The above quote, from a BBCarticle on new data about CO2 uptake by the ocean, is the most concise factual statement about one of the most politically contentious issues surrounding global warming I have seen to date. As it is stated, no scientist would disagree. The human-generated carbon may or may not warm the earth. Pretty hard to argue with that.

    The problem is that there are two widely different guesses that could be made from the facts as presented. One is that, as stated, the fact that human activity has pushed it out of equilibrium will result in a continual net gain in the carbon entering the air, increasing the net greenhouse gas every year and causing irreparable harm to the earth.

    The other is that the earth will readjust the carbon cycle to account for human activity, and thus there is no looming disaster from increased atmospheric carbon. This idea seems to be supported by the article I took the quote from, but it was an extremely non-technical article,so I don't think that means much.

    If climatologists want to get a better handle on how much the earth is going to warm over the next 50-100 years (as well as win over sincere skeptics, as opposed to the knee-jerk reactionaries who will oppose anything they say no matter how self-evident) they would do well to put some time into resolving how much the carbon system can adjust to the enlarged human footprint, so they could then say “look, the earth is able to cope with this much carbon from people, and no more,and it can change how much carbon it's handling this fast, and no faster, so let's stay within the limits of our planet.” instead of the current statement of “OMG carbon is going to kill us all we must stop using any carbon at all!”

    I'm willing to bet that a thousand years ago humanity wasn't carbon neutral, so carbon neutrality seems like the wrong goal for humanity now. Instead, we ought to be living within our means, except those who ought to know won't tell us what those means are. They just keep saying that we are so far in debt that we will have to work all our lives, and still won't be on the plus side of the ledger. Is it any wonder that there are still a few skeptics?

    Now, I have no doubt that the earth is getting warmer. I find it highly unlikely that the carbon imbalance, as small as it is, didn't play some role in that warming. In the final analysis, though, we need to be looking for water, and not screaming that there's a fire. And we need to demand from our climatologists a real answer as to what our budget is, so we will know when enough has been done. I want to know, for example, whether it really would be better to be at AD 1700 levels of carbon than AD 1900, or has the carbon cycle ramped up to absorb the amount of carbon we were spewing in AD 1900. What really should our target be, and how do they know?

    This is the biggest problem to me of the CRU fiasco. The stolen emails are embarrassing, but that's all. But not having the original data? One of my jobs in college was transferring data from reel-to-reel tape onto more modern storage, because the original data might be needed sometime. I have a hard time believing that, in an emerging field like climatology, where the shortness of the record is a perennial problem, that data could be accidentally lost, and even if it were,it makes them look much less credible as an institution.

    And NASA is starting to look like it may be in the same boat. There is a skeptic, Christopher C. Horner,who wants to look at their original data, presumably because he thinks that by massaging it just right, he can make global warming look like a fraud. Now, I will grant that it is not in NASA's interest to promote the twisting of data to advance an agenda, but the longer they refuse to comply with what is after all a legally binding request for information from a government agency, the more they look like they are trying to hide something, and they have been pretty unipolar in their view of manmade global warming, so they are starting to look pretty untrustworthy.

    And that's the problem now. The leading centers for studying the climate are trashing the chances that the average non-scientist has to believe in global warming, and thus to take any action at all. After all, why should I sacrifice anything for an idea that can only be defended by scientists who won't tell anyone how they know what they know? Why should I believe your conclusions when it looks like you are hiding something? This really looks like a case where what will get us all in trouble is the unnecessary cover-up by some scientists who were afraid that their data might not stand up to the light of day.

    Or maybe the critics are right. Maybe the case for manmade global warming is overstated, and they are hiding that, for political or financial reasons. Maybe they think they can reverse natural global warming if they back down the carbon numbers fast enough, and so theylied to us about the equilibrium point, to manipulate us into doing the right thing. I can invent conspiracy theories all day. The point is that without the original data being widely available, wecan't really know. And we need to know, if we are to make wise decisions.