http://www.physorg.com/news85938220.html

We at a peak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

if we're at a peek, i can totally believe it. the only good that can come of the global warming propoganda is an increase in energy efficiency, and maybe new energy sources (although non have yet emerged). I can imagine the opposite occuring in years to come, "Global Cooling caused by excessing of hydrogen economy's water vapour". whatever.

Using the Milankovitch cycles to predict future climate changes is like trying to use reruns of Gilligans island to predict what is going to happen on American idol. The only thing those 2 shows have in common is that they were on TV, the only thing the Milankovitch climate cycle and our current climate have in common is that they occur on earth. The climate under the Milankovitch cycle is predictable because the only things which can disrupt it are major geological or cosmological events, Milankovitch's cycle became useless to predict climate the first day we (mankind) began to alter the earth's atmospheric content. Major temperature changes take place over thousands of years in his cycle because of the cumulative effects of all the different models (axial, orbital, etc.) interacting with each other to produce GRADUAL cooling or warming trends with the mean average temperature not fluctuating more than 4-5 degrees C over a 20 to 50 thousand year period.

Using the data available today, we would be experiencing that increase over the next 3-4 hundred years..... there aren't any naturally occuring variables to account for a change that is both this drastic and this rapid. The current warming trend may have been initiated as a naturally occuring Milankovitch shift 10,000 years ago, but there can be no doubt about the amplification of the warming trend by the millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases being belched into the atmosphere every year by humankind that wouldn't normally be there.

The point is this, attempting to argue against human induced global warming using naturally occuring events, although the events are proven to alter climate, is futile because cyclical climate change simply doesn't occur as rapidly as what is happening right now and a naturally occuring event which could have produced the current trend would have happened during the last 2000 years and would have to have been documented somewhere by someone. True there have been well documented climatic anomalies which have been severe, but also shortlived and the causes for them have been recognized. This current warming trend has been global and constant over the last century and the cause has also been recognized, by everyone who doesn't have a financial stake in the engines that drive our current economy remaining unchanged....

Goody for seeing what the past was like.....but if you try to use it to predict the future by using only what you saw, you'll be waiting for the next new season of Gilligans Island.

This is typical anti-human non science speaking. The sun's activity has mor influence on Earth's climate than human activity ever could.

rubberman is a ***** without good working models you can not tell which is man and which is nature

and that is exactly what this gives us.

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Astronomers have been counting sunspots since the days of Galileo, watching solar activity rise and fall every 11 years. Curiously, four of the five biggest cycles on record have come in the past 50 years.
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Hmm that is curious... and what kind of timeline are we looking at for the global warming trend? Hmmm interesting. Also, over the last 2000 years or so, there has been a recent and marked increase in the use of email, which correlates with rise in global temperatures.

To David:

I think the atomic bomb would qualify as a contender for the sun and natural weather patterns.

Cloud cover VS. Fallout.

Fallout wins.
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In general:

Anyone who can say that global warming is propaganda needs to read more.

The point is that if we continue at our current rate we'll have a planet with super storms and tsunamis 3/4ths of the year.

When the 'big wave' comes to a town near you I'd love to say I told you so but you wont be able to hear me over all the dying.

Please note that I'm writing this from Richmond, Virginia where it's a nice 53 degress and raining on the second day of Winter.

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To Macgregor:

Your ideas intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Rubberman seems to have the better of the argument to me. He at least tries to substantiate his thinking...

E.

John Imbrie has already done this work with his book Ice Ages. Man and his activities is a mere pipsqueek with CO2 production. explorationgeologist.com

cycle comes and go for various reasons. but to think 10,000 years of humankind's CO2 production hasn't an efffect, especially with 6 billion of them pumping it out today, is well? how to say this kindly???????????

Interesting. But, I have to agree with the first commenter. Additionally, it does give any understanding about the paleo-eocene thermal maximum, PETM. The physical processes that caused that were probably quite different, such as a catastrophic global release of methane hydrates from the ocean floor. The big question seems to be, "how much global warming can happen before the methane hydrates are released from the ocean floor?"