DCDore wrote: After all,



is just a theory

Well, I would say e=mc^2 is "just a theory."

But people who say climate change is "just a theory" or is "not settled" have absolutely no idea how science actually works.

The theory of gravity is "just a theory" for goodness sakes.

VandyBruin wrote: ...The theory of gravity is "just a theory" for goodness sakes.

Yep. The cars on the freeway, like everything else, are just sets of waves in theory. But it's still not a good idea to walk in front of them on that account.

P.S. It was Joni Mitchell who had that theory.

Some theories are more established, through scientific process and experimentation, than others. For example, gravitation versus relativity.

The point I was trying to make was that I, personally, don't subscribe to the indisputible credibility of climate data from a thousand years ago, based on a theoretical analysis of air bubbles that may or may not be from a particular date in time (plus or minus a few centuries).

I would be no more accepting of a scientist's claim that he found a dinosaur remant from an animal that died 615,487,963 years and 13 days ago.

Vebilt, there may come a new analytical process that could prove to be more accurate, and might become more accepted in dating past events/remnants. That is the nature of science, to advance our understanding. But, your own statement had so many 'if's, 'could's', 'might's' and 'estimate's', that I am not prepared to accept that scientific method as being accurate, either.

Don't mis-interpret my arguments to mean that I do not believe that our climate is changing, nor that man's presence has had an impact on it. I'm saying that I don't believe the data is conclusive.

Food for thought, what aspect of man has had more impact on global climate change, the use of fossil fuels or the increase of greenhouse gases other than CO2, such as methane, CFC's, or the urbanization of increasingly larger percentages of land area (urban heat island effect)?