Can We Control Climate Change?

Here is a another good comment from Grist. The Earth's atmosphere warms and cools over and over again. It has done so long before man began contributing large amounts of carbon emissions, (carbon dioxide, CO2). This person sums things up very well.
Peter


Reduced Enough It (carbon dioxide emissions) Could Stop Climate Change?
Wow, I am flabbergasted.
The thought that we can "stop climate change" is so far removed from reality that it boggles the mind.
Haven't we already agreed upon the pre-anthro (before man) emissions climate change? Temperatures rise - then greenhouse gases rise - then temperatures rise etc...
Now the goal is to "control climate change?"
Good luck with that.

I am all for reduced pollution. I am all for common sense solutions and realistic ways of coping with climate change. If we are serious about reducing CO2 we need to have a serious discussion about nuclear power (especially integral fast reactors),
We need to discuss how slow and predictable (and inevitable) sea level change will be addressed in countries all over the world.
What I am not for is inciting fear based on exaggerated scenarios in order to enact legislation that does nothing but redistribute wealth and exacerbate the problem, e.g. Kyoto.

Getting back to the original point - we have about 160 years of accurate temperature records, roughly 47 years of actual atmospheric CO2 observations and some scenarios kicked out by a GCM (Global Climate Model). To think we really understand how climate change works at this point is pretty presumptive. We are still trying to sort out why oceans were cooling when they were supposed to be warming and why global temperatures were cooling while atmospheric CO2 was rising. Most climate change scientists aren't anywhere near as "sure about global warming" as the alarmists.

Some of us are looking for more science and less fear mongering. Every day you can find at least 10 stories that talk about polar bear-jellyfish-bird migration-tropical diseases-ice cap melting-sky is falling-Katrina was due to global warming etc...
Some common sense and rational thought is all I am looking for.
Thanks for the posts!
by Pete H at 3:44 PM on 28 Dec 2006