Tom Harris

1/6/2008 6:34 AM UTC

Many of the assertions of Dr. Dessler are in fact quite misleading, or simply incorrect. For example, there are many times in Earth's history when CO2 levels were in no way correlated with temperatures. At times, it was warm when CO2 levels were high; at other times it was cold. In fact, when CO2 levels were 12 times higher than they are now, Earth was stuck in the depths of the coldest period in the last half billion years. Similarly, Dr. Dessler is quite wrong to say there is a consensus in the climate science community about the causes of the past century's modest warming (and indeed, temperatures have generally not risen since 1998, and shown no up or down trend in the past five years despite record levels of CO2 emissions from human activities (especially from China, which, according to the Danish EPA, have surpassed the US in CO2 emissions)). If Dr. Dessler thinks there is a consensus, he should be held to prove it - show us a poll of world climate experts that attributes most of the warming of the past half century to human CO2 emissions. Certainly, as evidenced by the OPen letter to the Secretary General of the UN at the end of the Bali Conference - see www.nrsp.com/letter - there are many qualified experts who totally disagree with Dr. Dessler. Dr. Dessler's obvious confidence is highly misplaced. I wish the last caller had been allowed to continue. In the final analysis, his point about consensus proving nothing is quite correct - we should be trying to educate the public about what is really happening in this, the most complex field of science ever tackled by humans, and encouraging citizens to make up their own minds as to whether the evidence is good enough to divert hundreds of billions of dollars from the World's serious and immediate problems to 'stopping climate change' which is, of course, impossible. Calling people names, like 'skeptics' merely smothers debate and is highly unscientific. After all, all true scientists should be skeptics. Climate policy should be focused on continuing the vitally important research into the causes of climate change and helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever climate change nature has in store for us next, cooling being a far greater, and, an increasing number of scientists say, more likely, threat. Tom Harris www.nrsp.com/news.html

Jim Pacheco

12/17/2007 10:08 PM UTC

What happened to Dr Ball?

Dr. Dave

12/17/2007 8:16 PM UTC

Even though the numbers I cited about the U.S. temperatures over the last 112 years, the same trend is noted in plots of the Global Temperatures. Unfortunately, I do not have the NUMBERS for the global temperatures. Too look at a plot, go to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/glstemp/graphs/ Dr. Dave

Dr. Dave

12/17/2007 8:11 PM UTC

I do not thing there is enough energy in cosmic rays.

Dr. Dave

12/17/2007 8:08 PM UTC

I meant POSITIVE feedback.

Dr. Dave

12/17/2007 8:07 PM UTC

The "feedback" of CO2 should be clarified as a NEGATIVE feedback.