What is the underlying cause of global warming? click here.

[cenacle]

<<The funny thing to me is all the debate about the cause, yet little discussion about how to react.>>

1) Develop alternatives to fossil fuel based transportation, such as the electric car
2) Global action to cut greenhouse emissions
3) US sign the Kyoto Protocols
4) World-wide recycling efforts
5) End the war in Iraq and all petro-based global conflicts

These are only a few. There is plenty we can do, some of which is being done. The evidence of global change is visible, widespread, and a blunt warning to worse to come.

[laughingwillow]

cen: You seem to miss winder's underlying point concerning possible courses of action. I'm pretty sure he is wondering about possible actions humans may need to take if/when even our best efforts at limiting our adverse affects on the environmental equation fail to reverse the current climatological trends.

lw

[fuzz]

stop buying shit
stop buying shit
stop buying shit
and most importantly STOP BUYING SHIT

all other issues are results from that one single fact: we buy/produce too much shit.

if the world is really concerned about pollution, to when the adds on tv that say : STOP BUYING SHIT?
all we hear about is : productivity, job rates, economy. and then we hear we have to do something for the planet. yet we have to consume, built more, consume. its a sign of a schyzophrenic and hypocritical society.
did Gore mention to stop buying shit on his little propaganda movie to wake up grand ma and gran pa?

humans can be such trashy/wastefull/selfish creatures that their homeland  not being enough, they now are trashing space:
"For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens.
...
Now, experts say, China's test of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/scien ... wanted=all
 
START BREATHING
STOP BUYING SHIT!

[laughingwillow]

Oops... Another heretic bites the dust..

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/k ... 5d04a.html

06:09 PM PST on Tuesday, February 6, 2007
By VINCE PATTON, kgw.com

In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change. Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist.

Hundreds of scientists last Friday issued the strongest warning yet on global warming saying humans are "very likely" the cause.


“Most of the climate changes we have seen up until now have been a result of natural variations,” Taylor asserts.

Taylor has held the title of "state climatologist" since 1991 when the legislature created a state climate office at OSU The university created the job title, not the state. His opinions conflict not only with many other scientists, but with the state of Oregon's policies. So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.

In an exclusive interview with KGW-TV, Governor Ted Kulongoski confirmed he wants to take that title from Taylor. The governor said Taylor's contradictions interfere with the state's stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.

“He is Oregon State University's climatologist. He is not the state of Oregon's climatologist,” Kulongoski said. Taylor declined to comment on the proposal other than to say he was a "bit shocked" by the news. He recently engaged in a debate at O.M.S.I. and repeated his doubts about accepted science.

In an interview he told KGW, "There are a lot of people saying the bulk of the warming of the last 50 years is due to human activities and I don't believe that's true." He believes natural cycles explain most of the changes the earth has seen.

A bill will be introduced in Salem soon on the matter. Sen. Brad Avakian, (D) Washington County, is sponsoring the bill. He said global warming is so important to state policy it's important to have a climatologist as a consultant to the governor. He denied this is targeted personally at Taylor. "Absolutely not," Avakian said, "I've never met Mr. Taylor and if he's got opinions I hope he comes to the hearing and testifies."

Kulongoski said the state needs a consistent message on reducing greenhouse gases to combat climate change. The Governor says, "I just think there has to be somebody that says, 'this is the state position on this.'"

lw

[TroutMask]

Yes, there will always be the Flat Earth Society. We will always find the people who will assert, in the face of piles of evidence to the contrary, that the earth is only 10,000 years old, that the earth is flat, that global warming is a myth; always looking through and around the evidence for the "but" while ignoring the evidence itself.

As a scientist (M.S. Geology), I find the questions of 1. Whether the earth is warming beyond natural background and 2. Whether Man is at least partially responsible, to be insulting to my intelligence. I find it hard to believe we're even discussing it. Maybe I should have stayed in computer science where I began so I wouldn't know about any of this.

We can find all kinds of people saying the Earth is flat; do we need to go back over the evidence every day to prove otherwise? I think the stars are little candles in the sky. Why not? Let's dig out all the evidence so I can ignore it. The stars are still candles, dammit, get that data out of here!

What would it take to change your mind? Jebus bopping down from Hebben and telling you to your face, I suppose. Lack of knowledge does not knowledge make.

-TM

P.S. I am still undecided on UFOs. The non-UFO folks seem to be stuck on the "How could they get from way over there to here?" question. With our developing knowledge of nuclear physics, that question seems to be less important: We are everywhere at all times; all we have to do is figure out where to stop. Now, THAT is a field with some questions left...

[laughingwillow]

troutie: I see nobody here denying global warming is occuring. And for a person who professes to such great intelligence, I would expect you to realize that.

Also, please point me to your source which confirms your view that current conditions have, historically, never been replicated.

I have no doubt that humans play some part in affecting weather patterns. Please show me the proof that the current warming trends are primarly caused by CO2 emissions and not part of a natural cycle.

I'm pretty sure that there have been discoveries made in the artic recently, due to the lack of ice/snow, uncovering remanants of an age when the poles apparently were not covered with ice.

Jesus? Hell, I'd settle for scientific facts, mensa-lemming-mon.

lw

[laughingwillow]

A few of the comments at the end of this story make points with which I agree. Seems like I'm not the only one asking stoopid questions and getting no plausable answer in return.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 06001/1002

Del. scientist's view on climate change criticized
Ties to big oil, industry-funded lobbies draw fire
By Jeff Montgomery
The News Journal


WILMINGTON, Del. â€" David Legates is skeptical of global warming data.

A Delaware scientist's contrarian stand on global warming and climate change has earned him national attention in a series of critical reports -- including some that lump his views in with industry-backed disinformation campaigns.

The controversy surrounding Delaware State Climatologist David R. Legates and other climate change skeptics peaked last week with the publication of an updated summary report on global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris.

Shortly before the Paris climate change report emerged, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a study listing Legates among several scientists it described as "familiar spokespeople from ExxonMobil-funded organizations" that have regularly taken stands or sponsored reports questioning the science behind climate change warnings.

"I certainly think that Legates is a good example of someone who has chosen, for whatever reason, to have much of his work sponsored indirectly by ExxonMobil," said Seth Shulman, primary author of the Union of Concerned Scientists report.

"In these cases, these people are often putting out information as the 'state climatologist,' whereas it's really at best an incomplete accounting of their affiliation," Shulman said.

ExxonMobil, which posted a record $39.5 billion profit last year, was accused by UCS of funneling $16 million to advocacy groups over a seven-year period in an effort to "confuse the public on global warming science," including some groups that have worked closely with Legates or other climate change critics.

ExxonMobil has since branded the claims as "deeply offensive and wrong," and described its position on climate change as "misunderstood."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its fourth report described human-contributions to higher global temperatures as "unequivocal," and warned that rising seas and shifting climates were likely.

Legates, a University of Delaware professor, has criticized the panel's previous summary reports as offering "a lot of misinformation," despite the work by thousands of scientists from dozens of nations worldwide who teamed to produce the document.

Legates, who has referred to himself as a contrarian in public, could not be reached Monday. He has confirmed serving in various unpaid roles with groups that question global warming science, including as an adjunct scholar for the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank.

Although Legates holds the title of Delaware State Climatologist, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's office said that it had no direct role in the selection. The University of Delaware also supported the appointment, but has no direct oversight. Minner and the university both signed a four-way acknowledgement of the position.

Others around the country, meanwhile, have asked for a closer look at Legates' role in the debate over global warming.

California's attorney general last year asked a federal judge to force automakers to disclose their dealings with climate change skeptics, including Legates, in a dispute over greenhouse gas limits for new cars. General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers are defendants in that suit.

"The climate skeptics have played a major role in spreading disinformation about global warming," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer wrote.

The request included a quote from the book "The Heat is On," by former reporter and author Ross Gelbspan: "The tiny group of dissenting scientists have been given prominent public visibility and congressional influence out of all proportion to their standing in the scientific community on the issue of global warming."

Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace and other organizations have cited Legates' ties to several groups that have supported or emphasized skeptical stands on climate change, while they also received regular contributions from ExxonMobil. Those organizations include the National Center for Policy Analysis, which has received about $421,000 from ExxonMobil, and the George C. Marshall Institute, which received $630,000.

Both groups have published work by Legates, and Legates has reported working as an adjunct scholar for the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which also once listed Legates as an adjunct scholar, received more than $2 million from ExxonMobil at a time when the company was publicly fighting climate change policies.

During a speech last July at an event sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Legates described some claims about warming and climate shifts as "overblown," although he said that he was not disputing scientists whose work led to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

"I think in general there's very much of a disagreement," Legates said at the time.

Washington State Climatologist Philip Mote, who generally agrees with the panel's findings, said that few scientists disagree that the planet is warming, and said that an "inclusive and exhaustive" study found that humans "very likely" contributed to the change.

"It's pretty much the same eight or 10 people any time you see a skeptical point of view," Mote said. "It's pretty certain that it's going to be one of those folks."

But Mote also said that scientists who work on behalf of environmental groups also should have to disclose their backing.

"I don't know what number of scientists have accepted money from environmental groups to grind their ax, but I believe it's more than the eight or 10 listed in the UCS report."

Last year, Legates wrote a "policy report" for the National Center for Policy Analysis. It was released at about the same time as Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." The center's paper questioned several cornerstones of the argument supporting links between human activities and global warming.

"The complexity of the climate and the limitations of data and computer models mean projections of future climate change are unreliable at best," Legates wrote. "In sum, the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21st century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change."

Attention to Legates' views increased in Delaware when he disputed arguments used to support Delaware efforts to control greenhouse gases as one of several authors in a "friend-of-the-court" brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed the brief.

Virginia state climatologist Patrick Michaels, who received a $100,000 contribution from a Colorado electric cooperative that supported Michaels' labeling of climate change supporters as "alarmists," was another co-author on the brief.


   Post a Comment    View All Comments

After re-reading the article, I still could not find a single argument offered to challenge the dissenting scientist. The purpose of the article was strictly an effort to demonize dissent by association with funding by "undesirables."

How about an argument! If the global warmers are so righteous then let the debate begin.

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:20 am
Otherwise I would be sitting atop a 2 mile thick glasier.

So what melted those? Flintstone mobiles?

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:16 am
The word "consensus" is not a scientific term. "Proof" is a scientific term. It now appears that a "consensus" is sufficient to justify de-certification of meterologists, firing climatologists who do not adhere to the "state" or "party" position, and to not have to provide scientific or logical arguements when challenged by anyone who dares to disagree with, much less completely demolish, the positions of the "consensus". The scientific notion of proof is no longer required of believers in human induced global warming, neither is logic or rational thought.

The Global Warming Gestapo, with great zeal for their new religion, are just a hair away from offering us the same deal that the Islamic Fascists have offered: Convert, swear your belief in the teachings of the prophet ALGORE, submit to a new world order, or die as an infidel.

