I'm aware that temperature flucuations are a regular occurance. Normally I wouldn't suggest that donor funding reaches further and is controlling university research but you brought up such a hiliarious propisition; that scientists are blaming humanity for their own personal gain that I couldn't help it.

My real problem with your post is this
As if smokestacks and car exausts didn't exist while we systematically deplete the world's forests. I really don't buy your idea that CO2 levels are increasing BECAUSE ice is melting, releasing it and water vapour into the atmosphere. Releasing so much in fact that it's overiding our own contributions.

As far as I am concerned, without be arsed to go look up anything, is that at this point Global Warming still an unproven theory, regardless of how bad Al Gore want the world the think he his still relevant.

If I were to believe in global warming, it would mean that I would have to forget that when I walk outside today it is cool/cold autumn weather.

you may not notice an over all global 2 or 3 degree drop, but it effects the world enough. I think that people who say that everything is just a natural cycle (sugh as glaciers all over the world melting at an alarming rate) are just trying to justify what they know is wrong in the first place (like being in flat Miami beach and seeing huge SUVs). I'm not trying to say that it's going be dooms day or anything, and that we should all repent, but I think that it's a big issue that can't be ignored or pidgin holed for ever. I believe that soon we will see the effects.

Or people with Meteorological & Geological know-how. Read the whole thread before lobbing out some random thought like that please. We are in a heating stage. Things are heating up, but they'll back off and then heat up again. Scatter-plot. Simple. There will be a linear trend, yes. But don't go thinking that we're going to chug right into superheating the world within a matter of a couple years all because of the big bad evil SUVs.

RABicle --
Pardon me for making it seem "hilarious," but I am going off of my own personal experiences. I've spoken with individuals who admitted to me that they don't put out the truth because they would lose lots of funding. They put a spin on their research so more grant-givers will be interested. This is something I've noticed and experienced first-hand. Research bias, pure and simple. If you do not want to accept my personal experience as proof enough for this thought process, I don't know what to say to you then.

Hmmm. I think that Global Warming is indeed an issue, and I'm sure it will cost alot to fix it. But on the other hand, I also believe that we are on a natural warming trend, it happens every 20,000 years or so if I have read correctly. So I think we are indeed contributing to it, but certainly not as much as Al Gore thinks. Personally, I don't think we can stop the Earth from doing what it needs to do. Do we know for sure what the ramifications of Global Warming really are?
Like I said though, I believe it is mostly a natural occurence of the planet that would have happened anyway. If you show me a graph from 20,000 years ago off a cave wall that shows the rate of temperature change then you might prove me wrong, but good luck finding that. I don't think the issue should be viewed from a political stand point because politicians recruit scientists to provide answers and then the politicians don't show all of them. Oh well, there's nothing we can do about it now.

This is my bitch for the day...

I'm an Aussie and proud of it but my government is being so incredibly stupid when it comes to climate control. will not join kyoto and are basically waiting till some thing better comes along. Hellooooooo ever thought that it will be a little too late then?

aarrgghhhhh i hate this. The impact of climate change can be minised and reduced if people don't hide from it like the aussie goverment

The Kyoto Protocol will have a virtually nonexistant effect on Earth's climate, so what's the point? What's the point in putting yourself through unnecessary economic hardship for little or no gain?

I agree Night Phoenix, it's like paying rent for an apartment with 3 walls. Wait zergkiller, why do you have an American flag on Your thingy there?

The Kyoto Protocol is at least a start. I agree that it won't make much of a difference because the Kyoto targets in terms of emission reduction are so low but ratifying it would at least show an interest by Australia, the US and other countries in the wellbeing of the planet. "Economic hardship"? Get real. The so called hardship we'd go through developing cleaner technologies and cutting emissions barely compares to the real hardship faced by billions of the planet's inhabitants when the polar caps melt and their cities sink into the sea.

Did you goto today's rally zergkiller? I was at the Perth one.

Yeah, it's always "a start" but there's never a plan for what should be done after Kyoto, or how we get the Chinese and Indians to reduce their emissions.

We're not going to damage our economies for a gesture.