An inconvenient truth.... or lie?

First, I have to applaud you for your optimism. Especially when I didn't think geology and climatology was in your realm of expertise.

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A little more warming won't be too much of a problem. It would actually help most of the industrialized northern hemisphere.

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I am curious where you get your information? That 'a little more warming' won't be to much of a problem is a little vague, don't you think? What amount of warming would NOT create hardships for the vast majority of species on this planet in your scenario('s)? Does your climate model 'predict' that the northern hemisphere's climate zones would just expand without any shifting or changes in rainfall patterns that would possibly be detrimental to our current use of farmland? If climate zones shift northward, would we expect there to be any 'productivity' impacts, due to the geologically 'recent' retreat of the laurentide and cordilleran ice sheets? What impact did the glaciers have on soils in the northern hemisphere? Can we expect that the short daylight periods will have an impact as we shift our agriculture northward?

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The research has been hijacked by zealots out to confirm their chosen beliefs, as these recent hacks have shown.

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Rather than me defending these 'zealots', as you call them, I'd think you would be more amenable to taking the time to actually reading what the e-mails were referring to and understanding the context.

ummm....no we do not all agree. If you'd like to read about climate issues and even how the media handles them, written by scientists doing climate research, take a gander at the link below. They even take the time to answer questions posted at the blog as often as they can. Here is a good primer on THAT particular 'controversy'.

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greenhouse gas who has the biggest effect right now is water vapor. But it is so complicated to simulate in models that we aren't able to do it yet, and so the biggest factor wasn't even taken into account by the GIEC. Yet they published that there was a 90% probability that anthropogenic factors were responsible.

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All climate models, that I know of, do take water vapor into account as it is an important greenhouse gas. The issue you are misunderstanding about water vapor in the atmoshere is that it is a 'feedback', NOT a 'forcing'.CO2 has a much longer 'residency' (100's of years) in the atmosphere than H2O (about a week and a half). As the atmosphere warms up it is able to hold more water which will increase the trapping of the long-wave radiation, the 'water vapor feedback'. As the atmosphere cools, the amount of water vapor resident in the atmosphere drops, and vice versa. Therefor, because of CO2's longer residency, it is a strong forcing mechanism.And let's not forget that the Earth's 'natural' greenhouse effect is roughly 33 degree's C anyways. So, even IF humans only contributed 2% of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the impact would be about 0.7 degrees C, which is not a negligable amount.

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Coyote mentioned the warm period during the Middle Ages, but there have been many times where the temperatures have been much higher along with much much higher CO2 concentrations then we see today.

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You, and possibly Coyote, are confusing 'regional' with 'global' temperature variations. The Medieval Warm Period was a regional temperature variation. Also there are a number or peer-reviewed studies that the late 20th century warming has exceeded the 'peak' of the warming during the MWP. This magnitude of warming in the late 20th century is what is truly anamolous, see Mann et al (1998, 1999).

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For 90% of the time from the Cambrian to now the average earth's temperature was about 72 degrees F, it is presently 58 degrees F.

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The only other time from the Cambrian to now that the temperature and CO2 content was as low as it is today was during the glacial and interglacial periods of the Pennsylvanian and Permian.

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As I am sure you know, data on the Earth’s temperatures before the 1850’s or so, has relied on proxy data and is really just an estimate. It is true that Earth has had warm periods and has had cold periods as well, some of which the factors causing or creating these conditions are understood, but definitely not all. The ‘warmest’ period was about 55 million years ago during the PETM. The cause of which is believed to have been a massive release of CO2 or methane either by methane clathrates or a massive volcanic eruption which ignited the surrounding coal deposits. It is also a fact that the Earth has cooled off since then, and we have oscillated between glacial and interglacial periods for almost 2 million years. I don’t believe any scientist is positing that these were caused by something other than natural variation in the Earth’s climate, and that natural variation will always have some impact on our climate.What is also clear is that we shouldn’t dismiss the current temperature trends as natural just because the Earth has experienced warm or warmer global temperatures in the past. If we look at all the different factors, we can be reasonably sure that the ‘recent’ rise in greenhouse gases can be attributed to man’s impact on the environment. Unless we are willing to throw out what we know of the physics of CO2 and methane and the hosts of greenhouse gases and their ability to warm up the atmosphere, then we should be reasonably persuaded that our impact is not negligible and unless we change our behavior we can expect to have to deal with a rising sea-level and painful (from a species viewpoint) changes to our climate.

A lot of the complaints I hear about climatologists, are eerily similar to those spouted off about biologists and evolution. I think part of the problem is not really the accessibility of the climate data, because, you can, with a little research find lots of data and research on the subject if your willing to take the time. There are reputable sites out there by scientists who actually work in the field and who provide links and information for the layperson. What many in the public find is that it is much easier to read the opinions of others who, may or may not, have any expertise in the field, especially if that opinion is one that they 'trust'. It usually takes hard work, time, and a moderate amount of education to understand the issues involved, but getting a good understanding of the issues isn't totally inaccessible. There are many good places to start. I know of one science blog who's resident scientist posted videos of his undergrad class lectures for free. Try here for some good primers and the undergrad lectures. They also recommend that people actually read (imagine that) the IPCC report.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Added the "http://" part to the URL. Link still didn't work.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : OK - removed the "www." part - Works now.

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The hide the decline part could mean anything.

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The decline that they are discussing is the 'anamolous' tree ring data which, after about the 1960's was showing ring spacing that would indicate cooler temperatures, even though this didn't match up with the other ground temperature readings.You can read a nice, relatively short non-technical explanation here.

I see that Taz has replied and answered the rest of your post, so I will just point out this quick little tidbit.

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Just because there is a correlation between global temperature increase and an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases does not mean that the latter is necessarily the cause of the former.
Hopefully, everyone here realizes that life on our planet would not exist as we know it without greenhouse gases.

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We know that CO2 is a grenhouse gas. We know that it is a natural part of our atmosphere and provides the earth with the ability to have liquid water, etc. Nobody is saying CO2 ISN'T natural. The point being made, and which has many folks alarmed is that: CO2 or CH4 are known to be greenhouse gases and we have put a vast amount of CO2/CH4, and so on, into the atmosphere, and thus, we have most likely created conditions on this planet which have, and will, raise temperatures above what would have taken place naturally, barring some calamitous event.