people just like to talk about it the most.  In fact, you will notice that I generally talk about the inclusive group of "greenhouse gasses" instead of just CO2 unless somebody specifically brings up CO2.  Most scientists do the same.

The most recent IPCC report explicitly addresses methane as well - these major reports generally conclude that methane accounts for about 20% of radiative forcing.  So its certainly important.  But I think that one reason it doesn't take center stage (despite the fact that its about 34 times worse per mass than CO2 in terms of global warming) is that it doesn't last that long in the atmosphere (~8 years), and it converts down into CO2 (and water) anyway.

The fact that temperature and greenhouse gas levels are strongly correlated provide strong evidence that one causes the other regardless of whether or not you can actually show a temporal relationship between the two from data.  Yes, correlation does not prove causality, but it is certainly strongly suggestive, especially when you have a strong causal mechanism from well established physical theory (that nobody disputes).

The data isn't necessarily imprecise - the time resolution is simply large compared to the time needed for the temperature of the atmosphere to respond to composition changes.

We haven't seen massive climate changes over the last few decades because current CO2 changes are still small compared to those in say, the Cretaceous.  It takes time for the CO2 to build up from our industrial processes, so the effect is cumulative and it will get worse over time for that reason.  It's not like it was a sudden impulse in 1950 or something.

OK, this gets a separate post because this is getting into things that I know a bit more about.

The key is the word "significant".

The temperature of the Earth is obviously dominated by the energy from the Sun, which is basically a function of the distance to the Sun and the luminosity of the Sun (you can throw in bond albedo too if you want).  Compared to that, obviously the greenhouse effect is not "significant".

But human civilization is pretty finely tuned a narrow range of temperatures, so small changes in temperatures have a big effect.  So changes that can be caused by second order effects like global warming are highly relevant.

Now the massive problem with your implicit argument with your plot is that the relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases is not at all linear.  That is, if you double something like CO2, you don't double the temps.  There are just a ton of highly nonlinear effeects involved here, which is why so many people with PhDs have to carefully model all this crap.

So a big spike in CO2 levels can have a fairly small change in temperatures at first, especially since you have a big temperature baseline that is dominated by effects that are not related to greenhouse gasses in the first place.  But that doesn't imply that there is no relationship between greenhouse gasses and atmospheric temperatures.  It just means that things in reality can be nonlinear (not surprising in reality), and that things can have multiple causes (also not surprising in reality).

Why don't we want the earth to get warmer anyway? I mean if the earth got warmer canada could be like,. a real country. Or even greenland!

Seriously though if the earth actually were to get reasonably warmer wouldn't that be a good thing relatively speaking? More crops. More livable land. And all that jazz.

In any case it couldn't possibly be worse for humanity than the effect of stopping fossil fuel usage which would basically send us back to some pre-industrial hell that no one wants to live in.

Sure would be nice to see actual data supporting this idea.  The predictions based on the models that all those PhD's came up with failed to materialize.  The fact that there is a big temperature baseline dominated by effects unrelated to greenhouse gases doesn't mean that CO2 is driving a spike in temperatures.  The historical timeline simply doesn't fit a CO2-first scenario.

I'm not aware anyone has argued otherwise.  Squirrel.

Frogboy, I hope you will read this post in its entirety before preparing a response/counterargument...I'm going to start with this quote here:

You are fully acknowledging that CO2 in and of itself can cause temperature to rise...we can discuss the degree of the effect later, but your statements have repeatedly demonstrated this -- you are fully aware that carbon dioxide independently can cause temperature increases...please note I'm not saying (or implying you are saying) that CO2 has caused temperature increases, merely that it can cause temperature increases...

Just so we are on the same page, we've all established (and I think agree) that CO2 can raise temperatures all on its own...now, I think (if I understand your argument correctly) you would at this point question whether that increase is significant, and that is indeed a very fair question, so let us look at the history...

Here again, I think you and the scientific community are on the same page:

So, not only do you acknowledge that CO2 can theoretically raise temperatures, but you also acknowledge that it has historically raised temperatures...here is your statement again:

Certainly an important distinction is to be made here...you, as well as the scientific community, are very clear on this -- greenhouse gases did NOT drive the increases in temperature....BUT (and this is a very important "but"), greenhouse gases were significant contributors to global warming...

The entire hypothesis (which, by your words "That's fine" I take to be agreeable to you) relies on the fact that the Milankovitch cycle is a very small contributor to historical temperature changes...the driving force, yes, but not the MAIN contributor...the hypothesis rather banks on greenhouse gases being the main contributor to temperature increases...again, NOT the driving force, but the main contributor nevertheless...

By this point, I hope it has clearly been established that greenhouse gases can cause temperature increases and those increases can indeed be significant...judging by your statements, you are fine with suggestions that greenhouse gases can raise temperatures, and I think you have to accept that those changes can be significant or else you will have to rescind on previous statements, which I have quoted again:

You simply seem to take issue with the possibility that greenhouse gases could drive temperature changes:

You use an analogy with old newspapers to explain your thinking....

Your analogy compares CO2 to old newspapers...the analogy fails because newspapers cannot start a fire on their own while CO2 can cause temperatures to increase on their own...I will repeat, just so we are clear, that I'm not saying (or again, implying you are saying) that CO2 has caused temperature increases, merely that it can cause temperature increases...

As I have shown though, your analogy is not logically sound...just because CO2 has not historically driven temperature changes doesn't mean it can't...

What concerns me about your viewpoint is that on one hand you seem to acknowledge CO2 has the ability to increase temperatures, but then on the other hand you preclude the possibility of it driving temperature increases and you bank solely on history to support your belief...you are so fixated on finding a historical example of CO2 driving temperature increases that you are not willing to accept that it is fully possible even if it hasn't happened before...

Let me use a better analogy...say there is a flame burning in a room and next to this flame is a wax canister filled with combustible gas...as the flame burns, it melts the wax which eventually releases the combustible gas and BOOM...this would be akin to Milankovitch cycles causing large amounts of greenhouse gases to release into the atmosphere, and those gases then causing significant temperature increases....

However, one could also simply just start pouring combustible gas into the room and also get a BOOM without the wax having to melt...this would be comparable to humans putting lots of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere directly...

In either case, you get a BOOM (or temperature increase)...

Thanks Sele, when I get access to a PC I'll respond more fully. But basically, given enough CO2 or any greenhouse gas and you'll have an impact.  However, historical records show that CO2 levels have a very very weak effect on temperature relative to its concentration. Sure, if we go back to several % of the atmosphere being CO2 that's a big problem. That just shows it takes a lot of CO2 to have a measurable impact, therefore it's a weak driver (which doesn't contradict the IPCC, the CO2 increase is the largest atmospheric change that can affect climate in recent years, but that doesn't make it the overall, or even significant driving force).

Also, not to be pedantic but green house gasses on their own can't produce heat. Only the sun does that. So my old newspaper analogy is valid. The more green house gasses you have, the more heat gets trapped but it doesn't make the energy in the first place. since the climate data shows co2 levels lag temperature changes (I.e. Temps go down even when co2 levels stayed higher than normal) we can conclude that co2's ability to impact temperature is relatively weak. 

I also remembered why I ignore Kraz. It's like he just doesn't have the reading comprehension (perhaps English isn't his native language?) to understand what is being said. It's like he builds this elaborate misrepresentation of what people have posted and then proceeds to knock it down while claiming victory. And if you try to correct his misrepresentations he will insist his interpretation of what you said superseded what you actually said or meant.  I have stated my position about as clear as I'm capable of. I am sorry I have failed to make it clear enough for him. 

I directly quoted you and interpreted your statements IN THE EXACT SAME WAY as Sele did.

When multiple people are interpreting your statements in the exact same way, I suggest that my reading comprehension is not the problem.  Furthermore, his objections are essentially the EXACT same as mine.

As such, I suggest that my reading comprehension is not the problem here.

This can be deleted as I combined my posts to avoid post spam.