Incidentally, LSD was supposed to be quite effective at treating alcoholism. (see http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.06-society-peaking-on-the-prairies/)

Well sure ... when you've got a nice trip going, who needs alcohol?

The Hockey Stick is genuinely poor science. You can't append 20th century instrumental observations onto centuries of tree ring inferences and call it good data. Especially when the tree-ring inferences don't reflect known and widely recorded temperature fluctuations such as the medieval warm period and the little ice age. By comparing apples and oranges, the only thing the hockey stick graph demonstrates is that tree-ring inferences aren't good for much.

The science needs to be able to stand on its own. Its the job of skeptics to try to poke holes in it. If they succeed, then we know its poor science; if they fail, then the theory itself is stronger for standing up to the challenge. Calling any questioning of the science a "red herring" is a disservice to the quality of science itself.

. Scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970's:

that's not even really true anyways. a few scientists put out some papers talking mostly about how since we're nearing the end of an interglacial, in 10,000 years or so we'd start cooling off. they also mentioned that such a prediction was based pretty much solely on orbital dynamics (milankovich cycles etc) which is a balls-easy prediction, noting that it didn't take into account atmospheric phenomena.

some people at time or newsweek or whatever decided to run with scaremongering headlines about the "impending ice age!!1". there was no consensus among climate scientists about cooling, most back then complained that we didn't have good climate models or computing power to make anything close to an accurate prediction.

1) The report from the United Nations was inconclusive if anyone took time to read the whole report. What people read was the summary written by politcaly motivated people. I personaly think that humans contribute to global warming. It is inconclusive. There are just too many factors that go into the makeup of our atmosphere. A good book to read is "hot talk cold science" can't remember the author.

2)The debate is how much do human contribute. It is not clear cut answer. Before we give up all of our freedoms(money, human rights) and our sovereinty to other nations, I think this important that this is agree upon by all, not just power hungry people.

3)Didn't we all learn as a child "don't cry wolf"? We don't want to be alarmists! We need credibility and this type of arguement destroys our credibility

4)The movie Gore made had so much misinformation in it the British gov't is requireing teachers in schools to inform the kids of the untruths. The fact that he could take an airliner instead of a private jet would add to his credibility. Or the fact that he owns several large houses. If he really beleives the stuff that he preaches he should also live it.

5)No familiar with this one!

The comment about predicting global cooling in the 70's, points out how scientists are quite often wrong even if a lot of them agree on something. The author misinterpreted that reasoning.

I bet that Pink Elephant gets pretty freaky when your on acid.

What no one can say is whether climate change, resource depletion, and extinction will really have dramatic, negative shocks before markets and nature inevitably make adjustments.

Climate change: "Try it, you might like it!"