Sounds like we need to relax EPA guidelines and allow more particulate matter to be put into the atmosphere. Has anybody considered that the Clean Air Act in 1970 may have contributed to the onset of "Global Warming" by removing too many particulates from the atmosphere.

Almost half the US is suffering a drought as well an many other parts of the World.
In fact, drought is beginning to become so common that people are just accepting it as normal.

North America Drought Map.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/monitoring/drought/nadm/nadm-200708.jpg

There was a reduction in precipitation following Mt Pinatubo. However, in the case of the Agung and El Chich󮠥ruptions, there was no detectable reduction in global precipitation. So, a lot more study is needed to fully understand both the short and long term consequences.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070817-volcano-warming_2.html

http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn12397/dn12397-1_464.jpg

August brought much of the southern U.S. record dry heat and near-record dryness. An intense heat wave was responsible for breaking many record highs across the country and resulted in Top Ten dryness from California on the west coast all the way over to the east coast affecting the Central Plains, Ohio Valley, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic along the way.

A staggering nine states reported their warmest August on record (going back 113 years) including: Utah, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Virginia ended the month with their 2nd warmest August on record. In general across the Southeast, temperatures averaged an amazing 6-10F above-normal for the month.

As for precipitation, several of these states and others came in with Top Ten dryness with several reporting one of their driest Augusts ever including:

Arkansas (4th driest), Kentucky (4th), Tennessee (2nd), North Carolina (2nd), South Carolina (5th), Massachusetts (3rd), and Rhode Island coming in with their 2nd driest. As a whole, the Southeast region has recorded their driest year-to-date ever through the end of August 2007.

This David is saying that greenhouse gases are causing global warming? I don't see how AGW is being taken as FACT. It is a theory! Do you know how many other "theorys" there are about global warming?

Come on, let's find the cause of global warming with absolute CERTAINTY before we can fix it, if we can fix. (most likely the forces at work are too strong for us to fix; examples: sun, gravity)

What a lame-brain idea. If anyone reads any climatic history, they will recall what climate disasters resulted not only from Mt Pinutumbo, but also Mt Tambora and Krakatora in 1815 and 1887 respectively. New England July snows, European Blizzards in September, etc... Mary Shelley was living in Geneva Switzerland in 1816. Her diaries of the summer of 1816 were telling. Her friends and her spent the summer huddled around a fire place under blankets as the outside air temps hovered around the mid 30s. Rain and snow fell across Central Europe through much of that summer. Can anyone imagine what were to occur to our global food supplies with half the world's breadbaskets either seeing severe drought, while the other half is under frost and snow.

I think the principle of "primum nil nocere" -- "first, do no harm" -- applies. I fear this "cure" is likely to be far worse than the disease.

from Oregon institute of Science and medicine
by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
comments? Data seems compelling (and is well referenced)

OK. Here's another lamebrain idea: The late Carl Sagan in his book - A Path No Man Thought - theorized that if 10 major urban areas were annihilated with thermonuclear weapons of 450 KT or greater that Global Winter would ensue with catastrophic consequences and possibly mass extinctions (including man). He based this on extrapolations of observed historic volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Katmai. The key is enormous amounts of carbon particulates entering the stratosphere.

Frankly, with population growth going logarithmic I cannot see how our puny attempts to reduce GHG will make a dent. Of course if mankind has even a limited thermonuclear war all concerns about global warming will be irrelevant.

If we are faced with truly catastrophic sea level rises, then maybe we may be forced to somehow activate three or four volcanic eruptions worldwide.

Or, we can sit back and let a couple of regional powers like Pakistan and India (or Iran)develop thermonuclear weapons and we won't be worrying about global warming anymore.

China is not going to cut back on it's increasing output of CO2 anytime soon. Other third world countries want to industrialize too. Russia won't cut back either - who in Russia is against a little warming?. The US may make some cuts but they will be inconsequential in the overall picture. If CO2 is causing significant warming (I'm skeptical that is more than a minor factor) the choices are consider some geo-engineering solutions or watch the world get warmer.

According to Schare, a geo-engineering method of using aerosols to put small reflective particles into the troposphere would stabilize global temperatures just enough to prevent melting glaciers and thus prevent a rise in ocean levels.

REPLY: Wait a minute! WHAT????? Was there not a mad hysteria campaign 20 years ago to ban all aerosol cans because their usage was blowing a hole in the ozone layer, thus leading to increases in skin cancer due to the suns rays no longer being shielded???? And now they will help curtail global warming and save the glaciers???? What a crock! These people need to get a life and stop this political fraud! FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD!!!

As for this:
There was a reduction in precipitation following Mt Pinatubo.

REPLY: Another CROCK!!!! Mt Pinitubo's eruption lead to one of the coldest, wettest, most miserable summers I ever experienced back in 1992!!!! The sun hardly shined, it was 40 friggn degrees in June, and in July, it never got higher than 70F!

As for this:
Can anyone imagine what were to occur to our global food supplies with half the world's breadbaskets either seeing severe drought, while the other half is under frost and snow

REPLY: If some of these tree hugging fools who want to "cool the earth" have their way, you may experience it first hand.

