I believe that it is real and should be considered, but very little action has been taken and I doubt any will be in the near future. The Kyoto protocol won't work and without anybody putting forward ideas that will actually force global recognition nothing will change.

The Bangladeshi are fucked if the sea level rises a few metres though as their entire country is low-lying and adjacent to the sea. It also happens to be the world's most densely populated country. India will really have its hands full if mass-migrations start north as well. No need to worry about that for another 50+ years though, I think.

I propose a solution of starting a nuclear war - giving both China and the US a chance to take one for the team - the resulting cloud of dust that covers the world will drop global temperature by an estimated 15 degrees Celsius, halting the melting of the ice caps in its tracks. We'd be abe to save Bangladesh from extinction!

to 1st post
you're reffering to the medieval warm period, and it is much warmer now than it was then

It better be the US then. Nuclear war is bad enough without the prices going up in Primark too...

and no, I'm talking about before the last (ie current) ice age started when there was no polar ice at all.

looking at this from an objective pov:
america is the world's biggest emmiter of carbon gasses, fair enough its a big industrialised country. But have they signed the Kyoto treaty yet? Nope. Europe is the only organisation making serious progress for the environment, the USA is going backwards

And China? Building a new power station every week, a massive population consuming ever more and more? And India, and Brazil and the other developing nations who just as they finally look like getting a slice of the pie are told that they have to stop their economic growth?

At least America is addressing the problem on a state-by-state basis, and American scientists are taking the lead in identifying and quantifying the problem.

Actually, the most recent statistics I saw said that China is now the biggest emitter, but that the US is still worst per capita.
It's all well and good to say "it was worse in the past" and refer back to the ice ages. Yes, it could be natural. However, even if it is natural we still need to do something about it, as it still poses great threats of changing weather, increased natural disasters, including probable large-scale flooding.
I hope I make sense!

Although some states, such as California, have taken environmental action.

I dont think global warming is really effecting england that much, granted walking around in winter isn't like it used to be years ago. Theres no snow for a start - and it doesn't hurt your lungs to breath, but then again our *hot* days aren't really that hot.

I went to america for over 2 months and in those months i experianced what an american would call a *slightly hot day* and i actually had to stop, sit down and drink.

Global warming is an issue, since england is bound to get flooded time after time, but as a world population - we care to much about power, money, electricity, cars.

Everything that destroys the world and causes these issues are leading things we in todays society feel we cannot live without.

Your all using computers, computers run via electricity so we have light's on, keep adding the electricity you're using, everyone on php - heck the entire internet, and then think of how much electricity has to be made to accomodate for everybody on the web, and the amount of gases it's producing thats lethal to our enviroment.

I heard in a newspaper that its actually unhealthy to take runs in cities now, to go out in the morning is cnsidered *unhealthy* for areas like west bridgford or where there are lots of factorys or buildings...

We will all moan about global warming, yet we all cause the issue, and no one in their right mind would give it up to save the enviroment, would all of you limit your computer time to 1 hour ;)

or stop driving your cars, stop helping produce electricity, especially washing machines, boy they suck up a lot of electricity.

No - you wouldn't :P global warming is something we will live with until it just destroys us, i think its as simple as that :P

Yeah, China overtook the US maybe 6 months to a year ago.

The Kyoto protocol would do very little whether or not the US signed it. Its just something for politicians to say that their doing something to stop global warming - what it actually does is of little relevance. Ultimately its used by parties to pull green voters rather than stop global warming.

Here is my take. Through the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide in the air was turned into other molecules within plants using energy from the Sun. This has been occurring for millions upon millions of years. Some of that energy and those molecules were converted into fossil fuels and stored within the Earth. Over a period of a few hundred years, society is now removing those fossil fuels and burning them, releasing the energy and turning the molecules back into carbon dioxide. It only makes sense that the result of this release of energy and carbon dioxide would lead to a global temperature increase. It will only subside when the burning of fossil fuels ceases. That will happen when the supply of fossil fuels is extinguished because their is not a collected, world-wide effort to do just that. So in 50 or 100 years, when fossil fuels run out, we might see this trend begin to reverse. Just don't buy any oceanfront property in the meantime.

Canada would benefit from global warming, the longer growing seasons would help their agriculture a lot.

Although, the Nigerian city of Lagos - one of the biggest in the world would sink, displacing millions of people.

"Is there really any prospect of the whole world (including China, India, BRAZIL) reducing emissions by the levels required to make a difference?"

Come on, we ain't that pollutant as USA and China. ;-)

Brazil is one of the fastest growing developing economies, the industrialisation and expansion of the manufacturing base means that its need for power and fuel is growing at a rate that makes it a significant contributor, if not now then certainly the future.

More and more studies are showing that ethanol is actually worse in terms of total carbon footprint and pollution than oil. When you take into account the vast tracts of land that are being converted to grow the crops necessary (usually at the expense of rain forests) as well as the reduced fuel efficiency.

China and other developing countries are quickly approaching and outpacing industrialized nations in pollution and they're only going to get worse in the coming decades.

