That is freakin' hilarious!

I'm pretty sure you will find that anytime somone feels the need to defend their choices, their religious centers will get triggered. It could be Apple products, memory foam, latex, or sleep number beds. Emacs versus VI. Gun control. Abortion... Jiffy peanut butter versus Peter Pan. blah, blah, blah. These are all "religious" arguments for some people.

I think, if you go back through my posts it will be clear that in some cases I'm talking about general principles that impact global climate, in other cases I'm talking about global warming in general, and in other cases still, I'm talking about anthropogenic global warming. I'm not confused about these three independent concepts, but you seem to be. Do you assume that just because atmospheric CO2 is high that global warming is inevitable and that if CO2 is high it must be anthropogenic in nature and therefore the global warming is anthropogenic? If so, this is an overly simplistic (albeit common) view of the way the universe operates.

There is not merely one Milankovich cycle. People who talk about Milankovich cycles like this are usually referring to the trivial 100,000 year cycles that take our planet between glacial and interglacial periods. However, the 100,000 year cycle is actually a composite of multiple smaller cycles that beat in non-integral periods. There are multiple warming trends within the larger "cycle". You are right, our current "position" within this larger cycle is not one of the big ones that marks the start of an interglacial period. You are also right that we are about 1/4 of the way into a cooling cycle. However, you are thinking in terms of 100,000 years and 24,000 years and in terms of ice ages and such... You are ignoring the smaller warming trends that can and do occur with smaller effects over shorter cycles.

Not exactly. His crime was pointing out that some of the assumptions regarding ice core data appeared to be wrong. Not attacking AGW directly. It's as if he pointed out that the Earth must be older than 6000 years and is suddenly labeled an atheist since this line of thinking clearly contradicts the Bible...

You seem to think that you understand how I'm wired... I just thought I'd show you how it feels to have your scientific value system challenged with little or nothing to go on...

I'm a scientist, I would have to be a fool to dismiss the greenhouse effect and CO2's contribution to it.

I have never, would never, say that global warming is invalid. Once again you assume you know what I think and fail to hear what I say.

Our current position within a Milankovitch can certainly explain a warming trend. A warming trend can explain a rise in CO2.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make about water vapor. Mine was that water vapor is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect. As temperatures increase, the atmosphere's ability to absorb more water vapor increases, which can lead to more warming. Most climatologists that I've talked to and seen papers from agree to this. Their only contention is that a rise in CO2 is precipitating (no pun intended) a corresponding and amplifying rise in water vapor. I don't dismiss that possibility.

Of course, methane has a greater greenhouse effect (per volume) than CO2. The question is what is the greatest source of methane? It's probably natural, though some anthropogenic causes probably weigh in with some significance - most notably farming.

You missed the point about CO2 sequestration in the oceans. As global temperature rise, the oceans are less effective at sequestering CO2, so more is released into the atmosphere. Again, which came first, the rise in temperature or the rise in CO2? Some experts say the former.

I don't know the details of the supervolcano guy's dismissal. Maybe you do? Otherwise, why would you assume that this was the way it went down? Oh yeah, because that's always the assumption - when it comes to GW, the one with the questions must be the crackpot...

Nice. You don't like your perception of my point about one concept so you formulate an arbitrary attack on my views regarding another concept... Jeez. I don't assume that you're a non-scientific sycophant just because you believe (1) that extraterrestrial intelligence exists and (2) that it would be possible to make contact with them and (3) that Frank Drake is not full of BS... The Drake Equation

There are plenty of mainstream scientists that have questioned the science. Never does it bode well for them. Does this make them wrong?

For years it was quietly forbidden to suggest that there might be more to DNA than the coding sections. The rest was simply "junk". Many scientists were squelched in their research that explored other possibilities. It took overwhelming perseverance by a few renegades to finally open the field of epigenetics. What if those brave few had also been beaten down? Even today, many genetic scientists begrudgingly admit that some junk DNA may not be junk... but they still insist that most of it still is. Sometimes scientific consensus can be a very bad and limiting thing.

First, you merely prove my earlier point (thank you). You assume that I am a denier and you resort to mockery. I don't deny AGW, I question. Some people don't seem to understand or appreciate the difference. I'm tempted to allow myself to drop to your level, but I'm going to assume you're bright enough to figure out what I think of your response and it's author.

Second, this topic is way too huge to approach with any serious effort in a forum like this... but I gave a little taste. See my response to SETIguy

First, I don't deny anything. I merely question some things.

OK, I don't have enough bandwidth to deal with every little inconsistency in AGW, so I'm going to just address a few inconsistencies with one aspect. Most people accept ice core data as being a very definitive, solid science. The ice core data appears to tell us that current atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are at an all-time high. There are three problems with ice core data.

