I'm skeptical. It seems even the scientists making the claims of global warming (or climate change, if you will) aren't sure of their own science. The impression I've gotten from shows ("programmes", for those of you on the other side of the Atlantic) on Discovery and National Geographic are that many of the scientists in support of global warming are pulling evidence out of thin air (and I don't mean literally).

I just get sick of hearing them say "X is Y" when I know that they don't really know for sure. They're looking at a piece of evidence and coming up with one possible explanation for it and going with that as factual instead of questioning the other things that the evidence might indicate. I prefer the scientist that says "I hypothesize that X is Y because of A and B and these are all of the ways I'm going to prove it". That's the kind of scientist that I want to stand behind.

Scientists have already shown that the Earth's climates cycle wildly and that humanity doesn't fully understand the vastness of these cycles yet. It seems perfectly logical that this so called warming is merely a periodic recurrence that we just haven't witnessed before (or maybe we have witnessed it before and it's either forgotten about or being swept under the rug).

As if what we've been observing as the full picture was really just a sliver of the graph. The Earth is believed to be hundreds of millions of years old, IIRC. Human civilizations are believed to be tens of thousands of years old, IIRC. It's perfectly reasonable to assume we haven't seen anything yet.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't consider the possibility that global warming might be happening, might be a problem for our survival, and that we might be able to prevent or slow it; but we should also consider the possibility that global warming might not be happening, might not be a problem for our survival, or that we might not be able to prevent or slow it. It's important to stay objective and consider every possibility.

For all we know, the measures we take to "prevent" global warming could have adverse affects themselves. We just don't know. I think it's better to trust what we think we know instead of trusting what we know we don't.

By all means, look for cleaner and more renewable energy resources and work towards conserving energy, but not to the extremes that some people think we should go to. We need to continue to live life as normal. It doesn't really matter if we do go extinct. You won't be able to care because you won't exist anymore. We'll either figure out how to survive or we won't. It happens every day in the wild and even in our very own cities.

Humans are just as natural to this planet as any other animal on it. We shouldn't assume any responsibility for preserving the state of the planet. In the past, most of our efforts to help have had unforeseen consequences that are just as bad or worse than the original problem.

There's two things. There's how scientists talk among themselves, with ifs and buts and caveats, and there's how scientists talk to other people who are not in the fields and who are not scientists. In that case, you do say "X is Y" because the general public generally doesn't care about caveats and loop holes, uncertainties and arguments for or against.
Anyway, philosophically scientist shouldn't go and try to prove their hypothesis (although in practice that's what many of us try to do) they should try to disprove it.

Ehm... that's exactly what it is. There's nothing logical about it one way or the other. The climate is changing, at a rate that hasn't been seen before.

4500 million years old.

There are climate indicators that stretch back more than the timeframe during which humans have been around. That's how we know climates change.
Also consider this. For much of those 4500 million years, the Earth would have been uninhabitable or uncomfortable for us to live on.

Yes, but that can't be an argument to do nothing. If A can prevent B, and B is something that you very much don't want to happen - then you're better off doing A.

Either way, as a scientific topic, this is not something where people get to vote in opinion polls on which is right and which is wrong. It's like asking the general public whether they think evolution is right or wrong. Their opinion counts for nothing in such a discussion.
Because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's false. Because you don't believe it doesn't mean it's wrong (and vice versa). Because it's inconvenient a problem doesn't rectify itself.

Just like, ostensibly, evolutionary scientists (or should I say EVILutionary, eh?) aren't in agreement on the mechanics one evolution either?

Even when I was a very young kid, I could tell the difference between the "let's pretend" Bizarro superman and the real Superman.

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That's true. It's not what I said though.

All true. But it's again not an example of what I said. Earthquake resistant buildings don't prevent earthquakes, they reduce (significantly, but they don't eliminate) the impact of one.

Sometimes. Sometimes not. Was the earthquake in Haiti predicted (I actually don't know)?
If there is an indication that an earthquake/volcanic eruption will hit a densely populated area (I'm thinking Naples and Vesuvius specifically), is there enough time to evacuate everyone?
Of course, in the case of planet-wide climate change... well, going somewhere else can be even more problematic.

Yup. But again, that's not what I said. Those things don't help prevent said natural disasters.

That is a good thing, yes.

All of that's right (and if it isn't that's fine and we'll accept it for the fate of argument). It's again not what I said though.

I guess another way to make my point is that to prevent is better than to heal. Especially if you can't be sure that we have the ability to heal whatever it is we're preventing.
Our technology is great and it helps us a lot. But it doesn't (and I think never will) make us invulnerable. So a blind faith that our technology will always be able to get us out of whatever situation we get ourselves into is, in my opinion, naive.

