Logisti,

Good post. I was just teasing in the post that started this, by the way. It's a shame that this issue has become so politicized, that whatever proof either side has for or against is lost in the shuffle it seems. Everyone has an agenda on this, from politicians to scientists to companies, etc., and it's hard to find unbiased info from anyone. The only "green" that has come from this seems to be the green in many people's wallets.

Somewhat hilariously to your point, there is an up and coming specialty for lawyers across the US: Green Law.

On the one hand, it might be annoying to think that the moment a company decides to do something environmentally conscious (like install plumbing and other systems to recycle the gray-water in their office building) they need to hire a lawyer to cover their arse — but on the other side of the coin it means that these environmental efforts are being treated seriously (and often properly) by the legal system and, for instance, companies that write the insurance policies for office buildings.

A lot of business people have become environmentally-minded and a lot of environmentally-minded people have come up with some very intriguing business ideas. One of the most interesting I've seen is vertical farming. If you have a sky-scraper in the middle of Chicago where each floor is essentially a greenhouse it would be a lot more expensive to grow the food but your shipping costs drop to nothing.

Profit is a great incentive and the more people see ways to be environmentally conscious AND profitable, the faster we'll move in that direction. Right now the largest obstacles to effectively combating climate change are China and India — because they can't really afford to be environmentally conscious.

But if U.S. companies are successful in creating solar panels that produce cheaper electricity per kilowatt/hour than fossil fuels, those countries will be financially motivated to stop using the more expensive source of energy, U.S. companies will rake in $$, and everyone will be happy.

Of course, that's an idealistic vision and realistically it's an imperfect world, but the idea is a valid one: environmentalism and corporations are not enemies, and when they work together it can be a really good thing.

Amen to that. Aside from the environmental concerns, we have to wake up to the fact that the Earth's oil supply isn't infinite. We are going to have to find alternative energy sources because the ones on which we now rely are not going to last forever, and are beciming increasingly more costly to access.

So maybe GH's can start working on tapping the ectoplasmic residue as an alternative energy source. Somebody slime me!

I'm holding out for a ZPM

First, I would like to complement you on your choice of topic because Global Warming is a hilarious issue of debate because it is perpetuated by non-scientists who, due to its terminology, don’t even know how it works. The warming of the Earth caused by Human activities, such as the burning of coal and oil, is widely viewed as having a uniform impact (primarily because of how it is termed), when in reality, the greenhouse effect of increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is not evenly distributed.

The reason for this is because humid areas are impacted to a higher degree than areas with dryer climates. The underlying cause is directly related to the extent to which an area is already affected by greenhouse gasses. The distinction between humid and dry areas relevant to their susceptibility to increased carbon dioxide is the amount of water vapor naturally present.

When more carbon dioxide is introduced to a tropical area, for example, where water vapor is already having a greenhouse effect, its introduction will have a less severe impact than compared to an area that contains less naturally occurring greenhouse gasses. Thus, carbon dioxide will have a greater impact in dryer areas. And air is usually dry only where it is cold; the coldest and driest air being at the poles.

The question of whether human activity is the culprit is up for debate. Though I personally believe it to be, I respect those who disagree (where would Science be if no one ever questioned popular belief?). In any case, the warming is real; although, I hold it to be grossly exaggerated (who doesn’t like drastic global disasters?) and less of a threat than other global situations we face today like starvation and infectious disease. The money spent on combating Global Warming could be put to better use.

It's interesting that you mention infectious diseases as a serious issue, many scientists actually link the two. Every year they test mosquitos randomly in the US for West Nile virus and this year they found it two months earlier in the season than ever before, and in more widespread areas. A causal link to rising average temperatures has been suggested.

Similarly, many doctors are concerned about increases in southern-US cases of more serious diseases normally only found in tropical climates.

I would argue that climate change on a global scale will have (and to some extent we can see this happening already) a far-reaching impact on so many different things that we may not initially realize how many problems are caused or exacerbated by the rising temperatures.

Just one example off the top of my head: Apparently for every 1 degree rise in average temperature there is a roughly 10% increase in electrical storm activity (i.e. more lightning), which has been linked to many of the fires burning in California and elsewhere.

Ultimately, I think the solution isn't that difficult or expensive to tackle: renewable energy sources that don't release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere have been in development for decades and are becoming commercially viable and (thanks to the coincidence of the rising cost of fossil fuels) they are quickly becoming cheaper than the traditional energy sources.

Cheaper is the key, because everyone needs energy and the cheaper, the better. With cheap, efficient solar panels and wind turbines (and other energy sources like tidal and geothermal) adopted by the world-at-large (and especially India and China, who need more energy than anyone else, as cheaply as possible) we may be able to tackle the issue of fossil fuels in our lifetimes and we may even be around to find out if the conversion to renewables has a long-term impact on the warming trend — settling that debate too

Place your bets! (j/k)

I am not saying that warming isn't causing problems; when you heat up the planet, bad things happen. What I am saying is that these problems are exaggerated. Obviously we should be trying to figure it out, but there are a lot more pressing issues that deserve our attention: especially the attention of government.

I'd like to chime in here. On another board I belong to, the admin is totally convinced that global warming is a plot perpetrated in order to benefit certain groups, both financially and also to assume control over Nations and people.

Now, that doesn't make sense to me. IF anyone wanted to manipulate people, wouldn't it be just the opposite? Wouldn't they CREATE a global warming scare (IF warming were not true)? The ramifications of that would give them greater power then the opposite view.

The admin of that board will not budge in his view that global warming is a plot. And of course, he is not the only one. He and others call people like myself who absolutely believe in climate change "radical environmentalists".

Perhaps I can give some perspective from a personal level. When I was child (don't ask how long ago that was–a woman doesn't tell!), I can remember that when my parents threw a birthday party for me in November, everyone who attended came in their heavy winter coats. Now, for the last several years I've noticed that sometimes just a sweater or so is enough. A small point, but one that I've definitely made note of.

Storms–much more violent, more windy, rainy and destructive. More solitary occurrences. Our old barn is literally being destroyed by the weather conditions of the last several years. The days of gentle rain seems to be in the past. Now weather systems hit with a real vengeance, with power outages, property damage and the like increasing at a much higher rate then before.

The melting at both ice caps has already been discussed here. Polar bears are on the road to facing extinction. In another area, the insect populations are thriving. Just last evening, I was watching a dragonfly swarm, something I had never seen before. My mind went back to the Permian, when these insects were huge and dominated much of the landscape. The vegetation is extremely heavier the last decade. With the added storms and increased humidity, I joked to my husband that I expected to see one of the Jurassic dinos poking its head out of the brush!

