Thanks, Shane- it is fine to disagree, so mostly I just like to be sure we are reading each other correctly 🙂

I think we agree on the main point- that humanity needs to change how we “power” our modern lives. There is no doubt in my mind that the pollution we generate causes harm, and that we absolutely must reduce our “footprint”. I am not ignorant of the facts: I am just interpreting them differently than you are.

The carbon load we generate has some impressive numbers associated with it, numbers which I am aware of. But these numbers are small compared to what nature itself can, does, and has generated. A single large forest fire can release 10% of the mankind’s entire annual carbon production in a matter of days. A single volcanic eruption pumps more material into the atmosphere in a single day than man does in a year (not all carbon, but definitely having a similar effect on climate): it can also release more energy than a thousand of the largest atomic bombs, as well as releasing massive amounts of radioactive material, but that is another matter. The Sun’s output can vary enough in a given month to raise or lower temperatures on all the planets in the solar system by several degrees for an entire year. Well, actually, in point of fact it can vary enough in a single hour to turn all of the inner planets including Earth into crisped cinders, but fortunately we are blessed with a particularly stable star 🙂 And the Sun’s average output varies in massive cycles lasting thousands or tens of thousands of years.

At times in the not too distant past, the entire planet was variously covered in a kilometer thick sheet of ice, and at other times was a tropical swamp with no ice sheet to speak of at all- humanity wasn’t around in either instance. This hasn’t occurred as one nice, neat, evolution from ice to tropics: it has cycled, flipping from one to the other several times, as recently as ten thousand years ago. There is absolutely no question about this. And evidence is stacking up that these massive climate shifts not only have happened repeatedly, but also may have occurred very quickly (over the course of decades, not eons). The exact causes aren’t well understood.

Am I saying that this changes the fact that humanity needs to do something about our own impact? No- we need to make some major changes, and we need to make them quickly. The fact that our industry and current lifestyle can produce changes in the climate is indisputable. Worse yet, the fact that we barely understand enough about how the climate works to be able to detect our impact is frightening.

But is humanity the only cause, or even the primary cause, of the current climate change? I am doubtful, and facts like the global temperature increases currently taking place on Mars and other planets in the solar system caused by increases in our Sun’s output seem to support the idea that something other than Man’s influence is having an impact.