Are you sure this wasn't Earthworks 1958. We haven't had smoke coming out of stacks like that in many decades. In fact, one of the theories for the recent warming is that with few significant volcanoes and better pollution controls, the sky is so clean that it lets more sun through (although China is working to fix that "problem").

Thankfully, most of these cartoons relate to results/disasters caused by pollution and not that nebulous demon called climate change!

Earthworks 2008 just released the results of their global cartoon competition, which focused on the struggle to combat global climate change ........ NOT !

Interesting how the fight against climate change is starting to resemble the fight against pollution .......... for credibility I guess ...... or a least trying to save face ..... LOL

Pollution is/has/will always be a problem in a developing society. We should not be distracted/detracted from our efforts to combat pollution by concentrating all our efforts/resources on one element/by product of pollution (IE CO2, global warming, global cooling, global indifference or global control or global wealth redistribution ....... etc.).

If we limit/sequester/eliminate CO2, what happens to the other pollutants. Most solutions treat CO2 ONLY ........... very convenient (and cheaper!) while unchecked pollution is ruining the planet TODAY ... not in 200 years!.

Here is a cartoon that is easier to understand then all of the ones in Brett's link:
http://www.cagle.com/news/GlobalWarming07/images/oconnor.jpg

Happy 4th of July everyone! Sit and watch the professional displays and don't attempt to use personal fireworks, especially in the designated drought areas. Be safe.

OT - Check this site at 12:00 noon Eastern time tomorrow - July 5th
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg

What you will see will be the beginning of the end of the NSIDC Arctic Tale of woe.

Oh, this is a topic that is just SCREAMING "Mess with me!"

Looney Tunes presents!!!!!

Merrie Global Climate Melodies

Starring Foghorn Leghorn as Al Gore.

And Miss Prissy as Heidi Cullen.

And Featuring The Egg Head as James Hansen.

Oh, that just made my day, Brett. Thanks. I needed that as I am completely depressed and totally jacked because it's 66 degrees and our 4th of July plans got scrapped thanks to all of this GLO-BULL Warming that we have to make sacrifices for.

Pittsburgh Weather. Proof that GLO-BULL WARMING IS A (MADE UP/POLITICAL) CROCK!!!!!!!!!

Dennis Hlinka's cartoon could be ironic in a way he didn't intend: Maybe AGW is just as real as Santa Claus...

We saw a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling in the early 1970s, and another warming scare today. The changes the USHCN promised Watts won't help resolve anything for another decade or so, but perhaps future generations will be able to reduce the alarming increase in the number of climate alarms.
From "Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?"
by Steven Goddard
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/print.html

Off topic request for Steve Bloom -

Can you point me to some peer reviewed literature re CO2 levels during the last one billion years?

TIA
Patrick

"The organizers of the competition believed that art and humour are a good way to get the environmental message across."

YA! Like the environMENTAL message isn't already across? It is rammed down our throats - 24/7. Getting the fear laden, hyped and erroneous message across is NOT the problem. The problem is getting the TRUTH across.

Dennis Hilka says,

"don't attempt to use personal fireworks"

Why not and who the heck..?

Are you gonna try to take that freedom away from me too? I shot a 50 caliber, an m60, a 12 guage, an m16, a 76mm & 9mm all for the US military. BUT I shouldn't attempt to use personal fireworks? Get a grip, would ya? Up here in the "Live free or die state" we still believe in personal freedom. If personal fireworks scare you, perhaps YOU shouldn't use them? Stop telling me what I should or should not do, ok?

Regardless of some trying to limit our personal independence... Happy 4th of July to all. God bless America!

