We really shouldn't bother voting and just wait to hear what the couple of people at MassDojo think.

Lol, sure global warming is warming the winter... But who really cares, the natural life cycle of a planet is to eventually burn up and become a star!

There is no global warming. Back in 1970 the world was cooling and it meant by now we should be under 12 miles of ice. All caused by the same factors that are now being blamed for warming. Global warming is just convenient for Al Gore's movie career.Get over it "GREEN" people our climate is cyclical and that's it.

Global warming is really a term that has caused alot of confusion. It is really global climate change. The climate (overall weather patterns and averages) is definitely changing due to manmade forces and the overall trend is warming of the oceans and air and melting of icy formations around the globe. But the individual or yearly temperatures in one place are not due to global warming. The VARIABILITY (say, a cold snowy winter like last year and a warmer one) MAY be due to the warming trend/climate change because there is less of a buffer between weather trends. We will continue to have cold and hot seasons that are unseasonable for years and that is not directly attributable to the overall change. But it IS fun to talk about with one's neighbors, huh?

Yes, the climate is cyclical on a long term basis and has always changed (and as a person with two degrees in Geological Sciences - which gives me a good perspective). What is clear from the geologic record is that when carbon dioxide levels change in the atmosphere - the Earth's climate is affected. The physics and chemistry of this phenomenon are straightforward and have been known for well over a century.

Humanity has been pumping carbon back into the atmosphere in a couple of centuries that has been sequestered in rock formations in the form of coal and oil for hundreds of millions of years. It is increasing at a rate not seen in 56 million years - when an event called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum occured. At that time, CO2 spiked to a level 1000 ppm higher than background levels in a few thousand years - causing terrestrial extinctions and species migrations. We are changing the atmosphere 10 times that fast. Global average temperatures are increasing apace and have accelerated in lockstep with increasing CO2 levels.

Yes - a single winter means nothing, just as last winter's cold and snow mean nothing. What does mean something is regional climate abberations that fall well outside of statistical norms - last year's Texas drought and the prior year's Russian drought are examples. Anthropogenic climate change means that regional climate will see wide swings - predictable and now observed - based on analyses by the NASA-Goddard Institute.

It is also a fallacy that climatologists were predicting an ice age in the 1970s. I distinctly remember the cover of Newsweek back in 1975. That cover and the story were no more than the usual journalistic hype. Most of the scientific papers of period actually dealt with predicted warming - not cooling and those that did deal with cooling were based on analysis of sulfur dioxide and particulates being expelled into the atmosphere by the burning of coal - prior to the Clean Air Act and again, by Humans, not natural causes. Again - clear cause and effect. As these types of emissions decreased, the effects of increasing CO2 started to dominate. What has been clear is that humans can affect the climate.

If all this sounds nerdy and scientific - that is because that is the only way to describe these phenomena. Personally - I do not "believe" in anthropogenic global warming - I accept it as the best explanation for the observations based on the evidence collected to date. It is any wonder that most people with a scientific background have come to the same conclusion - way more than the public at large?

Note that I do not get any money from scientific grants to support myself here. Also note that there has not been one counter argument brought up by the people who "deny" anthropogenic climate change that has withstood scientific scrutiny.

So, get over it - start looking at the data, read the relevant peer-reviewed literature and then tell me what you think.

The earth has not "warmed" since 1997. Climatologists have been caught falsifying data to help build their argument, yet we still believe in this global warming nonsense. We definitely need alternative sources of fuel and need to help with the conservation of forests, animals etc etc. I just do not want environmentalists controlling our lives like the EPA. Remember, you can't spell environmentalist without mental.

Simply not true - first, independent audits of climate data show no manipulation of data and one done by well known skeptic (Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California) funded by none other than Koch brothers found that not only are the data good but that climate change is occurring.

See: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111020/full/news.2011.607.html

As far as the statement that the world has not warmed since 1997 - the first decade of the 21st century is the warmest on record and 2010 was warmer than 1997.

See World Meteorological Association: http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/gcs_2011_en.html

and NASA Goddard: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120119/

As I said before - this has nothing to do with "belief", it has to do with data and if you are going to make statements like that, back them up with some facts - not propaganda from right wing organizations funded by coal and oil interests.

Also, your statements are not enhanced by ad hominem attacks on the character of people delivering the message, including myself because, yes, I consider myself an environmentalist. That is the sort of tactic taken by people who have nothing else to support their position.

