In the scientific community, the “debate” about the cause or existence of climate change is over, folks. The debate now is focusing on what exactly the impact will be on our way of life over the next couple decades.

Thanks for the very thoughtful response. People are reading it, believe me

I work in a museum and my job is to interpret science for the public. In that job, I talk to scientists, read scientific papers, and cross-check everything.

Scientists are conservative people when it comes to their work. They don’t like to make waves or make a lot of noise. Yess, every not and then there’s a high-profile fossil or something that gets hyped up, but that’s rare. They see something going on right now that they’re never seen before. They’re alarmed, they’re speaking out. They’re not all very good at or even really want to do it. But they are.

Morgan — It has been known for about a century that on average CO2 contribtes about 1/4 of the greenhouse effect. No one’s saying it’s the single largest factor. The crucial thing to note is that more than 99% of the atmosphere is non-greenhouse gases, so even slightly increasing the amount of a gas which causes 25% of the effect is significant.

Beto Ochoa — Pfffft is good to rally the troops but there’s no refutation in it. If satellite data is so important, what about the AMSR-E data? And do you really think that we simply have no evidence about the state of the icecap from 800 or 8,000 or 80,000 years ago? We’ve found it. That’s what scientists do, I’ve met many of them, they’re good at it.

UTOA — “Co2 is not a deadly gas, plants breath it and make O2 that we need. THE SUN HEATS THE EARTH. 9th grade earth science people.” O2 isn’t deadly until there gets to be too much of it and then fires burn out of control. H2O isn’t deadly until you drink ten liters of it in an hour. Too much CO2 is a problem. Look at the first paragraph.

phosphene — “CO2 makes plants grow.” But not all equally. Unfortunately for us, weeds and invasives tend to do slightly better than crop plants. And even if the plants want to grow, where there’s no good soil (like in the presumably “greening” North) that won’t help them. Again… too much of it is dangerous. See the first paragraph.

Donny Griffin — “Leftist liberal government hogs want large increase in taxes-people will believe anything they are told” But *you* don’t believe it when climatologists and biologists and oceanographers and other researchers tell you that they’re scared s******s of what’s happening. And why do they want a large increase in taxes? To pay for what? Liberals don’t increase taxes just to increase taxes, in the way modern Republicans cut spending just because they believe the cutting is an end in and of itself. But we won’t go there.

Actually all the satellite data corroborates the information cited in this report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5356SA20090406

I’m not sure why you would choose to live in denial about this, the evidence is overwhelming.

The Earth goes through cycles of warming and cooling. However, because the Earth has been warm in the past does not discount the idea that human-induced factors such as the massive release of greenhouse gasses are causing our current warming trend.

That is the point you’re failing to contend.

Regarding you people who argue that polar bears are going to be just fine based upon the fact that they swim: you’re completely ignorant. Polar bears require an ice sheet in order to hunt. While they are very good swimmers, their prey swims much better. As ice sheets disappear, the bears are losing their hunting grounds, and they are starving to death.

Try swimming long ocean distances when you’re starving.