The key point for politicians is stated by Dr. John Christy, a lead author on the IPCC. The Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama—Huntsville, stated, “Our ignorance about the climate system is enormous, and policy makers need to know that. This is an extremely complex system, and thinking we can control it is hubris.” [THIS is the most important fact of the whole issue.]

This paper by Richard Lindzen, written in layman’s terms, is key to understanding the problem.
http://www.heartland.org/events/newyork09/pdfs/lindzen.pdf

Climate Kids

http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/?CFID=30737691&CFTOKEN=87506128

and My Big Fat Planet Blog

http://climate.nasa.gov/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ListBlogs

From Climate Kids pages:

Who is helping and how?

People who live in tiny houses. [Like Al Gore and Pachauri???]

Planet Health Report

Air: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Too much carbon dioxide in the air makes Earth get warmer and warmer.

TEMPERATURE: Even a small rise in Earth’s global temperature means melting ice at the North and South Poles. It means rising seas. It means flooding in some places and drought in others. It means that some plants and animals thrive while others die.

SEA ICE: What is happening to the ice?

SEA LEVEL: What if it keeps rising this fast?

If the ice keeps melting, global sea level could rise more than 20 feet. That would put a lot of coastlines under water. Whole islands could disappear!

Climate Tales [Video: the plight of a poor polar bear]

BIG QUESTIONS
What does global climate change mean?

-Earth has been getting warmer fast, causing lots of serious problems

-Humans are causing this warming

What is the big deal with carbon?

Throughout Earth’s history, whenever the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up, the temperature of Earth has also gone up.

What is the greenhouse effect?

The point is, if the greenhouse effect is too strong, Earth gets warmer and warmer. This is what is happening now. Too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air are making the greenhouse effect stronger.

How do we know the climate is changing?

Well, after observing and making lots of measurements, using lots of satellites and special instruments, scientists see some alarming changes. These changes are happening fast–much faster than these kinds of changes have happened in Earth’s long past.

Scientists have learned that, throughout Earth’s history, temperature and CO2 levels in the air are closely tied.

[Graph]

You can see how CO2 levels change with temperature. Look at what it is doing now.

Yipes!

The map above of the southeastern U.S. shows in red the area that would be under water if sea level were to rise by 20 feet (6 meters).

Double yipes!

http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/feedback/

EDUCATOR RESOURCES
http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/educatorResources/

My Big Fat Planet , Blog

Mission to Planet Earth

Our new climate kids’ site off with a bang! January 28, 2010

posted by Dr. Amber Jenkins

Climate change can be a daunting topic for most adults to grasp, let alone kids. That’s why we’ve just launched the kids’ version of our website, called “Climate Kids”, to help.

Copenhagen

At Oceans Day in Copenhagen we heard about the acidification of the world’s oceans as they absorb carbon dioxide [CO2],…

Concerns were expressed about the expected date for the final disappearance of summer (permanent, all-year-round) sea ice in the Arctic, as a result of warming in the region, and the potential for that becoming a climate change ‘tipping point’.

…along with sea level rise due to melting ice sheets.

Spokesmen for the sceptics need to be less sloppy in the propaganda they peddle. For instance, Ian Plimer claims there has been no warming since 1998 and indeed so do most sceptics, however top dog sceptic, “Lord” Christopher Monckton claims there has been no warming for fifteen years. Now which is it? And why should we believe their computer modelling and when they can’t even agree with each other?

See: If It’s That Warm, How Come It’s So Damned Cold?, has been added to my Columbia University web site at

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100115_Temperature2009.pdf

Believing in AGW is easy; it’s not believing that requires thought and courage.

The atmosphere is and always has been greenhouse gas saturated and will always remain so until we no longer have massive oceans. Thanks for playing, but your research is bogus, move along.