Quote Originally Posted by Monty3038
Well, I'm no expert and don't claim to be. I'm living my life the best I know how and to be honest, I really don't give a lot of thought to most of this debate. The main reason is I would be more likely to listen to someone like Ed Begley Jr. who walks the talk, rather than Al Gore, who while generating a lot of economic momentum does so in a destructive and in my opinion, poor way.

Yes, humans in America do more damage than those in Somalia, so we are to be punished for our success? Of course we are, by instead of encouraging us to live responsibly (in the environmentalist opinion) we will be punished by taxing our 'carbon footprint' which I still think is BS, but I'm forming that opinion without full information.

At some point you have to let the experts debate it out, so I'm dropping out of this convo... I don't have time to study up on it and give you the higher intellectual debate you want to achieve... but my thoughts focus on what I've been taught by a geologist I used to have as an instructor as well as my current level of understanding of the earth being a closed ecosystem, there isn't anything built or destroyed, just changed... I hear data being thrown around both ways, some say we are cooling, some say we are warming, there are facts both ways...

So who is right? Who knows, maybe my kid will. I for one don't think the facts add up, but again, I'm no pro at this stuff and don't have the time to become one... some smart scientists will eventually be able to prove something definate one way or another, probably after we all have cancer or something... I'm out, I shouldn't have even started as I don't have the time to follow up on it all.
Okay, I completely understand your position to not want to get into it. I'll just end with a few parting thoughts

Understanding AGW is kind of new, and is advancing rather quickly. An important thing to note, however, is that the trends of new discovery have all been pointing in the same direction. But the 'newness' of AGW is a big reason why several intelligent people, like your geologist instructor, (note that geology != climatology though, important distinction). This newness has made it much easier to not be up to date on research and the public controversy (not scientific controversy) has made it easier to feel skeptical

The earth is not a closed system. We're in constant interaction with particles from outer space (read: sun, but much more as well). The conservation of energy you mentioned isn't really relevant to AGW. It's about the fundamentals of matter, but it has no bearing on how much things can change. The vast majority of Earth's history has been rather inhospitable to mammals, all based on periods of climate change. But I'll go into that more in a different post, I think.

You mentioned that data is thrown around, some say we're cooling, some say we're warming, etc. Well, that's simply not true, but that is what the vast majority of the public thinks. When you look at the actual history and data, you see that scientists said one thing, while the media said another. Here's a 9 minute video that looks at the data on this 'global cooling' issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nTw0KneNLg

Actually, if you put any time into researching this, just watch greenman's other videos. They're entertaining, and addresses the actual data.