Are fabulous, I know, but I don't get your point, as much as I love ambiguity.

Ice cores, like tree rings, have layers that correspond to each seasonal cycle. The amount of carbon/oxygenation in the water at the time that layer was created can be determined by drilling out a long slender core hundreds of feet down and give an accurate measure of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere (and likewise a general temperature reading) for thousands of years back.

Here's an idea. Every time you exhale, you produce carbon dioxide. Stop exhaling.

Probably not the best idea to tell the Admin to stop breathing.

The amount of Carbon Dioxide produced by animal respiration is good. A certain amount of CO₂ is necessary for plants to produce energy.

One barrel of oil has the same amount of chemical energy as several person-years of work. I would say "stop breathing" would not have much affect as compared to not driving your car for a day. The rate at which plants/bacteria/etc can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen achieved equilibrium with the amount that animals, aerobic life, and natural disasters (volcanos and forest fires, etc) can generate it. There is a set amount of carbon in the system cycling through. When you dig up millions of tons of carbon from inside the earth's crust each year and introduce it into the system, then the balance is skewed.

To fix the problem 2 things must occur.

• 1) Stop digging carbon up.
• 2) Take carbon out of the atmosphere and rebalance the system.

There are two ways to achieve #2. Carbon can exist in 3 places:

• The atmosphere
• The ground
• In living materials

The two ways to achieve rebalance is to take carbon from the atmosphere and move it to either of the other two groups.

The easiest way I can think of to do this would be to create algae farms. The algae would then have to be reburied otherwise it would decompose and reintroduce the carbon to the atmosphere because hey, it's a cycle. And that's what cycles do. I call this un-drilling for oil.

To leave the system in balance with the carbon in living material, basically mass-reforestation would need to occur where inland arid areas of all continents would be converted into jungles forests/jungles. Without magically changing climate patterns, this is impossible with current technology.

So yes, we're hosed.

The good news is if we stop digging right now, the current conditions don't have a way to get worse (aside from the reflection of the ice caps) and that buys us more time for the process of carbon removal.

also if china continues on it's current course it's soon going to start producing more co2 than the US and they really don't give a crap. It's like trying to reduce the nuclear stoke pile by only getting rid of our nukes. All were doing is shooting ourselves in the foot.

Except producing CO₂ isn't deterring other countries from attacking us.

but taxing ourselves with cap n trade will hinder our economy

These results of global climate change will also hinder our economy: several major cities needing to be relocated because of rising sea levels, property destruction, crops failing because of changes in temperature and aridity, increase in oil prices because of the increased need for heating and cooling of established population centers, trading partners in Sub-Saharan African that won't exist because their land is being turned into desert by climate change, and many, many other economic hardships that can arise from a more volatile climate.

But like I said, if what you say is true there is nothing we can do about it. It's going to hurt us anyways, and wouldn't it be easier to convince people once it actually happens?

we can still lesson it's effects.

Indeed. If we CAN help to reduce the impact it will have on the world, should we not? It seems to me that waiting and letting it hit hard and plunge the world into what may well end up being an international crisis in order to convince other nations of the importance is just lazy. It is more productive and useful in the long run to try and slow what is happening down and make plans and provisions about what to do when the hard parts do happen. It's all about being prepared, and trying to prepare others as well if possible. Maybe they won't listen, but hey, maybe they will! Sometimes a leader just needs to emerge and others will follow.

Mr. Awesome, would you say the same thing if there were a meteor hurtling towards earth, or some other impending global disaster?

Hey, let's play a Choose your Own Adventure!

You find yourself careening towards a wall at high speed. SIMPLY APPLYING YOUR BRAKES IS NOT ENOUGH TO AVOID THE WALL. TURNING IS NOT AN OPTION. Your foot is on the gas. Do you:

a) Release your foot from the gas (turn to page bad)
b) Step on the brakes (turn to page less bad)
c) Do nothing (turn to page extinction)

d) Deny that the wall exists and make political cartoons making fun of people who think it's there.

People hate change. They aren't going to do it because something bad might happen. I agree with mr.awesome983 in the fact that we simple aren't going to do anything huge till we lose a few cites. (Or about too)

We almost lost New Orleans. Global Warming means hotter oceans. Hotter oceans mean more intense hurricanes.

"We almost lost New Orleans. "

That's not good enough.

Which is ridiculous. We can't not react until it's too late. We won't survive as a species that way.

I would generally blame that on the American ideal to think short term, rather than make serious plans on how we want the country to be in, oh, one hundred years or so. However, this theory is a little debunked by China, which does think long term, but that begs the question on how strong of an environmentalist movement there is in China. At least that is what I am wondering at this moment in time.

Not very, at least from what I last heard. From what I've read, their stance is basically that we polluted as much as we wanted during our industrialization so it's hypocritical of us to tell them not to. China looks long term when it affects China as a whole, otherwise I don't think they much care what happens to anyone else.

I forgot China wasn't on Earth.

Reminds me of the survival plan scene in Dr. Strangelove, where they start arguing about how the communists would use the opportunity of the underground bunker to further their fight for power. Choosing politics over human survival is a lot less funny outside of a movie.

China's actually being affected already (the Inner Gobi is expanding), but their official scientists don't acknowledge that it's climate change.

Hotter oceans increase shearing of clouds, preventing hurricanes from forming, there is a range at which hurricanes form.