I think the real truth is a lot scarier since God and Mother Nature ultimately wrote the rules, not mankind. To me the theory that mankind is responsible for climate changes is ludicrous. And yes, I know, you don't have to remind me. I'm in the minority of thought. Those who don't go along with the current wave of panic are just unintelligent dinosaurs. This current theory is just a political ploy for big governments to keep the sheeple afraid and in line and willing to relinquish all independent thought to it's control. The Resilient Earth

After the gigantic arctic cyclone last week, polar ice, which was at it's lowest level ever recorded two weeks ago, is expected to be devastatingly low; we will know how much is left in three weeks. Still, every month of 2016 this far has been - on average globally- the hottest on record.

The problem with forums such as these is personal faith. There are old testament based religious sects that believe our 'god given right' of dominion over the plants and animals (including other humans) on this planet is just that- a right, no stewardship involved. Most religions and religious sects involve some kind of stewardship to the creation, but- you know, you can't argue with faith.

Can you?

Even though I have this "problem" of having faith, I still do actually believe in good stewardship. We should take as good care of creation as we possibly can. Yes we need to come up with better ways to do it. And Mother Nature might very well fry us all but it won't be in punishment or revenge, it will just be plain old natural physics because that's what the universe is. I know there are a lot of people out there who would love to see the human race annihilated to pay penance for "destroying the earth" but I'm not one of them. Our problem is that we have billions of humans living on earth right now that need to be fed and clothed and sheltered. Until we come up with some extremely powerful solutions we will have to do it the way we are doing it. My point is that life on earth has been destroyed by climactic changes many many times over due to things like tectonic plate shift, volcanoes on land and under the sea, huge meteorites, you name it. Science has proven that life was wiped out many times, yet recovered enough to start over again over long periods. Although I do believe it's possible that we may very well be wiped out again, I will put my money on Mother Natures' doing it, not anything that mankind has done or is doing, with the exception maybe of launching mega-nuclear bombs. And if that does happen, I have no problem believing that the earth will again recover from it and regain it's ability to sustain life again.

Has anyone seen the History channel program "Life After People?" It goes through what would happen if every human being on earth suddenly disappeared. It takes a mere 500 years - a blink of an eye in cosmic terms -- for everything to return to its elemental state and for the earth to heal itself completely. It goes on for 10,000 years about what would happen. It's on YouTube for free if you want to watch it.

The Ice Age wiped out most of earth, but it survived. I remember in the 70s they were predicting a second ice age, but it never happened. However, this is different. Not only this year have we broken all records, we've broken them every year for the past 3 years. Still, the South Pole is actually getting colder and building ice, so who knows?

All we can do is what we can do. The Universe and Mother Nature are going to do what they want with us. We have no control over that. I'm just glad I moved more inland. I may have waterfront property one day.

Since we're on media issues, the movie The day after tomorrow suggests that global warming causes evaporation of water which causes a cloud cover that cools the earth causing an ice age. See it's self healing :-)

Seriously, if Co2 is causing the issue why are the governments not encouraging / forcing mass plantings on public and private land as well as banning monsterous engines or taxing the snot out of fuels here in the U.S. ?

I know, we have a "right" to 4x4 vehicles with ginormous engines that never leave the pavement. OK, time to change my tires to my mudders:-)

Ritaweeda:

My apologies. I mis spoke/wrote- your faith is not a problem- we all have different beliefs and that can cause conflict. The differing faiths on a forum meant to discuss houses can be a problem. That's what I meant.

gnappi, because as long as there is money to be made from these polluters, the greedy corporate overlords are going to make it.