Talk:Global warming

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This link, placed here for convenience, leads to some technical articles on the topic of global warming

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Contents

[edit] Split article? Article needs work

I think that perhaps the article should be split into "human-caused" global warming and just global warming, whereas this article could just mention anthropogenic causes as a possible cause. Even if most GW is anthropogenic, some might be natural. Global warming as a statement is merely an observation that the earth is getting warmer. Also, some parts of the article act as if certain "facts" are completely indisputed. Anyway, just a suggestion. --Rotten 08:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Climate change in general is already discussed in the same titled article. Most people refering to global warming today are referring to the current man-made crisis. Also, some parts of the article act as if certain "facts" are completely indisputed. - fine, identify and suggest modifications. --Michael Johnson 09:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Done! Thanks!--Rotten 09:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
As I suspected, pointless. I ain't even a denier, but the article is crap. Now clearly the article says "The prevailing scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities"[1].". So I write in the next paragraph, "according to this opinion...". This is reverted withint seconds by the resident psycho-"admin" (which just shows that not all Wikipedian article should be used for any serious work). This article is crap crap crap... yet it could be a much more thourough honest and powerful piece, if you could scrape off some of the nutcases (like a certain "admin").--Rotten 09:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Rv. No thanks. We don't need "according to this opinion" to prefix The increased amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the primary causes of the human-induced component of warming. Read the statement. The idea that CO2 etc are the primary cause of *human-induced* GW is not controversial William M. Connolley 09:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It says it's an opinion in the preceding sentence. Duh.--Rotten 09:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Read it more carefully. Its talking about something different William M. Connolley 10:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
What's the point? Clearly Lord God-King William M. Connolley III Esquire won't tolerate dissent on this article whatsoever. ;) Cheers and good night. --Rotten 10:23, 29 October

2006 (UTC)

You follow the usual pattern - make unresonable changes that show you haven't read the article, get offended and offenseive, and leave William M. Connolley 10:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Because of heavy funding by vested interests, there is an abundance of disinformation posing as scientific research [1]. Our objective here at WP is not to give creedence to disinformation, but report objectively on the science. Unfortunately, there are people who become caught in the snare of disinformation, frequently attempting to inculcate others with said disinformation. WP is not a place to 'compromise' between disinformation and science, and that sometimes upsets people. A good place for those people to start is the page on Scientific opinion on climate change. Skyemoor 18:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no doubt that climate change is occuring and most of it is anthropogenic, but felt that the sentence was far too certain.--Rotten 15:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, you felt wrong. Do you have any reasonable source for a claim that the human-induced component is not primarily caused by greenhouse gases? --Stephan Schulz 16:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
When did I say that? I said "according to this opinion this is wnot accept hat happens"... this is the prevailing opinion that GW is happening.--Rotten 18:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
But even (most of) those that do not follow the prevailing scientific opinion on AGW accept that the primary cause for the human induced component is the increase in greenhouse gases. Even if the prevailing scientific theory should change (fat chance...), the current version of the sentence will still be true. Your version is longer, and less informative than the current one.--Stephan Schulz 18:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if Newton ever spouted the words "fat chance" about the physics he was uncovering as ever being partially debunked one day. There is no certainty in science, merely theories. Thegreatdr 17:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Newton? Very likely. He had a very high opinion of himself! Also note that Newtonian physics is not "debunked". It's been recognized as one borderline case that covers essentially all of the situations humans commonly find themselves in to a very high degree of precision. A much better description is that it has been refined and extended to cover more exotic situations. With GW, I do not claim that the theory is set in stone. Indeed, it's a very active fields with new results probably every day. But the core (to oversimplify: greenhouse gases cause warming, more greenhouse gases cause more warming) is stable. --Stephan Schulz 18:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi again

I've semi-protected this again, since the anon vandlaism seems to be getting rather high. Please discuss here if you disagree. Nb: unlike last time, can we keep this section for discussing the value of semi-prot, rather than the article in general. Maybe this thing needs near-permanent prot? William M. Connolley 14:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sprotect against a content dispute? Bad form. Kyaa the Catlord 15:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the semi-protect, the vandalism has been indeed high. Skyemoor 15:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potential Global Warming Gases Pie Chart Looks Nice but....

..where is the main human/animal direct contribution to the problem listed? This refers to our "normal" methane emissions as a contribution to the atmosphere. Growing populations will mean greater methane emissions by people and animals. Since methane is the most effective "greenhouse gas", it is worth representing that, somehow, if anyone has attempted to quantify it. If not, shame on them. Thegreatdr 11:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The human "direct" contribution is negligible. To a good approximations, among mamals only ruminants produce significant amounts directly. Even if we only eat bean burritos, the cow that goes into them produces much more methane that we do. The numbers from agricultural animals are included in "Agricultural byproducts". See the primary source for more details. And methane is far from being the most "effective" greenhouse gas. As far as I know, that honour goes to some of the exotic CFCs. --Stephan Schulz 16:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the worse of the ones that we track (possibly the worst there is, I'm not sure) is SF6 at 22,000 times the global warming potential of CO2 at 100 years. Used as an inert gas in high voltage electric systems, there is memorably a line item for tracking SF6 leaks from high energy particle accelerators in the EDGAR inventory. Dragons flight 17:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
That's good to know. I couldn't find any methane data in the link supplied by Schultz. However, this source link states that 1/4 of all the atmospheric methane is a by product of animals. That would imply that there is some merit in including the information from people/animals into the pie. I was negligent in mentioning methane was the most significant greenhouse gas among natural sources. I had no idea that CFCs and SF6 were that much worse than methane. In my perspective, CO2 has not been proven to be as important as people claim it is. If it is, it must have a long shelf life since our atmosphere is a small fraction as warm as people were claiming it would be 20 years ago. Thegreatdr 17:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Methane is CH4. It's in nearly all the tables (and the main text) of the link I gave. Your source states that 1/5th of the methan emissions comes from farm animal. These are primarily cow and sheep (i.e. ruminants), and are included in the chart.
How much weight you give to different gases depends on the time frame. CFCs have a very high atmospheric lifetime, and SF6 is around for several thousand years. CO2 has a very complex behaviour because it strongly interacts with the oceans and the biosphere, but also has a very long average lifetime. Methane is reduced to carbon dioxide and water fairly quickly, and has a much shorter lifetime. So in the short term, methane is much more potent, but in the long term, CO2 becomes more important. The global warming potential is usually calculated over 100 years. Finally, the atmosphere is not "a small fraction as warm as people were claiming 20 years ago". The increase in temperature may be a fraction of some outlandish claims. But the 1990 first IPCC report (16 years ago and the first major synthesis report) claimed 0.2-0.5 degrees increase per decade in the 21st century (assuming "business as usual, i.e. no significant special efforts to reduce emissions). This is very much in line with current estimates. Do you have a serious source for much higher predictions? --Stephan Schulz 21:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I can check out my old Discovers from the mid 1980s. I remember claims of 2+C warming by the end of the century...but then again, the more extreme claims are likely to get media attention, and Discover was media driven. I'm glad the estimates came down based on your 1990 report. I now understand more why certain gases would be more significant than methane. Somehow I missed seeing the CH4 in the link. Thegreatdr 06:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what "Discover" is, but it does not sound like a reliable source on such a topic. I don't think that any scientific publication predicted an increase of 2 degrees in 15 years in the 80s. I can remotely imagine that as the outer limit of a large error range for total warming since 1900 or so.--Stephan Schulz 08:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Wow. You've never heard of Discover magazine? It's been published for 20-25 years now. Thegreatdr 17:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Not in my country, or on my continent. Anyways, it looks like a popular science magazine. According to our own article, it went rather downhill in the mid-eighties, so I would not consider it a really reliable source. I'd certainly be interested in seeing the concrete issue you have in mind.--Stephan Schulz 17:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Source for some related article

This press release is about a survey on American public opinion on global warming as an environmental concern. Here is the main page for accessing the survey. [2] I'm not to sure where or whether this would fit into our coverage of the topic, but I suspect the editors here would know where it can be appropriately used. GRBerry 17:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recommended link

This is a carbon calculator from the non-profit Environmental Defense. Very useful for people to see how much they are contributing to global warming.

http://fightglobalwarming.com/carboncalculator.cfm

The very brief sentence on how global warming is linked to extreme weather events needs to be highlighted or strengthened somehow due the fact that such events are an easily identifiable phenomenon which are occuring more frequently. Information to support day to day to observations of change and it's relation to the subject of Global Warming may be a vital oppourtunity to raise awareness. here is a useful link for a citation after this reference. [3]207.6.233.239 00:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graph on top of the page.

