MWB

While I was on the treadmill the other day I saw an episode of some lame-ass TV show featuring the world's richest women: Julia Roberts, who brings her own coffee cup everywhere, recycles her grocery bags, and drives a Prius, whisked her hubby away on a private jet for a surprise vacation, thereby negating the effects of every environmentally conscientious act she could perform in 100 lifetimes... As I've said before, it's too bad that this issue has taken on political overtones, and that good science has been associated with these hypocritical spokespeople, because many people have the same reaction as you, which is to belittle the issue as another reactionary liberal ploy for attention. Your theory of economic redistribution is completely unsupported by the facts: Poor nations don't contribute as much because they don't have as much industry, but the industries that they do have are gross polluters beyond any reasonable standard; if they were held to the standards that we already have in the US, their industry would collapse, because it costs a huge amount of money to convert processes to greener methods.

Many factors cause warming and cooling, and that there are cyclic changes is documented and indisputable. Orbital changes are responsible for the main 100,000 year cycle, and other factors contribute to cycles of shorter duration. Spontaneous events such as volcanic eruptions also contribute to even shorter spikes. The current spike in greenhouse gases and temperature is anomalous to all of these models of climate change; the reason we should be concerned is because of the rate of warming.

Scientists have obtained data regarding earth’s temperature and the composition of the atmosphere for the last 420,000 years using core samples taken in Antarctica (keyword: Vostok). Carbon dioxide, the number one greenhouse gas, has much more power to affect Earth's temperature than the orbital changes do. The core samples taken show that in the past 150 years, humankind has boosted carbon dioxide concentrations by 32 percent. Again, it the rate that is of concern; no natural cycle ever came close to raising CO2 32 percent in 150 years. Additionally the current carbon dioxide level of 377 ppm is not only 32% higher than it was 150 years ago, it is 25% higher than it has been at any time in the past 400,000 years*, which is far back as they can go with data from the ice core samples. That period spans four orbital cycles, which completely negates the theory that the current spike is part of the normal cycle. There is no model of natural climate change that can accommodate the recent rate of increase, and it is undeniable that it is a human-caused phenomenon (this is referred to as anthropogenic forcing). The fact that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases is man-made has also been empirically proven by isotopic analysis of the samples (man-made gases have specific isotopic signatures).

In summary, there is no doubt that anthropogenic forcing is responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases, and there is also vast amounts of evidence that greenhouse gases, specifically CO2, cause warming of earth's climate.

The vast majority of the scientific community agrees that we are undergoing a climate change of profoundly significant proportions, and that this change is due to man-mad gases created by industrialization. The current administration suppressed data that validated this assumption, and censored government scientists, forbidding them to make commentary or share findings with the press and public. A large portion of the vocal critics of global warming theory are funded by the petroleum lobbies, and many more are right-wing extremists that affiliate themselves with issues based on political agenda, rather than research and knowledge. Whose answers are you going to believe regarding questions about climatology, physics, and chemistry... scientists or politicians?

*I just found a new study of the ice core that confirmed the original study, and took the data back to 650,000 years:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/