Is Global Warming Dead?

Short Run: (past 2 centuries): Earth is getting warmer
Long Run (4+ billion years) Earth is relatively cold. Used to be a lot warmer, will be much warmer again. Sorry Bahamas, back under water you go. Its called the Sun, its the most critical variable in the temperature equation and apparently it too fluctuates in how much energy it gives off. I wont connect the dots.
We pollute, poison, and destroy, and that is evil, I hope we can shake that trend. (the population explosion makes me a reluctant pessimist) but Im not sold on that we matter that much. We think ourselves too grand sometimes.
So stop looking at JUST the last 40 years when you google "earth temperature". Its absurd to leave out long run data and it certainly puts things in perspective. And maybe we can get back to discussing things that are actually relevant. Like dog poo on skin tracks.

There's too many of us all wanting the same thing and multiplying like a virus.
Population growth will soon become exponential.

Not so about population growth.  The rate of population growth is decreasing and at current trends total population will be 9.1 billion people in 2050, growing at a rate of 31 million people per year.  The 31 million sounds like a lot, but it is a considerable decrease from the current (absolute) growth rate of 79 million people per year, and suggests a plateau of less than 10 billion, before 2100. 

www.un.org/esa/population/publications/w...p2008_highlights.pdf

The problem is not more people as such, it is that more people want to consume more stuff ("more people wanting the same thing" above, I concur).  Economic growth in China and similar countries will have a far greater impact on the environment than world population growth.

"...connect the dots; more like put down the book and grab a beer!" -Family guy

Too many damn people, too much consumption, not enough responsibility. Yes, I'm sorry to say, but since it's been implied; we need a cataclysmic event to cleans the earth of the human-cancer. The Black Plague led to the Renaissance, one of the few times the world has actually experienced a balanced population and and a subsequent middle-class; sad but true. The more people, the cheaper the cost of labor, the more pollution, stress, disease...yada yada yada...

I just hope to get in as many turns as possbile before Yellow Stone and the Super Volcanoe blows up and wipes away the majority of the disease that is human existence. Yes indeed, we need a cleanse and you or I could be apart of the flush.

Observe the sounds of the world, be aware, be conscious, be conscientious, be responsible, and enjoy life.

Cheers

travertine is on the important thread. the issue is not global warming per se. the issue is co2 concentration. whether or not you are willing to stipulate that temp. increase is due to humans, i don't think anyone other than flat earthers are going to argue that co2 levels are unaffected by human activity. the co2 buffering in the ocean, once thought to be unchangeable, has gone to hell. coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine. if more people understood how co2 affects human cardio pulmonary function, the discussion would not be about glaciers. our biology is not set-up for even the current co2 levels, let alone what they are going to be.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/sci_climate_09_post_kyoto

"WASHINGTON – Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.

As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before."

...

And here's why: Since an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas pollution was signed in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, the level of carbon dioxide in the air has increased 6.5 percent

...

From 1997 to 2008, world carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased 31 percent; U.S. emissions of this greenhouse gas rose 3.7 percent. Emissions from China, now the biggest producer of this pollution, have more than doubled in that time period.

This probably doesn't help. Apparently some Brittish climate scientists' emails were hacked and some of them, or at least one (possibly from years ago) points to them making some of the graphs in such a way as to make things more dramatic.

Apparently a lot of anti-climate change folks are having a field day with it, although aren't they doing essentially the same thing by cherry picking their science exclusively from the 2-4% of climatologists that don't believe in global warming?

It's not good news in any case. I feel like the whole issue is slipping away...