Weather Channel founder calls Global Warming "a scam."

I'm coming into this from an 'agnostic' perspective. My understanding is that due to a number of observations and measurements we conclude that the global temperature is rising. My question is: do we have evidence that such conditions have occurred in the past and, if yes, wouldn't that contradict the theory that human-produced emissions are responsible?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Do we know the extent to which human-produced emissions are responsible for the warming? If the extent is minimal, then what we do won't really make a difference.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Do we know which conditions caused warming periods in the past and that they're not present today? I see your point. Have we identified all potential causes of warming so that we can definitely tell that the cause this time is different?So, in your example above, if we detect extreme heat in the house it would make sense to first check that the furnace is off before we can conclude that there's a fire in the house. Have we checked that all other potential causes of global warming are actually 'off' ? Do we know what they are?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Ok, thanks for the info. One last thing: how do we know that the Earth is indeed warming up? I'd imagine that natural temperature variation occur periodically and that we haven't got enough historical data to determine what the natural deviation is, i.e. if current conditions are abnormally warm ?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

But politicians, at least in Britain, are all too happy to use Global Warming as the perfect excuse to raise more taxes!

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

If that's the case, shouldn't we investigate that whatever caused the rise in the past isn't responsible for causing at least some of it today? Or can we definitely tell it was due to solar activity ? But that's what I'm trying to figure out: if the current warming is happening largely due to non-human factors then the catastrophe will happen regardless. A lot of people will have made a lot of sacrifices for nothing.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

You'd better not come to live in Britain then.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Because if you know a phenomenon has occurred before, then it makes sense to establish whether its current occurrence has the same cause ?I'm a software developer by trade. I often find bugs in the software that have occurred before. However, the cause of the bugs is sometimes varied and complex. The first thing I do when a known bug (symptom) is reported, is to investigate whether the conditions that caused this symptom before are present in the current release, before I go formulating hypotheses about new flaws in the current release. It makes a lot of sense and saves me a lot of unnecessary stress and extra work. I can't understand why the same methodology shouldn't apply to climate science. I'm not saying that it wouldn't or shouldn't. I'm just asking whether we've examined all probable causes before deciding on the obvious one. That depends on the cause of the warming. If it's outside our control then we can't do anything about it. Why doesn't this follow ? I'm not jumping to conclusions, all I've done so far is ask questions. Like I said, my current position on this is 'agnostic'. Yes, I'm a bit put out by the 'greener-than-thou' brigade and the cynical opportunism of our politicians but that doesn't mean I'm led by climate deniers.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

That's what I'm trying to ascertain. Do we know how much of the current warming is because of the things we do? Is this warming even abnormal or is it something that would have happened regardless of our activities? Like you'll often find me saying in the Bibical threads, predictions must be specific, measurable and time-bound. I'm sorry but "global warming will cause some extreme weather" doesn't quite cut it for me. Are there any specific predictions that have been verified so far?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

quote:

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Like you'll often find me saying in the Bibical threads, predictions must be specific, measurable and time-bound. I'm sorry but "global warming will cause some extreme weather" doesn't quite cut it for me. Are there any specific predictions that have been verified so far?

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Taz writes:

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Like the loss of some of the world's largest and oldest glaciers? How about the fact that our air is filled with more pollens than ever before, causing a lot of misery for people like me who have seasonal allergies?

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jar writes:

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Yes, the permafrost is disappearing, glaciers receding, sea level rising, weather patterns changing, animal ranges moving; the list goes on and on.

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But permafrost, glaciers, allergens and animal ranges have been regularly fluctuating for hundreds of thousands of years.I don't think you read the question. Are there any *specific* predictions that have been verified so far ? Edited by Legend, : No reason given.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Taz & jar instead present regularly occurring phenomena that have been happening even long before mankind appeared on earth.Guys, maybe we should take this to the Biblical Prophecy thread. It seems to me that's where this is heading."...there will be wars and rumours of war..". Yeah, right.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Ok H, thanks, that was certainly useful.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"