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

For a closer look at the historical scientific record concerning droughts, please visit World Climate Report:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/10/10/drought-update/#more-273

The AGW alarmists would have you believe that what we are observing in 2007 is abnormal, and by inference, is caused by AGW. At least two studies by real scientists found no such connection. The report ends with the statement:
"Anyone suggesting that recent droughts are somehow the result of emissions of greenhouse gases is overlooking tremendous amounts of evidence suggesting otherwise. Droughts are a natural part of the climate of North America - they have been around a long time and they are not going away anytime soon. Droughts impacted the region in warm periods of the past, cold periods of the past, and will return whether the future is warmer or colder."

Vincent:
from Oregon institute of Science and medicine
by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
comments? Data seems compelling (and is well referenced)

Suggested reading on The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Vincent:
from Oregon institute of Science and medicine
by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
comments? Data seems compelling (and is well referenced)

Suggested reading on The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Doug L

Sagan predicted on ABC's Nightline in 1991 that smoky oil fires in Kuwait set by Saddam Hussein's army during the first Gulf War would cause an ecological disaster and send black clouds into the atmosphere resulting in global cooling.

If we are faced with truly catastrophic sea level rises

Indeed, "IF" however sometimes the data shows something different than the people getting wads of grants from taxpayers want it to show.

How much HAS it gone up in Florida? Al gore says it WILL go up 20 feet the IPCC says a foot and a half there is no consensus other than to spend money,....

But if industrialization started making it warmer 60+ yrs ago well, how many hotels at miami have moved up the beach?

Darren M.,

Actually, it's more of a hypothesis than a theory. At least a theory can be supported by facts, AGW has no facts to support the hypothesis, just computer models and a correlation coefficient of 0.22 for CO2 vs Temps!

As far as "fixing" the "problem", I think the old axiom, "Don't mess with Mother Nature" applies here. Besides, I don't trust engineers.

I am really getting tired of the "sky is falling" attitude of many of the AGW proponents. So we have record drought. How long have we been keeping records? 100 to 120 years? Who knows what happened before Europeans arrived in North America? The earth has been around for many, many millenniums. Why is so hard to believe that climate may change in our life times? We can't do anything about change, because we don't cause it.

Deniers claim that we have no effect on climate. Therefore, they should have nothing to worry about if we inject aerosols into the atmosphere. After all, we can't affect climate, right?

Paul,

I absolutely agree with you. Whenever I hear "we must stop global warming" I laugh. We as humans CANNOT stop it no matter what. I know that there is no stopping mother nature, unless we can find out how to control solar output or some kind of an anti-graity. I DO NOT agree with messing with either of those, and I don't think it's even possible. Not unless we advance over the next 4 billion years before our sun engulfs the first three planets.

David also said this:

"doesn't really care whether global warming is man-made or a NATURAL CYCLE ,all he knows is that the temperature is going up and we need to find a way to fix the problem."

- Who gave the AGW'ers permission to play god? The UN? NASA? Ronald McDonald? I Don't understand their logic.

Reply: I don't think David is an AGW. Brett

Mark,

Glad to see you finally "getting" it. Therefore, according to your analysis, since we can't affect climate (globally, yes; locally, no), why spend billions of taxpayer dollars on something that can't possibly even remotely have any sort of effect?

I agree with you.

Vincent;
Excellent Link. The date looks very well researched and is quite convincing.
Of course the AGW Industry will attempt to discredit the Orogon Institute. It is really all they can do since they have no factual arguments to offer against the report.
By the way, the two articals linked by Stephen V. come from well funded pro AGW propoganda sites who are very dependant on AGW funding. I would not give much creadance to anything posted at either of them.
Here is a very interesting link talking about why most AGW activists simply want the crisis to stay a crisis. Why any real attempt to FIX anything is always met with resistance. Very interesting:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/printable/3950/

There was an Old Lady who swallowed a fly.....

So Stephen V, aside from not liking the guy, can you find any deception in his graphs or his conclusion? Sounds quite reasonable to me.

If we put reflective particles into the air, that should decrease the efficiency of solar power cells.

Rob Peter to save Paul, anyone?

Daren M, The problem in waiting for absoloute certainty is that by that time, it may be too late. I remember the same arguments in the 70's and 80's about ozone depletion. It's like waiting for the 'smoking gun'! The smoking gun in the case of ozone depletion was a giant hole over the Antarctic.The problem with waiting for the preverbial smoke is that by the time you see it, the bullet has already left the gun. I do agree in that there should be a good general scientific consensus before billions of dollars/pounds are spent on changing policy, afterall, it was only 25 years ago when we were on the brink of a new ice age.

On behalf of my mother, the correct spelling of my name is SCHNARE. Reply: Oops, sorry about that David, I will fix that.

I'm not an AGW or anything else in particular, although I have a PhD in environmental science and happen to be burdened with a law degree too. I started out as a chemist. In any case, I simply begin with the apparency that temperatures are going up and that if you adopt the assumption that it is caused by GHG, then you also have to accept the fact that the world is not acting quickly enough to reduce GHGs to the degree necessary to reduce global temperatures before melting of the greenland ice sheet (all according to the models and assumptions used by those concerned with GHGs).

As for undesirable effects of using particulates in the stratosphere (not the troposphere), Ken Caldeira (Standford) took a very hard look at this and concluded that if the particulates are placed above the arctic (where they would be needed to prevent ice sheet melt), there is no discernable change in local weather patterns elsewhere on the planet and apparently not much change in the arctic.

All this does not imply we should do nothing about moving away from carbon based fuels. Just that we don't need to do so in some kind of crisis mode.