(Yes, I’m a David as well, so to remove ambiguity, let’s say I’m David II.)

Unfortunately, you are wrong about what was the warmest year and warmest decade in history. The 30’s-40’s period was warmer and they have the glory of containing the warmest and second warmest years on record. NASA had to retract their statements on this once they were shown how their “temperature correction” was in error.

Further, competent scientists, using traditional statistical techniques and high quality regressiona analysis, have extracted the temperature signals of some of the natural cycles (e.g., el nino and PDO) so as to look at the underlying temperature trend. This residual trend should be heavily influenced by any anthropogenic heating. Result? The trend is downward and the 95 percent confidence interval around that trend does not include the so-called “consensus” about warming that has been hard wired into the IPCC models (all 22 of them).

Too many scientists have now taken the high risk step of doing serious science that has the potential to either support or impeach the climate change theories upon which so many, like you, are building your policy proposals. The science is getting in the way of the IPCC’s assumptions. It has become so obvious to some of us in the environmental protection community that we are begining to disregard the climate change subject and reposition our efforts back to the real problems of water pollution (non-point source) and third-world public health (lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, energy, transportation, housing, disease).

I won’t stand in the way of you continuing to promote efforts to shift from carbon-based fuels, but don’t do it in a way that eliminates my efforts to actually do something valuable for the environment and for the poor.

I let you in on a little secret. Rather than trying to control other peoples lives by using fear of the unknown, why not invest a little time into actually looking at the science.

If you had bothered to keep up with the latest research you would find that we are currently entering a cooling phase, with the world’s mean temperatures leveling out or falling between now and 2040.

I won’t bother you with the details, as they would not mean much to someone who is happy to spend trillions of dollars on a problem that will have little or no inpact upon humanity over the coming century.

We need to get past this nonsense, and ponder more critical issues–which is almost anything.

Also try to look at some of the other posts on how not to measure temperature. That is quite revealing and says a lot about the quality of the temperature data.

Maybe you should also check on http://www.climateaudit.org/ and see how old temperature measurements are altered again and again by NASA mostly with the result that the past look colder than it actually was.

David also argues that nothing will happen if the economy is ruined because of the costs of reducing carbon dioxide. Well David, what happens and indeed does happen now, is that people die. Maybe not in the western world but in poor cuntries. When the price of rice doubled in Haiti, people started adding fresh clay to their staple diet of rice cakes - it does fill the stomach. Eventually you die from lack of nutrition and bacteria from the clay. Why does rice, wheat and corn prices go skyward? Because the western world is subsidizing ethanol production with billions of dollars. So instead of producing food for human consumption we pour it into cars. This is what happens when the politicians are being pressured by “green” lobbyists.

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.” —H. L. Mencken

For those who argue that global warming doesn’t exist, I would equate them to the same folks who say that cigarette smoking doesn’t cause health issues. It is clear from measurements of the earth’s overall temperature that we are warming up. Check out this NASA web site: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

Now if you debate whether the warming is man made or not, that’s a different issue and one where you could argue for more study. I happen to believe that much of global warming is man made, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it is still largely unknown. If that’s true, what do we do while we are still studying the issue? Do we continue our current lifestyle and let the marketplace determine when we switch from fossil fuels to renewal resources?
What if it turns out you’re wrong? What are the consequences? Oh, nothing. Only a potentially permanently warmed world with people (mostly poor) who are more unable to support themselves due to changes in rainfall distribution and amounts, possible destruction of the world’s oceans (coral reefs in particular) and many other serious consequences. But that’s ok. At least I got to live my own lifestyle without being inconvenienced by having to reduce/reuse/recycle, drive a car that doesn’t go 0-60 in 4 seconds or shorten my showers in the morning.

On the other hand, what if we take the man made global warming theory seriously and adopt the attitude that we can slow or perhaps even stop it if we change our lifestyle? What happens if we’re wrong then?

Well, we’ll probably still have global warming (or maybe it will stop), but the side effect for taking action is a cleaner environment for our children, with more resources for them and perhaps we can even become self sufficient in energy production so aren’t held hostage by the Middle East.
Some believe that this switch will destroy our economy. I say that our economy is already destroyed in large part because we have relied on fossil fuels for too long and that switching to cleaner and better ways of doing things will not eliminate jobs, just redirect them to different technologies.

We will still need transportation, energy production, houses to live in and food to eat. People will simply be employed doing it differently and our children will be the beneficiaries.

Wow, nothing like a dose of inconvenient truth to start the day. Of course, you know you are going to be attacked from all quarters by the AGW wingnuts–you know, the ones who say blowing up the economy is a small price to pay in the unlikely event that the bunch over at the UN is right.

Anyway, good for you. This piece of yours will be added to our stack of reference material for when we negotiate this year’s cat treaty–near the top.

Charlie