The earth has had ice ages and will have more. In 10 - 15 thousand years, it won't matter how much warming there is. Northern U.S., Canada, Europe, northern China are GONE... covered by ice. Yes the earth warms between the ice ages, that's the period we are in NOW. But what else is Al Gore going to do. He's too scared to run against Hilary because he knows he'll lose. So he'll try to force his agenda on us through propaganda. Already, too many people have bought into this idea of global warming. YES, global warming is happening... NO, it has nothing to do with man!

I used to think this too. Then a I actually checked the science and realized that humans are responsible for global warming - GW. Humans are pushing the climate to a point where the natural order of things, such as an ice age, won't occur.

Also, as GW continues we won't be here in 10-15K years to experience it, as Earth won't support life as we know it.

Pop-science may very well say humans are responsible for global warming. Whatever one wants to believe, information can be found for their point of view. The new "man is destroying earth" topic is GLOBAL DIMMING, which counter-acts global warming. So no matter what, AMERICANS are to live a pre-industrial lifestyle all except for the Algorians which must use the excesses of which they complain in order to lead us. Wow, I didn't realize that man is more powerful that the sun and it's cycles which cause the ice ages. If everyone commits suicide, the earth will be saved and safe again!

Interestingly enough, in a new study, the concrete industry alone is taking blame for global warming over the last 50 years. Seems rock (man made or otherwise) retains more heat than normal soil from the sun and the proliferation of new roads and city's can explain it all. Tell Al Gore it's time to grab them sledge hammers and make a difference :)

Again, a series of ignorant and useless posts. Most are simply polemic, ad hominem junk against a person who has actually had the temerity to take action. The concrete argument is so lame I can't even raise pen to skewer it. Please, people. This is not about a personality. Try reading and research. Crazy, I know. Go to RealClimate.org, and similar science sites, and actually educate yourselves. While you are busy throwing petards, you just might get hoist by them. Time is actually running out to get some awareness about this subject (climate change).

What ivory-tower, lock-step, environmentalist institution did wittgenstein fall out of??? Love the lack of intelligence remarks too. The one open prejudice that liberals have... "believe what I believe or you are just ignorant".

Tell all the ppl who heat their desert homes with a south facing "rock room," exposed to the sun then sealed off at night. Tell them the heat they seem to be enjoying is just a figment of their imaginations.

wittgenstein:

Again, a series of ignorant and useless posts. Most are simply polemic, ad hominem junk against a person who has actually had the temerity to take action. The concrete argument is so lame I can't even raise pen to skewer it. Please, people. This is not about a personality. Try reading and research. Crazy, I know. Go to RealClimate.org, and similar science sites, and actually educate yourselves. While you are busy throwing petards, you just might get hoist by them. Time is actually running out to get some awareness about this subject (climate change).

....And if one "gets some awareness" about climate change, and actually runs out and "does something" like Al...does that mean they will somehow live longer than the ones who don't get educated on the subject? Or maybe you will live to see the actual result of this global warming!! Of course you won't, and neither will your children or your children's children. I would however, leave a last will and testament to your future relatives to grab all the land they can afford around Macon, GA and the Pocono Mountains, and maybe San Antonio Texas for future beach front investments. Nevermind California, it will more than likely break off into the Pacific Ocean before anyone ever sees the result that global warming would have otherwise had on it. I'm sure you think this is just another worthless post, but like anyone with common sense, until we see some scientific proof by the ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC WORLD, the whole thing is just a joke.

The ice age, huh? 10 or 15 thousand years from now there's gonna be a bunch of ice covering the northern third of the northern hemisphere (if tradition holds), so why worry about something that's affecting climate now and over the next hundred years, right? So I suppose since the sun is going to die out in a billion or so years we might as well pack it in. That's like overdosing on heroin as a toddler because after finding out you might get cancer in 50 or 60 years! Actually, that's even worse.

I have a problem with the whole premise of the article, as well. First of all, global climate change is not something that's just going to be affecting our descendants in 200 to 400 years. We are seeing the proverbial tip of the ice berg today. The effects, if left unchecked, will become more severe over the next 30 to 50 years. This affects us AND our children. Furthermore, why is it a zero-sum game between us and our progeny? Can't we make ourselves happier and richer, and also do the same for our children? Why is it presumed that staving off climate change, discovering alternative fuel sources, and other similar actions can only have positive effects on humans in the distant future?

The author's theories about all Americans being rich in the future is flawed, also, not only because holding any percentage that far into the future will bear no realist conclusions, but also such a future as he paints depends on the INNOVATION of human beings, not stagnation. The only reason that humans have become more affluent over the last few centuries is because of the changes that people have wrought, not the unchanging steadfastness in traditions of centuries past. If leaders in the 15th and 16th centuries had listened to the likes of Landsburg, we would still live in a "flat" world, consisting solely of Eurasia, pledging fealty to feudal kings, and subsisting on a meager existence. Any of us over the age of 35 would more than likely already be dead.

