Do you think that Global Warming is ther result of our global population consuming fossil fuels, or do you see it as a natural cycle of Earths evolution ?

Oceans cause global warming, says expert
Saturday Apr 28 11:20 AEST

Quote:AP - The United States' leading hurricane forecaster says that global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming, and the earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher best known for his annual forecasts of hurricanes along the US Atlantic coast, also said increasing levels of carbon dioxide will not produce more or stronger hurricanes.

He said that over the past 40 years the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the US Atlantic coast has declined even though carbon dioxide levels have risen.

Gray, speaking to a group of Republican state MPs, had harsh words for researchers and politicians who say man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming.

"They're blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said. "We're not the cause of it."

Gray, 77, has long criticised the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, he described former US vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore "a gross alarmist" for making the Oscar-winning documentary that helped focus media attention on global warming.

Gray complained that politics and research into global warming have created "almost an industry" that has unfairly frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans are causing global warming is "mush" based on unreliable computer models that cannot possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influence the weather.

Gray said little-understood ocean currents are behind a decades-long warming cycle and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predict.

"There's no way that doubling CO2 is going to cause that amount of warming," he said.

Gray also said warming and cooling trends cannot go on indefinitely and believes temperatures are beginning to level out after a very warm year in 1998.

"We're going to begin to see some cooling," he said.

©AAP 2007

Crucial climate change agreement reached

Climate change experts agreed Friday on measures the world can take to combat global warming, following intense debate and marathon negotiations at a crucial UN conference here, a French delegate said.

Scientists and other leading authorities from 120 nations finally achieved a consensus after an exhausting session that lasted from Thursday morning until 4:30 am on Friday (2130 GMT Thursday), French delegation chief Marc Gillet told AFP.

"It is over. The report has been accepted. The formal adoption will take place in the morning," Gillet said, adding the delegates would reconvene at 10:00m (0200 GMT) to give the final stamp of approval.

The delegates, from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, were scheduled to wrap up on Thursday night but a few key sticking points and the sheer complexity of the document put the event into overtime, delegates said.

"We are so tired, so we are going to finish things in the morning," another delegate from a European nation told AFP.

One sticking point subject to debate until the end was a push by China to highlight that the rich world was responsible for the vast bulk of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, the European delegate said.

Another point of dispute was how much importance to give nuclear energy in the mix of new technologies that the world should depend upon as it moves away from fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases, he said.

The report is the third and last from the IPCC this year, after the first two looked into the evidence and looming devastating impacts of global warming.

It is scheduled to be released to the public at a press conference here at 1:00 pm (0600 GMT).

Although details of the final report were not immediately available, it is widely expected to warn that world leaders have little time to waste in tackling climate change.

However, it will also emphasise that the tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions already exist and many can be quickly implemented.

A draft summary of the IPCC report seen by AFP calls for a greater use of renewable energies such as solar, wind, and hydro-power, as well as ways to use energy more efficiently.

Storing carbon dioxide, the biggest greenhouse gas, underground is also under consideration, as are tariffs and other economic mechanisms to make using fossil fuels more expensive and renewable energies much cheaper.

Nevertheless, there was fierce debate at the IPCC meeting this week, which began on Monday, and it was not immediately clear as to what had been changed from the draft summary.

The costs of reducing greenhouse gasses that cause global warming was one of the biggest sticking points this week, delegates said previously.

Various delegates contacted by AFP said China has been the leading voice in expressing concern about the costs of cutting back.

It sought more than 10 amendments to the draft report, saying it will cost more and be harder to reduce emissions than detailed in the early draft, according to documents submitted to the IPCC and seen by AFP.

A top priority in tackling climate change is how to cut the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which are measured in parts per million (ppm).Today's levels are close to 400 ppm.

The draft of the report says that if the world wants to stabilise carbon dioxide levels at 640 ppm by 2030, it would cost 0.2 percent of average global gross domestic product (GDP) in that year.

A more ambitious target of 550 ppm, the draft says, would cost 0.6 percent of GDP, and stabilising CO2 in the atmosphere at 445 to 535 ppm by 2030 -- an unlikely scenario -- would be about three percent of GDP.

Environmental groups warn that even at 535 ppm, the world will warm to an extremely dangerous level, causing droughts, floods and other disasters, while at 640 ppm the impacts could be catastrophic.

Agence France-Presse

If you do a google search for global warming conspiracy there are well over a million references. I don't really have an opinion either way as I am not too up to date with it, but you would logically expect that pollution would do some damage to the atmosphere