The graph on top of this page is very misleading. A glance makes you think that the temperature has risen drastically, which is not true (since it's still less than 1 point off of the average.) It might be better to remove this graph, or present a wider y range to make it less misleading. Animebop 23:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The graph is clearly labelled. And a 1 degree increase in such a short time frame is drastic. --Stephan Schulz 06:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Obviously a one degree rise over that time period is drastic, as we can compare it to all the accurately, consistently complied data dating back thousands of years. - Don Bradshaw —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.137.152.241 (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC).
A compressed Y scale is one of the classic techniques for overstating the effect of a change. It is classic enough to be specifically mentioned in How to Lie with Statistics, which is a more than 50 year old textbook on how to avoid abusing statistics. The site the image is sourced from does not appear to be an advocacy site. (If it were an advocacy site, that plus the technique would be reason to replace the image.) The source site itself is not a reliable site becase it is a Wiki, however the sourcing stated at that site for the image is solid enough for Wikipedia.
Another problem with such charts mentioned in the same text is choosing a X axis scale that is an atypical starting point. Looking at the 1000 year and 2000 year and even longer time period charts at the same site, this appears not to be an issue.
While I believe that the chart is not an advocacy chart, the question raised was legitimate and not one that should be summarily dismissed. Of course, it would be better to use a chart that has been peer reviewed and available for free use, but the odds of one of those appearing is very limited. GRBerry 14:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
So what y scale do you want? One with lots of white space? Seems pointless. The y scale is selected to fit the data. And the x scale is selected to fit the data too... this is the historical record. You don't get to choose the start point William M. Connolley 15:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The data is peer reviewed and the image is free, what more do you really want? There are big labels legible even in the thumbnail, so everyone has the opportunity to judge the scale for themselves, and is WMC says, it was chosen to fit the available historical record, which is not something we get to choose. The source site is closed wiki, with only one significant author - me. So, you don't get to say it is unreliable unless you are planning to condemn all my work. Dragons flight 17:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Financial effects

Stern's research (Stern Review) also predicts that mitigation would cost be very cheap compared to the expenses to be paid later on. Only 1% of the gross domestic product needs to be spend to avert economic devestation comparable to a world war or a Great Depression. 81.245.172.195

[edit] Ice age lag-leads stuff

People may be interested in the talk at Image talk:Co2-temperature-plot.svg William M. Connolley 12:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive?

Long enough to archive again? Mostlyharmless 07:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Sure Vapour

[edit] rv Vapour; why

Vapour changed the intro quote. Based on Intro. "most of the warming..." quote is distorted. I suspect that the word "likely" has been deliberately omitted he has done so for the wrong reasons. The quote is direct from a section header on that page and not distorted; omitting "new and sig" hardly seems like a distortion either. In what direction? Having two near-identical quotes seems pointless William M. Connolley 13:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Compare the current version "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" with "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." (which is likely to be the quote) or "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." This kind of deliberate misrepresentation of source material is unacceptable. This wikipedia article make the human cause of global warming as an indisputable scientific fact, when the source material clearly indicate otherwise (66%-90%). Moreover, this site is not about the truth but attribution of POV and fact (NPOV). It is fundamentally important that the statements are attributed to IPCC instead of weasel expression such as "most scientists". If you do not make valid counter argument based on wikipedia policies, I would like to revert. My edit accurately describe and attribute the sources material. The current wikipedia version does not. Vapour
This is the summary, and should be as succinct as possible, not overloaded with caveats. The statement *is* from IPCC; and it *is* attributed; but it is also the prevailing opinion - as backed up by the link to sci-op. Your edit over-complicates; and the attempt to make it "only" IPCC opinion is POV on your part William M. Connolley 20:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
The current wikipedia version categorically assert that human activities are the cause of most of the warming observed over the last 50 years. The actual statement in the source only state that there are much stronger evidence for such argument. By selectivly censoring a part of the statement, the meaning of the souce is completely distorted. It's not just soapboxing. It a blatant (and likely to be intentional) misrepresentation. Vapour
There's a whole "Causes" paragraph further down. As what Vapour mentions is a matter of broad public interest, if not of broad scientific interest, some more about causes could be mentioned briefly in the abstract at the top. Narssarssuaq 01:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Which provide no excuse for the distortion of the source. "There is new and stronger evidences for A" or "It's likely to be A" are categorically not same as "A is the case". Vapour

The article doesn't say "A is the case". It says the prevailing opinion is A; and backs this up. Nor does omitting "new and stronger" make any real difference William M. Connolley 09:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. The original source article list such causes/evidence to show that "A is likely" or "there is new and stronger evidence for A". By (wrongly) stating "A is the case", you make all the listed causes to be more definite than it is. By stating that "prevailing opinion is that A is the case" the entire causation aspect of the article is skewed. There is a great difference in context of listed causes/evidences, if one, for examply, state that (1)OJ is guilty (2)OJ is lilely to be guilty.
Moreover, it's not 66-90 percent scientist saying A and 10-44% scientist saying not A, hence "A is likely". It's IPCC which express opinion that "there is new and stronger evidence for A and therefore, A is likely". No where, as far as I know, IPCC claim that they represent 66-90% of scientist. And if they say their paper do represent "prevailing opinion", the interpretation that '"A is likely" is the prevailing opinion' must be sourced to IPCC. It is an original research to impose extra interpretation that IPCC represent "prevailing opinion". Otherwise, what the point of wikipedia gudeline stating that "weasle word" is undesirable. If one want to qualify the authority of IPCC, do so by refering to what IPCC is, which agains have to be sourced from reliable sources.
It ought to say "According to IPCC, A is likely to be the case." or "According to IPCC, there is new and stronger evidence that A and therefore A is likely to be the case." When something state "there is stronger evidence", it only refer to relative change in likelihood. It could be change from "likely" to "more likely" or "uttterly improbable" to "improbable". Only by qualifying the current state to be "likely" this relative reference in the source article is put in context.
In criminal proceeding, expert opinion like "A is the case according to prevailing opinion" instead of "A is likely according to such and such sources." or "there is new and stronger evidece that A according to such and such sources and therefore A is likely" could get an accused convicted beyond reasonable doubts. This kind of misrepresentation by a professional expert could result in a charge of professional misconduct. Oh, and if I omit "could" from the previous sentence, don't you agree that I would be making a stronger case for the probability of charge occuring?
And lastly, if you say it doesn't make a difference, why did you revert it? Vapour
The exact wording of the statement is the IPCC's. But the sentiment is not - which is why the sci op page page documents its adoption by various other agencies. Which is why calling it the IPCC opinion is wrong William M. Connolley 20:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Are we in agreement that stating "there is new and stronger evidence that A is the case" is entirely different from stating "A is the case." and therefore, more appropriate quote would be "A is likey to be the case" (which is a different quote sourced from the bottom of the page). Or we can alternatively summarise it as "there is new and stronger evidence that A is the case, therefore A is likely (66-90%) to be the case" which also indicate the relative change of assesement from the past.
As of attribution of quote/fact/opinion, are we in agreement that IPCC="prevailing scientific opinion on climate change" without verifiable reference describing it as such would amount to an original research/interpretation? We could also say "According to IPCC's report" instead of "According to IPCC". It's a bit anal but I guess it is possible to argue that reference of "according to" to an organisation could refer to the organisation's opinion. Saying "according to IPCC's report" would merely reflect what is said on the report. You are free to describe what the IPCC's report represent in term of "prevailing scientifi opinion" as long as you can find verifiable sources. Vapour

We're obviously not in agreement, and I think you've failed to read what I've written just above. Let me repeat it, since you're finding it rather hard: The exact wording of the statement is the IPCC's. But the sentiment is not - which is why the sci op page page documents its adoption by various other agencies William M. Connolley 12:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, you haven't answered whether we are in agreement that "there is new and stronger evidence that A is the case" is different from "A is the case". Secondly, you have not indicated whether we are in agreement that the current edit that "IPCC=prevailing scientific opinion" would amount to an original research unless such interpretation is referenced from a verified source. And lastly, I read you. I specifically suggested "according to IPCC's report" instead of "according to IPCC". Can't you tell the difference? Vapour
I can't see the point you're trying to make with a distinction between "according to IPCC's report" and "according to IPCC". It sounds like you're saying IPCC may not agree with its own report. Given that the whole purpose of IPCC is to issue periodic reports on the state of the science, it's quite a stretch to contend that IPCC issues reports that it doesn't agree with. If that's not the point you're trying to make, please clarify. Raymond Arritt 04:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confidence interval

The article says,

"Models referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project that global temperatures might increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C (2.5 to 10.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100".