All joking aside, I've been on this earth long enough to have personally noticed a huge difference–and a rapid one at that. Too fast for species to adapt. Climate change on the earth is nothing new; but IMO we have pushed it along at a very rapid pace.

Dissenters point to big blizzards as proof global warming is non-existent. But the point to remember is that it is not a straight line. Like an organism that has caught a bad flu, there will be violent swings of temperature and weather from one spectrum to the other, much like a fever can spike from very high to low to high again. It's like the earth itself is sick.

One last note: on the weather page I keep on my PC, I've been watching the temperature in St. Petersburg, Russia. Very high up on the globe, it is known for its very long and extremely frigid winters. I know its only one year, but the temps in that city only once reached -18 and never went lower then that. In fact, it must have ranked as one of their mildest winters in history. Just one city and one year, but to me it symbolizes something unusual occurring.

Yeah, folks are definitely getting conflicting stories on global warming because of people on both sides of the issue who are either cherry-picking or misinterpreting their data. The simplest breakdown of reality seems to be this:

1) Global Temperatures ARE rising on average, causing (among other things) melting icecaps and rising sea levels.

2) The grim forecast offered by "radical" environmentalists is probably overblown by a considerable amount — in other words, the changes are not likely to be so rapid or dire as they would have you believe.

3) The extent of human effect on the problem (and our potentially to effect a solution) is somewhat of an open question, however it's a bit of a dead issue also because even if we're not the primary source of greenhouse gases, a reduction on our part could still have a significant impact.

Of course I'll be happy to debate and go over the evidence with anyone who does not believe global warming is happening.

Logisti,

I am going to have to disagree with you. The amount of hardware needed to get enough energy from renewable sources like the sun, wind, and waves to make an impact would be devastating. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, is available, cost effective, safe, and it produces considerably less waste than current methods of producing electricity. Considering this, it is hard to believe that 70% of the United State's energy comes from burning coal. Individually, we can and should do our part by utilizing these renewables, but these technologies are just not efficient enough on a large scale (the scale at which our government should be acting). Unfortunately, until recently, nuclear energy has been demonized; it seems tearing down rain forests to make room for corn fields, NOT for food, but for ethanol was a more accepted way to solve our energy problem.

Are you referring to nuclear fusion?

For many years I too thought that nuclear power was the way to go. However, I'm sure that there is something better and safer.

What changed my mind–occasionally I have had to travel to Salem County in NJ, site of a nuclear plant. It has had a spotty history.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2005/2005-06-08-02.asp

Also unsettling are the big signs throughout the countryside regarding what to do if the warning siren at the facility goes off. Doesn't inspire confidence.

Chernobyl was due more to bad human judgment then anything else. But the results were devastating. Therein lies the real danger in these plants: even one mishap can spell widespread doom, even thousands of miles away.

The new technology involving coal and an emissions capture system shows promise. At any rate, the best scientific minds are working on the problems of energy production. I'm still hesitant to support nuclear energy. It's just too scary.

You should read up on the improvements made to these facilities; the likelihood of incidents like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happening again is EXTREMELY remote. With every new technology, there are glitches - some worse than others - but, we should not shy away from it just because mistakes were made. How many people died before space travel was accepted? Necessary losses? Absolutely. The events of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were unfortunate, but we have learned from our mistakes and have made the necessary improvements to security and safety to the point that those incidents are no longer relevant to the case against nuclear power plants.

I want to feel as you do, and as I stated, years ago my feelings were that nuclear power plants were the way to go.

You make some good points about casualties in space travel, and I guess we can add many more to that list, including aircraft flight. But these involved a relatively small number of people affected. Chernobyl showed us how devastating an incident can be.

A lot of people do share your confidence, though. Home prices in the area around the Salem County facility are still quite high. Apparently a lot of people think the risk of living nearby is worth it. And they are happy with the jobs that have resulted from the power plant being there.

Guess it comes down to: how much of a risk are we willing to take? Right now, I'm not quite ready for it. But I do agree that IF they can be made virtually failsafe-a condition necessary given the horrendous outcome of a major slip up-they would definitely be the way to go.

And, no, I am speaking of nuclear fission plants. Though I do believe, given the advantages of nuclear fusion plants over nuclear fission plants, that we should be researching and experimenting with this technology.

I'll go on record and say that I think E85 is at best a terrible idea and at worst thinly-veiled gimmick where the government is creating an artificial demand for a commercial product. The ethanol requirement for gasoline has a bit more plausibility to it, but ultimately I think that's a bad idea too.

There was a running joke about scarf factories in the USSR. Because there was no free market system factories made whatever the government told them to make, and inevitably the government could never know what products were needed and so over-manufactured some while many items commonplace elsewhere in the world because treasured status symbols.

I understand farmers are part of the foundation of this country, but government subsidies and mandates can only go so far before they become a detriment to the system, rather than a helping hand. Some people surely benefit, but everyone has to live with higher gas prices (because of the 10% ethanol required to be in every gallon of gas) and higher food prices (because of the shortage of corn that can be used to feed livestock, turn into corn syrup, etc).

Putting the corn farmers aside for a moment, the other side of this is the environment. Theoretically, burning an ethanol gasoline mixture is cleaner than burning pure gasoline, however in practice the corn in question required a process involving large amounts of energy — usually in the form of burning coal, oil or other fossil fuels — in order to turn it into ethanol in the first place. It should be abundantly clear to everyone that even if "ethanol" is environmentally friendly, the fossil fuels we burn to create it negate that benefit and make the entire effort environmentally negligible.

Biodiesel, on the other hand, I think is a more reasonable option. Corn Biodiesel is inefficient (land needed per barrel of oil) and even Soy Biodiesel isn't that great but some folks are developing Algae Biodiesel that looks pretty promising because it takes up very little land to make a lot of oil, and the land doesn't even have to be good farmland — although there is an additional investment needed for the algae tanks.

Biodiesel isn't perfect but because the carbon that is burning comes out of the environment as the plants grow, the idea is that these fuels are "carbon neutral" — meaning they only give off as much CO2 as the next batch of plants remove from the air as they're growing.

Nuclear, I like — I mentioned as much in the article up-top, but it's a complex subject perhaps worthy of its own post… which I have just written, and you can read it here!

There was a recent study of a plant's ability to absorb CO2 from the environment. Basically, a plant can get "full" and lose its ability to absorb CO2. As a result, the plant absorbs less water from the ground which, in turn, has caused a rise in river levels where plant life, especially trees, are abundant. Any fuel that produces CO2 as bi-product is a bad idea because it is quite apparent that we have too much CO2 and not enough plant life. I support hydrogen fuel and nuclear energy.

