Global warming is a scientific issue that's been politicized

Global warming is a scientific issue that's been politicized, due to social and economic implications. Sadly, currently..."environmental policy is based on what profits there are to be gained or lost today, without attention paid to what the immeasurable long-term costs will be to the shared resource of our environment."

Certain facts about global warming have been established through true scientific methods, published in peer review journals, and are accepted by the vast majority of scientists doing work in the field. "Scientific methods are impersonal. Thus, whatever one scientist is able to do qua scientist, any other scientist should be able to duplicate. ...When scientists cannot duplicate the work of another scientist that is a clear sign that the scientist has erred either in design, methodology, observation, calculation, or calibration."

For example, levels of CO2 poured into the atmosphere each day are measurable. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere correlate directly with global ambient temperature. As far back as scientists have been able to measure, higher levels of CO2 = higher temperatures. They have measured through ice-cores back as far as 450,000 years. Yes, global warming trends happen in cycles, but the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen measurably over the past 100-150 years to be significantly higher than all previous highs over the course of the past 450,000 years. They are the highest they have ever been in recorded time.

"On May 2, 2006, the Federal Climate Change Science Program commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002 released the first of 21 assessments which concluded that there is
"clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup of heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil."

Actually, "There have not been any such scientists since 2001 who express the opinion that evidence of global warming is inconclusive or who are skeptical that temperatures have risen the 0.6 ± 0.2 °C as advanced by the IPCC."

The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.

More comprehenisve info regarding scientific opinion on global warming.

Scientists who oppose the idea of human contribution to global warming (note that several of these are among the list of scientists who engage in questionable scientific methods, and are funded by Exxon-Mobil).

"...conclusions that greenhouse gases are causing the planet to heat up are the result of the "most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history.

"The contradictory statements of a tiny handful of discredited scientists, funded by big coal and big oil, represent a deliberate -- and extremely reckless -- campaign of deception and disinformation."

The whole point, as stated by the National Academy of Sciences, is that "greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."