Actually, unless the confidence interval of this range is given, or guessed, (or assumed to be the conventional 2sigma or 95%, see standard deviation), this statement is almost devoid of information (apart from it being possible to estimate some expected value). What is the probability of getting within this range? 30%? 50%? 67%? 95%? 99%? 99.999999%? It actually makes a lot of difference. Someone should try digging up this small but vital piece of information, which to me seems impossible to find anywhere. Narssarssuaq 20:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the range comes from combining the 95% confidence interval for climate sensitivity with a "plausible" range of emission scenarios that the IPCC has not assigned probabilities to, as that is outside the scope of climate science and depends on political and economical circumstances. So there is no real confidence interval. If you assume that the emission scenarios bracket real emissions, the prediction is "at least 95% likely". --Stephan Schulz 21:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
It's impossible to find this information because it's not meaningful and to my knowledge has not been computed. The model projections are realizations of specific scenarios and thus are not independent samples from an underlying distribution; i.e., in statistical terms the central limit theorem does not apply. Therefore, there is no basis for assigning a measure of central tendency or a confidence interval. Raymond Arritt 21:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Upon re-reading the article's abstract, I think it looks OK, as sensitivity data are actually given. Increased precision in the article regarding the uncertainty (a concept that's often misunderstood by non-scientists, btw) would, however, be advantageous. I can't think of anything to add myself, so I'll leave it to you experts. Narssarssuaq 22:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Again I smell bit of spining. The original paper clearly state that human is likely (66-90 conficence) to be the primary cause of global warming. Usually, prediction is less certain than analysing the cause of the past event. Vapour

Here we go. Reading of the source reveal that "The globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C (Figure 22(a)) over the period 1990 to 2100. These results are for the full range of 35 SRES scenarios, based on a number of climate models. 6, 7". [4] Omiting the reference to "the full range of 35 SRES scenarios" change the context greatly as it's obvious that probability of each scenario are different. The assessement of IPCC which give more definite discription of probability is in the same page. It says, "Climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C. This estimate is unchanged from the first IPCC Assessment Report in 1990 and the SAR." And the word likely in the paper is defined as 66-90% confidence interval. Would be nicer if they give different range for different confidence interval. Given that the later quote give proper assesement of probability, I would consider this to be a better quote. Reference to projection of 1.4 to 5.8 is acceptable as long as it mention "the full range of 35 SRES senarios" which put such quote in a proper contenxt. Vapour

The article already says that the range is dependent on CO2 scenario. But, the distinction between this and sensitivity is an important one which is often confused; so I've rephrased it to make it more obvious, I hope William M. Connolley 19:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks good. Do we need a (short) article on emissions scenarios? Alternately we could add a link to the SRES report, or to the discussion of emissions scenarios in the TAR. Raymond Arritt 20:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Added "likely (66-90%)" to give a better idea of what this estimation entail. Vapour

[edit] Effects of global warming have started

there should be a section that details the effects that are occuring right now http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/21/climate.species.ap/index.html

[edit] Ecosystems

CNN recently came out with a news story about Scientists that have discovered that species and ecosystems are already being adversly affected by Global Warming; An example was given that 70 species have already gone extinct because the habitats they lived in have disappeared. I have a source for this, but I have no idea how to cite it. Can someone tell me/cite it for me? (The article is on the front page of www.cnn.com, but I'm too lazy to directly link to it right now). This is more or less a part of this article that needs to be changed from will happen to is happening. I anticipate this won't be so uncommon in the near future. Specusci 18:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Specusci

Ah, I see the gentleman above me has already linked to it. Specusci 18:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Specusci
You should, perhaps, also cite the source article for that CNN story: C. Parmesan (2006). "Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change". Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, & Systematics 37: 637-669.[5] Deditos 15:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Scientific Opinion

One of the major problems with this article is that it makes no distinction between the opinons of "environmentalists" and actual atmospheric scientists. The IPCC's claims are in many regards faulty, and there is also some question as to possible ulterior motives of the IPCC. A more Bold textscientificBold textdiversity of claims would be most appreciated, as atmospheric scientists tend to actually be quite neutral on the subject of climate change's causes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Great Scrivener (talk • contribs).

The entire article is about scientists... what made you think otherwise? If you want the IPCC's opinions to be faulty, you'll have to do more than just assert it; ditto your claims to speak for atmos sci William M. Connolley 17:05, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and you've confused high C14 with high CO2. CO2 was *low* during the last ice age... William M. Connolley 17:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] +ve feedback

I've massively trimmed the new "positive feedback" section. This page is always in danger of bloat, and will become unreadable if much longer. Anything not really important should go into sub-pages.

I'm not even sure "+ve feedback" belongs where it is now... should really be in the mechaism section (where ice-albedo already is) William M. Connolley 19:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MANIFESTLY FALSE STATEMENTS

JackMcGuire

The article contains statements that are manifestly FALSE.

As quoted, the EARTH COOLED from the 1940's through the 1970's, See Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976); Science Digest (February 1973); The Christian Science Monitor (Aug. 27, 1974); Newsweek ("The Cooling World," April 28, 1975).

Yet the article FALSELY claims that the Earth has warmed over the last 50 years.

Since the Industrial Age began in the 1700's, the COOLING Earth from around 1946 to 1974 clearly casts severe doubt on man-made global warming.

AS A RESULT, THE ARTICLE IS FALSE, DECEITFUL, AND MISLEADING TO THE READER, IN VIOLATION OF THE GOAL OF CREATING AN EXCELLENT ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE.

A GOOD ENCYCLOPEDIA DOES NOT *LIE* TO ITS READERS.

The article is FALSE AND DECEITFUL in claiming that global warming may reduce agricultural yields.

Higher moisture content in the atmosphere -- caused by warmer oceans -- plus higher carbon dioxide STIMULATE plant growth. The combination of moister air and carbon dioxide is an ideal environment for plant growth of all kinds.

Add to that longer growing seasons, and it is clearly FALSE that global warming can cause lower agricultural yields.

Carbon dioxide is a NUTRIENT in photosynthesis -- the foundation of all life on earth (since animals eat plants for food).


The article is also FALSE AND DECEITFUL in claiming that global warming will cause sea levels to rise. That is unknown and unknowable.

Precipitation -- rain and snow -- occur when moist air encounters a cold environment. Just as water condenses out of the air onto a cold lemonade glass or a cold window in the winter, a higher moisture content in the atmosphere would INCREASE snow and ice falling on the polar regions. This would INCREASE the snow and ice pack at the poles, transferring evaporating water from the oceans to the poles, LOWERING sea levels.

Furthermore, ice melts at 0 degrees C. But temperatures at Antartica reach only -30 degrees C IN THE SUMMER at the Coast. Ice does not melt at -30 degrees C. Increasing temperatures from -30 to -28 degrees C WILL STILL NOT MELT ICE. Ice does not melt at -28 degrees C any more than it does at -30 degrees C.

http://www.coolantarctica.com/schools/lesson_plans/fact_file_and_references.htm

Temperatures must EXCEED 0 degrees for ice to melt.

Warming from -30 to -28 doesn't get you any melting ice.

