Originally Posted by dbg
Sure, the current, and well measured trend toward warmer averages could turn around anytime and prove to be just another statistical variation in overall weather patterns. There is clearly a huge amount of human-generated greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere that never existed before, and we are definitely experiencing much higher average global temperatures. And the ice coverage in Greenland and Antartica is lower and shrinking faster than ever measured before. Seems kinda stupid to me to ignore the possibility that we've actually F'ed up our own planet.
"Global warming" is probably not a great term for what we are seeing and there's no guarantee that your particular neck of the woods won't in fact become cooler. If climate change affects ocean currents anywhere near what is now suspected, Northern Europe could be considerably cooler.
I still can't believe, though, that folks still refuse to believe the climate is *way* different than it was 25 years ago. There are definitely some serious side effects from this. I come from a part of Canada where a 500 year old fishery resource disappeared practically overnight. Scientists there thought over-fishing played a role, but they now also believe another factor was that changing water temperatures affected reproduction cycles. Whatever happened, the resource is gone and is not coming back anytime soon.
I guess if this was the only story about "climate change", I would be skeptical, but there seem to be quite a few others.