Reply #14: I have to be honest with you. I haven't bought into the whole . . . [View All]

[NavajoRug]

. . . "global warming" thing just yet, though I do have an open mind about it.

The major point of dispute is whether the warming trend we've seen over the last hundred years or so has anything to do with human activity. What makes me slightly skeptical are the following two points:

1. A few people have pointed out that the world has been warming up since the last Ice Age, but in fact the earth's temperature has not been consistent over that period of time. Parts of the northern hemisphere were markedly warmer than today for some period of time up until about the 12th century or so. Norse tribes were actually forced to vacate settlements on the coast of Greenland around that time because ice floes made it impossible for them to get supplied from mainland Europe for part of the year.

2. Astronomers will tell you that the polar caps of Mars are shrinking to this day. This clearly does not have a human connection, so there is a well-founded theory that attributes the whole phenomenon of global warming to changes in solar activity more than anything else.