The Latest on Global Warming from our beloved President:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kVlu3kh7DU&feature=related

Also the Polar Bear's idea of the real cause of Climate Change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK6KZE4gxa0&feature=related

Brett:Happy Independence day!
So the delayers,deniers,the misinformed and the disinformationists are still crying their pathetic tune. Not one bit of science. You make the soldiers at Iwo Jima look negligent. If you were real Americans you would rise up and say what can I do to solve this problem. You are turning your back on your own country, and I have little respect for you. The general consensus is understood and the adults will try to work this out. You children can sit on the sidelines and whine. This is not a political Issue. Since we still have a legislative branch, you can vote through your elected officials and do what you want to do. There will be no cap and trade if you vote against it. Don't you know this. I am a Democrat, and will fight within my party for change. But I wll never give up my beliefs for my Ideology. Nobody is cramming this down your throat. All of the cartoons illustrated that in the face of disaster there were still those who ignored reality. What is left for the peevish, whimpering, feeble,and deficient. NO EXIT!
Good Luck,KIPP

Looks like a "new" gas has been "discovered" that makes all of the CO2 look like a box of smarties.

nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming

And believe it or not the article follows up with "And it dwarfs two of the Kyoto gases. So the real question we don't know is how much is escaping and getting out." Dr Paul Fraser is the chief research scientist at the CSIRO's marine and atmospheric research centre, and an IPCC author. He says without measuring the quantity of NF3 in the atmosphere it is unclear what impact it will have on the climate

BRILLIANT ! ! !

An alarm AND a disclaimer all in the same article!

And people wonder why there is so much confusion and mis-information surrounding climate change!

See for yourself ........... http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/03/2293369.htm?section=justin

Isn't it interesting how often "global warming" turns out to be a rant against pollution of the environment (the one we can't do much about because of the solar cycle, the other we could do lots about but don't really want to).

Patrick, see here for the last 420 million years. Read the paper to see if they mention anything before that.

PaulB:
Pollution like the ozone hole can be fixed. As we have seen from the Venus Effect,CO2 does not dissipate for a thousand years or more. My oldest son is getting married this year, and I don't want to leave for my grandchildren, what could be a huge internal struggle for land. The effects on this planet could be catastrophic. CO2,N2O,CH4 and CFCs in our atmosphere. We can't stop the sun from shining in, with it's strong wavelengths, and we can't make the heat dissipate because of these gases. They excite by heat, and interact with each other ,because of their polyatomic nature. But if Americans act first, and smartly, than we will survive in a great economy, good fortune, and sell science to China the way they sell lead to us.I know that our corporations will act smartly to this new challenge, as they did after they bombed Pearl Harbour. There is no socialist conspiracy. I am a small business owner, and won't pay a cent more for tax. My brother in-law in France just went out of business, owning a small business because he was taxed 90% of his income.
Good Independence Day! KIPP

Another interesting OT-

Temperatures at Vostok, Antarctica averaged -95F in June. That is 20 degrees colder than June 2007, when Antarctica sped towards record sea ice.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/89606/2008/6/5/MonthlyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

Lots of funny anti-global-warming cartoons here:
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/global-warming-editorial-cartoons/

D. Hlinka sez,

Sit and watch the professional displays and don't attempt to use personal fireworks

I sez, mind your own business. You'll do well in the nanny state algore is trying to install.

Kipp,

"CO2 does not dissipate for a thousand years or more."

I've seen recent discussions about CO2 residence times in the atmosphere of Earth on the order of 10 years and Segalstad says its about 5 years. See: http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm

Interesting read. From the conclusion:

"It is nature's coupling between the temporary, short-lived atmospheric reservoir, with 0.5 x 1017 moles CO2, and the relatively enormous oceanic reservoir, with 30 x 1017 moles of dissolved (and hydrolyzed and protolyzed) CO2 in contact with calcium carbonate, that determines the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This coupling is in turn coupled to the much larger lithospheric reservoir. The rates and fluxes of the latter coupling control the amount of carbon in the surface reservoir of the Earth. All kinds of measurements show that the real residence time of atmospheric CO2 is about 5 years.