Jack McGuire

Thanks for discussing on the talk page. I have reverted your additions since they seemed to be largely uncited. The material you did cite comes from sources which are out of date in terms of their methods of paleoclimate reconstruction, and popular rather than peer-reviewed sources. In short, they no longer reflect the current scientific consensus. There are several issues to be dealt with in your edit: the cooling between 1946 and 1974. It would be problematic to take a short term trend and extrapolate, while ignoring the orders of magnitude larger long term trend. See, this article for more information about this. The material about the specific consequences of global warming are less well established, since they involve many biological interactions which are difficult to predict. I think if we can find citations to scientific sources which reflect a consensus opinion of climate scientists, then they should be included. Without them, however, it would seem like endless speculation. There is some recent empirical evidence that gloabl warming has a negative impact on animals, and there is substantial evidence that the ice caps are melting. I am not sure that there are sources which say what you have said, but if there are, cite them and we can discuss. Thanks, --TeaDrinker 04:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Sea water is of course above freezing point, so it is at the interface of ice and water that global warming will produce ice melt, which of course compounds as sea levels rise. Also sea levels will rise even if there is no ice melt - as water warms, it expands. And sadly thirty year old references just don't cut it. --Michael Johnson 04:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Still, he is quite correct about Antarctica melting: See Sea level rise. (By the way, salty sea water may melt at temperatures far below 0 degrees C). Also, if there was a significant lowering of global temperatures from 1946 to 1974, it may of course be mentioned, but the article is already too long. Narssarssuaq 11:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There are no cites in Jack's discussion, and from my own reading on Antarctica, it's obvious that 0 C is exceeded frequently in the southern pole summer. Even readings from Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen in the early 1900s confirm this. If Jack wants to provide scientific sources for his statements, then we would have a starting point for his assertions. Skyemoor 13:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, Jack is getting confused between the continental mean temperature and the temp at the edges. He is, however, correct in that Ant isn't going to melt in a hurry; but he is wrong to imply that the article says it will. As for the 40's... there is a graph right up front with the temperature record on it. No, the T change then isn't very sig - only as a break in the warming. It gets a brief mention at the end of "Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" section William M. Connolley 13:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To do list

"Make the article neutral by including crititism of global warming and showing that it is not a proven fact." Is that really necessary? We have alternate theories AND the proven fact thing sounds like an import from the evolution type 'debate'. Brusegadi 04:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, it is pretty muc general consensus that global warming is real, human cause or not; that, and I'm pretty sure everyone assumes that both sides are unproven, much like the Evolution/Creationism disputes. Specusci 16:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)Specusci
I removed that bit William M. Connolley 17:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The phrase "global warming is real, human cause or not" points to an important point that many misses: Global warming until 2100 is, at a certain degree of precision, predicted by models. Whether the present warming can be attributed to this predicted global warming or not is in principle beside that particular point. Present warming may consolidate the theory. Still, as there is a lot of "natural noise", such as solar and volcanic activity, plus weather fluctuations, involved in global temperatures, such an empirical consolidation of the theory will have to rely on a complex analysis of the situation, an analysis which is totally different from the modelling of future climate. I'm unsure if the article is clear enough on this point. Although it may seem self-evident for scholars, it seems some journalists, not to mention Average Joe, have problems with this. (Or am I wrong?). And as the Global warming article is most probably extensively used by such people, we may want to become slightly clearer on this point. Narssarssuaq 17:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I have to wonder if you're reading the article, or just the talk page. A widespread scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities"[2]. is clear enough, with its link; as is causes" section William M. Connolley 17:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I am reading both the article and the talk page, if you're still wondering... My point isn't that it's not mentioned, but that the divide isn't emphasised enough. Also, the first sentence reads "Global warming is the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans in recent decades". True, and it's perhaps good enough, but it may be misleading not to mention that "Global warming" is also, and perhaps more often used about, the partially unrelated predicted increase in coming decades. I see the point of keeping the article concise, but as I said; I have a feeling that the article could be slightly clearer as to the divide mentioned. Narssarssuaq 18:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] German article Globale Erwärmung now a featured article!

Hey guys, this is off-topic, but for the better: It's for celebration! I'm the main author of the German sister article about Globale Erwärmung, so I guess it's up to me to thank you all for your contributions here, because both the content of this article and that of this very talk page played an important part in the German article about global warming becoming a newly elected Featured article. Thanks to all of you, please keep it up and enjoy the spread of your excellent work! Hardern 21:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Congrats on a job well done! --Stephan Schulz 23:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CO2 is accelerating

from the bbc.--Pixel ;-) 23:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

An Oxford professor in the article seems to claim that this indicates a too optimistic scenario distribution at IPCC. I hope it's an unreliable source. I guess we'll have to wait for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report instead of quoting loose statements like that in this Wikipedia article. Narssarssuaq 01:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say Mike Raupach is pretty reliable source! (He gave a fantastic talk a couple weeks ago at a conference I attended.) Likewise Myles Allen is head of the Climateprediction.net super-duper-mega-ensemble project. But I'd wait for the dust to settle before including this as encyclopedic content. Raymond Arritt 03:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
(I was referring to the organisation doing the survey). Narssarssuaq 16:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
If the bbc got it wrogn we have the right to be wrogn too.--Pixel ;-) 13:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
True. Though this isn't wiki-news. I'm not sure how this is compatible with the trend in actual CO2 conc, which is *not* accelerating in the same fashion William M. Connolley 14:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say this graph: [6] shows a certain increase in concentration growth rate. Not sure if it corresponds to 1% -> 2.5%, though. Narssarssuaq 23:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC) By the way, this diagram [7] shows both that there is a strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures, and that present atmospheric CO2 is very, very high in a historic context. If IPCC models are to be right, the correlation so evident in the diagram doesn't apply for anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Has there been any research into this, establishing precisely how and why this is the case? Narssarssuaq 00:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The CO2 curve is kind of bumpy-looking (there's a rigorous scientific term for you). I'd be hesitant to attach much significance to rate fluctuations on scales less than a decade or so. As for the second diagram you cite, look at the time axis. The time scale relevant to anthropogenic GH warming is a century or so. If I've done the math right, that would be invisible on your diagram -- i.e., less than the width of one pixel. There's no reason to expect that processes that are important on time scales of tens of thousands of years are the same as the processes that are important for a few decades. Raymond Arritt 01:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
You're right. Thanks. Narssarssuaq 01:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be benificial to the overall purpose of the article that the largest affects of the current warming occur near the polar regions, thus having even more effect on ocean levels. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).

[edit] Should we rename this article Globle Heating

Global warming sounds like something nice. Heating is something to be serious about. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.72.176.177 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

No, its most common name is Global warming. Wikipedia is about objective information, and not an arena for political (or other) agendas. Narssarssuaq 04:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I just today read about somebody who suggests renaming the phenomenom. somebody else suggested "global climate disruption". But as long as its commonly called global warming, Wikipedia should stick to that. Hardern 22:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah... terrible idea. See WP:NAME. Mikker (...) 22:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I Believe that was the President's press strategist-The "global climate disruption" guy167.128.221.98 18:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So... I guess Global roasting won't fly either.  ;^) --Richard 03:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] EPA scientists revolt

It's a press release, but a pretty shocking one: More Than 10,000 EPA Scientists File Mass Petition for Action on Global Warming, November 29, 2006 Simesa 01:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

And a pretty inaccurate one. The actual document is a letter from 22 union bosses representing a union with over 10,000 scientists and support staff. The so-called "petition" makes no actual mention of a petition anywhere. Entry 306(b)(i) in my Guidebook to the Real World is "Never trust a press release." Raymond Arritt 04:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The press release reads as follows : "In an unprecedented action, representatives for more than 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are calling on Congress to take immediate action against global warming [...]. The is letter (sic!) signed by presidents of 22 locals of five unions". I can't find a misleading statement in there which would differ from your explanation. Hardern 17:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
What about the headline? Narssarssuaq 17:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right about that. Hardern 17:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The headlines for Global Warming hysteria articles are often like that. It would be same as saying if a US President opposed radical action on Global Warming saying "300,000,000 American opposed to action on Global Warming" because the leader says so.

[edit] Neturality Of the Article

The neutrality of this article is disputable.

Allow me to put away any preconceived ideas I hold in regards to Global Warming.

From reading the article, and having explored various points of view in regards to global warming (specifically, the two sides of the debate) I think that there is substance to both points of view.

Therefore due acknowledgment of the arguments against Global Warming could be included with either a criticism section or perhaps an NPOV label.

Note:

"Often, authors can view "their" articles as being NPOV, while others disagree. That an article is in an NPOV dispute does not necessarily mean it is biased, only that someone feels that it is. Note, however, that there is a strong inductive argument that, if a page is in an NPOV dispute, it very probably is not neutral — or, at least, that the topic is a controversial one, and one should be wary of a possible slant or bias. The salient point is that one side — who cares enough to be making the point — thinks that the article says something that other people would want to disagree with."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute#How_can_neutrality_be_achieved.3F

Although the arguments against global warming have been previously presented I believe that there are grounds for a more substantial presentation of the case. Alternate theories that identify different, supporting causes of the same issue, do not replicate outright dispute of the entire issue as a whole.