Have to look into info on biodiesel–sounds interesting. Logisti is right in that ethanol is not a good choice. I can remember way back when there where pics of gas stations with big corn cobs posing as pumps!

Nuclear fusion seems to hold more promise then nuclear fission.

We have reached this point where it is becoming necessary to step up our efforts to find a source of clean energy. Just saw a special on Nicola Tesla who had an opinion on the use of finite sources of energy–that it is foolish to depend on something we know is going to run out, probably sooner then later. I think some of us have thought about this from time to time, esp. as our society has become ever more dependent on oil and all its attendant products, in particular.

Now we are scrambling and at least making strides in the right directions. If nothing else, global warming has caused scientists to think ever more creatively, which is definitely a good thing.

Uninterested sources. Stay away from the 'science' and look for things unrelated.

Here's what I mean–

Rising Sea Levels. Besides the pro/con global warming people there are others for whom sea levels are really important–not because of any scientific reason, but because it's their job to know. Harbormasters.

Harbormasters have to know the level of the harbors they control. Too shallow and ships run aground. Too deep and docks are unusable.

Their records say something very clearly about rising sea levels.

Melting Ice

The edges of the icecaps are good places to fish for crab. Fishermen also have data regarding the icecaps that is easily checked.

There are even people who study how ice flows. They've got an interesting take on the Antarctic ice cap.

Polar Bear Extinction

There are people more concerned with zoology than climatology. Their polar bear counts might surprise you.

Baby_yosh, plants don't 'absorb' carbon dioxide. They breathe it. They inhale CO2 and exhale O2 using the carbon as a nutrient(fixing it within themselves).

I believe in global climate change. It is part of the ecosystem. The global climate has altered greatly during the course of human existence–from the warm climate we began our evolution in thru the Ice Age, where our intelligence was honed. At no time has there been an 'ideal' global temperature.

And there isn't now.

The very idea that we should stop this massive ecosystem from going through the cycles it has gone through since before we were–without any consideration of the consequences of such an action is insane.

Jack, as you said yourself, there are clear historical records we can draw from — well, we can see from the ice-core samples in Greenland and elsewhere that we are currently living in higher average temperatures and higher CO2 levels than ever existed going back through a number of hot/cold cycles (ice ages) — so this has no precedent to be described as part of a "cycle".

And this has been largely attributed to the constant and still growing use of fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial revolution. One could point to the last couple of centuries and say we've ALREADY been conducting a massive experiment and interrupting the normal cycles of the planet — and the eventual end of that experiment (by slowly switching to alternative fuels) is the only goal reasonable environmentalists have in mind.

Um, no, Logisti, just no.

Ice core samples in Greenland tell use that Greenland was once much hotter than it is today. Hell, the NAME of the place tells you that it was once much hotter within human history.

The records I was referring to are UNRELATED records. You can find records of sea levels, ice cap size, polar bear populations from sources that are UNRELATED to global warming pro/con activism.

Those sources paint a very different picture.

There have been fewer than 150 90+ degree days at O'Hare in the last decade. Unrelated. However, activists who want us to do something about AGW/CC have come out recently and announced that we have actually been cooling for the past ten years and will probably do so for about ten more–and they don't know why.

There is no clear evidence what's going on or why–but there are plenty of people proposing 'solutions'.

Just look at humans in general–we are designed for a much warmer environment.

Again, I don't deny that the climate changes–it's supposed to. And, like it or not WE are a part of that. Whatever we do is natural.

I, too, have a 'solution'–we need a helluva lot more research before we start implementing processes whose outcomes are affected by way too many variables to know what will happen.

Take one simple thing–what happens when we start removing CO2 from the air? How will that affect the plants that provide us oxygen? Will we be able to control the effects of the removal–or will we get a cascade effect? The Earth did exist for a long time–longer than our form of life has been around–without so much free oxygen.

The bottom line is that there are people who study this, who analyze the data day-in and day-out, with advanced degrees from places filled with the best-educated people on the planet, and about 99% have come to the same conclusion about the reality of global warming and how the use of fossil fuels is largely to blame.

I think it's reasonable to assume they have more than a pretty good chance of being right - especially as compared to many doubters who see this as a political issue.

First and foremost, we KNOW that we started dumping extra CO2 into the atmosphere at the beginning of the industrial revolution, that we're STILL doing it, and that this additional CO2 isn't part of any "cycle". Therefore, it's patently absurd to suggest if we reduce our own use of fossil fuels (and therefore reduce our CO2 emissions) it might have some negative effect on plants.

Secondly, if the plants were using it, they would have taken it out of the atmosphere and used it already. The very fact that the CO2 levels are so high is a strong indicator they are NOT using it. This is in part due to humans killing off lots of plants, but it's mainly because there's just way more CO2 than the existing plants could ever need.

Thirdly, parts of southern Greenland are still very green in the summer, but if you're assuming they called it Greenland because it was green then I'm afraid you're at odds with most studied anthropologists and historians. There are many anecdotes passed down through generations and records about why it was called Greenland and although they're all different they basically all agree it was in order to mislead people into thinking it was a really great place to live (when it was, in fact, not). Also worth noting: "Iceland" has always been much, much, greener than "Greenland". There are theories that the names of both locations were deliberate misdirection by the vikings.

Now, back to the ice core samples, the numbers I've seen start off with a study from 2001 that concluded the CO2 was at its highest level in 420,000 years followed by a more recent study saying it was more like 650,000 years and the most recent study putting the figure closer to 800,000 years.

I know that they are able to make these conclusions based on knowing the rate at which the ice formed (deeper=older) and by measuring actual bubbles of air trapped in the ice, but as for the actual nitty-gritty of it for all I know there may be some flaw in their method of testing or even in their method of dating the ice. I have no problem acknowledging the conclusions may or may not be accurate, but those ARE the conclusions scientists reached after studying ice cores from Greenland.

Logisti, excellent post. You covered many points I was just going to make. But I'd like to add some thoughts as well.

The evidence is too overwhelmingly. Climate change IS part of this planet's cycle, but as you point out, it was the industrial revolution that began all this. To people from the early 1800s on, all those clouds of CO2 just seemed to drift up in the air and disappeared. Why be concerned? No one was paying much attention, even though cities such as London were enveloped in perpetual fog where the light from street lamps looked murky even in the daytime.

Evidence is overwhelming on the ground. Years ago, before it seemed anyone was paying attention, I was reading where some of the most beautiful statues in Europe, i.e., Roman sculptures, are being eroded away by pollutants. Asthma is one the rise, and there is a disturbing jump in autism, although there is some question why the latter is increasing. But it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't tied in somehow.

The work of Nicola Tesla is once again being taken seriously. He insisted time and again that there were ways to harness the sun's energy that would provide enough for the entire planet and cost almost nothing, and without pollutin of any kind. Perhaps this was the reason why he was villified. There are a lot of people who have a stake in making tons of money off of energy production, esp. in its present forms.

For those on the fence about this, what is the harm in ridding our planet of such excessive amounts of CO2? There are many benefits, even down to the fact that it would be much more pleasant just to drive a "clean" car. All living creatures, including our children, would breathe more oxygenated air, the way our lungs have evolved to do. We have been a polluting, throw-away society for way too long.

Imagine being able to see the stars at night more clearly then ever before, the way the ancients saw them, or to look into the distance and not see the haze that covers most of our cities.

Lastly, the only ones who would have a gripe about this is Saudi Arabia and others of our so called "friends". They're going to have to look for another way to boost their economy. There's not a big market for egg timers
(sorry, couldn't resist).

You are aware that the hottest year on record was 1934? And that 5 of the 10 hottest years occured prior to WW2?

And I know you're aware that during the seventies we were warned of an impending ice age–another situation in which the consensus of scientists agreed.

And you MUST be aware that the 'solutions' put forth for both global warming and the impending ice age are eerily similar.

Regarding my point of looking for unrelated sources. Clearly you're now understanding me. The climatologists studying ice cores for proof of AGW have a vested interest in a specific result–just as energy companies do.

But harbormasters, fishermen and zoologists have different interests. And when their records are looked at they say something different.

Harbormasters–who are VERY concerned with sea levels–are not recording higher levels

Fishermen are noting that the sea icepack is further south than they've ever seen it.

Zoologists who study polar bears as part of arctic animal populations are noting increases in population(which, if GW is to be believed, makes sense. Warmer seasons mean more plants, more plants mean more animals feeding on those plants, more animals means more meat for the polar bears–a FALLING population would suggest that it's HARDER for them to find food–and we know that polar bears suffer in extremely cold weather–because it hurts their prey).

Unrelated sources. People who aren't thinking in terms of 'climate change' one way or another.

There are other things that bother me–the computer models used to model global climate cannot accurately predict historical weather. Get that? We put in the information we have for conditions prior to a year, say 1990, and the computer model cannot give us the weather that we know happened in 1990. That raises questions–is the model flawed? is our data flawed? is there a variable that we need but don't know about?

Like a lot of people who get tossed in the 'denier' column, I neither affirm or deny–I simply want more research before we commit ourselves to a course of action.

Logisti, you insist this can't be part of a cycle–really? How big is the cycle exactly? 100 years, 1000 years? 1,000,000 years? This planet goes through cycles in all those ranges–our existence is less than an eyeblink in planetological time–and we've he sun and it's cycles to factor in as well.

We just don't know enough to go jumping into things.

Oubliette, I want clean plentiful energy as much as anyone–perhaps more than some, but that doesn't mean that I should hobble myself in my quest for that by not using the energy sources we have now to help me get to the energy sources of tomorrow.

I fully believe we'll get that clean, cheap energy source–and I'd put money on the breakthrough coming from people in the energy industry–they've got the most to lose–and the most to gain(as well as the cash to invest).

But I've gotta say that we'll never see the stars as our ancestors saw them–we generate too much light. We'll see the stars BETTER than they saw them–from outside the atmosphere.

Wow Jack, I wasn't aware that plants had a respiratory system.

Jack, no I apparently completely misunderstood your remark about harbormasters and fishermen. A search for "harbormaster" and "rising sea level" shows me no evidence of records contradicting climatologists — in fact, there is a group of harbormasters in MA who are organizing to raise awareness about sea levels that have already started rising and I found one harbormaster who says the rising sea levels are great for him because it means he has to dredge his channels less. So basically, I don't know where you're getting your information.

As for fishermen, I've also seen the opposite of what you're claiming and in either case I don't consider fishermen's records on ice caps to be as reliable as harbormaster records on sea levels, no matter what they say it shows.

When it comes to polar bears, they don't generally hang out in places where there are "plants" — they prefer large patches of open ice, where they find thin spots that seals break through (to come up for air) and wait there to catch their dinner: seals, which eat fish, not plants.

Due to the melting ice caps (yes, they ARE melting, not growing) the ice is a lot thinner and less able to support the weight of polar bears, preventing many of them from hunting this way and causing a sharp DROP in the population — which is why polar bears were just listed as a "threatened species".

As for your assertion that scientists have a vested interest in saying the evidence proves that global warming is real, I'd like to assure you that theory is about as deep into crazy-town as theories get and you might consider revising your opinion based on actual facts.

Scientists are not evil, anti-corporate liberals who hate you. They are by-and-large fair-minded people who are looking for answers. Just as you know a lot of stuff that makes you good at your job, they know a lot of stuff that makes them good at their job — so while they aren't always correct, it's outright silly to point to supposed failures (of unrelated scientists from 30 years ago) and say that gives you a good reason to disbelieve things you don't like hearing.

And while we're on the subject of manufacturing hypothetical reasons to disregard factual evidence, you keep coming back to this "cycle" idea for some reason. I'm guessing it is central to the dogma of whatever wacky theories you've been hearing, but it's completely absurd and I thought I explained why but I'll give it another shot:

First off, your timelines are also completely incompatible. First you say the climate cycle is really, really, long and then you're telling me temperatures from, 60 years ago prove climatologists are wrong. I don't know if your temperature data is even correct but assuming it is, if we're dealing in hundreds of thousands of years then anything in the last 100 years obviously must be considered a recent development.

And speaking of really long climate cycles, humans were not dumping all this CO2 into the atmosphere 500 years ago, 5000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, 500,000 years ago or 5 million years ago. This is a brand new occurrence that just started a couple of centuries back. Therefore STOPPING this anomalous occurrence (by slowly making the transition to alternative energies) is RESTORING whatever cycles exist to their normal function. Continuing to pollute is the opposite: We CHANGED any existing cycle when we started burning fossil fuels.

So if you're concerned about natural climate cycles then it makes ZERO sense to continue burning fossil fuels and it makes ABSOLUTE sense to end our dependence on them.

On the other hand, if you're going to argue that our use of fossil fuels hasn't significantly affected our climate AT ALL and that the natural cycles are continuing as they should then that's completely incompatible with your assertion that any changes we make would somehow alter those cycles in an unnatural way. If burning fossil fuels had NO AFFECT on our planet's climate cycle, then ending our use of fossil fuels will logically ALSO have NO EFFECT, so there is absolutely no harm in trying.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=harbormaster+%22rising+sea+level%22&btnG=Google+Search

Well, I checked the pages listed on the google page that came up and found zero harbormasters talking about already rising sea levels. A lot of 'what to do if' stuff, but no mention of any current rise save in one piece that talked about historical rise and how it's been counteracted by sediment from the river–resulting in HIGHER banks now than when the town was founded.

But that's okay. I'll try to find my source for you–it might take a bit, I got it while reading various environmental sites and following interesting topics.

Regarding the fishermen–they don't claim that their reports show anything–it's just a factor in the landscape for them. The only effect it has that concerns them is that fishing is better along the edge(and more dangerous). That's what I'm referring to when I say 'unrelated'. To them, it's not a warming/not warming issue, it's only relevant insofar as fish are concerned.

Regarding my polar bear point–I simplified the food chain there–should I go through the list of food sources all the way up to the bears? And here's a FYI, polar bears hunt aquatic mammals in the manner you describe primarily IN COLD WEATHER. In warmer months they hunt in different ways.

Additionally, you should read the literature closely regarding the decision to classify Polar Bears as 'threatened'. Proponents of the classification freely admit that polar bears are not currently in any danger of extinction(and are, in fact, harvested in several places), but may become so if polar ice deteriorates further(though, quite a few proponents point out that the polar bear has already survived at least one interglacial period in which the artic was much warmer.

And please note that such comments come from the US Fish and Wildlife Agency–proponents of the classification(included is a notation that '05-'06 was a heavy ice year, with the cap thickening and the spring coming late)

It's a long read–http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/issues.htm

Why do people assume moral purity of certain proffessions? Scientists are human and the lure of money works just as well on them as on anyone else–after all, isn't that what's said of scientists who accept funding from Big Oil? Why, yes it is! Imagine that.

And I wasn't pointing out failures from unrelated scientists from 30 years ago–many of the same names are still very much involved. And, as I said, a lot of the same solutions proposed to help us avoid the coming ice age are being recycled for helping us avoid global wazrming–without working climate models.

And my point about the climate models not functioning had nothing to do with the cyclic nature of the environemt. It referred to the fact that we can enter everything we have about the environment up to a given year and the models cannot predict the way the climate acted for years in which we already know the data on. It's as if you had a physical puzzle that you could put together, and a computer model that puts together puzzles. While you can put in everything about that puzzle, and the program can put together puzzles, it never seems to get the puzzle to look like the actual physical puzzle.

Do you see? Even using nothing but recent developments in climate–with a known outcome, the climate models can't get us to that known outcome–despite having all the information. If it can't do that, why should we believe it's projections for the future?

Cycles. The Earth has been MUCH warmer than it is now–and much colder. We know that. We have had sharp periods of warming without ANY industrialisation within human history–the Medieval Warm Period–AND we cooled during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution(The Little Ice Age). We also cooled markedly about thirty years ago–when they were projecting a new ice age. There are a whole lot of different cycles in play here–was the last cooling(in the 70s) a product of a trough in a cycle? Was it caused by man? is the current cooling that same trough? a different one? caused by man?

We don't know.

What I'm arguing, Logisti, is that we don't know enough to go making decisions right now. We need a lot more research. It's what I said before. Doesn't that make sense?

You actually seem angry that I'm suggesting that we find out more.

No one said anything about moral purity, I was just pointing out that there isn't any money in being an anti-corporate liberal socialist. Therefore it's rather silly to assume scientists who say climate change *IS* something worth worrying about must have some secret motive.

The goal to "find out more" is fine except for two things: 1) Scientists did "find out more" since the 70's and your response is to deride, dismiss or otherwise disqualify their findings. So, it doesn't really sound like you honestly want to "find out more". It sounds like what you really want is to "do nothing indefinitely".

2) I fail to see why we would want to "find out more" before reducing our dependence on fossil fuels — unless you're running with the premise that dumping CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is somehow *helping* us?

I think climate change is one facet of the larger problem of overall POLLUTION that we do not like to readily face (but was touched upon).

Our impact on the earth reaches far beyond changing the climate. I think the reason climate change is such a hot issue is because it is akin to proving or disproving god. Because it is the air, hot, cold, weather, more abstract things we've just begun to understand and make good science of. We can't just easily see it like clear-cut rainforests or mercury levels in water or fish/wildlife populations decimated.

But this still isn't true. We can look at the data, and though it is more abstract, it is still there.

Like plants and many organisms, we can change the environment to our liking. Plants take in CO2 and make oxygen. Beavers make dams. We clear-cut forests, create deserts, strip mine, dump vast amounts of chemicals into lakes, rivers, oceans. We are seeing a rapid decline of species not unlike an extinction level event. Sea level is rising at a measurable rate.
Temperature changes in places where we'd expect to see the most change, such as at the poles, is in full effect, creating rapid melting of glaciers and permafrost. Instead of snowing in the arctic it is starting to become freezing rain.
We are also seeing a rapid rise in cancers and other kinds of illnesses as our environment becomes saturated with these accessory pollutants.
CO2 is the highest it has ever been. It is common sense that we are burning stored carbon to propagate the level of populations we are currently sustaining, and without a sustained level of carbon to maintain our current and growing populations, they will crash. The documentary 'The 11th Hour' covers this concept well. But all this excess carbon we burn still goes somewhere, the energy is just converted.

I'm not a green peace save the whales liberal save the earth person. My formal background is within science.

I recognize the impact most people fail to generally see on the planet and our need for relatively pollution free, sustained living that creates a natural balance with our environment as all other organisms do, as opposed to now where we operate as a cancerous growth upon the biosphere.

I am highly skeptical of jacks "facts". I would like to see sources for um, everything LoL. Greenland hotter? Maybe, but the past is not right NOW (I'll get to this in a second!) Greenland's name is a misnomer. When initially settled by the Vikings the people found green all along the coasts yet had no idea of the large glaciers that existed mainland (and are now receding rapidly). The same is true of Iceland. They landed where there was nothing but icy coastline, failing to realize the green forests inland.

In any event, it is clear that right NOW, it is NOT good for things to be warming/cooling in rapid changes, stuff to be melting, pollutants dumped, species exterminated, forests turned into deserts, etc., etc.

Keep in mind though it's good for us to change. We won't last long if we don't. But what will survive us, and stuff will, will evolve and take over again.

There's no money to be had in being an "anti-corporate liberal socialist"? Tell that to Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Al Gore–not to mention the ruling class of every socialist country in existence. Of course there's money to be had there.

And scientists get it in the form of grants, book sales and all manner of ways.

