Lets pull the causes of cancer into the light…..big oil big chemical….using thier product causes cancer just like cigarettes, they can be held liable

I implore you to have faith on both fronts brother. Good will overcome evil in all cases. And …. In a larger scope it is out of our hands. The best we can do is the best we can do. We can make people aware that radical Islamists are attempting to wipe out everyone else regardless of their peace and love beliefs. And we can improve our environment by healthy practices but we cannot stop evolution which will do as it will with the forces of nature in spite of our practices. In all cases we must stand up and fight for what we believe in for the sake of our children and our children’s children.

I hope your children and mine can enjoy both the freedoms that our forefathers have secured for us as well as the ability to enjoy a reasonable lifestyle. I’m not sure you have thought through your arguement.

I aske you to look through my earlier post, which you clearly did not and then form an opinion on the Global warming argement. I hope you do not have daughters, as if the Muslims have thier way, they will be wearing burquas and Hajibs. Mam, Have you ever worn a Burqua? I did - just to see what it was like. I was terrified. Surely, you would not want that fate for your children or grandchildren.

Wow - your logic is very interesting to say the least.

You say:”That linear type of thinking serves no one. There will always be a small group of determined bad guys trying to wreck havoc on those they despise. They may dream of ‘taking over the world’ but they don’t have the ability to achieve that aim. And they never will. ”

First and foremeost - I completely and utterly disagree with that. You obviously ignore the declining birth rate in Europe and the increasing immigration of muslims into Europe to fill the population gap. I disagee with you completely that this is a small group of bad guys. Why will not ONE imam, mosque or individual muslim publically and uncatagorically denounce terrorism against the west and the deaths of those on 9/11/2001? Please - tell me why SIR!

I’ll answer that for you sir - because you are flat wrong. The religon of love and peace is hell bent on destroying the very freedoms that allow us to have this discusion. Could we discuss this if we lived in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Cuba, etc? The answer is no. These demons will destroy this plant long before the this “Global Warming” will.

I implore you to look at ALL the data - not just that of Earth to determine what is really going on. Remember - Greenland was once Green! That was not a marketing trick or ploy to sell timeshares. It was a fact - a very long time before we had gas guzzling SUVs and cars.

It’s time to wake up people.

I provided that introduction to underscore my request to you, Mr. Schussler. Please, Mr. Schussler, use your writing talent to write on topics you thoroughly research, or in which you are a recognized expert, or quote recognized experts. I am impressed with your writing, but am bothered by your tendency to mix established facts with your opinions without differentiating the 2. As I said, I try to stay informed, and pieces that do not inform others, except to your own way of thinking, make the web a more and more difficult place from which to learn. Again, you have talent, please direct it at topics in which you are expert.

Lastly, even if the scientific consensus (and I do not use that term lightly) about global warming is wrong, the implementation of the scientific recommendations to combat global warming would still have a profoundly positive effect on the world by way of reducing pollution that makes people sick (e.g., asthma) and reduces our quality of life (e.g., loss of open spaces). Implementation of the recommendations to reduce global warming also would likely reduce the importance of the oil market, thereby reducing the bank accounts of those whom you fear. How is that for ironic synergy?

Sincerely,
Rachel Miller

That linear type of thinking serves no one. There will always be a small group of determined bad guys trying to wreck havoc on those they despise. They may dream of ‘taking over the world’ but they don’t have the ability to achieve that aim. And they never will.

That threat pales in comparison to the very real, looming threat of a planet with rapidly shrinking habitable land, loss of arable soil and potable water. 7 billion people can’t all live on a planet in the throes of the predicted models of Global Warming.

Ignoring that fact to focus solely on terrorism is illogical. Working to slow and possibly reverse the damage to the planet can be done while keeping vigilance against the anarchists who are fueled by their hate and their twisted faith.

Multitask, young man.

- Lee

The means of determining whether this notion of whether Global Warming is real or not is fairly easy to address in my mind. First of all, we have a relatively small amount of scientific data that really tells us what the climate record looks like beyond 150 years. Believe it or not - Parts of Greenland were in fact green when it was discovered. Surely, 1000 years ago, we did not have gas guzzling SUVs in heavy traffic belching out CO2 and CO into the atmosphere, yet, Greenland was green. Vikings grew surplus crops which were exported back to Scandinavia. There is archeological evidence that there were in fact farms (of certain plants that can adapt to the rocky soil) and even vineyards in the early days of Greenland. The name Greenland is not some ancient practical joke or sarcasm, it was in fact Green.

Turn to the 21st century. We have a fleet of spacecraft in orbit and on the surface of Mars. Every backyard astronomer has watched Mars for years. The polar caps - particularly the southern polar cap of Mars, are receding at an interesting rate - almost 10′ per Martian year. But there are no gas guzzling SUVs on Mars, just our solar powered, green friendly, rovers and probes.

