Humans causing Global warming > evidence increases

> Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" blasts the theory that global
> warming is caused by CO2 emissions. This work of fiction is replete
> with scholarly references. All of us who are avowed SPS advocates
> must be aware of this. The book is a great read, and quite
> compelling. Anyone you may try to convince that the reason to go to
> SPS is greenhouse gasses, but who has read this book, will have
> evidence to refute you. Any of us who have an answer to Mr.
> Crichton's arguments should reply to all with counter-arguments.
>
Hi Peter - Crichton's book was indeed a work of fiction; he severely (I
hope not deliberately) misinterpreted the evidence. The two websites I
recommend to people on the subject are:

* The Discovery of Global Warming - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
* Real Climate - http://www.realclimate.org/

Both cover the climate science in considerable detail but usually in
terms quite accessible to a general audience; the first is from a
historian who has looked at how the scientific consensus on the subject
was reached (and it is an overwhelming consensus now), the second from
several climate scientists still active in the field.

Real Climate has addressed Crichton's claims in detail:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 "Michael Crichton's State of
Confusion"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=76 "Michael Crichton's State of
Confusion II"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p "Will-full ignorance"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p8 "Inhofe and Crichton:
Together at Last!"

In answer to some of the other comments; yes, the Earth has survived
much higher CO2 atmospheric concentrations tens of millions of years in
the past. That doesn't mean a hundred-year transition to the climate of
the dinosaurs (with much higher ocean levels, very different storm and
rainfall patterns, etc) is going to be an easy thing for human
civilization to survive; nor most of the rest of Earth's creatures,
though I'm sure the plankton (from which most fossil fuels originate)
will be fine.

Arthur