I found this quite interesting. Apparently over 30 'major' scientific groups (well funded I'm sure $$) agree that big bad humans; a.k.a. "anthropogenic" bastards, are more powerful than all the volcanoes of the earth and even more powerful than the sun! By the power of Grayskull we humans are destroying the earth.

We should be ashamed of ourselves. Even though the sun emits more energy in 1 square mile/per second, than all the nuclear weapons on earth combined exploding at the same time...but we humans have figured out a way to be greater than that...those terrible Hummer H2s! I mean, the sun is 98,000,000 miles away...and SUVs drive down the road every day...that has to be right, right?

-an update- I did some further research and found that the same scientific groups that say an increase in carbon-dioxide is mostly responsible for the increase in global temperatures...also said that during the ice-age periods of earth 'some' evidence shows that a decline in carbon-dioxide levels 'may' have contributed to cooling temperatures and the deepening of ice/glaciers.

So:
- more CO2 = higher temps and humans are to blame
- less CO2 = lower temps, but humans weren't industrialized 40,000 years ago so scientists say the evidence is 'inconclusive'

WHAT?!?!?!

Did you also know that we are currently just barely creeping out of one of the coldest periods of Earth's history dating back over 500 million years? And if you look at the graph of the global temperature history, we are following the 'curve'. But Al Gore will only show you a fraction of Earth's history to show you the huge 'jump' in temperature increases...wow! Thanks for the graph of 100 years out of the last 540million Mr. Gore!

I guess I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to believe that humans can be responsible for the increasing temperature of the earth. How many scientist and reports have to be generated to convince you?

Just look at your local whether report. I bet that within the last few months, there have been several days that have been record breaking with regard to temperature. It doesn't take a PhD to figure that one out.

Let's say that you are right and we aren't causing global warming. Why is it such a big deal for you to stop driving that SUV? Is it that great of a loss? I would drive a more fuel efficient car on the off chance that I am right.

Maybe you should actually do your own research instead of using the weather report from your local news service. If you bothered to read my post you'd understand.

I also don't drive an SUV, and find them to be a waste for 99% of people who buy them, but we live in a free society, so who am I to judge.

Bottom line is (if you read my post) the temp of the earth right now is actually 20 - 30 degrees cooler than it has been on average in the last 542,000,000 years. I understand that CO2 is a product of human fossil fuel burning processes, and that it does add to the overall effect of global warming. But I also know that we aren't the only cause (or even the main cause). CO2 is a byproduct of a lot of processes on this planet, including decomposition. CO2 is also not the only contributing factor of global warming...in fact global warming is actually the effect of the sun's heat being reflected back down onto the surface of the earth (clouds are actually a huge factor in this as well).

If you also read my post you'll understand that this happens on an almost perfectly timed cycle. Earth heats up, then cools, so on and so on. It has happened well over 12 times in the known geologic history of the Earth...and probably happened many times before that.

The entire known anthropologic history of human existence (40,000 - 100,000 years depending on which scientist you ask) is only a small sliver of Earth's history. So how can you buy into all the hype about human destruction of the Earth, knowing that science has already proven that this is just part of Earth's natural cycle?

Do your own research and put the Earth's ~4billion year history into perspective compared to your (and most 'scientists' on the payroll) small and limited perspective of the last few thousand years. The Earth was around a long time before the burning of fossil fuels began, and was actually 20 degrees (F) warmer in the few million years before the industrial revolution even began. There was the "small ice age" around the 16th and 17th centuries, but other than that we're actually cooler now than we've been historically dating back hundreds of millions of years.

And I don't need a PhD to be able to ask the right questions, do my own research, and not listen to anyone on either side of this huge debate...I don't need anyone to tell me the truth when I can find it on my own.

Visceral,

I agree with you. It's hard to figure out how some people will automatically side with the global warming crowd when you have thousands of years of data to support the opposite situation.