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Here in England record books are being rewritten as I type. I am a fair skinned, redhead and have suffered enormously the past 3 weeks or so. When the sun comes out I cover up or I crisp! Here also, the humidity of summer is worse than more tropical climes. Even our winters are wetter than, for example, Germany where I lived for a while. Temperatures last week crept over 100F for the first time in written memory. I will be very glad to see, or feel, some cool winds and some rain but I certainly will not be doing what the pope recently suggested - praying for rain!!!

Let's assume for the moment that climate change is happening and will have serious long term consequences for human society.

Would society be able to live with this easier if they were told that they were responsible and could - if they really, really, wanted - prevent it? Or would they prefer to be told that it's a natural change over which we humans have absolutely no control whatsoever?

I think the former. Somehow, it's less scary, especially for a society which is used to getting its own way and manipulating nature to suit its own purpose.

Of course, we still have to ask whether there is any real evidence that major climatic change is, or is about to, happen. The current European heatwave is not evidence of GW - we should instead be looking for a trend towards milder, wetter winters (especially at higher latitudes) and drier summers, with any increase in average temperature mainly coming from higher nightime temperatures (which, coincidently, are also a symptom of the Urban Heat Island effect....)

Essan, I think the problem is more man made than natural. Gases like CFC's are being eradicated, or are they? I have heard nothing on the subject since here in the UK, we banned CFCs from everything.

God enough with global warming thread