I was given the link below to read, and it credibly dicusses another
point of view about "global warming".  I cannot just dismiss this paper.
It seems well supported by some prominent researchers and is backed-up
by data. I just wonder what some of you think?

I've pasted the conclusion of the paper which seems to say that global
warming may not be man caused, and might not necessarily be a bad thing.

-Steve Gregory-

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/ISPM.pdf

 

The Earth.s climate is an extremely complex system and we must not
understate the

difficulties involved in analyzing it. Despite the many data limitations
and uncertainties,

knowledge of the climate system continues to advance based on improved
and expanding

data sets and improved understanding of meteorological and oceanographic

mechanisms.

 

The climate in most places has undergone minor changes over the past 200
years,

and the land-based surface temperature record of the past 100 years
exhibits warming

trends in many places. Measurement problems, including uneven sampling,
missing

data and local land-use changes, make interpretation of these trends
difficult. Other,

more stable data sets, such as satellite, radiosonde and ocean
temperatures yield

smaller warming trends. The actual climate change in many locations has
been relatively

small and within the range of known natural variability. There is no
compelling

evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway.

 

The available data over the past century can be interpreted within the
framework of

a variety of hypotheses as to cause and mechanisms for the measured
changes. The

hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions have produced or are capable of
producing

a significant warming of the Earth.s climate since the start of the
industrial era is

credible, and merits continued attention. However, the hypothesis cannot
be proven by

formal theoretical arguments, and the available data allow the
hypothesis to be credibly

disputed.

 

Arguments for the hypothesis rely on computer simulations, which can
never be

decisive as supporting evidence. The computer models in use are not, by
necessity,

direct calculations of all basic physics but rely upon empirical
approximations for many

of the smaller scale processes of the oceans and atmosphere. They are
tuned to

produce a credible simulation of current global climate statistics, but
this does not

guarantee reliability in future climate regimes. And there are enough
degrees of

freedom in tunable models that simulations cannot serve as supporting
evidence for

any one tuning scheme, such as that associated with a strong effect from
greenhouse

gases.

 

There is no evidence provided by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment
Report that the

uncertainty can be formally resolved from first principles, statistical
hypothesis testing

or modeling exercises. Consequently, there will remain an unavoidable
element of

uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future
climate change, and

indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing.