mitchbr47, I applaud you for the homework you did in creating this post. It was a lot of work and there is a great deal to agree with as well as a great deal to disagree with. You put so much out that I feel like I’m trying to contend with a broadside from the USS Missouri.

Let me start with your statement that Governor Perry is, “Not pro environment.” Have you ever met anyone who is anti environment, standing for polluted water, dirty air, the spreading of carcinogens, etc.? I have not and am sure neither you nor Governor Perry is in favor of this either. Is there climate change? Yes. Is it anthropogenic in nature? We do not know.

I realize that there are greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, cause many people who believe we are experiencing global warming and that it in particular. I also realize that there are many intelligent scientists that do not buy into this idea.

I can provide many sources that question the idea of anthropogenic global warming, but suggest we go with the metrics to prove or dispute this theory:

1. Myth, global polar sea ice is vanishing. Fact, global sea ice is essentially unchanged so long as we have been able to measure it. The opening of the Northwest Passage is nothing new. The Chinese under the leadership of Admiral Cheng Ho mapped the NW passages as well as the Atlantic coast of much of North and South America during the 15th Century.
2. Myth, global temperatures have been rising as a result of increased CO2. Fact, global temperatures decreased from the ‘40s to the ‘70s provoking concerns about a coming ice age, they then rose through the mid ‘90s provoking our current scare about AGW. In the last few years they have begun to fall again.
3. Myth, sea levels are rising and soon the sea will flood Manhattan, Shanghai and all major coastal cities. Fact, sea level is still rising but at a rate much slower than that observed in the last 500 years. Sea level is expected to rise in an interglacial period. We need to be truly concerned not with the rise of sea level, but with its fall. That would be the beginning of a new glacial period with solid sheets of ice 3 miles thick lying over the American Midwest.


http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosph...thtrend.jpging new