Below is an interesting article to assist with the creation of a criticism section: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/12/nclim12.xml

Also: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/lav2006forWeb.pdf

The above links may help, although further research into the 'against' arguments is recommended.

Thank you,

Ben.yrps 22:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC) Ben.yrps

The issue, to my understanding, is that there really aren't that many coherent alternative explanations for collected observations. What there are in the way of complete theories are presented in the "Alternative Theories" section. The rest of the criticism is mostly picking at particular points, studies, or issues, and all the various nitpicking cannot actually be collected into a coherent theory, indeed much of it is mutually contradictory. So, in summary, where actual alternative theories exist they are presented, and the remaining criticism is simply to scattered and mutually inconsistent to be presented in any reasonable way in an article such as this. Leland McInnes 23:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy Section

My addition of a Controversy section linking to data from the article "Global warming controversy" has been reverted within the first five minutes of being posted. This leads me to believe that this article is being watched "like a hawk" to say, by some people. Mainly, I would like to point out that this article shows a very one sided and supportive view of the global warming theory and that a section showing criticism from the crtitics (yes there are critics) namely those displayed on the "Global warming controversy" is desperately needed to maintain a balanced article. While there is link to the article "Global warming controversy" in the see also section, it is buried amongst twenty or so other links. To maintain balance there needs to be a promintent section of this article showing the other view. Can we have this section or will my edits be thwarted with reverts? The machine512 05:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The section you have added seems to have been just cut and pasted from the Global warming controversy article. Other than being a listing of names, it is very critical of those who claim to be skeptical of global warming, and doesn't seem to add anything to the article. Netherless I'll leave it there for others to comment on. --Michael Johnson 05:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. It is upsetting that the Global warming controversy page is more critial of the critics than critical of global warming. The text that I've added is just about the least "critic critical" section I could find from the article. I agree that this would be a section that would need work, but nevertheless I do feel it is an important addition to the article and that what I have given would be a good starting point. The machine512 06:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The global warming page describes global warming to he best of out understanding, i.e. it reflects the broad scientific consensus. Global warming controversy is there expecially to highlight the (mostly political) controversy. Of course critics get more space there - both for their positions as for a discussion of the same. --Stephan Schulz 08:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Reverted again, sigh. I don't understand your reason for reverting, you stated:

"Reverted again. There is a link to the controversy from the lead section. Duplication of content is no good, use summary style!"

It seems like you are using two very different reasons for the reversion. By lead section I am assuming you mean the subtopics box at the very bottom of the page as otherwise controversy or criticism is not mentioned anywhere else throughout this entire article. And if you are referring to the subtopics box, many of the main articles such as Mitigation of global warming are summarized in this main article just as I did with Global warming controversy. And in terms of duplication, I did the same system of summary as is done with mitigation. So what is the problem?? Is there something wrong with presenting both viewpoints in the article? Please explain further.

It amazes me, the wikipedia article on the United States doesn't get this much scrutiny. The machine512 10:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not referring to the subtopic box, but to the last paragraph of the introduction, which states (in part): "However, the uncertainty is more significant regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future, and there is a hotly contested political and public debate (This links to global warming controversy) over implementation of policies that deal with predicted consequences, what, if anything, should be done to reduce or reverse future warming, and how to deal with the predicted consequences." And, wether you belive it or not, all notable viewpoints are represented adequately in the article. What you added was not a summary, but an excerpt. The summary of the dispute, as far as there is anything to summarize, is in the section I quoted and in the "Alternative hypotheses" section. --Stephan Schulz 11:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sure this doesn't surprise you, but I greatly disagree with your claim that "all notable viewpoints are represented adequately", and apparently I am not the only one, seeing that others have brought this issue up before and have been knocked down by the unfortunate clique of editors here. And as proof for my claim not one of the scientists from the section "Opponents of the global warming theory" under Global warming controversy is mentioned at all in this article. That is balanced? This is what I tried to bring into the article, a summary of the to say "least critical of the critics" section of Global warming controversy article (considering that whole article is pretty much biased against them), and you've reverted it, as I am sure you've reverted this topic in the past and will continue to. Why can't the opinions of the critics be expressed in this article?? The machine512 11:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the ony scientist we name explicitely (i.e. outside of referencing a publication) is Svante Arrhenius. The alternative theories section is excellently referenced. If you have reliable sources on the science (i.e. peer-reviwed scientific publications), by all means add them. But editorials in the Wall Street Journal or publications by political think tanks do not confer any scientific legitimacy - see WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. The scientific consensus is supported by thousands of scientists and by the vast majority of people in the field of climate science. The critics' position isn't one at all, but a collection of shifting and incoherent talking points. Most have now given up on "there is no warming" (for any number of alleged reasons), and there is an increasing move from "it's not anthropogenic" (but caused by any of several unlikely mechanisms) to "it's not bad for us" (for another rambling collection of suggestions). --Stephan Schulz 11:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, so can I show the names of the notable scientists and their "incoherent talking points"? We are mirroring summaries of just about every subtopic article except the Global warming controversy Why? I don't know (bias, agenda, who knows), but to bring balance we need it. Why are you ingoring such a large article with a significant number of scientists and views?

Also "alternative theories" won't suffice (and you've stated why) because many of the critics do not have alternative theories to present! But rather they take stances such as, that the data is too inconclusive to project the many ideas and theories that the others present, that the testing methods are wrong, etc.

So I ask you, can I please bring some balance into the article or are you going to revert me again? The machine512 13:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Cut-n-paste volumes of text from the Controversy article is obviously not a good idea. Furthermore, you seem to equate "controversy" with "anti-GW"; you only pasted in "aginst". Thats not so - controversy is both sides. I rather like your Also "alternative theories" won't suffice (and you've stated why) because many of the critics do not have alternative theories to present! - this is all too true: what they have are a collection of shifting and incoherent talking points. Which is why they aren't in this article William M. Connolley 13:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact sir, I pasted text (which is exactly what was done in the mitigation section, so excuse me if this is illegal, apparently not in that case (by the way you may want to update the main article from which it comes, it is out of date) (any edits I make will likey be reverted) ) which contained a list of critics and a very large section criticizing the critics, so to be fair that was left in. Also I wouldn't call the criticism "a collection of shifting and incoherent talking points", there are some valid points from reputible scientists which should be displayed.

You sir are presenting a lame excuse for not displaying the other side because it objects with your view.

It is really sad for the whole ideology and foundation of wikipedia, when there is an abuse of power and abuse of the system as is going on here. If anything conflicts with your views it is reverted. This issue has been brought up many times within this article and surrounding articles (neutrality and presenting fair viewpoints) and ingored and reverted.

Maybe this is why the trolling tag exists on this discussion page? Because of all the pissed off editors?? The machine512 14:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I always like helping the minority view so here goes: it is true that there IS a link in the lead section to the contraversy (aka "Canute's") page but the anchor text confuses the link. Given the WP habit of barely relevant links to dates etc putting the Global Warming Contraversy link until anchor text saying "a political and public debate" makes it look a little like the link might be to an article about public debates. In that regard it might be improved slightly for clarity if the link was in parathesis with explanation after the words, even though its messy. (But I am not inclined to support bringing any content over). --BozMo talk 14:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

I've added the neutrality tag to this article. This article does not express the views of critics of global warming. Any attempt to add such critics views have been reverted many times by a certain group of editors watching this page. All edits on this page and other global warming subtopic pages that to not conform to the bias of these editors are reverted. This is an abuse of the wikipedia system.The machine512 05:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What views do you believe should be added? Please be specific. Dragons flight 06:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Having read the article, I think it is quite appropriately balenced, given my (non-professional but academic) understanding of the science. I'm not sure I would dedicate as much space to Ruddiman's view (although I have only a passing familiarity with it). Generally balenced. I don't think a neutrality tag is a good idea. --TeaDrinker 06:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As I've stated above in the "controversy section" of this talk page, I've tried bringing the views and names of the numerous critical scientists into the article from the Global warming controversy page and my edits (and others) have been blindly reverted for many irrational reasons. There is a large article Global warming controversy that should be discussed at least in small part with a subsection in this article. Not all views are being expressed here, but rather the minority critical view is being seemingly hidden amongst other pages. Others have made this remark numerous times on this talk page and all have been ignored by the group of editors watching this page. Please see what I've witten above. I am losing faith in the fairness of wikipedia, when seemingly biased editors and admins will revert edits made because they do not approve of the crtitical viewpoint. I don't know what can be done. The machine512 07:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Would you not agree that there is a lot of controversy around this subject? If not, why is there a large controversy article roughly the same size as this one? And why is that article not being reflected here? The machine512 07:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This is what I brought into the article:

Is there something wrong with this?