That's all good and well, but it was in response to a quote of me. While it's fine to expand on what you're replying to, it isn't always clear whether you're simply expanding on what you're saying, or whether you're reading that into what people are saying.
Some people are very good at that.

Yes, but there is a distinction between saying that it is unreasonable to dismiss the possibility that we may have such technology in the future and saying that it is reasonable to expect that we will have such technology.

I don't think I'm being pessimistic at all. I'm not saying that we won't have technology to do whatever we want^[1], just that we should not count on it that we will.
Our technology today can do remarkable things. Tomorrows technology will do even more remarkable things. But the technology we have now breaks down under certain conditions (extreme weather, for instance) and there are limits to what it can do. That will be true of tomorrow's technology as well. The limits will be different, but they will be there. To believe that that is not so is again, to me, naive.

I think we can. I could look them in the eye and say that, but maybe I'm just a heartless bastard.

What if we're wrong about global warming? What if reducing CO2 will make problems worse somehow?

Anyhow, taxing pollution isn't going to do a damned thing, except drive pollution to other countries. So great, now we have tougher laws, we're "helping the world," the net effect on pollution is pretty low, and our economy is even worse. Great going.

I'm sick of everyone being so brainwashed. When will we get over this and get back to talking with a semblance of logic?

All the double talk, hypocritical and circular arguments are just old. They used to get me mad but now they just make me bored.

If you're idolizing facts that help your theory and downplaying ones that don't maybe it's time to consider a new theory.

Here is a perfect example:

There's something funny going on when intelligent, well thought out posts get heavily scoffed at while inane, unintelligent and brainless posts get by without the slightest critique. In fact the air almost seems to pretend these are useful posts...

And don't try to claim this thread is the first that has unintelligent pro-global-warming in it. No one is that dumb here -- right?

That's Entertainment.

The newest weapons technology. Very nice design. Major drawback though: It's victim must request it and accept it... and not know about it.

I'm wondering... Is it better to be unintelligent or without a brain? Or is it the same?

And I can't see how bamccaig's post is intelligent or thought out... Let me correct the statement for you.

OK OK so only verthex's post was pro-global-warming. The other two were just brainless and unintelligent. But you get the point.

Nope, it's to say that "idolizing facts that help your theory and downplaying ones that don't" is something that a lot of self-proclaimed climate skeptics do very well. Same for the lack of coherent reasoning.

You could resolve any logical argument into axiomatic symbols of negation, and, or, etc... but the results would be the same as using big complicated words which symbolize a context of sentences by using a single word. I suppose all of you could try programming bubble sort without iteration and tell me how that works.

As I see it, things are quite simple really.

The global economy has by now reached a state where economic growth is an absolute necessity for everyone involved, and this growth isn't merely theoretical, it needs to be backed by actual physical growth: resources need to be transformed into goods, and the rate at which this happens needs to grow exponentially to keep the overall economic system intact.
However, in a finite world, resources can never be infinite, and an exponentially growing usage of these resources must end up depleting them completely, in finite time. You may stop using a handful of critical resources, but you have to use something, and that usage will grow exponentially.

Remember the 1980's, when (at least in Western Europe) there was a "green" movement that wanted to protect, well, pretty much everything somehow connected to "nature" or "the Earth"? These days, nuclear power is celebrating a renaissance because it's CO₂-neutral and thus "green", while the proponents are conveniently disregarding the facts that the nuclear waste problem hasn't been solved (and is unlikely to be in the near future), and that useable uranium or plutonium are subject to the exponential depletion just like coal, oil, and any other natural resource. These days, intelligent people are proposing to pump CO₂ back into the ground, which might solve the CO₂ problem, but not the overall exponential growth issue.

So the root of the problem is a economic/political system that mandates exponential growth. Everything else, on both sides of the discussion, are details.

Some of these details strike me for showing their true motives so clearly. A nice one is this: "We are not 100% absolutely positively sure that Global Warming exists and that we are to blame, so we better not change our ways, 'cause otherwise it might turn out we've done something unnecessary, and that would be, you know, embarrassing". Right. So you never wear seat belts when driving your car, because you aren't 100% absolutely positively sure that you're going to have an accident? You're not saving up for retirement, because who knows, you might die long before you reach retirement age, and then all that money would be wasted?
It's so incredibly obvious that people love to hear things like "Don't listen to them evil-speakers, you can keep living your life just like you're used to and everything will be OK", and that other people have observed this fact and are using it to their advantage.