• The data alone does not tell us anything. We rely on models to process the data to give us meaningful results. Any good modeler will tell you that the model is only as good as the baseline data that is used to define it (there are other factors, but this is key). Unfortunately, we don't have any baseline data for the models used to analyze ice core data. Baseline data would require accurate readings of atmospheric CO2 at some distant time in the past when the trapped CO2 is from below the "sealing depth". In a couple of thousand years, we should be able to collect some baseline data and then make a decent model. In the mean time our models are crude and based on numerous assumptions.
• I just mentioned a "sealing depth". Now I need to define what that is. Most people think that ice is layed down in layers trapping CO2 and other gasses as time passes. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Ice is gas permeable, which means that CO2 and other gas molecules can move from layer to layer through diffusion - typically moving from layers of higher concentrations to layers of lower concentrations. How far can these molecules move? It varies as a function of temperature, pressure, and many other factors, but most ice core specialist will tell you that, in terms of years, it can be upwards of 6000 years in the Vostok cores. In other words, the ice core concentration of CO2 is averaged out across many years. At some depth, this diffusion stops - this is called the sealing depth.
• What happens when CO2 levels rise? We already know that the planet heats up. How hot does it need to get before arctic ice begins to melt. We already know that because we are already seeing it happen. How much CO2 is required to heat the planet sufficiently to melt arctic ice? Current concentrations are doing it as we speak. So if there were to be higher levels of atmospheric CO2 concentrations than what we are experiencing now, how exactly would the CO2 become trapped in the ice? In general, it wouldn't. And BTW, there are other sources of warming events that would tend to melt trapped data right back into the atmosphere.

Summarizing... We have inaccurate statistical models trying to make sense of data that is statistically spread in non-normal and unknown distributions and quite likely containing significant holes (or lost data). And, I've only touched on three issues. There are more - I just don't have time to enlighten you...

So this is just some common sense as to why the ice core data might be suspect... There is something a little more concrete... or actually, the opposite of concrete. There is something seriously missing in the ice core data. If the conventional wisdom were true, we should see evidence of at least four events of very high CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the ice core data that doesn't show up. These events are well understood by paleogeologists, but ignored (or dismissed) by paleoclimatologists. These are the Lake Taupo, Lake Toba, Whakamaru, and Yellowstone Caldera supervolcano erruptions. All VEI 8 erruptions; all within the timescale of the Vostok cores, all would have raised global atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations to many, many times higher than we are currently experiencing. Why does the Vostok core data (or any core data) not show these events? We've already answered that.

Again, I'm not denying anything except maybe the veracity of ice core science. I'm merely pointing out that what may seem like solid science and be presented as incontrovertible evidence.

Yes. The answer is quite often in the form of ridicule, scientific exile, and (in one case I know of) a paleoclimatologist lost his job for raising questions about supervolcanoes... If there are scientific responses to many of the scientific objections, they never seem to get published.

Don't even get me started on milankovitch cycles, water vapor feedback loops, underrated methane effects, oceanic CO2 sequestration as a function of temperature, and many other sub-topics on this subject.

From WIkipedia:

Speaking as a someone who has scrutinized the "factual science" of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in much detail, I will not bother to "deny" the validity of the consensus view. To do so would just result in my demonization by the "experts". Instead I will merely point out that the AGW movement has all of the earmarks of groupthink.

Whenever legitimate scientific challenges are raised, they are met by evasive strategies. Ignoring the valid scientific questions, AGW proponents will point to "postmodern loons" as examples of the kinds of fruitcakes that don't accept the consensus scientific view.

Really? You (like most people) would rather have to carry around a bunch of batteries and swap them in and out? Since the iPad battery has the capacity of about 6 to 7 average smartphone batteries and it would eat them incredibly fast, your pockets are gonna be full. But hey, if that's what you'd rather, who am I to say you're wrong?

If Bob is ordered by a court to hand over his hard drive as evidence in a criminal proceeding and he wipes it, it's destruction of evidence. If Joe wipes his disk and then is ordered to hand over his hard drive as evidence in a criminal proceeding, it's NOT destruction of evidence.

I thought that this was particularly telling. In the article it said:

So in other words, until SSDs came along, evidence of purged data was evidence of guilt... at least in Austrailia.

And yet no one complained when Apple quietly shut down the free bumper program without changing the antenna design...

What changed? ... media attention... or rather, lack of.

If it looks like a hype, smells like a hype, and quacks like a hype... it might just be a hype.

Guess that makes me a PC fanboy...

No wait! I'm a Mac fanboy...

What kind of fanboy am I if I have both a PC laptop and a Mac laptop that cost more than $1000?

Whew! You had me going there for a second... Thank god it's only your opinion...

Interesting assertion. I assumed you were right, actually, but was prepared to argue that this would be due to convenience. It's easier to rob your neighbor since he's closer... Where there are more thieves, we expect to find more burglars. However, according to my city's crime statistics, the number of incidences of "Burglary of residence" was much higher in wealthy neighborhoods than in poorer neighborhoods. All other crimes were much higher in the poorer neighborhoods.

There's more to being a target than mere marketshare. The smart criminals (if there are such things) will go to the rich neighborhoods where people feel so safe that they don't even bother to lock their doors...

I've seen a number of (so called) computer security experts spouting off about how insecure the Mac OS is and as evidence to support their position they suggest that, proportionately Mac users lose more money to phishing... You would think that someone with the terms "computer" and "expert" in their titles would understand the difference between an insecure OS and an uninformed individual...

But maybe you have some other evidence that Mac OS X is less secure than Windows??? Bring it on, because most real experts on computer security say that Mac OS X and Windows 7 are about the same...

Finally, you are right Windows 7 is a fine secure OS... it's just too bad that about 80% of Windows users actually prefer XP and Vista...