QUOTE (Andy Capp @ Aug 2 2011, 09:58 PM)
Give it another 7 or 8 billion years, then the Earth will no-longer exists either, but I'm not sure that these statistics are that useful to us now.
Too much of the 'scientific debate' can be connected to interested parties, or even so-called academics who actually have no background in the subject. The problem is the validated 'data' only goes back a few hundred years, a blink in the eye of the worlds lifetime. The causes of the temperature variations that are known about will not have been anything to do with how many Chelsea Tractors there are, or whether a jet flies high or low....
Look at Milankovich Cycles.....
Now, there are things our global lifestyle are doing that don't help - any excess is harmful - but the impacts are minimal in the overall measure. The sulphur belching factories of the British Industrial Revolution (other counties were doing clever things too at about the same time) were bad, but the sulphur belching volcanoes around the world produce much more 'harmful' stuff than all those chimneys put together.
Do some surfing - more than Wikipedia which is not really 'academic' - and see the range of arguments. they include the fact many people are making millions out of the debate and their promoted 'solutions'.
Cut out the waste, recognise there is something we can do but it won't change much apart from how much we spend on fuel, electricity etc. Look where the money goes in the name of saving the world. Mother Nature has her way, and has survived far more nasty stuff than we create.
I'm not complacent, but I am not at all convinced by the global warming activist movement.