most newspapers are going out of business because they have to compete with the internet, which provides free news, & because of the current state of the economy. As far as the environment goes, it should be obvious that the world is warming up & something must be done. Im not saying that we are the primary cause of it, but we are contributing.

If newspapers would provide news that people actually want to read I don't think they would be in the dire straits that they are in right now.  I'm not saying they would be well off, but I don't think they would be struggling as much.

I don't think anyone denies that global warming is happening.  Where we all tend to differ is in what the ramifications of that are.  I personally see global warming as part of the cyclical nature of weather.  The earth goes through periods of warming and cooling, sometimes those periods are more extreme than others.  This doesn't mean that man has any impact on it and it certainly doesn't mean that man can do anything to stop the cycle.  The earth is not going to die because of man.  The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, man has been around for a few thousand years and we have only been industrialized for about 150 years.  The earth will survive, man may not, but the earth will.

That all said I still think we should look for more environmentally friendly ways of living, but they also need to be reasonable.  Yes it would be wonderful if we could get all the power we need from the sun and/or wind.  But as of right now that simply isn't feasible so we need to continue to produce energy by the old tried and true methods until those cleaner forms of energy are more reasonable.

I'm going to do a Clinton on you - it depends on what you define Global Warming as.  If you define it as some years lately have been warmer, it sure looks that way.  If you define it as an irreversible trend, then no it is not.  Right now, the earth is going through a warming cycle, primarly due to the sun.  That can change in a year, or 10 years or a lot longer (since before hysteria set in, calm rational scientists generally agreed we were still warming from the last glacial era about 10k years ago).

But one thing is certain.  Man's effect on it is not demonstrable, or even evident based on the meager history of the movement and their hysterical claims.

I should have been more clear.  Rational people won't deny that the earth is currently warming. 

Man-made global warming is simply impossible to prove and anyone who tells you differently is either lieing to you or a nut-job (possibly both).  We simply don't know enough about the earth's history and our potential impact on it.  I'm certainly not saying that man hasn't had any impact, I'm simply saying that the hysteria surrounding global warming is uncalled for.

Except for this year.

And, unfortunately, there is little that is rational about the AGW proponents' hysteria: Link

Why?  I had fun doing a clinton!

It depends on where you are.  Where I live we have had a relatively mild winter.  Sure we've had more snow so far this year than we did by this time last year but I am fairly sure that we have had warmer overall temps.  For instance even though it snowed here on Friday it was in the 50s yesterday and was into the low 70s here today, yet tonight it is expected to get back to freezing along with some icy conditions.

Not really.  2008 has been the coolest year (globally) in a decade.  The alarmists will say it's just an oscillation in 'the' upward trend, but the fact is they don't know.  If 2009 remains cooler, it'll be interesting to see what rationalization they come up with then.

They'll just that it is cooler because of global warming.  You know, ice caps melting causing the oceans to cool which then cause the overall temp to be cooler or some such nonsense.  Maybe Al Gore will start reciting lines from "The Day After Tomorrow" to justify his position.

That is cute. Now liberals are injecting religion.

And I would not equate man with God, as we still dont know a wit of what he does.

Out of interest, are you disputing any of the following:

"Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration"?

So would many statisticians. If you have an upward trend, that doesn't mean you won't have the occasional 'blip' in such a trend. So if you have say 10 years of hot weather (with the overall average temperature increasing) and 1 year of very cool weather, it suggests the trend is hot weather. If you have 10 years of hot weather then 5 years of cool weather, it suggests that you probably don't have that hot trend. If you want to try and deny global warming you're going to have to do better than coming up with one year! A very basic measure would be to just plot the temperature of the last 15-20 years and do a simple linear fit (straight line) that best matches the data, and see if it looks like it's upward sloping. If you want to get a more sophisticated measure there are various reports scattered around which probably provide such information.

And a very stupid measure.  To take less than a blink of the geologic eye and call it a trend of any sort is foolish.  The 15-20 year data are more likely the 'blip' than a true trend.  But we've had this discussion at length in other threads.  It's a religion and no amount of contrary data will dissuade believers.

Edit: I should qualify that - the religion I'm referring to is AGW, not climate change per se.  We know we've been in a warming phase, but to say that the loss of arctic ice is proof of AGW, or that it requires that we 'do something yesterday' without knowing the consequences of what we 'do' is folly to use as kind a word as I can muster.