There are many things we can do, istead of complaining. Just use what is necessary America is a place were we use way more than we need. Go camping a few times, and you will get a feeling of what you really need, it is little compare to what we are used to.
I grew in a big city, I’m 23 now, and less than a month ago I saw the heaven as it is without light contamination, 23 years!!! without seeing true heaven with all stars there.
I don’t know but Einstein did not need any electricity to formulate his amazing theories, nor did Maxwell, Newton etc… I was very fond of technology but I think it advanced more than our current mental maturity has. We praise image way to much, what is the point in overeating and then go to surgery to get slim again, what is the point in having a wife made by a surgeon or covered in makeup those are lies they have no value. We have gotten acustomed to value people for what they wear or have, nor for what they are capable of giving, a proof of it is the sentence “Keeping up with the Joneses”, that is in my view stupid. And there is where most of our problems start.
We should just don’t get what we don’t need.
Hope I made a point.

@ Marty Comments like yours that don’t included even the slightest effort to check your facts, as tertertert pointed out, only serve to discredit your position.

To get to the point though, CO2 has little effect on the so-called greenhouse effect in the first place. The biggest player by far, is water vapour, which is conveniently and repeated ignored by the anti-human factions out there. So, a small change in a minor greenhouse player could not posssible have a major effect, as in 1.2 x nothing is still nothing!

More seriously, a recent article in the Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 8, 1846-1862 (page numbers), by Qing-Bin Lu, Ph.D., of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Departments of Biology and Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada has a totally different take on this misunderstood non-crisis. Check it out at the “JournalofCosmology.com” July 2010. And if it is too much bother to check this out, you proponents of the disaster scenario are all talk and no listen. Get serious and read it. It is very tough article to read because of all the Ph. D. talk but it shows that this is not a simple subject. If you do not get it, you are not qualified to comment.

To summarize, the slowly increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 has no additional greenhouse effect on the climate because, to quote from page 10/15, “The observed results discussed above indicate that the greenhouse effect of non-CFC gases has saturated.” Note the phrase that “the effect has saturated”. If you still do not get it, this means that more CO2 makes NO DIFFERENCE to global temperatures.

To explain the small increase in temperature in 50 of the last 60 years, this paper shows that it can be wholly and accurately correlated to the last century’s rise in the concentration of CFC’s in the atmosphere. CFC means chlorinated fluorocarbons. You know, the refrigerant and hair-spray propellant gases that interfere with the ozone layer. Fortunately for the ozone layer and our sunburns at least, use of these chemicals has been banned for about 20 years and are now slowly declining in the atmosphere, which means the ozone layer, which protects life from dangerous short wave UV rays, is recovering.

Lu’s forcast; continued temperature declines for the next 50 to 70 years which has already started since the year 2002. Feel any better yet? I still prefer warmer.

Ted Coulter; B.A.Sc. U. of T., Metallurgical Engineering

Scientists have come to the realization it may be the composition of the atmosphere that matters, but it is the mass of the ocean that matters.

The top 4 meters of the ocean alone have the same heat capacity as the entire atmosphere.

So the atmospheres energy content (heat) behaves in a far more topsy turvy way than the oceans energy content. That’s why a change in ocean flow like el nino / la nina have such a big impact on the energy in the atmosphere.

They don’t have much effect on total ocean energy content.

That’s why the relatively new Argo Network (2003) is so important:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_%28oceanography%29

I tried to find a ocean energy content graph for the argo data, but it’s surprisingly hard to find. (I leave you to guess why that is).

I did find this one: http://ber.parawag.net/images/NODC_OHC_2004-2010.jpg

I don’t know that site, but assuming its an accurate graph, 2010 doesn’t look very special at all.

In my EnvSci courses several years ago, our professor asked “What was so bad about having a rain forest at the north pole like there was XX million years ago?” No one knew the answer so he yelled it in his jolly Scottish accent, “BECAUSE THE REST OF THE WORLD WAS A BLOODY DESERT!” So even if global warming is natural, I’d prefer that we did our best to stop it rather then be the ones contributing to it.

On that note; @ #9 Jeff – it’s not the mass of the planet that matters, it’s the mass and composition of the atmosphere that matters. It’s proven that humans have raised atmospheric CO2 by 20% since the advent of the motorized vehicle, and the best case estimates have the CO2 hitting 500 ppm (much higher then the 1900 value of ~300) if we start building renewable energy plants and vehicles now (actually building lots of them, not just a few and claiming we’re doing something). So yes, I’d say we’re doing something.

Granted, the eastern United States used to be an uninterrupted forest and we have ‘accidentally’ drained entire seas. My point is that ‘plausible’ and ‘definite’ are two different things. ‘We need to quit spewing harmful chemicals into the atmosphere’ is a different statement than ‘anthropogenic sources of gasses are causing the temperature to rise.’ The first is an opinion. The second is a statement of fact which is largely unsupported (though not contradicted) by scientific evidence. People are more interested in being right than finding out.

Iceland is green, Greenland is icy, but to think that 6 billion humans don’t have a dramatic effect on their environment is just silly.

Even beyond a natural cycle it is our need to control our environment.