Yes I should've qualified by "50 years" by saying recent and rapid increases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

shows it starting about 100-150 years ago and increasing significantly in the last 50 or so.

And of course the great global climate scientist conspiracy to get grants. Point to a global climate scientists that made $123 billion in profit. I think you'll find the group of people with real profit motive in the climate "conspiracy" isn't the scientist.

Further the one scientist that proves the consenus wrong is typically rewarded with a Nobel Prize. You think buying into some conspiracy is a way to win the prize?

Tempatures on earth have only been rising for about 50 years. In order for the sun to raise the tempature of the earth it must increase it's output. the Earth reacts quickly to the extra energy, it's not like energy released by the sun hundreds of years ago waits until today to have an effect.

For the temparture to continue to rise (and be caused by the sun), the output of the sun must continually rise almost in step with the temp increase seen on the earth. a 20 year study covers about 40% of the time of rising temps, and includes the rises we've seen this decade. If the sun output did not significantly increase over the period of time temps are rising, then it is not a cause of current changes. Past changes may very well have been caused by sun output variations, but the current one isn't.

And yes the majority of CO2 put in the atmosphere is not of human origin, however that CO2 isn't increasing and nature is part of the natural carbon cycle. So all that natural CO2 has remained a realtive constant. It's the additional man made carbon that is causing the heating, heating from natural CO2 is what set the climate prior to man dumping tons of the stuff in the air. If some natural cycle kicks in to sink the additional man made CO2 we'll be saved. But I'd rather not bet the world on it.

I think a lot of the discussion here is one of the reasons the challenge is being shutdown. The discussion centers around Randi and not enough around fakers it's trying to reveal.

Just to clear up some misconceptions:

a) "their protocols" the challenge has no set protocols. It is up to the challenger to submit a protocol. the foundation and the challenger will then negotiate from that point to form a protocol suitable to both sides. in the initial test the foundation usually pushes for a blind, but not necessarily a double-blind test.

b) Randi is not a scientist. Duh. Randi isn't involved in setting up protocols, administering or even observing (unless requested by the challenger) tests. Real scientists are involved in that part. He just runs the foundation that offers the money.

c)"they do little to explain, for example, what forces were at work when ..." The intent of the challenge is not to explain or disprove anything. It is for the challenger to prove their claims. Before you can even speculate that a force exists that require explaining you have to prove the force causes repeatedly observable phenomenon.

One you produce a repeatedly observable phenomenon then work can begin on explaining with known forces, and if that doesn't work then you go to unknown forces.

The challenge doesn't care what forces supposedly are at work. THey just want you to prove you have an observable phenomenon that removes as many of the universes known forces (or psychological affects) as possible explanations.

d) the amount of money Randi makes from the foundation. Why does this matter to the challenge? I could see where a potential donor might want to know this, but all a challenger has to know is the million dollars is available (they can prove this) if they win.

I figured it was Amazon's new marketing plan for the Kindle.

"Kevinv, defective is defective. Doesn't matter if it's a law or a bug, it still won't do what it should."

No the law is defective. If iTunes were to rip DVD's Apple would be sued and prohibited from distributing versions with that capability. Hardly a positive change from current situation.

If you spend all your time bad-mouthing Apple for following a stupid law, the law will never be changed. Focus on the real problem.

Additionally this concept of "Software that doesn't do what you tell it is defective." is just plain dumb.

I've told photoshop thousands of times to make a movie for me, but it refuses. Guess it's defective.

I've told my Linux kernel to run Microsoft Office plenty of times too, but it won't. guess it's defective.

I've told my car to fly lots of times, but it doesn't, guess it's defective.

Hmmm, tried viewing the comic on my cellphone awhile ago. It requires flash to view (or you get a really low-res version with a warning that the non-flash version won't be available for long.)

Perhaps a form of copy-protection? Perhaps, eventually to be a way to force ads to be viewed before the comic?

I fail to see how Apple being forced to bide by a stupid law makes iTunes defective by design. iTunes is perfectly happy managing my 180GB of non-DRM music and video (all from my own discs) without complaint.