“How much heat is trapped by the atmosphere depends on the composition of the atmosphere — different chemicals have different characteristic frequencies that they emit at. CO2 emits heat. So does CH4 (methane) and some other important gases. The atmosphere has increasing amounts of these gases because we keep burning fossil fuels.”

Water vapour is the most significant component of the green house effect (by factor 20 x CO2). This is a fact most people do not recognize. Increased CO2 itself would not cause the predicted temperature change. It is the feedback mechanism that would increase the amount of water vapour in the athmosphere which would then cause the climate change.

Not enough is known about how the climate system really works. The computer models are only models and their ability to actually predict the future climate is limited or or even misleading. Many things that these computer models have predicted have actually not realized. Sea water temperatures are one example of this.

BTW – just recently the same scientists who instisted we would have record hurricanes due to global warming have just reversed themselves – We can now expect less hurricances. WHY ISN’T THIS FACT IN THE NEWS????? – Check it out. If there is any conspiracy, its within radical environmentalism….. not the oil companies. These are teh same nut jobs who will not let us build nuclear power plants. They are certainly good enough for France, Spain, Germany etc but not us. Where oh where is our common sense perspective. Thousands and thousands have died from carbon based fuel burning – not one – here in the US from radiation at a nuclear power plant.

In your concluding paragraph, you suggest, as a solution, “For a stabilized atmosphere, we are going to have to defeat SOME people and SOME institutions.” ( emphasis mine)

It may sound a bit radical, but the Bible suggests that God will take it a few steps further than this. In simple language Rev 11:18 ends with the statement that God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”

There is no other total solution.

“It would seem, then, that the path is reasonably clear. We live in a democracy, after all. So we convince enough people that the climate problem is serious. We demonstrate that the technology is available to solve it without sacrificing most comforts and conveniences. Then we convince our leaders to make the necessary technological and policy changes, and if they don’t, then we elect leaders who do.”

It is explicitly not the role of scientists to advocate social policy. When they do this they are not practicing science. Those who don’t understand this are not scientists; they are advocates – whether working for Exxon or York University.

And they do long-term damage to public respect for science when they aren’t crystal clear about the difference when they write or speak.

Then we get to global warming, most of the data for which is patchy at best when dealing with anything older than about 50 years, in which case we are extrapolating long-term conclusions about very long-term dynamics by studying one-second charts – to put it in a trading context – and then drawing these one-second-chart-derived trendlines out into the millenia.

That said, I very much like the conclusion, namely that it’s time to change the underlying societal paradigm that is essentially out of touch with natural order. However, establishing a sane modus vivendi is more the domain of religion which science, interestingly enough, has spent the past century successfully undermining. No doubt many of the religions holding sway a century ago – especially in the West which spawned this modern era – left much to be desired. But rather than fixing them up they have been more or less thrown out and in their place all sorts of populist belief-driven substitutes of the most shallow and crass type.

Anyway. The idea of science is most laudable. Pity the practice leaves so much to be desired divorced as it is from disciplined philosophical, moral and, ultimately, practical grounding.

Herculean effort is the part that most people don’t understand. So who is in charge? Right now nobody. Right, left, middle, China, India and the United States all working together that is where the Herculean effort comes in. Slowing it down for the change over and in some way’s speeding it up. The hardest project human’s have ever tried and must not fail. A total effort focus on the problem and that is what we all can’t seem to figure out. I guess the fear of the unknown is part of the problem and many are trying to Downplay and to conceal. Continuing on that course will be a path to disaster! Some think that we can do this without business, no that will not work out well. Somehow we all need to get on the same page. I hear the elite are doing this or that and will be the ones who fair the best in the coming years. To me that is crazy think. Without an organized effect from all sides all people all countries it will not work out well. When do you think we should start? With the last pictures of West Antarctica soon very soon would be good and then after we make this happen we can work on who is more who is less who is better or not as good until the cows come home and it should be easer at that point. Why can’t we all just get along but for now we need to get along and fast.