200,000 times earth's atmosphere might sound awe-inspiring to you, even intimidating, but on the scales used in astronomy it's minuscule. In particular, when talking about gaseous CO2's absorption and radiation spectrum, it doesn't matter what the pressure is. That makes Venus a perfect model for CO2 caused global warming, which we can scale down to make predictions based on earth's CO2 levels.

Come on, Mike, using Mercury (without any atmosphere), and Venus - where the axis of rotation lies in the ecliptic plane - and also has atmosphere squared, for models, is not smart; it is not science.

Mars has no atmosphere either, yet here it is being used as an example. And Venus's extreme temperature has nothing to do with it's axis of rotation, it's almost entirely because of the runaway greenhouse effect caused by its dense atmosphere of, wait for it, CO2!

If you don't see how capping emissions has any threat included you don't understand human nature.

The way things works is the sun is hot, it sends it's waves our way and we get warmer, or we get hotter. More sun, more hotter for us. That how works.

The earth was at it's closest point to the sun on January 3rd of this year, and will be furthest from the sun on July 7th. The difference is about 3,106,405 miles. Contrary to what you claim, the earth is on average 2.3 degrees hotter in January than it is in July, even with 7% less sunlight reaching us.

No. Mercury and Venus are too screwy to use a any gage.

Um, no. You can't just disregard any situation that doesn't fit the requirements of your theory. That's bad science.

The great danger with treating CO2 as if it really was a strong greenhouse gas is that we bankrupt ourselves while we discover the threat never was real.

The threat is real, nobody is arguing that the threat isn't real, they're arguing over whether or not humans have any effect on the threat. I also don't see how capping emissions is going to bankrupt us.

The great danger with treating CO2 as if it really was a strong greenhouse gas is that we bankrupt ourselves while we discover the threat never was real.

You really don't understand how these things work, do you?

You:

The way things works is the sun is hot, it sends it's waves our way and we get warmer, or we get hotter. More sun, more hotter for us. That how works.

A simple "no" would have sufficed. The fact of the matter is, if the sun were the only thing effecting earth's temperature, it could not be as hot as it is. Look at Venus for an example, it gets less direct heat from the sun than Mercury, but it is actually far hotter.

By the way, CO2 is a mickey mouse greenhouse gas.

Sure, but it's the biggest one that we have any means to control. The only way we can control the amount of water vapor is to keep the global temperature down and keep ice frozen, and the best way we can do that is again to limit the addition of CO2.

Are there no worthwhile research projects out there? I have one. Show that the earth's ocean currents have ever repeated exactly.

By the way, CO2 is a mickey mouse greenhouse gas.

Stupid "heat trapped gases" guy. Dumb, dumb, and dumber. Mars is melting. What SUV produced those "heat trapped gases"?

You really don't understand how these things work, do you?

Again, let me reiterate that most researchers are quite honest in their methods, but you'd have to be extremely naive to think that their results aren't guided by the views of whom they're asking money from.

The people supporting AGW come from a large variety of sources and get their money from an even larger variety of sources. Meanwhile the anti-AGW crowd almost universally get's their money from Exxon (through a number of front organizations).

So while you have a point you are wrong in how it is applied. The side that has the vast majority of support is also the side with the diversity of interests backing it. The side that consists of a very small minority are also, and not coincidentally, all paid by someone who has a vested interest.

Is the supposed 1.4 degree increase we've caused enough to cause 80-90% of the planet dying off??, no obviously.

1.4 degrees doesn't sound like much, but lets think about that for a minute.

At 0 degrees C, water is solid while at 1.4 degrees, it is liquid. So an area of glacial ice that was once below the freezing point, is now above the freezing point, so it's melting. Now consider the perimeter length of arctic and antarctic ice, and even if the freezing point is moved back one mile, you're talking about thousands of square miles of ice now above the freezing point.

Now lets consider the effects of this ice melting. As Alex pointed out, ice reflects energy from the sun, while water absorbs it. Less ice means the earth is capturing more solar energy, causing it to heat more. In addition, the added water will flood low-lying areas, causing more surface water subject to evaporation, and water vapor in the air also traps solar energy, so that adds more heat to the earth. And what does that extra heat do? That's right, it melts more ice and the cycle starts again.

It's called a positive feedback loop, like interest on a loan, the longer you let it run the further in debt you become. A 1.4% interest rate may not sound like much, but over a period of a hundred years, even a small initial loan will balloon out of control.

Having worked inside the dirty underbelly of a research university, I would like to state that that statement is not supportable by facts, but rather begs the question. Researchers expend a considerable amount of time wirting grant proposals and almost always tailor their results to coincide with the views of donor institutions. Not that the research in of itself is poorly done; in fact, it's usually quite good. However, studies or results that do not support your "conclusion" are ignored or de-emphasized. Otherwise, the possibility of receiving the grant money is greatly reduced.

There was a case in the late 1980s or early 1990s in which a doctoral student found that her professor was, essentially, fudging his reported research numbers so as to gild the lily in his grant applications. I don't remember what punishment, if any, the professor received. What I do remember is that the former graduate student was blackballed and found it quite difficult to finish her degree program anywhere. You'd think that honesty in research would be rewarded, but that's not always the case.

Again, let me reiterate that most researchers are quite honest in their methods, but you'd have to be extremely naive to think that their results aren't guided by the views of whom they're asking money from.