Take a look around you, the changes man has made to the planet in the past few hundred years. Roads, vehicles, industrial farming on huge scales, cities, all the kinds of stuff we as humans do. Not one person can deny the asphalt of the road in front of their house, or the silicon and plastic of the computer in front of them right now. All of these changes and products and services that we have come up with in the past few hundred years of course add up and in time, it adds up to a small, but noticable impact. That impact is a gradual temperature change, overall, of the planet. The problem is that what we as humans look at as a small change (a degree or two over decades) the ice packs at the poles and the chemistry of the oceans looks at as a huge problem. Rising sea levels from melting ice, more atmospheric instability leading to more severe and frequent storms, and things that we as humans DO care about and notice.

I simply do not understand anyone who cannot even comprehend the above "common sense" version.

Paul -

The problem with "common sense" is that it often flies in the face of reality.

Common sense tells us that the objects around us are solid when they are, in fact, made up mostly of empty space at the atomic level.

Common sense tells us that time and mass are the same everywhere, when in fact, time slows down and mass increases the faster an object travels.

Common sense tells us that 1 degree of average global temperature change is not much when it actually represents an enormous amount of heat energy on a global scale.

Science can be hard to comprehend unless you take a lot of time to learn it. It's even harder when our political leaders thumb their collective noses at people who are educated as elitist snobs (i.e. Rick Santorum et al).

My common sense tells me that "we" won't do anything about this issue until we get dope-slapped up the side of the face by some event or series of events that illustrate the problem in ways that cannot be attributed to local weather versus changes on a regional level.

Personally, I will keep speaking out about what we are doing to our planet as long as I continue to see people arguing from ignorance.

The point is that many seem to argue FOR ignorance..

Repeatable, measurable, and predictable. That's science. It's boring in many ways, nerdy, and a painstaking process. The whole goal is simply to look at things that have happened to predict what may happen in the future.

Of course, these are probably the same folks that reject science on the grounds that it was invented by an Iraqi...

Travis, facts are facts. Religion requires faith, while science does not. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence, your response is to dismiss it without examination, claiming it is either falsified, mishandled (but you can't even suggest how or by whom, a conspiracy requiring thousands of people over hundreds of years), or just 'wrong' without anything to back you up but hyperbole.

On one hand, we have both logic and data, on the other, an unshakable OPINION. That's callled Dogma.. Which has a place in religion, but not in science.

Mr. Cormier did not pay attention to my first post, in which I noted that climate is cyclical over geological time, as he himself said repeatedly.

However, my concerns are not based on the current computer models - but on what geological scientists have observed in the geologic record.

When no CO2 was in the atmosphere - this planet was frozen from pole to equator, and this happened twice in geologic history and only warmed when CO2 levels increased due to volcanic activity. CO2 levels 250 million years ago spiked from levels similar to modern pre-industrial levels (200 ppm) to 1800 ppm and global temperatures increased from 12C to about 20C. This, among several factors, contributed to the largest mass extinction in the history of the planet. Similarly, a spike of atmospheric carbon 56 million years ago coincided and with a smaller, but significant mass extinction. WE are increasing CO2 levels at 10 times the rate of the 56 mya event. At the current rate of increase, we will be at 1000 ppm within 150 years.

I find this information very troubling. Mr. Cormier obviously does not because he thinks this whole issue is a left wing political plot.

From a political perspective, it is quite clear that the world's major governments have decided to do nothing about this issue, so he need not worry about having a left wing agenda shoved down his throat.

Regardless, I will continue to speak from a scientific perspective, not a political one.

Andy... Before he jumps on it.. There has never been a time of no co2 in the atmosphere, though there have been periods of reduced percentage content. Co2 is not inherently bad, merely a heat trap.

Also, Andy, it does concern me that you attribute mass extinction solely to co2 levels. Iridium deposits among other evidence indicates that planetary impacts ocurred at these times, which caused COOLING events in the short term, elimininatimg the food supply for the megafauna. Co2 may play a part, but be careful not to commit the same sin as Travis... Don't ignore evidence in favor of dogma...

Impacts have only been conclusively demonstrated at the Cretacious-Tertiary boundary (aka, the dinosaur killer). There is no evidence for impact generated extinctions elsewhere in the geologic record as iridium has not been found above background levels at other boundaries. At the time of Snowball Earth - levels were very low, according to the works I have read - so from that perspective - I stand corrected - thank you.

The Permain-Triassic extinction event has been tied to a daisy chain of events that started with massive volcanism which increased CO2 levels, caused caused chemical changes in the oceans. Not going to get into the details here but the impacts were signficant worldwide (70% terrestrial extinctions and 90% + marine).

Regardless, I am done with this particular thread.