Controversy

Main article: Global warming controversy

The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change.

Opponents of the global warming theory

Main article: List of scientists opposing global warming consensus

A small number of climate scientists and scientists in related fields have expressed opposition to the scientific consensus on global warming. Several of the most prominent are the following:

Some prominent opponents from outside the climate science community have been:

Some organisations were formed to further the opponents' views:

Many of these opponents to anthropogenic global warming theory have links to the fossil fuels industry. [10] For example, Patrick J. Michaels and Frederick Seitz have both been linked to the George C. Marshall Institute--Michaels as a "visiting scientist" and Seitz as "Chairman Emeritus.".[11] The Institute has received numerous large grants from ExxonMobil and from petroleum-related organizations such as the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Carthage Foundation. [12][13][14]Similarly, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has received several large grants from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and from ExxonMobil.[15][16]The CEI website lists both S. Fred Singer and Robert Balling as "experts," while Ross McKitrick headed up a CEI project called the Cooler Heads Coalition.[17][18] Many observers critical of these connections between global warming contrarians and the petroleum and coal industries as suggestive of a conflict of interest, if not of outright corruption, since many policies which might be used to combat human-caused global warming might adversely affect the profits of these corporations. [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]

Scientists critical of some aspects of the discussion and their donors dispute the validity of this guilt by association argument, and the scientists are also themselves part of government, state college and university systems, the scientific organizations listed in the proponents section, or some mix. Most have been considered skeptics or at least somewhat skeptical of certain points since long before the funding was provided. For example, according to the Forbes story [27] listed above, The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, CO (IREA) funded Patrick Michaels because according to their GM "'We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists,'" and said although he "...believes global warming is real just not as big a problem as scientists claim, <he> acknowledged this is a special interest issue. He said the bigger concern is his 130,000 customers, who want to keep rates low, so coal-dependent utilities need to prevent any taxes or programs that penalize fossil fuel use." In that same article, Donald Kennedy of Science said " 'skeptics such as Michaels are lobbyists more than researchers' " and that " 'I don't think it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical,' " and that " ...donations to skeptics amounts to 'trying to get a political message across.' " This tends to further refine the entire dispute as being one of a political nature.

Other criticisms of funding are made by groups known to be in direct opposition to either corporations in general or energy ones in particular, such as the Mother Jones criticism of ExxonMobil donating to groups such as the American Council for Capital Formation [28]. They complain that the ACCF presented an appendix that focused only on the uncertainties of a 2001 NAS report when the ACCF testified in front of the U.S. Senate. Mother Jones’ complaint seems to be only that although the ACCF usually focuses on economic critiques of policies, this time they wrote something one-sided about the science involved in the debate to support their economic position on the Kyoto Protocol. Doing that, according to Mother Jones, puts them in the skeptic camp.

Some opponents to the anthropogenic view of global warming have also been criticized for using incorrect information or flawed analyses in support of their opposition. For example, in April 2005 David Bellamy published a letter in the journal New Scientist in which he claimed that, of the 625 glaciers being observed by the World Glacier Monitoring Service, 555 of them were growing, not shrinking—a statement which, if true, would cast a good deal of doubt on the existence of global warming. It turned out, however, that Bellamy's figures were incorrect: the vast majority of the world's glaciers have been retreating for the last several decades. George Monbiot of the Guardian tracked down Bellamy's original source for this information and found that it was Fred Singer's website. Singer claimed to have obtained these figures from a 1989 article in the journal Science, but to date this article has not been found.[29] Similarly, before starting JunkScience.com, Steven Milloy belonged to an organization called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), which was paid by tobacco companies to cast doubt on studies about the dangers of secondhand smoke.[30][31] However, most of the authors of these editorials, their websites, or the publications themselves are almost universally extremely critical of the role of industry and government in environmental matters and focus almost entirely on negative aspects of the debate [32] [33] [34] [35].

The machine512 07:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's repetitive (we already have an article covering the controversy), it's unbalanced (there could easily be a much larger list of supporters, especially as anybody disagreeing with any part of the consensus is listed as a sceptic, and hence anybody agreeing with any part should be listed as a supporter ;-), it does not contribute to the science this article concentrates on (there are no references to peer-reviewed papers in the section), it is fairly poorly sourced in general, it is too long (this article already is 2.5 times the recommended length), it gives undue weight to the small group of critics and it gives undue weight to the debate itself in that it suggests that a serious scientific debate about the core consensus exists when it does not... --Stephan Schulz 08:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually I agree with you: the tag is unwarranted and the article is pretty balanced. --BozMo talk 10:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, in response to your many statements.

1. "It's repetitive": Having a summary of the controversy article in this article is not any more repetitive than (again) having a summary of the mitigation article. Having summaries is something done widely throughout wikipedia.

2. "It does not contribute to the science this article concentrates on" It does not need to. Neither does the section "Global warming in popular culture" in this article. And neither does "Censorship" section in the article on the Internet contribute to the technology of the Internet.

3. "Undue Weight" You raise a good point here. And I would like to quote that article if I may.

"None of this is to say that tiny-minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them. Wikipedia is not paper. But even on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it should not be represented as the truth.

From Jimbo Wales, paraphrased from this post from September 2003 on the mailing list:
  • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
  • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
  • If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

In other words, views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all."

The second bullet point "if a view is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents" would label the critics in the Global warming controversy as being a significant minority just because they are easily named scientists (quite a few which are known reputable activists, over a dozen) and organizations.

Being that the large article Global warming controversy exists:

1. proves there is a serious scientific debate over many aspects

2. proves it is also not "undue weight"

All of which should be summarized in this article, and currently is not. The machine512 10:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The article is broken down into sections, and is fully referenced. Why not search dissenting views and reference them, rather than just cut and paste a list of names. If there is any serous scientific dissent it should be included in the article. I havn't come across it (dissent I come across usually comes from conservitive polititions and media commentators) so I'd welcome the infomation. How about tracking down those peer-reviewed articles? Fact is global warming scares me stupid. I'd love to be reassured. --Michael Johnson 11:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Michael summarises it pretty well. Adding a huge section of text does nothing to improve the article in terms of readability or accuracy. Listing the opponents creates undue weight - the only way to balance the list of opponents would be to list supporters. The thousands of scientists who support the majority position on GW. That would, of course, make the article into unreadable garbage. Including the opponents without including the supporters creates the undue weight. Presenting a fringe position lacking supporting publications on equal footing (or anything near equal footing) with the scientific position creates undue weight. Simple enough. Guettarda 18:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary Edit Break

512, your proposed section is not a summary, it's an excerpt. The mitigation part is both a summary and a (near) except. Having a summary is fine, however, I claim that we already summarize the controversy adequately.

For the rest: Your logic is unsound. "If a view is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents" does not imply that the ability to name prominet adherents implies the existance of a significant view. More general, just because A implies B, you cannot soundly deduce A from B. Moreover, the people in your list do not hold a particular view. They hold different views that only have one aspect in common.

And finally: A significant scientific debate does not take place in newpaper editorials, think tank publications, or on web sites. It takes place in the peer-reviewed literature, at conferences and in journals. To show such a debate, bring scientific references. The global warming controversy article does not prove that "there is a serious scientific debate over many aspects". It shows that there is a public debate, not a scientific one. It's telling that e.g. Shattered Consensus was originally published not by a scientific publisher, or even a popular science publisher, but, of all things, by the Marshall Institute [36]. --Stephan Schulz 20:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Hi Stephen, in response to your response of my response to your response:

1. "Excerpt": Then I suppose there is a very fine line between excerpt and summary then? A long summary is an excerpt, and a short excerpt is a summary?

