I wonder. There are a number of things to consider. I agree that the Earth is warming. We are in an interglacial period, for chrissakes. The earth will continue warming until it doesn’t. Then we head for another ice age.

Or will we? Have you ever heard of the notion of the Anthropocene period? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene )

Also yeah, there are natural cycles such as the Milankovitch one responsible for natural ice ages but this current global overheating phenomenon ain’t natural. See :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq8_l6s89uY

among many other places and clips and sources.

We know from isotopes and observations and calculations and good science that Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) is exactly that.

Of course, eventually on along enough timescale the Earth will heat up and become another Venus -due to our Sun’s evolution into a sub-giant star and then finally our Earth will be probably destroyed altogether by our daytime star when it becomes a red giant.

But that longer geological timescale perspective is certainly not an excuse for us to bring this overheating fate forward any or wreck the lives of our children, grandchildren and, oh yeah, the rest of our lives too.

Give us skeptics a little respect; we are not just “deniers” of science. A bunch of us have had at least some rudimentary education in one discipline or other.

If your education is only rudimentary, you have no choice but to trust the experts, and at least 97% of the experts — that is, working, publishing climate scientists — agree that warming is occurring, that humans are responsible for all of it, and that the consequences will be severe for billions of people. This isn’t an appeal to authority but an appeal to expertise. These are the people who are most familiar with all the evidence from multiple lines of inquiry, and who have subjected their analyses to the unsparing criticism (hoo, boy) of the other experts.

If you don’t trust the experts, you’ll have to become an expert yourself before anyone will give you the respect you’re asking for. I recommend you start with The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart of the American Institute of Physics. It’s highly readable, and non-polemical. When you’ve absorbed that material, you’ll trust the experts enough to visit SkepticalScience, where you’ll find rebuttals to specific “skeptical” arguments. While the rebuttals are expertly written, and offer citations to peer-reviewed literature for all claims, the contributors tend to be impatient with commenters like Graeme, who persist in their erroneous arguments after their errors have been repeatedly explained to them.

But it still is to be proven that human activity is causing/contributing to the warming Or if so, precisely how much. The departure of the warming curve from the carbon dioxide curve is interesting, even challenging.

I saw a quote ten years or so ago by a physicist who said he did not trust results that came only from computers. After all, you can make the black box give you any answer you desire.
And reliable raw data seems to be a rare commodity, seeing as how NOAA keeps adjusting it.

Give us skeptics a little respect; we are not just “deniers” of science. A bunch of us have had at least some rudimentary education in one discipline or other.

Jim ChE Auburn (a long, looong time ago)

“Yes, we do accept that responsibility.” Ok, how about this? It’s an EXPERIMENT:

Which scenario demonstrates better results:

1) Poorly thought out statement leads to public confusion and fodder for the WELL-KNOWN denialist constituency. Are you people living in a vacuum?

2) Well thought out messaging based on some kind of PLAN (you’ve heard of those, right?) leads to clear statements based on facts, which in turn invites QUESTIONS from the public, which can then be answered by EVIDENCE. Evidence which, I might add, has been paid for by the public purse.

This is why institutions hire dedicated communications people and listen to their counsel.