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that is indeed the question, Will. I don't even question that altering the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will affect the insulating effect of the atmosphere, in principle. My issue is the levels needed to do that, whether it's naturally occurring, how much the manmade effect is, whether there are other or counteracting causes, and on and on and on. For all I know the human-caused effect is dwarfed by variations in things like solar activity. I believe I read that there is a decrease in the polar ice cap of Mars - obviously not human caused.
So far as I can tell we just don't have a firm enough basis to say there is a crisis requiring drastic restructuring of the world's advanced economies (while tolerating massive pollution from China and India). I'm totally with the concept that we should be responsible stewards of the earth, but we also need to be responsible stewards of our families and economies. So far as I'm able to tell this whole global warming thing is being used as a cudgel for political purposes rather than as a scientific question.
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