And you had no answer for my point that scientists who go against the AGW crowd are often accused of lying for the lure of money–you think the grants big foundations–on either side of the issue– hand out don't include salaries?

Science is, sadly, as corruptible as anything else.

Did you read the polar bear piece? There are all sorts of items in it that contradict the base premise that polar bears are 'threatened'–yet the 'scientific' conclusion is that they're threatened. Why?

And yes, there has been more research done since the 70s and the 'cooling' craze–so why are the solutions the same?

And the solutions aren't a 'slow transition'–they're often catastrophically fast. Take a look at how many Kyoto signatories aren't meeting the goals that the treaty set for them.

And I've got no problem, as I've said, with switching to cleaner, more renewable energy and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels(though I think A LOT of people don't understand that even if we come up with an entirely new, clean source of energy it will only lessen our oil usage–not eliminate it. Oil is used for far more than just energy). I am just against reducing it without replacements.

Transitioning as we replace without any loss of quality of life is what we need. When quality of life issues arise, humans go into a quasi-subsistence mode and start thinking in the short term. That kind of thinking would short-circuit research and find us glomming back on to oil as a 'savior'(which it's not).

Humans do their best thinking when sated.

We need to meet our energy needs while funding research massively. And, given the current prevailing opinion, now might be the right time for that–Hell, we've got Hannity advertising hybrids on his radio show.

When I say we need to know more I'm thinking of unintended consequences. What happens if…? And yes, you're right that our current civilization has already been doing something that could be having unintended consequences–but we can't just stop now without destroying our civilization.

So slow transition and more research. That's what I want.

Chimin in, your post is interesting. I've got no idea where you're coming from with your " it is akin to proving or disproving god" analogy comes from. All the data is there, traceable, provable. God is a question, right now, of metaphysics–nothing is provable. What?

And just exactly what does "My formal background is within science." mean? Do you work in the field? Do you have a degree? What? I'm not a scientist–but I took a helluva lot of science in college–and I've expanded my studies since on subjects that interested me–or helped with things I do. So, what does it mean?

And I, too, question some of the things you say so matter-of-fact.

We discover more new species each year than go extinct. Hell, we've just run across 100,000 lowland gorillas that we had no idea existed. So where is this 'mass extinction event'?

And I read Logisti's refutation link and found no one talking about 'Sea level rising at a measurable rate.'–instead, I found 'what to do if' plans–which are always a god idea(and that, BTW, kinda supports my contention)

And the polar bear piece has several points in it that say that 05-06 was a 'heavy ice' year–cold, with a lot of ice formation and a late spring(god knows what 'late spring' means in the arctic).

And there has been MUCH more CO2 in the air than now–read up on those ice cores–which also tell us that the planet has been MUCH warmer than it is now.

And you're big on the bad we've done, but what about the good? We've put forests where there was once just desert, and we've cleaned up a lot of things that we polluted. Purely anecdotally, there was an episode of Dirty Jobs in which Mike Rowe was working at Lake Erie–in which marine life has exploded since the lake was cleaned up.

And y'know what? I'm not convinced that some warming wouldn't be a good thing. Warming periods in our planets history have always heralded times of plenty, massive biodiversity, explosions of plant life. All manner of good things–whereas times of cooling have seen huge extinctions of plants and animals, expansions of deserts(as water evaporates and falls as snow onto glaciers–instead of rushing back to replenish the land). And I'm not talking supposition here–we KNOW this all happened. Hell, we're the product of a warm period.

And still I'll say that a slow transition to cleaner, better energy and more research is the way to go.

Michael Moore isn't super uber rich like really rich people. He made money making good eye-opening movies and he lives decently, but the money he makes he uses to put back into doing good work for social change as well.

All those other people are rich and powerful elites who work to promote pollution free and sustained living (because they see the real need for such a thing).

LOL Yeah those "anti-corporate liberal socialist" scientists are making multi millions and billions off of grants and books and all that from their studies on climate change, pollution, etc., etc. OMFG ROFL

BTW since when did an anti-slave wage free society where people actually help other people become such a bad thing?

Damn those hippies with their peace and love bullshit. Their just high on the dope the CIA keeps bringing into the country, thats all.

The starting salary for an ecologist is about 30,000.
As opposed to the salary for some other scientist who'll work in a lab or for government/corporate systems that pay 50K on up to millions for their services.

But most research scientists, especially those working in a university setting, are not making millions nor are rich elites.

There's certainly a decent living wage to be made, but it isn't generally in "green" science either.

Grant money isn't mainly used to pay the scientist, its mainly for travel, equipment, and all the other costs that are needed to gather data and perform a study.

If you really think scientists within the climate change arena are making vast sums of money you're a complete idiot.

Of course research is susceptible to being biased but the research coming out that is biased is that put out by corporations and governments who are trying to stifle change and marginalize the issue of pollution and climate change. Its the big money corporations have that can influence and bias studies and reports in their favor, and this is actually a well documented fact.

These people you mentioned did not make their money from a "green" agenda, nor do they really make money from such. Gore didn't make money off the documentary he starred in, and seriously, show where people are making money within the "anti-corporate liberal socialist movement" through "anti-corporate liberal socialist" actions, agendas, and programs. Cause they aren't.

The big banks, big energy, big media, and big product companies have the money. There isn't a huge skyscraper dedicated to the "anti-corporate liberal socialist" movement where people are bustling in and out every day trying to make things better for the people of earth and trying to take down the large corporations that exist. But there are at least 20 corporate skyscrapers in every major city dedicated to gobbling up as much of the money and resources it can raping everything in its path to do it no matter what the cost to society. Big energy companies buy up the patents on cheap, clean, and alternative energy sources and bury them so they can keep selling us their crappy product! Car engines that get 300 miles to the gallon were invented over 30 years ago, but the patents got bought and suppressed. This practice happens all the time. THEY will never let anything be free and give a society free control over basic needs like food/energy.

Get real you slave! Time to wake up!

jack, so because Morgan Spurlock makes an upper-middle-class living doing movies about things he honestly thinks are important social issues, therefore Joe-Random-Scientist is financially motivated to taint his results?

No, the guy being paid by the oil company may be, but Joe-Random-Scientist is not. Your continued assertion that these people are shaping their results based on secret underlying motives isn't farfetched, it's just completely unsupported by even the vaguest of circumstantial evidence.

I mean, I can point to an oil company scientist and say, "Oh, he works for an oil company! We can't believe anything he says!" and *that* would be questionable because the only evidence I have that he's tainting his results is that *maybe* he is caving to pressure and financial incentives that his employer *may* be using. I have two layers of circumstance and no proof.

