"Two things could put climate back on the agenda by fall. One would be a run of heavy weather—the heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes that argue eloquently to Americans that the climate problem is real and that inaction will cost far more than action."

That is stupidest thing I've read. So now heat waves and hurricanes are great signs of global warming. I am an environmentalist, but I guess the kind that buys into BS. This kind of crazy talk is easily sold to people who freak out when the TV anchor does their weekly announcement of "There is something in your house that can kill your kids. Tune in at 11 to find out what it is."

There has always been heat waves and there will be more in the future. Hurricanes more powerful than anything we've seen in the past 30 years have been happening for millennia. When it's really cold they say it's global warming. When it's really hot they say it's global warming. When there is drought it's global warming. When there is too much rain, it's global warming. I stopped worrying about global warming because I realize that no one can agree on what the consequences really are. There is no such thing as perfect weather. Never has been and never will be.

You correctly point out that individual weather events cannot be linked to global warming. But there is one consequence of global warming that everyone does agree on. Local mean annual temperatures all over the globe have been creeping upwards for the last 30 years. <link>

At best that is an inconclusive answer, at worst it is an outright misleading statement.

You seemingly do not understand the original poster's aggrevation.

IF local temps have been rising (and that is a big IF) is it due to increased heat content in the atmosphere or erroneous readings obtained by thermometers surrounded by highly urban areas. We know that humans are producing an increasingly large amount of heat and waste gasses for the production of usable energy. We know that humans are increasingly covering the surface of the earth with asphalt, concrete, and steel structures - objects known for their ability to store and radiate heat.

However we still don't know what the overall trend is. That link you provided, while nice, doesn't adequately address the source of errors. Some of which are rather huge - such as estimating tempretures from data taken in the 1800's. The main bugaboo of the enviromental sciences is that there are simply too many variables to adequately control as of yet. Our data is of poor quality with poor confidence in the error margins. Several factors effect the planet, none of them well understood - simply because we haven't had sufficent time to develop testable theories.

I bet you didn't know that the changing coastlines of North America are affected by crustal rebound and changing ocean levels. That is another variable we don't understand yet. Which is the larger effect?

Enviromental sciences was far better when the media stayed out of the game. Enviromentalism as a movement is worse off with the advent of the "Global Warming" era. It casts suspicious doubt on good people who are only trying to understand how this planet works.