An inconvenient truth.... or lie?

It is not at all clear to me that global warming is a result of man made carbon emissions. 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. It was pointed out earlier in this thread that greenhouse gases contribute about 33 degrees Celsius to the temperature of the Earth.

quote:

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from the book Heaven and Earth by Ian Plimer, professor of geology at University of Adelaide
The hypothesis that the global warming of the past century is man-made is based on the results of computer models in which the main drivers of climate are not adequately considered.

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If the computer models are not giving adequate consideration to the main drivers of climate why should we believe the results?

No. You are the one who is ridiculous. I never said I denied that global warming is possibly caused by anthropogenic emissions of carbon compounds, just that I don't think the evidence is strong enough. There are too many variables that haven't been taken into account in the computer climate models for them to accurately describe what is going on. Do people really care?Desertification, caused at least partially by overgrazing, has been going on for centuries. And people care? Both China and India have indicated that they are not likely to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And people care? The people who really care are those who stand to make big bucks from alternate or new technologies that will replace the present ones. Now perhaps that's not all bad since new technologies will have to be implemented some time in the future anyway.Edited by penstemo, : Added opinion about people caring.

The energy output of the sun (solar radiation) is known to be variable. I don't believe that has been taken into account in the computer models.Cloud cover is another variable that hasn't been taken into account.Climate change - Wikipedia Edited by penstemo, : Added cloud cover