Actually, the best proof is to compare an oil company's study with a consolidated group of independent studies. If there's a significant difference we might then be able to make a stronger case that the scientists at the oil company might be tainting their results, but *still* only a circumstantial case.

On the other hand, you have all of these other scientists and not a single piece of circumstantial suspicion to cast upon them. They don't all work for Greenpeace. These aren't El Presidente's Cuban scientists. Their reports aren't released by Hugo Chavez' office. I mean, if you're going to allege ulterior motives then you've got to point to *something* remotely realistic.

…and to make matters even more difficult, you have so many scientists, from different countries, working for different firms, etc. If you can't tie them all together in some sort of vast conspiracy that is remotely realistic, then you've got to start coming up with reasons to cast suspicion on a case-by-case basis. So let's say you cast suspicion on 50 groups of researchers and scientists, what about the other 50? What about the other 1000?

In the end, you don't have a leg to stand on if you're going to say these people are all tainting their results because of secret motives you can't realistically define or even attach to them. I don't think Michael Moore has any scientists working for him, so however much money he's making hasn't any bearing on a single scientist, much less the vast majority of climatologists.

Are you going to make me debunk your conspiracy theories one piece at a time, or do you see that you're standing under a house of cards?

Oh, and by the way, Al Gore aside, John Edwards and Barack Obama didn't make *any* of their money doing anything that anyone can remotely link to socialism. Edwards made his money as a medical malpractice lawyer and Obama — what few millions he did make — made his from autobiographical books.

So you're confusing two things here: 1) They could be considered "rich", 2) They do things that you don't like and label "socialist". That's not cause an effect, and therefore your example is outright incorrect (on top of being irrelevant).

But I'm going to draw a line here and insist that no current US politics or political figures be discussed on this site. Any future posts that don't comply may be deleted in their entirety.

No problem with leaving political people out–I just included the three I did because they fit–but we can speak about that somewhere else should you wish.

I used Morgan Spurlock as a prime example of someone who got 'rich' by skewing results and presenting it as fact. Have you seen Supersize Me? His conclusion, theway he got it, and the results he presented were all garnered by strictures that could lead only to such a conclusion. The simplest way to show this is with what is possibly the most asinine of the strictures he set for himself–he could not stop eating when he was full(The rule stated that he had to eat everything he ordered). Doing this for a month straight is guaranteed to make one ill.

A woman tried the same stunt after the movie came out–but altered the rules to allow for common sense. She actually lost weight during the month–and she followed the most basic strictures –eat everything on the menu, and supersize if offered.

Morgan Spurlocks' results were deliberately tainted.

And you misunderstand. I'm not saying that results from random scientists ARE tainted, I'm saying they could be tainted. Could be. And for all the same reasons–money, power, whatever.

You seem to be operating under the illusion that these scientists are working on their own, spending their own money in the name of pure science–and some are. There's an independent scientist out there who forced them to admit that 5 of the ten hottest years in the last hundred happened before WW2–and that the hottest was 1934.

I'm really not seeing a lot of independent work being done on the pro AGW side–and why would it have to be? There are all sorts of foundations and organizations out there paying good money for statements that AGW is a fact. From things like the Sierra Club, the Ford Foundation, to the UN and even the US government.

And they're getting paid.

Now, you act like I'm touting a conspiracy theory, but I've taken two things YOU gave me, read them, and found something different from what you said they were.

That harbormaster link was full of 'what to do ifs'–without a word about ACTUAL sea level rise, and the 'threatened' polar bear report openly says–several times– that polar bears are not threatened AT ALL at the moment(and, in fact, are being harvested in some areas), but they're still gonna list them as threatened.

Does that not seem odd to you?

How good are you at math? http://www.climateaudit.org is a good place to go to get an idea about what's going on–but it's really math heavy. And I believe the owner is not an oil company shill.

One of the best ways to verify–if you're not going to try for totally unrelated sources, is to look for true independents on both sides of the issue. As I've said, I haven't found much in the way of true independents on the pro-AGW side, so I hit places like realclimate and jump off from there.

Try those–realclimate and climateaudit.

And try to tell me what you think of a slow transition to cleaner, more renewable energy and more research into the climate?

Chimin in, you're kinda crazy, aren't you? You didn't respond to anything I put to you and went off on a weird rant.

Wait–there's a word for people who do that–they live under bridges–wow, we've had the Montauk Monster, the Texas Chupacabra, The Georgia Bigfoot, and now the Skeptical Viewer Troll….

jack, I'll keep in mind that if any scientists release a movie with Morgan Spurlock I'll second-guess their findings. Ultimately, you have a ton of corroborating data from a multitude of disparate sources. They're not ALL trying to pull down the capitalist regime and convert you to communism.

The basic issue is this:

#1, Some scientists who are funded by large, energy-dependent businesses release studies saying there really is no problem, or that the problem is not critical and dealing with it can be postponed.

#2, Some scientists who work for organizations which you could make some sort of case for an agenda, and some of the work from those scientists basically says the problem is absolutely critical and we have to act now.

#3, Most scientists believe the problem is either critical or nearing critical and that we should try to come up with a plan of action for the next several decades.

So, you could lump #2 and #3 together and say, "Scientists who claim there is a problem have a secret agenda" but you'd be wrong. #3 scientists are not the same as #2 just because they agree there is a problem.

You could also look at that and say, "Oh! Three different opinions! Looks like it requires more study to come to a reliable conclusion" but you'd be wrong. The most reliable conclusion is #3. Not only does that opinion have the most support, it also has the most support from unimpeachable scientists who don't work for Morgan Spurlock.

…and back to the original point: unless you are suggesting that fossil fuel pollution is somehow *good* — unless you're suggesting we'd be in an ice age already if it wasn't for our trusty CO2 emissions, then where is the harm in moving to alternative fuel sources? I mean, they're becoming genuinely economically viable and competitive so no one is being forced here. I don't understand why you would argue against it.

You can call me crazy but I am not the one who fails to see the problem of pollution and climate change affecting the world.

Unfortunately for you jack, everything I say is actually supported by real data, stuff that has been known for many years now.

You really seem to not understand how science works in an academic and corporate setting, nor how the world operates in general.

You can ramble on about hottest years and polar bear populations and claim that fast food is healthy but really when it comes to the science of climate change and other pollution problems you clearly don't have a clue. There isn't a ligitamate scientist on earth, especially an ecologist, climatologist, meterologist, etc., etc, who would claim climate change isn't happening and that all the studies on climate change are biased by "big green"

Logisti, do you read what I write?

I keep saying this–

"And try to tell me what you think of a slow transition to cleaner, more renewable energy and more research into the climate?"

