http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8393449.stm

Erm, yeah, that review's happening all too quickly - could it be we want to maintain the current path of highly questionable climate findings, or are we slowly backing away from it all with this?

Even from our own headlines on the international effect of all this, it seems it's become quite an issue all too quickly

This whole climate change business has me totally baffled, on the one hand as soon as Al Gore did An Inconvenient Truth I knew global warming was [LIFTED], on the other hand I know it's intrinsically wrong to bury plastic bags, nappies and tampons in the ground, I'm confused.

As ever, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Probably.

This area of science is too highly politicised and emotionalised.

AGW keeps other environmental issues ignored such as biodiversity depletion, overfishing, land pollution, desertification and waste since it is seen as the most improtant threat.
If AGW is occuring, If it has primarily bad consequences, If that is in a short enough time frame to be worth action, if the benifits of action outwieght the costs we should take action.

Agreed, the world is warming, we are destroying it with waste and gases in quantities it hasn't had to cope with in the past - outside occasional catastrophic disasters, let alone constantly, year on year.

Is the world in a warming phase? It certainly looks like it is changing dramatically, not just temperature, but excesses in all directions - high wind, floods, earthquakes etc. Is humanity solely responsible for the change? Very unlikely.

Does that mean that we shouldn't worry about it and not bother with reducing our influence on the climate? No. Humanity is at such a level as the planet has never seen before, we are overpopulated and we are destroying the natural balance of the planet. We are ripping up great areas of land for us to live on, we are destroying CO2 absorbing plant life, to breed cattle, we are gouging the landscape for coal (look at the brown coal works in the Ruhr area of Germany, huge above ground coal mines which destroy communities (they move ahead of the work, resettling whole towns and villages, before the excavators turn up and rip the whole town down, to a depth of 20-30M below ground level...

The world is very probably warming on its own, but the size of humanity and what we are doing to the planet around us is certainly affecting the process, very probably accelerating it. Also, because we are so large and so widespread and because we have tried to defy nature (ships, oil platforms, dykes etc.) which means we live in areas which would otherwise be uninhabitable, we are affected in greater numbers and in ways that we weren't "designed" to do.

New Orleans is a classic example, human technology meant we could build a city below sea level, then humanity gets upset when nature has the temerity to show us that we really shouldn't mess with the natural order! Instead of going "New Orleans was flooded by high water? No sh*t Sherlock," America took as if they had been emasculated.

We certainly need to curb our excesses. Will that stop climate change or global warming (note that the governments now call it change, not warming! It swings to extremes in each direction, with a general average warming), probably not. But it might slow it down and allow us breathing room to come up with ways to survive in a climate that is too warm.

Is it just greenhouse gases? No. Overpopulation, destroying the natural balance of the world and waste also need to be addressed.

Awesome, you can get off your soapbox now.

+1

In the UK I don't think there's one river that hasn't had it's course altered. Water will find its own path.

AS somebody remarked, this issue has become too politicised. The "science" is straightforward: a numbetr of phenomena have been empirically observed, like glaciers melting at a faster rate, sea-level rises etc. A number of models have been devloped to attempt a hypothesis that "explains" these observations. So-far, the models which predict global-warming based on human activity seem to fit the facts, but there is far too little data to be hugely confident about this.

OK, so the science is a little inconclusive, but most of what Big_D said is true. Even if our production of Greenhouse gases doesn't do for us, then our wholesale pillaging and destruction of the Earth will. In previous epochs where radical climate changes have ocurred, the human (and animal) populations have frequently been able to migrate to safer regions. Relatively small numbers meant plenty of "headroom" for all. The World's forested areas are being constantly denuded of life, desertification is spreading rapidly. The spaces for migrating populations to occupy in extremis are vanishing.

Even if there were somewhere to go, in the modern world migrations of this type (ignoring the potentially huge scale) would be blocked by borders and politics. Why do you think Iraquis who want to come here are told "Its safe to go home"?

OK I'll dismount my soapbox now. A tip though for all the "climate sceptics". Land in places like Tu Valu, Bangaladesh and The Maldives must be getting cheap. Now's the time to puit your money where your mouth is!