For a sophisticated yet understandable introduction to the
global warming debate, it is hard to beat this article by
Professor Robert Carter at the American Institute for Technology
and Science Education site. Dr. Carter notes that there is
considerable common ground between the climate alarmists and the
climate realists: Though you wouldn’t know it from the
antagonistic nature of public discussions about global warming,
a large measure of scientific agreement and shared
interpretation exists amongst nearly all scientists who consider
the issue. The common ground, much of which was traversed by Dr.
Hayhoe in her article, includes: * that climate has always
changed and always will, * that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse
gas and warms the lower atmosphere, * that human emissions are
accumulating in the atmosphere, * that a global warming of
around 0.5OC occurred in the 20th century, but * that global
warming has ceased over the last 15 years. I would add one more:
that the amount of warming attributable to incre