I took your "sage" advice (sage or sagebrush is the state flower of Texas, n'est pas?) and researched the topic of global warming.

I gathered quite a bit of information.
Here are just few items, I'll add to the list as I find the time.

SK= Skeptics
SC= Scientists

SK: "Climate's changed before".
SC:  Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.

SK:  "It's the sun".    
SC: In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.

SK: "It's not bad".
SC:  Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.

SK: "There is no consensus".
SC: 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.

SK: "Models are unreliable" .
SC: Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.

SK: "Temp record is unreliable".
SC:  The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.

SK:  "Animals and plants can adapt".
SC:  Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.

SK:  "It hasn't warmed since 1998".
SC:   For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.

SK: "Antarctica is gaining ice".
SC: Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.

SK: "Ice age predicted in the 70s" .  
SC: The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.

SK: "CO2 lags temperature".
SC: CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.

SK: "Climate sensitivity is low"     
SC: Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.

SK: "We're heading into an ice age"     
SC: The impact of global warming will be in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.

SK: "Ocean acidification isn't serious".    
SC: Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.

SK: "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy".    
SC: A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.

SK: "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming".
SC: There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.

SK: "Al Gore got it wrong".
SC: Al Gore's book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.

SK: "Glaciers are growing".   
SC: Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.

SK: "It's cosmic rays"     
SC: Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.

SK: "1934 - hottest year on record"    
SC: 1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.

Interesting sidenote. It was just announced that 2015 was the hottest year on record for the US, since the government statrted keeping records.

SK:  "It's freaking cold!".
SC:  A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.

SK: "It's Urban Heat Island effect" .
SC: Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.

SK:  "Mars is warming".   
SC: Mars is not warming globally.

SK:  "Oceans are cooling".
SC: The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.

 

Last edited by DollyLongstaff (1/08/2016 9:04 am)

I blame the scientists.  They used a term - Global Warming - which was perfect for the propagandists to pick on and they did.  Every time there is a snowball in hell (Washington DC) some great mind there points to it as proof there is no Global Warming .  It is Global Climate Change and global warming is part of it and the part of the planet that is warming is the oceans. .  The changes in weather patterns are a result of this as the oceans completely determine our weather.  I live in the far, far north of Canada and you may be getting snow and cold but we are getting more warmth on the land to the point that the perma-frost is melting.

And yes, there are normal climate cycles,  Many things determine this or INFLUENCE this.  Including excess human activities and excess human population.  We have sped up the process for climate change.

I mentioned this on the view site.  My husband is involved in research which includes climate changes.  Guess who is anxious to get his research results.  The government and environmental groups of course but also oil, gas and coal companies.  They see the wind change that is coming and are hedging their bets.

Nlp has her beliefs, but chooses not to fully inform herself. She parrots for a bit then says something like, "I am so sick of hearing about _____." That drove me nuts, because it made any of her complaints or disapproval seem so shallow & empty.

Most of the climate changes that have happened on the planet are due to the tilt of our axis and the changes to this due to our orbit and the orbital influences of other planetary and celestial bodies.  If I remember the numbers correctly it varies from 22 to 24.5 degrees  and changes slightly every 50,000 years.  Enough that this brings on ice ages or super heating.   We are about 20,000 years away from the next tilt change and yet the climate changes we are now going through have been sped up due to our human activities to a point of what should have been natural changes that occur only in thousands of years from now.  

The patterns of climate change have been proven through ice, soil, seabed core samples from all over the world as well as plant, fossil  and geological analysis.  Did you know that they can pinpoint on an ice core the exact year that the US and Canada stopped using leaded gasoline? We do not pass unnoticed on this planet.  Everything we do leaves a trace.  Also - the world population has doubled since I was a child and there are now 7 billion of us.  Each of us costs the climate.

 

Thanks Sunny for the info.
 Hopefully Nip, Michaely and the rest of the Cuckoos learn something.