I'm going to quit before I turn this into a term paper.

Good point about the scientific world. Isn't it wonderful how a loud-mouthed, elitist, political has-been is dooping millions to keep in the public eye. Get off your emmissions spewing private jet Al.

wittgenstein says "The concrete argument is so lame I can't even raise pen to skewer it." Perhaps you should visit RealClimate.org and study the "Urban Heat Island Effect". Try some reading, some research, some cogent thought and then you might actually be able to skewer something besides your own quasi-intellectual self. But you're right about one thing, time is running out. If we don't get Global Warming Initiatives started today we might not be able to get them started before the next Global Cooling Cycle. I'd rush off to drink an adult carbonated beverage but it's warm and all of the CO2 has come out of solution... I wonder if the large CO2 sinks we call "oceans" have lower levels of dissolved CO2 as the temperature rises? Probably not, after all the ocean is largely water, while my beer is largely water, so one would expect totally different behavior. That, my friend, is the definition of climate "science"...

My apologies, my friend. My frustration is not with the article, which I have read, incidentally, it is with the writer's apparent idea that it might be somehow solely core to the problem. As to my being "quasi-intellectual", well, you are welcome to your opinion, based upon one post. I'd be careful about such things, as perhaps I myself have not been. My fear is that the political polemics and Gore baiting hide the real issues. I absolutely agree that we need to take action, and now, not just in the near future. Diminishing capacity of the oceans to absorb Co2 etc. are troubling signs that things are perhaps accelerating faster than we thought. The scientific community is nearly unanimous in agreement that humans are part of the problem. Unless we relegate science to a prison somewhere, and return to medieval logic, then you and I are left with only them (scientists) as the source for valid information. I think your heart and my heart are actually in the same place. Hope I didn't step on toes too hard. If you have children, you'll know the fear I feel.

The pop-scientists always have the 20 to 30 year doomsday predictions. In the 70's it was the coming of the next ice age. Now it's global warming, and we'll all be dead if we don't listen and do what Gore says. Perhaps our global warming will spread to other planets and galaxies. Humans will destroy the whole universe! The news loves drama and fear. We are all dying of the flavor-of-the-month scare yet they just up-ed our life expectancy. It's all for attention, ratings, and egos.

What would constitute proof to you? A two hundred year drought? Too late. The consensus is real in the scientific community, which you seem to dislike. I'd suggest you try an experiment: abandon everything that has been created by science, and then try to function as a 21st century American. You'd be living in a stone age hut, hunting with a bow and arrow. What is worthless about some of the posts is the endless Gore-bashing and science-bashing et al. Good grief. Gore didn't whine endlessly about his questionable loss in 2000. He took stock, looked about, and did something. You might not agree with it, but he didn't participate in endless ad hominem attacks. If you see him in interviews, as with Larry King, he is polite and courteous to a fault, refraining from attacking others, although they don't refrain in kind. Whatever his political bearings, his personal bearings seem ok to me.

Wittgenstien... You are right, you should do reasearch. But you should go to a site that has real data, like junkscience.com There are tons of actual data from non-partisan government studies that show that Al Gores entire argument is based on temp measurements taken from cities. This is then compared to 2000 years of data from tree rings and ice core samples. Guess what, the rual tree ring data shows an increase in temps but only half the increase of Al Gores City Data.

Here are the facts.

1. Global temps were higher during the Viking expansion, i.e. there is a reason that Ice covered Greenland was called "Greenland".

2. Al Gore wants everyone to buy caron offsets.....The largest company selling these offsets is owned by....none other than AL Gore! Almost $200 million last year alone.

3. JunkScience.com shows the overlay of temp increases for the last 2000 years with Sun Spot activity. Guess what, they are almost in lock step. This fact was secured last month when the #1 scientist at NASA VERIFIED THIS VERY FACT! He stated that the SUN WAS THE SOLE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING. Fox news was the only network that reported this story.

4. Last month another NASA report stated that the "current ice melt at the North Pole was due to abnormal winds breaking up the ice, not global warming."

5. Last Week, yet another NASA study showed two week old satellite shots of the South Pole showing RECORD ICE COVER! I repeat........RECORD ICE COVER! None of the major networks covered this, except....you guessed it...FOX....

6. All of the Al Gore defenders have labeled all of the Data on JunkScience.com as "Forbidden Data", (I am not making this up!) even though all of the sources are government agencies. Why? Because the Data PROVES that Global Warming is caused by the SUN, not CO2 output.

7. Junckscience.com has a $125K reward for anyone who can prove AL Gore is right. Guess what, nobody has collected the reward. Why? Becasue there is no Data to prove AL Gores Therory. Did I mis-spell anything? If I did, and it makes you feel elitest to correct them, go right ahead. By doing so does not change the facts and the facts are, Al Gore is full of SH_T.

Real Data