Waxman's victory is great news for environmentalists

You can't possibly be that depressed to believe the nonsense you espoused in this post.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel

Afghans, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, and all you idiots blubber on and on and on and on and on and on. If Hillary R. Clinton becomes the annointed one's Secretary of State, please stock up on heavy ammo and kiss your sweet babies good-bye.

and it didn't put into italics all the quoted paragraphs. Oh well, I'm sure you'll figure it out. :-)

I look forward to a few hours of exploration and learning ......I appreciate your response.

I'd like to hear more about these 40% of which you speak. Please, tell us.

I don't think I'm incorrect in using the qualified phrase "general consensus" when stating that there is a general scientific consensus that human actions are contributing significantly to climate change.

Now, whether we can actually reverse the impact of our actions at this point, I don't think there is a consensus on that issue, because there are way too many X factors.

Anyhow, you ask for articles, and articles you shall have. The first takes issue (as do you) with the word "consensus," so you should enjoy it.

The IPCC concluded last year: "Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely (>90 percent) caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years. This conclusion takes into account ... the possibility that the response to solar forcing could be underestimated by climate models."

Scientists have come to understand that "forcings" (natural and human-made) explain most of the changes in our climate and temperature both in recent decades and over the past millions of years. The primary human-made forcings are the heat-trapping greenhouse gases we generate, particularly carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas. The natural forcings include fluctuations in the intensity of sunlight (which can increase or decrease warming), and major volcanoes that inject huge volumes of gases and aerosol particles into the stratosphere (which tend to block sunlight and cause cooling).

A 2002 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences warned, "Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly." The rapidly growing greenhouse warming we ourselves are causing today thus increases the chances for "large, abrupt and unwelcome regional or global climatic events."

* * *

The scientific consensus most people are familiar with is the IPCC's "Summary for Policymakers" reports. But those aren't a majority opinion. Government representatives participate in a line-by-line review and revision of these summaries. So China, Saudi Arabia and that hotbed of denialism -- the Bush administration -- get to veto anything they don't like. The deniers call this "politicized science," suggesting the process turns the IPCC summaries into some sort of unscientific exaggeration. In fact, the reverse is true. The net result is unanimous agreement on a conservative or watered-down document. You could argue that rather than majority rules, this is "minority rules."

Last April, in an article titled "Conservative Climate," Scientific American noted that objections by Saudi Arabia and China led the IPCC to remove a sentence stating that the impact of human greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth's recent warming is five times greater than that of the sun. In fact, lead author Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in England said, "The difference is really a factor of 10."

How decent of the IPCC not to smash the last hope of deniers like Fred Thompson, whose irrational sun worshiping allows them to ignore the overwhelming evidence that human emissions are the dominant cause of climate change.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/27/global_warming_deniers/index.html

But try as he might, Solomon fails to find a single reputable character who will contest the major hypothesis: The human burning of fossil fuels is affecting the world's climate in an unprecedented and dangerous way.

Instead, Solomon has rounded up the usual suspects and revelled in the usual arguments. He quotes Dr. Edward Wegman's criticism of the famous hockey stick graph without admitting that Wegman testified before a U.S. Senate committee that he believes the globe is warming and that humans are to blame.

And then Solomon subs in an alternative non-hockey-stick graph that ends (it appears) around 1980, just at the point the blade of the hockey stick started to really spike up.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=12d547f8-af20-490a-9049-b22c5f2c5df9

http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/index.jsp

http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/climate/interface.html

http://www.eo.ucar.edu/basics/index.html

http://www.pewclimate.org/

You can, indeed, you obviously do believe in the oxymoronic phrase "scientific consensus".

That's fine. I respect that. I Remain an agnostic on AGW and am unable to find anyone who can offer me a site that even attempts to explain the scientific certainty in lay language that will allow me to be a believer ....without the requisite religious like leap of faith that WaWi offers.

I will ask again: have you seen or are you aware of any sites that exist that even make an effort to explain the conclusions that they support without gratuitous dismissiveness of the 40% of the scientists that seem to reject AGW certainty theories.....and are able to do so in a way that is understandable to you and me?

I remain an inquisitive learner but I need to believe....I cannot leap ...please provide a source or two

thanks

"I do not believe that the evidence supporting man as the primary cause of the warming is conclusive."

Well, that's fine and good, but as I've said time and again, I'm going with the vast majority of scientists on this one, and I buy into the notion that the millions of tons of emissions we're spewing into our atmosphere is the likely explanation for the uptick in global temperatures over the past century and a half, particularly in the escalating trend over the past several decades. A "pragmatic environmentalism" which opts to dismiss the general consensus of science seems to me not very pragmatic after all -- indeed, it seems to be "dead dog stupid," to borrow a phrase.

As for libertarianism, I have great sympathies for many of its tenets, but I also recognize that it simply doesn't work as a practical political philosophy.

Hi there Interface .....glad to see you ramain attentive to your causes......haven't seen you post in a while....

I spent an hour and a half or so on the website that you referenced and, like WaWi, Kaulbars is 100% dismissive of any scientific support of AGW skeptics/contrarians/deniers. I would dare say that I spent a good deal more time on Greenfyre than you have on Icecap.

I remain interested in finding a couple of sites that will attempt to explain the urgency absent dismissive narrative or zealotry and with a narrative directed to the lay citizen. perhaps you might know of one or two ......I have never found one.

Allow me to advance my naive belief. Global Warming is occurring. We as a people would be well served to live and work with a more reasoned and responsible respect for environmental concerns.

We would be dead dog stupid to leap to the degree that Goracle supporters like WaWi would urge. The receding global economy cannot afford the leap IF there were conclusive evidence that a solution is necessary immediately and, that one is available.

I do not believe that the evidence supporting man as the primary cause of the warming is conclusive. Yes, there is risk in not leaping. There is also, I believe, greater risk in Leaping. Waxman supports leaping ....which is very costly.

I remain what I call, a pragamatic environmentalist. I do what I can without either imposing on or inconveniencing others. I long ago traded in my suv for a fuel efficient e-85 vehicle.....I think twice before I leap into my car to go anywhere...and I do all the little stuff around my own home.

I guess all that is reflective of my natural contrarian nature .....kind of why I am a libertarian as well

Hahahahaha!

Oh, jeez, when you start citing that mainstay of the climate change denier camp that Grinch so bitterly clings to, your stock starts falling, Chazzy.

For more on icecap and other denier hoax/misinformation sites, here's a blog with a good take:

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/skeptics-contrarians-or-deniers/

Then again, I'm a tiny, vegetarian, tree hugging Native American.
Things are going to have to change (no pun intended.)
Global warming will affect many things in the next few years, including food security. All the denial in the world can't change the fact.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel