Ok, first of all.

Myth - any invented story, idea, or concept

Consensus - general agreement or concord; harmony

So while I certainly don't expect other people to read through the detailed and long "testimony" given by the scientists in this report, I certainly expect fellow bloggers to have the common decency to visit sites like Dictionary.com before they decide to use such forceful (and inaccurate) language such as "myth."

Our fellow bloggers (blogger?) would like for you to believe that the Senate report gave you proof of the former, while in truth, the Senate report gave proof of the latter. What these scientists detailed was not the idea that global warming was in any way not a myth, but that 1) we might not understand all of the intricacies of Carbon emissions 2) there might be other sources of fuel avaliable to us 3) We might have other methods that don't involve industrial regulations and, my favorite, 4) Well, this has happened before, maybe the natural world will heal itself in time.

Never mind the infeasibility of some of these scenarios, just the fact that some people believe that these scenarios, if we take a bit of time to examine the report we'll realize three things. First is that the report is rifed with cherry picked quotes and appparently, any scientist that at any time expressed doubt about the severity of global warming be it in research or on his personal website, is now evidence of the fact that "global warming is a myth."

So, what did these scientists actually say? Well, among other things,

"First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!" Paldor told EPW on December 4, 2007. "Second, our ability to make realizable (or even sensible) future forecasts are greatly exaggerated relied upon by the IPCC. This is true both for the numerical modeling efforts (the same models that yield abysmal 3-day forecasts are greatly simplified and run for 100 years!)," Paldor explained. "Third, the rise in atmospheric CO2 is much smaller (by about 50%) than that expected from the anthropogenic activity (burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas), which implies that the missing amount of CO2 is (most probably) absorbed by the ocean. The oceanic response to increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere might be much slower than that of the atmosphere (and is presently very poorly understood). It is quite possible that after an ‘adjustment time' the ocean (which contains far more CO2 than the atmosphere) will simply increase its biological activity and absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere (i.e. the atmospheric CO2 concentration will decrease)," he added. "Fourth, the inventory of fossil fuels is fairly limited and in one generation we will run out of oil. Coal and natural gas might take 100-200 years but with no oil their consumption will increase so they probably won't last as long. The real alternative that presently available to humanity is nuclear power (that can easily produce electricity for domestic and industrial usage and for transportation when our vehicles are reverted to run on electricity). The technology for this exists today and can replace our dependence on fossil fuel in a decade! This has to be made known to the general public who is unaware of the alternative for taking action to lower the anthropogenic spewing of CO2. This transformation to nuclear energy will probably rake place when oil reserves dwindle regardless of the CO2 situation," he wrote. Paldor also noted the pressure for scientists to bow to the UN IPCC view of climate change.

-Dr. Nathan Paldor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 

Finally, Rancourt asserted that in a warm world, life prospers. "There is no known case of a sustained warming alone having negatively impacted an entire population," he said, adding, "As a general rule, all life on Earth does better when it's hotter: Compare ecological diversity and biotic density (or biomass) at the poles and at the equator." Rancourt added, "Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middle class."

- Denis G. Rancourt, University of Ottawa

 

What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural," Kukla explained. (LINK) Kukla "said that the accelerating warming of the Earth is not caused by man but by the regularities of the planets' circulation around the Sun," according to a June 4, 2007 article in the Prague Monitor. "The changes in the Earth's circulation around the Sun are now extremely slow. Moreover, they are partially being compensated by the human impact on the climate. I think we will know more in about 50 years."

-Dr. George Kukla, University of Columbia

 

. "There is some evidence to show that our planet Earth is becoming warmer and that human action is probably partly responsible, especially in the matter of greenhouse gas emissions. What is in doubt, however, is whether the steps that are proposed to be taken to reduce carbon emission will really bring down the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere and whether such attempts, even carried out on a global scale, will produce the desired effect."

