"Seventeen of the eighteen WARMEST YEARS since modern record-keeping began have occurred since 2001."

I've got to say that it is a real turn off that this issue has been politicized by both sides. I don't think that most climate scientists are fudging their data. The fact is, though, that they have a theory and that correlation is not the same as causation. I'm a science teacher and not "anti-science" nor a "denier" (is that supposed to put people who don't agree with one side's hypothesis in a similar camp to Holocaust deniers?). However, the same climate scientists can't say for sure what caused ice ages. It's not heresy to question whether they have the full picture. So in addition to the accusations above and the accusations of just plain being stupid, the other insult is the hypocrisy these "biggest problem the world faces" types engage in. Matt Damon blows up a tank full of jet fuel in his movie and then travels the world promoting them before returning to one of his mansions. Bitcoin uses as much electricity a year as Ireland. Even this guy's post is going to live on a server creating non-imaginary pollution (it exists even if you can't see it). All kinds of worthless disposable garbage is produced so people can be occupied with a materialistic existence. Meanwhile I live a reasonable lifestyle and am talked down to. I'm not going to believe something or vote a certain way out of spite, but the small people who attempt to shut down those who don't buy the party line makes those occasions when I disagree with them enjoyable. I honestly think many of these folks just don't like people. Their solution is usually more taxation and killing off future generations (or never having these future inventors and taxpayers at all). If you really want to reduce pollution, invest in fusion research, don't be an idiot about who you marry and then get divorced (separate households require far more energy), paint your roof white, and live a simpler lifestyle. Yes, that's right if fusion reactors are perfected there won't be any more global warming worry so the sky isn't falling after all. Most of all, why don't you try being kind for a change.

Data call wrote:

Not an American wrote:

Reading the stupidity of replies in this thread, we are doomed.

About 60 percent of Americans believe climate change is an issue of concern. Most of those who don’t believe it vote republican.

I asked Sean Hannity about this. He says the numbers are totally fake. So fake, you wouldn't believe it!

Call Sean Hannity for the *real answers*. Trust me!

Data call wrote:

Not an American wrote:

Reading the stupidity of replies in this thread, we are doomed.

About 60 percent of Americans believe climate change is an issue of concern. Most of those who don’t believe it vote republican.

I wouldn't rely on the collective opinion of 60 percent of Americans -- I mean, the percentage of Americans who believe in God is probably at least that high. But in scientific matters about which I have little expertise, I do give considerable credence to the overwhelming consensus among reputable scientists, and I am satisfied that the fact of that consensus in this matter is beyond serious debate.

You are not a science teacher.

To fight global warming, I turn up my air con to 11.

This SO does not matter, because no matter what anyone here says, it's happening.

Go to the Florida coast. Take a look around. What you choose to see does not matter. It's inevitable now.

Which is why its so shocking that the average temperature change curve is measurable

Conservatives chose and continue to hoose to disbelieve the science. It was not politicized by both sides.

Sorry dude, but I'm not buying it.

1) Individual acts of extreme waste or extreme self sacrifice are pretty much irrelevant (Matt Damon, et al)

2) Many people are hypocrites. That is true. It is also irrelevant. It has precisely zero impact on the science involved or the policy options to consider.

3) What DOES matter is how this is dealt with from a policy perspective - whether that involves fusion reactor funding or carbon taxes or . . .

Try not to conflate the two issues of (a) who/what do I find annoying and (b) what does the science say and what, if anything is the appropriate societal response.

just another guy wrote:

Timothy Foyle wrote:

The Earth is really, really old. Therefore it cannot be true that human activity is seriously warming the planet.

It is very, very difficult to argue with this logic. Thanks for putting this issue to rest.

One of the following is likely to be true:

1) I misunderstand the point of your post

OR

2) You misunderstood the point of my post

///

If 2) then one of the following is likely to be true:

A) You did not notice my handle

OR

B) You did not notice the post that I was responding to

climate change wasn't a political issue until republican politicians made it one for the sake of their corporate donors. period.

Urine idiot

The sun is in it's final nuclear burn stages; expansion is occurring and the earth will fry. Save yourselves, escape to Mars!

I have amassed extensive research that shows we are still 2.7 degrees fahrenheit cooler than the earths optimal temperature for the human race. At the miniscule amount of heat increase per year, we have many many more years before any dire consequences will occur.

uh huh wrote:

Obviously there's a lot of 2018 left, but data so far suggest that it's on pace to be the fourth-warmest year, globally, in more than a century of reliable global temperature readings.

The three warmest years? The three before this one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/climate/summer-heat-global-warming.html

Hundreds, even thousands of years need to be examined. Hell, it was hotter on average 300 years ago than it is now. But that doesn't fit the menshevik political narrative that wishes to destroy the West by any means necessary - and suck it dry of all money while doing so. The nation wreckers haven't changed in 4000 years.

Any science the regularly falsifies data is not a science.

Global Science Fraud wrote:

Any science the regularly falsifies data is not a science.

You calling Donnie TRUMP 'not' a science?!?!?

I would like to thank whoever warmed the planet to end the ice age. All of New England was covered with a glacier.

Yes, 2018 is shaping up to be "the fourth warmest year" in the instrumented record, only cooler than the previous three. Depending on your point of view, however, you might be convinced the earth is currently cooling, if we decide to only look at the last four years. Here is annual average (dots are year-end values except for 2018, which is in-progress), plus the 12-month trailing average (green curve):

[IMG]

http://i68.tinypic.com/29c7xg3.jpg[/IMG

]

Depending on how the rest of the year plays out, this year *might* end as the fourth warmest, or it could well be cooler than 1998 and a whole bunch of other years since 2001. Time will tell...