So - what does this really mean? Does this along with unprecedented storms on Jupiter and Titan maybe indicate that there is something else going on here? Have we perhaps overlooked something else that may affect climate?

I suggest that everyone consider the large orange orb in the sky. We do not know very much about our Sun, let alone know how to predict something as complex as the reactions that occur within the Sun. I encourage everyone to look at: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/17jan_solcon.htm. While the data there is a few years old and admittedly, the data is inconclusive; it still provides a reasonable discussion regarding what is happening on our planet.

Finally - to David’s point. If we all kill each other over religious intolerance, Global warming is a non-issue. With nuclear enabled nations who decide to support repression and terror in the name of a specific religion which feels it is superior to other religions, there is little hope for the survival of the human race. Frankly, I am tired of the intolerance of my religion and culture, which my grandfathers, great grandfathers and their fathers before them fought so hard to secure. Why should I have to tolerate intolerance?

I have to agree with David though.

Matt Ashe
Tuolumne, CA

I believe you are quite mistaken — if our planet undergoes climate change as specified by the climatologists in Friday’s report — TERRORISM will be the moot point. When you write “An opinion shared by many, many other scientists,” I wish that the citation for this “fact” could be included. Personally, I think the majority of the scientific community is quite decided that global warming is no longer a debate, and that human activity is accelerating the process exponentially. I’m curious if you saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” or if you abstained from it, thinking it was alarmist because the problem is only “cyclical.”

The idea that this is one big scientific community conspiracy is what I find unrealistic. Science inherently has always been cautious, testing absolutely everything before they deem it fact, as skepticism must be first employed or we’d have theories all over the place being called “fact” before they were proven time and time again. The scientific method prevents this.

Global Warming’s forecast is based on monumental amounts of data being scrutinized by naturally doubtful and meticulous minds. Fighting terrorism is important, but what I find most unbelievable about the position that terrorism is MORE important is that it proves we only care about ourselves in the now. People have been killed over land, religion, power, money, in wars for centuries, and I believe your fear of terrorism comes from a primal fear of death. I don’t want to die either, Mr. Schussler, but I’d rather die at the hands of the terrorists in my own home than have the weight of humanity’s and the world’s demise on my conscience. On the one hand there is my own life, in the other civilization, and our responsibility to ensure our decedents’ future at all.

Let’s say the terrorists win their battle and everyone must convert to their religious beliefs — I am more sure that some future person would stand up to a dominate society and cause a revolution movement than I am that we would live through the consequences of such global warming-caused predictions.

We can fight both. We need to get off foreign oil, oil that is FUNDING the terrorists. We do that by fixing our energy crisis, by converting to green, recyclable energies. This in turn creates jobs, is more affordable long term, utilizes renewable resources, keeps our planet clean and our money out of foreign oil owners’ pockets. This to me, seems a no-brainer, and I have no idea other than laziness, procrastination, and fear of a larger change to a progressive society why we haven’t already begun the process.

I understand your point, but you must realize you can’t have a problem with your engine unless you have a car. Fighting terrorism is important, but we - humanity - has recovered from wars before. How do you suppose we recover from consequences to our home planet caused by our own inaction?

A Concerned U.S. Citizen,
Gene Demara

It is so sad that we can’t get a better read on so called ‘reality’ but surely we can be logical and realise that negative fear and loathing are common tools of nations to promote patrioticism and unity where good solid positive projects simply lack the stimulating adrenalin that mobilizes the more profitable economy of oil and guns instead of roses.

Global warming is today’s “we need to build bomb shelters” fear factor that keeps most of us from focusing on all the millions of people and children who are in much more immediate and dire need of our attention.

I fundamentally agree with David’s skepticism re: global warming, after all, an Ice Age is about 10,000 years overdue on this planet and our global warming may be all that is holding us back from a far worse plunge into frigidity… with snow here on the west coast and down in California this winter… it is pretty hard to sell global warming as a constant. It may be a noticeably changing variable at this time but the planet is in constant flux and it is hard to imagine ‘ant trails’ of cars over the massive landscape of our planet being a major force behind global climate change. Contributing factors perhaps but look at plants thriving like crazy next to roadbeds loving the CO2 as they do, we need more jungles not less.I am not going to say it is nothing, but I will say that it is hard to escape the fact that as a thing is viewed, so it appears which is very unscientific science.Watch for the media news stations to make yet another hit “series” out of this, until ratings drop and something else comes along. Ever since they spun the hit series “OJ on Trial” and “Iraq War I” and “Racism caught on Tape” and “9/11″ and “Iraq War II” ad naseum… they have not been reporting substantive news anymore but rather their own creative journalism, in serialization.

BBC News is probably the only cool-headed news station left, but I am immediately suspicious of buying anything that is over-sold and Fox News and CNN and 24 are so Neadrathal and sensational in their approach that this Global Warming story will become the next ‘unpatriotic’ thing to argue against.