-B.P. Radhakrishna, Geological Society of India

 

"It is not always true that the climate we have now (wherever we live) is the best one ... some people (and animals and crops) may prefer it to be wetter, drier, colder, or warmer," Maunder wrote on his website updated on November 27, 2007. "Climatic variations and climatic changes from WHATEVER cause (i.e. human induced or natural) clearly create risks, but also provide real opportunities."

-John Maunder, Comission for Climatology

 

Today, scientists say that the melting of the permafrost has stalled, which has been proved by data obtained by meteorological stations along Russia's Arctic coast," Olokin added. "The (recent) period of warming was tangible, but now it may be drawing to a close.

-Nikolai Oskin, Russian Academy of Scientists

 

Pity the politicians who (we presume) are trying their best to make an informed decision on the matter.  Of course politicians realize that those clamoring for their attention on any particular issue usually have other un-stated agendas.  But they may not recognize that scientists too are human and are as subject as the rest of us to the seductions of well-funded campaigns.  One of the more frightening statements about global warming to be heard now from the corridors of power is that ‘the scientists have spoken'. Well maybe they have - some of them anyway - but the implication of god-like infallibility is a bit hard to take," he concluded.

-Dr. Garth W. Partridge, University of Tasmania

 

That conclusion was really surprising to me, it having come from a world wide group of supposedly outstanding climate experts," Herman wrote in an April 6, 2007 article in Climate Science. Herman, who is currently studying several satellite based remote sensing projects to monitor ozone, temperature, water vapor, and aerosols from space, noted that the climate models are not cooperating with predictions of a man-made climate catastrophe. "Now, the models also predict that the mid tropospheric warming should exceed that observed at the ground, but satellite data contradicts this," Herman wrote.

-Dr. Ben Herman, University of Arizona

 

Before you accuse me of cherry pick myself, these are simply the first few opinions presented. Yes, these things are true. We can't accurately measure the impact of global warming. We're not exactly sure how much human causes contribute to the problem, we can't predict with 100% accuracy if an environmental collapse will occur, and we're not really sure how to best solve the problem of CO2 emissions. But what is known is that the globe has been warming, humans do contribute to the problem, there might be an environmental collapse and we can at least help to solve the problem of CO2 emissions. And while we're not completely sure if our actions will stop the problem, we're hoping actions like this and this will stem the tide, as said by many of the scientists cited in the Senate report.

Perhaps the best way of putting it was done by Wayne H. Wilhelm of Hiddenpolitics.com.

"Global Warming is undisputed.  What is disputed is Al Gore's presentation of it's cause."

Al Gore exaggerate, we all knew this, congratulations for being the last one to the party.

 

Oh, and as far as Chinese and the developing world and their expoloitation of the environment. Well, the article Mr. Hittle himself links to states "developing countries' emissions still made up only 40 per cent of total emissions worldwide." I suppose that's the difference between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats tend to believe in the law of proportions (those who make the most should be taxed the most, and those who emit the most should cut back the most) while Republicans refuse to believe in anything save the power of hard numbers, regardless of the factors contributing to the accumulation of those numbers. And for the record, different experimental behavior did impact those data, omissions were made, as explained by the Guardian:  "The new figures only include carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production. They do not include sources of other greenhouse gases, such as methane from agriculture and nitrous oxide from industrial processes. And they exclude other sources of carbon dioxide, such as from the aviation and shipping industries, as well as from deforestation, gas flaring and underground coal fires."

And yes, in the end, members of the USD Democrats and many environmentalists focus on American efforts. This is probably because that despite the best attempts of President Bush, the US is still currently unable to legislate the actions of foreign, soverign nations like China. And we, as citizens of the US America, can't really expect our demands to resonate with the leaders of foreign governments. We're not ignoring the problems caused by developing nations, we simply believe that it's just a bit hypocritical to criticize other nations for rising emissions derived from following the economic model that we developed while the US still has not made any significant contributions to the global environmental movement.

In the end, I suppose Matt did make some points, especially about how global warming is a myth. After all, it's not like China is paying a price for its environmental destruction.