And you keep ignoring it.

Now I say 'slow transition' because alternative fuels aren't ready to replace oil yet–and they've gotta do more than replace it–they've gotta be able to grow to meet our needs. And, sadly, they're not economically as viable as they may seem. Many are subsidized, many require prohibitive start up costs(it takes over $40,000 to put enough solar panels on a house to replace standard power) and many things being touted as 'alternate energy' merely push the oil use out of the consumers sight(like hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, and even solar and wind power). And an energy source that becomes viable only because other sources prices are soaring will only be sustainable as long as oil prices are high(when oil goes down the price will drop and the alternatives will become too high priced).

That last is my reasoning for a slow transition–to avoid the possibility of the panic that will kill the transition.

And what about scientists who aren't funded by Big Oil who say the problem either doesn't exist or isn't critical?

And why are those scientists so much easier to find than the ones you list at #3? I keep coming back to this–where exactly, are these independent scientists?

And are they actually 'most'?

Finally, I'm not suggesting that ANY pollution is 'good'–but you need to understand that CO2 is not a pollutant–it is a gas without which there would be no life on Earth. Toomuch is bad, sure, we know that–but so is too little. How much is too little? We don't know that.

Hey, Chimin in, there isn't a sane individual on the planet who won't 'admit' that climate change is happening–it's been happening since the birth of the planet–but there are a HELL of a lot of insane people who think they should be allowed to try to stop it.

What does "My formal background is within science." mean?

Where are all these scientists who disagree with climate change?

Where are all the ecologists? The climatologists?

Or are these people you speak of right wing quacks on fox news?

If you had seen any graph on CO2 levels past and present, you would clearly see and know how much "too little" is. (such an assertion that we don't know is what is too little is ludicrous, especially when CO2 levels are enormously higher than they ever were, especially higher than any normal high or low level in recorded history).

You again call people who can think critically and logically insane and fail to look at the evidence.

Greenhouse gasses increase temperatures.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Greenhouse gas (like CO2) has been burned in vast quantities for over 100 years.

Now what do you think is going to happen when you release a bunch of excess greenhouse gas into the biosphere? Duh, temperatures go up.

We can easily graph out CO2 usage/consumption, the levels of CO2 in the air, and temperature changes.

It is very easy to see how CO2 increase/decrease coorelates to temperature increases/decreases.

Sure there are dissagreements. I disagree with a lot of stuff too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

But to me many of these scientists arguments are flawed (and not surprisingly many are not within fields that are pertinant to climate change).
Something to consider when taking in dissenters..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
And just in general…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Lots of info and references to consider.

The only dissenter I've seen so far when it comes to climate change that I would give credibility to is Tim Patterson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Patterson .. But then again, I would like to see his actual data and see how it fits with other models. My arguments to him are that despite whatever may have happened in the past, we can clearly see warming trends in the poles, melting, and other physical changes rapidly occuring on the earth NOW, as well as the ill effects pollution, deforestation, etc., has on populations including our own. These aren't predictions of climate change, these are facts of life.

Now remember a few degrees in overall shift will not affect temperate and tropical places, places away from the poles and further toward the equator.
Rather we expect to see the biggest changes occur at the poles, where a few degrees overall actually does make a lot of difference, and this is exactly what we are seeing with glaciers melting, permafrost melting, winter snows turning to rain, and populations in decline as they cannot evolve to the rapidly changing environment.

I'd agree that global warming is a misnomer, is a bad phrase that mischaracterizes the phenomena occuring, and downplays the overall problem of pollution we fail to recognize (a reason I use the terms climate change and pollution as opposed to global warming).

You want a slow transition but the transition will never happen, and by that time, we will have drowned ourselves out in our own garbage. We need change that is sudden and will get us on our feet. We need to act in less than 10 years if we do not want to be in the same place we are now belly-aching about pollution and the inflated price of oil and other energies. Remember smog and acid rain? The black clouds that hung over all the major cities? That shit was real, and real harmful, and we did something fast about it and you know what? Those problems are a lot better. And we did something fast because the problems those things caused were more immediate and easier to see. Its more difficult to see the slower process of environmental change on a global scale.
A problem today is who the hell cares about some glacier and a degree or 2 when they are losing their homes and can't pay for food and gas. But no one wants to look at the long term (when you are losing your house NOW and can't pay bills NOW), and thats why we are in this mess now when we should have invested in alternative energies back in the day before it got this bad. But people think gas prices are bad now, what about when oil is 7, 10, 15, 20 dollars a gallon in a few more years. I bet we'll see a dollar or 2 increase every year (until they start selling us biofuels or something else). But studies have been done on peak oil production and rising energy prices and we knew about the problem for years before it ever got this bad. Everyone knew how much oil would go up, and companies knew they would make a big profit when it did. So why would they stop it? There is no incentive.

Green, sustainable, renewable energy is not developed because big energy companies do not want them to be, they buy up the patents and bury them or otherwise quelch the product because they have the money and political power to do so. They will never allow something to be outside of their control (ie, a method of generating 'free' energy) that is not sold to you. Think about how much energy you have to buy from all these different companies, you have to buy the product then buy energy for the product to use the product. Houses, cars, any appliance or battery operated gizmo. Buy the house, pay to wire it up to the grid, then pay the grid for energy for the house and appliances you buy. Buy the car, pay for energy for the car. Can't sell free energy you can grow or collect from a renewable resource, unless you find a way to hook yourself in and cut everyone else off, THEN sell a product you get for free (this is what they will do when we actually see "green" "sustainable" energy come into the "free" capitalist market).
But you can look up youtube were people have made engines that run on water, salt water (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiKa4nOkHLw), and whatever else. But no matter what, every time, the technology will go nowhere. Maybe things will change. But I doubt it, they have too much money and power.

You think they REALLY want to cure cancer too?

Some scientists surely do, but the main research is on drugs that in effect do not do this, and the drugs that may actually benefit people are suppressed. Click on the link for that says featured experiment http://www.sethgroup.org/research.php

Looks too good to be true? Our government has known about this since 1970. If you look into more research you would see many people attest to being cured or their quality of life greatly improved by the use of hemp oil.

But nothing ever crash in Roswell that was just some dummys and a weather balloon. And the CIA doesn't bring coke and heroin into the country, that never happens.

Its a big game, and the game is rigged. Again, time for you to wake up and stop saying baaaaaa all the time.

Sorry jack, I didn't realize you were legitimately asking a question. I thought it would be obvious, after reading my post, that when I say "slow transition" I mean as the technology becomes available and offers "clean" energy for close to the prices we're paying for fossil fuel energy now (plus infrastructure costs, of course).