2. As for my "Unsound Logic": You said " "If a view is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents"does not imply that the ability to name prominent adherents implies the existence of a significant view" " So isn’t the sentence’s purpose to check for undue weight?? If not what is the point of the sentence? How would you clarify this (if you can) for me and my unsound logic?

If I am in New York City, then I am in the United States. If I am in the United States, then I am in New York City. One of these is always true, the other is not always true. Brusegadi 00:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
  • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
OK, look at the first statement, Jimbo is talking about substantiating (proving) the existence of a majority view with commonly accepted referenced texts.
So you are saying that the purpose of the second statement is not to do the same substantiate (prove) the existence of a minority view with a list of adherents? If not, again I ask you, what is the purpose of the second statement? Or all the statements for that matter? I think both of you are underestimating the worth of these points, and are claiming that his statements do not clarify anything about giving undue weight. The machine512 08:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You said "Moreover, the people in your list do not hold a particular view. They hold different views that only have one aspect in common." Right, they do have one aspect in common "opposition of the consensus" But sharing in this is not an adequately unified view, and should therefore be omitted?

A devout catholic and an atheist both do not believe in Allah. Should their views be placed in parallel in an article about the existence of God? Brusegadi 00:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Nope. Because, Allah is not even worth mentioning, it is a specific type of God. The article questions the existence of all Gods in general. If Allah was needed to be mentioned, then why not? Just state why.
But this article is not about the *existence* of global warming. It is about global warming. Should the *existence of God* be brought up on the page about God? Well apparently it is. So what is the difference here? The machine512 11:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, there is only a short summary paragraph about the existence of God on God and then a link to another article. And of course that article is not in any way recognised or featured to make it a precedent for this one. --BozMo talk 16:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

3. "Debate": There are plenty of scientific debate points on that page. Therefore I don't see how you can claim "there is [only] a public debate, not a scientific one".

The machine512 14:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropogenic global warming

Also look at this survey.

"Of the 36 respondents, 44% considered global warming to be a largely natural phenomenon, compared to 17% who considered warming to be largely manmade."

If this holds true then why is so much weight given to anthropogenic global warming in this article? The machine512 16:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Let me guess, "Surveys aren't science" or "They are funded by ExxonMobil" The machine512 16:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Because its old (you noticed that, didn't you?) and because the US state climatologists are... well, only US; and not clearly appointed for climate-science-research expertise William M. Connolley 17:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Ahem... Please note that the study was done nearly ten years ago by Citizens for a Sound Economy, a "free-market", "anti-environmentalist" advocacy group in the US, polling then-government-appointees. There is no longer any significant mainstream debate about the influence of anthropogenic factors on global warming. So, to be frank, it's a junk science poll, one which implies there still was a fundamental substantive debate in the scientific community even ten years ago. And, it's attempted use to influence the WP article's content today is even farther away from the facts of the matter. ... Kenosis 17:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
...and the question was formulated really badly: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement "The overwhelming balance of evidence and scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory but now a fact, that global warming is for real. There is ample evidence that human activities are already disrupting the global climate..." Would you agree or disagree with this statement?. I could certainly disagree with that statement, not only for grammatical and stylistic reasons, but also because "disrupting" is undefined, and because it implicititely misinterpretes "fact" and "theory" as degrees on a scale when they are very different things. And the sample is very small. And CSE is indeed sponsored by Exxon[37]... --Stephan Schulz 17:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

1997 is too old eh?

Yes, 1997 is too old. The IPCC SAR was published 1995/1996, and stated the then current position as "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". Note how the CSE question was asking for the overwhelming balance of evidence and disrupting the global climate, i.e. a much stronger position than presented by the IPCC. --Stephan Schulz 20:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

OK what about this survey by Dr. Dennis Bray of Germany in 2003 surveying scientists from around the world [38] (PDF)...

"To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7 indicates "strongly disagree".

Frequencies:

  • 1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
  • 2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
  • 3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
  • 4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
  • 5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
  • 6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
  • 7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)

"These results, i.e. the mean of 3.62, seem to suggest that consensus is not all that strong and only 9.4% of the respondents "strongly agree" that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes."

The machine512 17:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I must say this is truly remarkable stuff, this assertion of a mainstream scientific "debate" in the year 2006. Not far around the corner is a day when no person who wishes credit for rationality and responsibility will want to admit to having taken such a position as is implied by the assertion that there is a real debate about anthopogenic influences involving overconsumption and other widespread abuses of the planet. (Among the likely excuses would appear to include "the evidence wasn't in yet", "I was misled", and "that wasn't what I meant".) Yet, here we are arguing about it. ... Kenosis 17:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
"overconsumption and other widespread abuses of the planet" Uhhuhh. What does overconsumption have to do with global warming? You aren't a biased agenda pushing editor are you? The machine512 17:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Resorting to personal attacks should have been predictable based on the recent assertions made on this talk page and in other global warming related WP articles by User:The_machine512. I hereby retract my prior assumption of good faith. Have a nice day. ... Kenosis 17:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
It could be pushing it too far claiming that there is a consensus about there being an "over"consumption and that there are widespread abuses of the planet (the latter as compared to the benefit this has to humans). I guess that is a centre-left point of view as of today. Some might hold that an economic depression due to mitigation of global warming to decrease consumption would be so uncomfortable that its impact might be worse (for humans, of course) than the reduction in warming. --Also, some may argue that the pollution/energy problem could be solved through massive construction of nuclear and solar power plants. Just speculating, I don't know a lot about these things. All this is outside the scope of this article anyway - Mitigation of global warming would be the correct place to discuss it, I guess. Narssarssuaq 18:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Kenosis, I am concerned about this article, as I do feel it displays a biased position. Is being concered wrong? I have essentially stated it before that I feel (and others feel) that the people watching and editing this article are biased agenda pushers! I'm sorry if this surprises or upsets you, but we feel its true, and there is nothing we can do about it because we are being reverted. The machine512 18:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC) Look I've been personally attacked for having "Unsound Logic" on undue weight, so don't feel so bad. The machine512 18:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
What was attacked was what the logics of what you said, not you. Pointing out particular fallacies in other people's reasoning is never a personal attack, as long as it's in good faith. Narssarssuaq 18:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The statement by User:The machine512, specifically "You aren't a biased agenda pushing editor are you?" was an obvious attempt to frame the issue as one of political or ideological predisposition on my part rather than on the merits of the issues being discussed. The substantive issue of overconsumption and "abuse" vs. mere "use" of the planet, if that was the issue intended to be discussed, is one that should be discussed on its merits. The personalization of the issue in terms of a new question whether Kenosis is a "biased agenda pushing editor" was plainly not merely an "observation" of a logical flaw. As to whether there is a logical flaw, I would assert that each of the observations I made about rationality, being out-of-date by nearly a decade on a topic that has gotten the attention of most of the scientific community only within the past two-to-three decades, about the socio-economic political bias of the organization conducting the poll and the political standing of those polled, as well as the observation about likely excuses for some of those persons' past participation in a scheme to defraud the public about the facts of global warming in order to further their highly selfish and myopic economic agendas, are all highly relevant to this talk page discussion, and all very demonstrable even if not part of the scientific consensus per se. That said, I agree as far as choice of which WP article is most appropriate to cover such issues, the material regarding "overconsumption" and "abuse of the planet" is more relvant to policy discussions covered in mitigation of global warming than it is to this article. ... Kenosis 19:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

So if 30% disagree, and 15% are "not sure" that global warming is anthropogenic why does this article give so much bias toward anthropogenic global warming? The machine512 18:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Brays 2003 survey was not published, you'll notice. In fact it was rejected. I don't know exactly why, but I would reject it for lack of control on who could participate. The design of the survey prohibited them from knowing if people sent in multiple replies; or any knowledge of who replied at all; and it was posted on skepic mailing lists William M. Connolley 18:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd assume Bray's "survey" is unpublishable because it's a methodological disaster. It was posted online with no attempt to verify respondents, no attempt to obtain a random sample, and only the crudest attempt to detect duplicate submissions (by looking for responses that gave exactly the same answers). It's worse than useless for its intended purpose. Raymond Arritt 18:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've looked at that survey before. The full data is here. From the survey:
  • "We can say for certain that global warming is a process already underway." is 82% vs. 12% (median of 2)
  • "There is enough uncertainty about the phenomenon of global warming that there is no need for immediate policy decisions." is 15% vs. 80% (median of 6)
  • "The IPCC reports accurately reflect the consensus of thought within the scientific community." 72% vs. 20% (median of 2)
The question you (and other sceptics) like to pick out is actually misleading, as few people claim that "climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes". The current episode of global warming is, but there are 4.5 billion years of climate change without any human intervention (and before you misinterprete me: "Listen, your honour, people have been dying withour my intervention for 50000 years. Even if I did shoot him, there is no reason to believe that that was the cause of his death!"). --Stephan Schulz 18:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict x2)I don't know - what about the survey? Where was it published? What methodology was used? The pdf you linked to references a "survey", but there's no information about the survey. The fact that they (apparently) couldn't be bothered to publish this survey makes it very suspect (especially from such an unreliable source). Guettarda 18:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

