http://www.skepticalscience.com/Newcomers-Start-Here.html



The article continues at the link provided. This is an excellent website that deals only in facts, rare I know!

To me, real skepticism is when you start by saying:

"I don't know. I don't have a position on this, because I don't have (thoroughly understood and examined) information on it. Lets look at the information, and be very cautious and careful what conclusions can be drawn from that information."

People mistake skepticism for being 'closed minded'. To be properly and intelligently skeptical is to be open minded.

'Disbelieving' in something is not a true skeptics position - unless there are really good reasons for disbelieving in something.

People who are committed to the position that some idea is wrong are often called skeptics, while they are actually simply just closed minded dogmatists asserting a negative position.

To people who aren't aware of the information, it can be hard to tell the difference. I do not believe that human thoughts and emotions influence the crystal structure of frozen water (as represented by the quack Dr. Emoto), and I might come off as a closed minded dogmatist asserting a negative position. Fact is, there has been no real evidence that this is true, and such evidence would not be hard to obtain.

Here is a quote from the website.

"2010 saw widespread and growing evidence of rapidly warming global climate and strengthening scientific understanding of how humans are contributing to climate change. Yet on the policy front, little happened to stem the growing emissions of greenhouse gases or to help societies prepare for increasingly severe negative climate impacts, including now unavoidable changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, sea-level rise, snowpack, glacial extent, Arctic sea ice, and more. These physical impacts will lead to sharply increased disease, military and economic instabilities, food and water shortages, and extreme weather events, among other things. Without appropriate risk management action, the United States will be hit hard. There is no safe haven. Yet confusion and uncertainty about climate change remain high in the minds of too many members of the public and Congress.

Why? In large part because of a concerted, coordinated, aggressive campaign by a small group of well-funded climate change deniers and contrarians focused on intentionally misleading the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change. Much of this effort is based on intentional falsehoods, misrepresentations, inflated uncertainties, and pure and utter B.S. about climate science. These efforts have been successful in sowing confusion and delaying action – just as the same tactics were successful in delaying efforts to tackle tobacco’s health risks."

I have preached the same concepts for years because I am close to the problem and the people who study it.

It does not appear our politicions are smart enough to take appropiate action and, IMHO, that does not include "carbon credits".

The exchange of energy sources for maximum benefit would work wonders.

Hey, we must live on the same street.

I am close to the problem, too. I am thiiiiis close to climate. Practically touching it. Climate is all around me, much more than around most people, I feel. (I feel the climate, not other people. Last time I felt people was fifteen years ago, on a Bridge tournament, those old ladies practically begged me to feel them.) We must learn to embrace change, not complain about it like some old market-woman.

I feel for the climate.

I live in Canada.

I am close to the oil industry ... and NASA. Embracing a problem we are causing doesn't make any sense. Taking steps to reverse the change could be the most advantageous step the US has ever made.

We should build about 100 new nuclear power plants as fast as possible. Since they pay for themselves, there is no net cost.

We should switch from natural gas powered power plants to natural gas powered cars combined with electric hybrid cars like the Chevy Volt.
This action alone could switch the 300 to 700 billion dollars a year we spend on foreign oil to domestic spending and jobs with no new technology needed.

Coal could be converted to syn-gas with the waste heat from the reactors.

Oil shale and oil sands can (and are) being converted to natural gas supplies by horizontal drilling.

Coal exhaust could be chemically converted to cement production which would free up one of the largest uses of natural gas. The technology is proven and available.

The only reason most of the above has not been implemented is by lobbying by the holders of the status quo and the flood of misinformation that ...

Global Warming is not real.
Global Warming is a hoax.
Global Warming is not harmful.
Global Warming is not caused by man.
Global Warming is real but nothing to worry about.
Global Warming is not something man can affect.
Global Warming can only be dealt with by bankrupting everyone.
Global Warming will correct itself.

and more.

Someone learned a big lesson from the cigarette industry. If you tell a lie enough times, it becomes the truth to those who hear it.

It is a real shame the public is unaware of the consequences of the changes we are causing in global warming.

I'm skeptical about all the hype on both sides of the fence.
If they just publish the straight facts and leave the jumped conclusions out of the eqausion ... I'd be happier.

Change is constant ... preparation for change is wise

this skeptic sees too many people with alterior motives of greed and nepatism pushing their own agendas over public good.

that in itself hurts any possible solution development.

more than nukes .... we need to reduce consuption ... big time.

+...
(more misconceptions that are propagated, continued)
Global Warming is not actually global, it applies to part or parts of the globe only. (Very sad, coz this is true, and this truth helps diminish the actual value in the statement for people. Not for wildebeasts.)

Global warming is a type of global cooling, and vice versa. (To add spice to the argument.)

Global warming does not destroy cropland, it only pushes the same toward the poles. (To be determined.)

Global warming will not cause permanent flooding in lowlands by the seas. (Coz if you have a glass of water to the brim, literally, of the glass, and there is an ice-cube floating on top, sticking out, the water still won't pour out over the edge when the cube melts.)

Global warming will cause giraffes to evolve into birds and then devolve back down all the way into amoebas. (To be determined.)

Global warming is a great issue to get a lot of people say and do what you want them to say and do.

Global warming is beyond the capacity of human understanding at this point in the stage. When the average surface temperature at sea level and at one atmospheric pressure will reach 562 degrees Fahrenheit, we would be able to comprehend the heat.

Global warming proves the extremely low angle of the human learning curve (low values for the derivative function of the learning curve).

Global warming my aaaaaassss, when I sit on the ground with no asbestos layering in between.