The Earth is a closed system.  Nothing is an unlimited resource.  Everything is interrelated.  Add or remove some element in any quantity, it somehow effects other elements of the system.  That is my belief, and as such Climate Change makes total sense.  What gets my goat is the pseudo-science arguments people use to avoid dealing with the issue.
Quite probably, these people are directly or indirectly being influenced by books advocating skepticism towards Global Warming.  It's interesting to note that 9/10 of the books published since 1972 taking this stance can be linked to Conservative Think Tanks backed by wealthy corporations.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/06/ninety_percent_of_enviro_skept.php

Is it really a closed system?  I DON'T THINK SO!  We get showered by meteorites all the time from where?  Where now? WHERE? Outer freakin' space is where.  How about heat from the sun? Hmmmm that's an external energy source if I EVER heard of one.  Not to mention background radiation from the REST OF THE FREAKIN' UNIVERSE.

So PUL-EASE think a little about your comments.

Regards,

p.s. brought you by SAS - Sarcastic a** Syndicate

Well that's a very good point.  There is a constant addition of heat energy to the system.  That brings us to the crux of the problem.  If we're effecting the earth's ability to reflect that heat, by melting the polar caps, by clear cutting the forests, by belching pollutants into the air, etc, we're creating an unstable environment.  It's not like we can turn down the sun's heat to accommodate.

Don't worry, scientists will soon work out a way to launch a giant screen into orbit, like a huge pair of sunglasses.  Not only will we be cooler, we'll look cooler!

While I'm not condoning the current methods of humanity of powering modes of transportation or creating electricity, most scientist believe that the earth has had higher temperatures in the past - the Roman Empire grew grapes in regions too cold for that now for example.  The fact that climate change and global warming alarmists claim that the amount of heat the sun is producing has little to no effect on the temperature the Earth experiences and therefore discount any change noted which may help to explain the increase of temperature is a bit of a farce.  There are also many theories that exist which, to simplify, state that the Earth is simply getting back up to its normal temperature after the last ice age, or even just the little ice age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age).
As for measuring the level of CO2 in the air, let us not forget that cold water allows for greater absorption of gases than does warm water, so it is entirely possible that naturally occurring higher water temperatures are causing the oceans to release CO2 into the air rather than absorbing it themselves.
All this being said, air quality is still an issue, as is the needless and careless destruction of habitat for any number of wildlife and mankind does need to re-evaluate how it interacts with the world around it or it will be the architect of its own demise regardless of the temperature of the Earth (and mankind's effect on it).

And, I agree - a giant part of sunglasses would make us all look WAY cooler!

OK OK OK.  I see by Jeej's comments that suddenly, almost impossibly, this conversation has turned serious.  NO Diddly, your initial post was not serious enough.. hence my reply. SAS

I think we are focusing on the wrong thing.  Global Warming and Climate Change are, in my opinion (not so humble either) giant red herrings.  If we are all focused on these two ideas and that the debate continues to be sidetracked by erroneous and unscientific arguments then the real winners are the corporations.  Because, if we focused on pollution instead then the corporations would no longer be able to hide behind their prostituted scientists and their skewed findings.  But because they can say there is no global warming, there is no climate change then it's business as usual.

That's basically where I was going with my comments.  Who cares what the temperature is if the air is unbreathable and the water undrinkable?

That's right.  Plus then we'd have to invent something that can purify piss and we can then drink our own urine like in Waterworld or be adventurous and drink other's urine.  MMMM yummy.  'Hey Billy did you eat mustard and cabbage again?  Yeah, I thought so."

Don't astronauts already do that?

Yeah!  Isn't that why people want to BE astronauts in the first place?  It is for me.