Lets take a look at the facts, all this climategate stuff aside.
Since 1900, we have been spewing out more and more CO2, correct?
Now, I fully agree, the amount of CO2 we've thrown out cannot substantially warm the Earth, but it can cause a very small amount of warming, globally. We've also had our ozone layer depleted in certain areas, adding to the amount of energy that reaches the surface of the Earth.
As I've said before, the most dangerous greenhouse gas is water vapor. The amounts that naturally occur through evaporation allow enough heat to remain in the biosphere so live can be sustained. But, when we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as we obviously have, you increase the rate of evaporation very slightly. This in turn releases a tiny bit more water vapor then is the norm for our environment. Because of this, temperatures rise, because more energy is being trapped inside the biosphere. This in turn causes another small increase in evaporation, which forces another increase in temperature.
This is what's known as a positive feedback loop. Its like a human who can't sweat when exercising. Your body keeps heating up, and heating up, and it can't get rid of the heat fast enough. The checks and balances of the environment cannot stop this process.
What ends up happening, is over very long periods of time, temperature increases slowly, but surely. Given the length of time this takes, you could take any 40 year temperature interval, and you wouldn't find the slightest hint of temperature change. Regardless of what the data is saying, this is happening, because, quite frankly, the logic is too sound to be wrong.
These changes won't happen fast enough for them to kill off humans, or to do anything major to effect our way of live. What will happen, however, is other animals won't be able to adapt, because natural selection cannot work at the same pace as the climate change.
This is another problem many people don't understand. A short time for Earth means thousands and thousands of years. In relation to the tim Earth has been around (4.6 billion years) humans have been around for maybe 10,000 years. So, for us, the climate change is going to take a very long time. but we have technology, we have adapted the Earth to fit our needs. Other animals, such as bears, and fish, can't change fast enough to match the pace of global warming.
Do you understand now? It is undoubtedly happening, but not very fast, and probably not fast enough to effect us for a long time to come. The recent snow storm on the East Coast proves this process is taking place, even as we discuss it.
I personally don't know what we can really do about it though. We can try to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that wouldn't do very much, as it has already started the reaction. We can try to decrease the amount of water vapor, and return it to normal levels, but we would have to pour trillions of dollars into that, and keep water vapor at a steady level for decades to stop this. And even then, if we are even slightly off from the original number, the process will continue, or we might start an ice age because we removed too much water vapor.
That's my take on things, but again, I might be wrong, but that would also mean my books are wrong, and their logic, and they seem pretty solid.