In the US, the Bush administration is attempting to amend the Clean Air Act. Passed in the 1970's, it is one of our most important environmental laws. Among other things, they want to eliminate the hard restrictions on air pollutants. In their place, they want a sliding scale of pollution allowed per return on investment. Can anyone guess who that will benefit? It sure isn't the environment.

yes, there is an agenda of greater regulation over emissions and greater scientific/political control over the economy. however the evidence is pretty strong on rate of change and the association between carbon dioxide levels and climate oscillation. not definitive but strong enough that the precautionary principle is a good guide for action. the risk isn't an aggregate increase in temperature, however, so much as climate variation and throwing ecosystems into chaotic disequillibrium, with the risk that many species of plants and animals won't make it.

at any rate, true or overstated, higher emissions standards, a cap-and-trade system and more nuclear, wind & solar energy ought to do the trick. as for ethanol, ethanol is but the first step in biofuel research. the kicker on that is when they figure out how to extract the necessary sugars from switchgrass.

I think that it is a standard periodic warming of the earth. In fact, looking through ice deposits at the poles, we are LONG over due for one of the 'warming followed by cooling' periods.

Now, I also realize that carbon emissions etc are playing a role. They are perhaps speeding up the process or exaggerating it a little bit, but the say that humans are "causing" global warming is incorrect, in my opinion.

I dont think humans can really do anything to stop it and, even if we could, the global cooperation that would be required would be, most likely, not occur.

Just my opinion...

For what it's worth, I'm inclined to agree. This is nature - the Earth warms and cools, some species go extinct, others like mankind probably adapt. A couple of degrees here nor there make little difference, particularly when one severe volcanic eruption could release more carbon into the atmosphere than all the cars which have ever existed (or is that an urban myth stat?).

It's tough on the Bangladesh crowds sure, but it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. But global catastrophe makes damn good headlines, so we will be hearing a lot more of it for the next... several thousand years, I guess.

"A couple of degrees here nor there make little difference"?

If the world average temperature rises by as little as a single Kelvin, that would mean major problems for a lot of people and animals.

And yes, the world naturally cools and warms, and we are in a period of natural warming. However, the temperature is increasing far faster than before, and it is directly correlated to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

(And yes, British weather is wimpy. You consider a 85°F (30°C) day hot.)

You took a quote out of context, that's naughty.
Of course a couple of degrees would make a difference to the temperatures we are used to. But I was talking about the warming of the Earth on an epoch scale. The Earth WILL get several degrees warmer, there WILL be major problems sooner or later regardless of what we do - and however much warmer it will get, the odd one or two degrees that we can even dream of saving will make little to no difference, certainly not to the good people of Bangladesh!

aggregate temperature increases aren't the point. it is the rate of change which makes this so threatening. the earth's ecosystems can and will respond to natural fluctuations as they generally have. exceeding the capacity of ecosystems to adapt to the kind of change that is as old as life on the planet is what presents the possibility of disaster.

The earth's ecosystems will adapt to pretty much anything short of an extinction event. They've survived worse.

sure, life will survive, nobody is contesting that. that's beside the point.

As Noodlebug said, global warming isn't necessarily going to effect us. Well, perhaps that's the wrong way to put it, but it certainly won't impact us in the same way it will the impoverished of the earth, especially those living in coastal areas. Even if global warming ISN'T real in the sense of "oh we humans have caused this, mother earth is dying ;___;", it's still ridiculous to deny that the world is changing in a fairly dramatic way and new problems WILL arise in the coming years.

The earth goes through periods of higher and lower temperatures naturally. Sure the industrialization over the last 250 years has added, but only 6% of all the co2 and other harmful gasses are produced my humans, the other 94% is all natural. So there is some affect, but there isnt going to be a huge flood of the Earth or insanely hot temperatures showing up around the world.

so perhaps instead of making token gestures at preventing the inevitable like a modern day Canute, we should instead be putting our resources into disaster management - preparing people for the future. Buy everyone in Bangladesh a boat.

Let's be honest with ourselves, I don't know if I'm ready to inconvenience myself in order to save the planet. Sure we all agree that environmental friendliness is a nice thing, but when it comes down to the individual, only the real hippies and tree huggers are willing to take that extra step. People see in terms of $$$. The only way to save the planet is to make the solution more marketable.

well that is largely unfair. the solution probably is more cost-effective. decades upon decades of subsidizing the auto industry are responsible for the perception that cleaner energy options are more expensive than the dirty.

I think the best thing to do is read what the experts have to say: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
That summary report is only 73 pages, and is very readable, but will give you a proper understanding that no internet argument or documentary will

To really summarize in a nutshell warming is projected to be 2-4C, and the earth has indisputably been warming recently, but the results of the warming are a little less certain.
There may just be more hot days fewer cold days, some places have more drought some places have more rain, some farms produce less some produce more. Or there could be much more flooding, more powerful storms, a huge disruption to agriculture, etc.

I think the media overdoes it quite a bit, and acts like it'll be the end of the world. The scenario in "The day after tomorrow" where the atlantic current stops was deemed "very unlikely" by the IPCC, but lots of people are still scared that it'll happen.

I think we need to try and curb emissions, but I think global warming will bring about gradual moderate changes which won't be difficult to adapt to