To answer your first question: I live in a manner that is consistent with my conservative ethic of being careful with my resources. I live in a house that allows me to walk instead of drive as much as possible and sharing a house with people is also a part of my belief in conserving resources. Could you imagine how much worse it would be I didn't pick out recycling out of the trash of my house-mates or didn't turn off the lights and water or didn't turn down the heat in the house? But yes, it is trying living with such profligates.

For your second question, well I question some of the arguments that people give for accepting global warming, which is that there is a scientific consensus. Accepting something because there is consensus is a terrible argument. As warm(pun intended) and fuzzy as that is, science is not decided on by consensus.

Richard Lindzen, atmosphere physicist/professor of meteorology at MIT, has expressed doubt on the danger of anthropogenic global warming.

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf

I particularly like what he's said previously in another article, "Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?"

And I am not entirely convinced by the changes NASA has made in interpreting the satellite data of the troposphere to be more consistent w/ the mean of the global surface temperature. Yes, they have taken great care in not only collecting the data, but massaging the data as well. I think that there is an overly simplistic understanding by the public on data collection and analysis. Data is almost always "massaged." David Douglass has published some different conclusions using the same data of tropospheric temperature trends.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117857349/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

As far as climate models, I don't think they have accurately simulated clouds. Considering that water vapour is 95% of all greenhouse gases, I think that's a fairly considerable factor that hasn't been accounted for properly.

I think currently there are many scientists in fields such as physics, statistics and computer science that might take issue with some of the methodology of climatologists, but fear reprisals when it comes to funding and academic appointments.

Let's also take a look at the recent temperature data that you claim implies that global warming is over. First this means that you recognize that global warming is a fact (or was). Apparently several decades of fast warming really was enough to convince you. Well, that and some other stuff is convincing. But for a few years, it has not been happening, at least according to the data you linked to. Is this enough to mean anything? No, it is not surprising if the various effects add up in such a way as to produce no significant change for a while, especially at some particular sites. It took many years of increase to convince you that warming was happening; so it should take just as many of cooling to convince you that it is not happening.

Stet,

Not only do you claim to be capable of controlling the weather, you are willing to pay the government, (every government in the world), to adopt your plan and you expect them to carry it out? The government could get a wet dream wrong and you expect these same people to control the weather of the entire planet?

You write: “If they’re right”…….

Do you mean you aren’t certain? You think that they could be right, but you really don’t know? So, you’re skeptical, but you want to take the precautionary approach…..just in case they could be right.

Again, if you want to drive an electric car and recycle soda bottles, have at it, (recycling creates more of your “greenhouse gases” than creating new bottles but this thread has already veered too far into the woods so we’ll save that for another time).

Do this stuff on your own time with your own money. Gather up a bunch of your eco friends and form some sort of private organization……you could live in a commune if you want to. Maybe you could get Michael Moore and John Travolta to live in one of your communal huts….Maybe Barbara Streisand. You could bitch and moan amongst yourselves about polar bears and spotted tree slugs and how unfair the world is.

Not only do you claim to be capable of controlling the weather

You know you're confusing weather and climate, right?

And you know you're being completely disingenuous in morphing "affecting" into "controlling", right?

This isn't about whether we can control the weather. It's about whether we are affecting the climate.

Are you of the opinion that CO2 levels have no effect on temperature?

Not only do you claim to be capable of controlling the weather,

There's a book called a "dictionary" you don't seem to be familiar with. Find one (it's pronounced 'dikshunary," the bookstore owner or librarian can help you). It has words in alphabetical order. Look up the words "climate" and "weather."

Nobody is saying they can control the weather. People are saying human activities are changing the climate, and if these activities are altered, the climate change may be lessened or averted. But why not stick with the world "weather" and make yourself look like a total ignorant ass.

you are willing to pay the government, (every government in the world), to adopt your plan and you expect them to carry it out?

My plan??? What I said was the best scientists in the world say that humans are changing the climate with potentially catastrophic effects and cutting emissions of the man-made substances causing the changes was advisable. How this can be done is a political question. Your plan is shut your eyes and cross your fingers.

The government could get a wet dream wrong and you expect these same people to control the weather of the entire planet?

And so your alternative is what? Ignore what the scientists say? Do nothing? Do an anti-rain dance? You're in a hole. Stop digging.

You write: “If they’re right”……. Do you mean you aren’t certain? You think that they could be right, but you really don’t know?

They're the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject. Here's what they (in this case, the AGU) say. Note their use of the word "uncertainty."

"Warming greater than 2 degrees C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive.... With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections."

You say you know better. Why? How? Why do we believe you instead of them?