Chemical and isotope equilibrium considerations and the short CO2 residence time (lifetime) can fully explain the carbon cycle of the Earth. The conclusion of such reasoning is that any atmospheric CO2 level rise beyond 4% cannot be explained by accumulation of CO2 from Man's burning of fossil fuel. An apparent CO2 rise can only come from a much larger, but natural, carbon reservoir with much higher delta-13-C than the fossil fuel pool, namely from the ocean, and/or the lithosphere, and/or the Earth's interior. CO2 degassing from the oceans instead of IPCC's anthropogenic accumulation is indeed made probable by the measurements of a larger CO2 increase in Atlantic surface waters than in the contemporaneous atmosphere (Takahashi, 1961; 1979). Kondratyev (1988) argues that: "The fact is that the atmospheric CO2 content may be controlled by the climate" and not the opposite. ""

I think PH is right and reckon NH ice will be ABOVE anomaly 2009

Steve,

Thanks much for the CO2 link. That is very helpful.

I was just looking at the polar web cam which Brett pointed us to. It is sunny today and you can see very clearly that some of the snow is very white, and other snow is dark. Hansen wrote a paper in 2004 where he said

"Soot snow/ice albedo climate forcing is not included in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change evaluations. This forcing is unusually effective, causing twice as much global warming as a CO2 forcing of the same magnitude,"
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_Hansen_Nazarenko.pdf

I've also noticed that during the last couple of days the temperature has been around 2.5C. Not much melting is going to occur at that temperature, with the sun at only 22 degrees above the horizon.

New article in Science, once again defying the seemingly endless hysteria. Greenland glaciers have slowed down over the last 17 years.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5885/111

PaulB, July 4, 2008 12:01 PM"

I agree with your post, except when you say
"If we limit/sequester/eliminate CO2, what happens to the other pollutants."

CO2 is not a pollutant unless you get perhaps 10 times higher than today (Note: OSHA says 5000PPM is the max level for 8 hour worker exposure). Anything can be a pollutant at high enough concentrations, but I don't think anyone envisions a scenario where man could get CO2 anywhere near levels at which it could be considered a pollutant.

Dennis Hlinka, July 4, 2008 12:03 PM

That cartoon doesn't quite agree with reality. No one in their right mind thinks climate doesn't change.

I would guess that what the cartoonist means to say is that the jury is still out on:

a) Whether mans 3% contribution to the 380PPM (.038%) levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (thats 11.4PPM or .00114%) caused the warming from the 1970's until about 1998.

b) whether the 30 year maximum Antarctic ice levels have any Global meaning versus Arctic ice

c) whether the last 7-10 year cooling trend is really just a natural cycle that has masked the Anthropogenic CO2 related change

d) whether the last cooling will reverse course soon and a psychological tipping point will occur beyond which water vapor changes its behavior and starts helping the CO2 warms things up. Water vapor being much more prevalent and being the great climate stabilizer that it is, sees CO2 trying so hard, but being the little kid on the block CO2 can't quite get it done. This is when water vapor starts feeling sorry for the little kid and starts helping the kid warm things up.

So I agree that a citizen jury is still out on these factors.

The problem with this story line, is that water vapor, being the empathetic creature that it is, will also see the armageddon as it starts and realize the mistake that has made in helping out the CO2 and reverse its behavior. I just hope that when that happens, water vapor won't go overboard and freeze all our tootsies off.

Patrick Henry | July 4, 2008 12:32 PM

I don't get it. Are you saying, that on one day we'll see the bottom of the curve and it will start to reverse? and we'll know it s the bottom?

My Dennis response on Polar bears may not have been complete as a gremlin hit the Post button on me.

I think the gremlin was a massively powerful CO2 molecule that either aimed itself at my finger to click my mouse or hit the enter key on my keyboard.

Sorry. 3 posts starting at July 5, 2008 1:20 PM were mine. Wouldn't want some other anonymous to take credit.

Thought for the day:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I notice that the denial machine is imitating science's techniques, along with turning them on their heads, to try to disprove the inconvenient reality that is staring them in the face.

They think climate change can be undone by shouting loudly and that science is a matter of opinion and politics.

I will have more to say on this subject another time, as I am too busy to make multiple posts like some that dominate this blog.

Brett, I would suggest limiting responses to each post to 3. That's actually more than I