So essentially what you've all said is that "Surveys aren't science" (none of the ones I can present) or "They are funded by ExxonMobil". What surveys will you believe? The ones in your favor? The machine512 18:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

That rather suggests that surveys are desirable. They aren't, always - it very much depends on the survey, those surveyed, etc. In this case, a survey of noted climatologists conducted by an independant research group would probably stand the best chance of being 1) relevant and 2) neutral. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 18:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
You do have a point when citing "Of the 36 respondents, 44% considered global warming to be a largely natural phenomenon, compared to 17% who considered warming to be largely manmade". Present global warming has not for many years been thought to be anthropogenic. However, there has for a long time been a concensus about future global warming, which is the main point. Narssarssuaq 18:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
A survey or two does not decide the scientific consensus. What does decide the consensus is the results of scientific research (don't say duh! Read the paragraphs above!). For example, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all publicly announced that 1) there is global warming, 2) it is a serious problem, and 3) human activity is a primary causal factor.
Instead of mucking around with surveys, find articles from peer-reviewed science journals which argue that global warming is not human-caused. Do these exist in large numbers? The now-famous Oreskes study suggests that they do not. If someone can provide three or more examples of such articles from peer-reviewed journals published within the past decade, there might be reason to doubt the solidity of the scientific consensus. Otherwise, forget about it. When a body of over a thousand scientists from over a hundred different countries which has been convened specifically to look at global warming science comes to the near-unanimous conclusion that it is, in fact, human caused (I'm talking about the UN's IPPC), a few Michael Crichtons and Steven Milloys here and there don't amount to squat. Dicksonlaprade 19:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Not to forget the 2005 Joint Statement by the Academies of Science of the G8 countries plus China, India and Brazil. Hardern 19:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There are two separate issues here. One is the general utility of surveys (or lack thereof), but in this specific case there's also the issue of reliable sources - this is a second-hand reference to an unpublished survey. It isn't something we can use to write an encyclopaedia article. Guettarda 20:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

From the article "Only a small minority of climate scientists discount the role that humanity's actions have played in recent warming." I suggest changing the loaded wording from "Only a small minority of climate scientists discount the role... to "A minority of climate scientists discount the extent of the role..." This removes the "only" and "small" words that are already implicate in the word "minority" and notes that the disagreement is to the extent of human contribution. IE, a single, human produced molecule of methane may add to global warming but its extent is minimal. The inclusion of these words "only" "small" serves as an attempt to enhance the extent of the minority when there is no clear refernces as to said extent. 70.90.102.194~~

You can't change it, you'll be reverted. Speaking of reversions, this has got to be the most reverted article on wikipedia. Just look at the history. The machine512 21:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree "Only" should go, for the reasons stated. "Small" is needed for accuracy. Without the qualifier, "minority" could go all the way to 49.999%. Raymond Arritt 21:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I prefer the way it is right now, "Only a small minority". Hardern 19:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps 'A very small minority'? I don't know how many - would even one percent of climate scientists be disputing AGW?

[edit] Modifications to intro

I believe that it should be mentioned in the introduction on this article that certain aspects of the "Global Warming Theory" are still in dispute. I proprose a well rounded, non-contradictory or inflamatory statement to that affect be posted as an addition to the first paragraph. I already posted one, but the administrators suggested I discuss it first, so, does anyone have a problem with that. Remember that my contribution can of course be edited after I make it. Any problems? Suggestions? I have no problem with splitting the article, as long as the intro mentions that. ----Borghuman 09:56, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Sorry, but your proposed addition is very much out of line with the current (and indeed the last 30 years) state of knowledge. The Oregon Petition is essentially worthless (less generous people would call it fraudulent), you are confusing weather and climate (climate is much easier to predict, and can, under reasonably assumptions, be predicted to a reasonably degree of accuracy decades in advance. The plot on globalwarmingart shows (reconstructed) local temperatures, and has a 300 year resolution, while the current episode of global warming is only about 150 years old. I'm not aware of any published peer-reviewed literature that contradicts the IPCC consensus (and you give no good reference to any). In short, this is not an improvement. If you think you can argue any of the points to a reasonable level of verifiability and weight, please argue them here.--Stephan Schulz 05:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I also noticed the way you bolded "Theory". As it has been mentioned repeatedly in many many forums, websites and wikipedia talk pages, a theory is not automatically dismissable as being "only probably true". On the contrary, a theory is usally assembled from established facts. That is, if you are using the scientific terminology, and saying the "Global Warming Theory" would be it's scientific use. Specusci 18:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is global warming a bad thing?

It is widely reported in britain that water shortages are becoming more and more common such as the shortages in Essex. Surely gloabal warming and melting of the ice caps will result in a wide supply of liquid for commercial and recrreational purposes. This will reduce the need for hose pipe bans and as a result the general morale of the nation could rise. Also many areas of the world that will be affected are poor such as mexico and pakistan. Drowning these places could clense the world of poverty and the unaffected areas could start a fresh uniting in the need to survive resulting in a global frienship. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.5.247.66 (talk • contribs) 16:45, December 12, 2006 (UTC).

Ever seen "The day after tomorrow"? It might not be that rapid, but thats pretty much what will happen. You might actually have less water, because it'll be locked up in more ice. Not only that, but you'll pretty much have a canadian winter...all year. (Canadian winters are typically -30/40 degrees celsius). Specusci 18:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
No, that's not what will happen, rapid or otherwise. --Spiffy sperry 19:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropogenic Global Warming is the same thing as Anthropogenic Global Cooling, just with different words

Global Cooling was a theory that all prominent climatologists allegedly embraced, but now they say "it was just a theory that never gained wide acceptance", despite what the articles of the 1970s said. Soon Global Warming, which is now said to be accepted by all climatologists as fact (even though the evidence proves otherwise), soon it will be dismissed as a theory that never gained wide acceptance. All we need for that to occur is a downward trend in temperatures, much like what occured from 1940-1995. Then Global Cooling will become fact, and Global Warming will be "just a theory that a few fringe climatologists embraced, unlike Global Cooling, which we embraced all along". Then the story will change back to pollutants blocking out the sun causing cooling, rather than greenhouse gasses causing a rise in temperature. Just to let everyone know, whatever global warming is going on (as opposed to the theory, Global Warming) is mostly caused by a chemical called Dihydrogen Monoxide, also known as DHMO, and more commonly known as H2O, or water.

Please add a neutrality dispute tag to this article, this is the most biased article I have ever seen on Wikipedia, and one of the most biased that I have ever read on the internet. It consists of opinions intermixed with the occasional rigged statistic, and makes a complete strawman out of the opposition, and that's being far too kind. The above facts aren't even mentioned, and the Little Ice Age is mostly given the brush off, and I see NO mention of the Medivel Warm Period, where temperatures rised farther and more rapidly than they have been today. This article makes CNN and CBS seem fair and balanced by comparison.

PS: If you really are concerned about Global Warming, I suggest privatizing third world land and going with clean, efficent nuclear power, instead of allowing the Sahara Desert to expand and coal and oil power plants to throw out pollutants left and right. According to the Global Warming theory, that is what needs to be done. And also recognize that third world nations are the biggest contributers to pollution and environmental destruction, NOT first world nations like the United States. The Kyoto legislation was nothing more than an example of leftist greed to punish the United States and line their pockets, since afterall, third world nations aren't rich with money like we are. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 146.186.136.109 (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

Veuillez ne pas nourrir les trolls. Raymond Arritt 06:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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