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:01 am
The real problem with trying to talk to the wack jobs who feign belief in the fakery called global warming or climate change (they need to keep changing the name to stay ahead of the unwilling public's opinion- what is next poison atmosphere?) is that like any bully, they will scream and cry like the hysterical bitches they are when confronted by overwhelming data (force) and get truly nasty when they are the overwhelming force.
At no time will they ever become reasonable, compromising, or rational. They are fully infected with evil the way a dog whose cranial content is 99% rabies by weight, and there is no dealing with them. Allowed to continue unmolested, they will simply continue scheming and conspiring new industries to disrupt, and new nd more efficient ways of manipulating facts to gain and hold and expand thier power.
Like poison ivy with the growth rate of Kudzu, it must be dealt with harshly, this marxist/fascist/we-want to rule the worldist thought pattern.
Besides: Even if the world warmed an average of twenty degrees NOW, and all te ice melted tomorrow, the result would be some earthquakes as the continents rise due to the seafloors being squished down by the weight. But that is NOT going to happen so fast. (PS: folks who listed the lies that they have promulgated in attempts to scare us into giving them power forgot to mention ASTEROIDS!!
Oh god an asteroid is going to hit earth. Vote for me.
Where is the RAID?...)

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:53 am
gxmadiso posted:
" . . .You will argue against any scientific concensus your string pullers tell you to. . . ."
My primary involvement with string has been to produce enough rope that radicals can manufacture nooses with which to hang themselves. I'll be glad to pull it if you want me to. If a topic interests me I will do some research, gather data from multiple sources, analyze that data and reach my own conclusions. Regarding temperature cycles in earth's history I have researched available data from geology, paleontology, anthropology, meteorology, human history, and astronomy. All these sciences support the conclusion that the current warming trend is not unprecedented. It is a current manifestation of a phase that is part of a repeating pattern.

I wonder how most of you feel about evolution. Actually, I have a pretty good idea. . . ."
During the past several decades I have been very thankful for the facts of evolution. Without it you and I would not exist in our present form. Many of the sciences I referenced above also support the validity of evolution. The only things that have been poofed into existence are wild conspiracy theories and special activists' causes.

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:37 am

[cenacle]

So what do we do? Keep polluting the planet, killing off rare species, mowing down forests and jungles, building higher and higher piles of landfill, more and more places, continue with the petro-based economies that drive Western economies, buying shit and producing shit and piling up shit indefinitely?

Even if I wasn't convinced that global warming is good science, which I am, I would not be arguing for the status quo. There are too many people, too many factories and oil-based transit, too much shit piling up everywhere. The cities are filthy, people have no clue how to grow food, how to plant a tree, one bird from another. Most people are helpless worm-like consumers at the corporate manufactured trough, keeping us full of fat and booze and cigarettes and TV dope and human-centric materialist views of the world to kill any wild open sense of wonder we might have.

More of us are eating pills for every reason under the sun, more of us are fat, sick, unhappy and vulnerable to every two-bit con-man coming down the road with some get-rich-get-pretty-get-thin-get-laid potion in hand. Fucking Matrix drones, and I think everyone posting to this thread can see it.

We're here, in this community, because we are aware of something else, something more, each in his or her own way, like there's a world out there beyond the TV and the Happy Meal. We may approach it differently, and often have no clue what to do on a macro-scale, but we ask the questions and we wonder. The earth is being harmed by a species that is sick, war-ridden, abusive to its own kind and every other kind. Our capacity for kindness and intelligence and innovation is huge, but too often this bows before the grub for the mighty dollar, the shoulder exhausted from a workweek at the wheel.

Yet we rouse ourselves, and damnit we need to KEEP rousing ourselves. Our kind does not live well with each member receiving his or her due. We need to do something, and do it for a long time. Call it global warming or a global spiritual crisis, it's there, it's in our faces. We can be happy in our hours, live like this moment's joy is forever, and in some ways it is, but there are other things out there too. Muck and stardust both, and more.

I think we are endowed with intelligence and wisdom, by whatever source, for whatever ultimate purpose, to do something now. I speak only for myself here but I get the feeling if I could say the right words to convey my meaning everyone else here would nod and agree.

I get sick at heart every day seeing the potential of the world wasted by greed and fear and envy. I counter this feeling with good food, and kindness to others, and music, and nature. But I do not deny there are people and animals and plants dying needlessly by the mindless hand by the millions. Joy and trauma, that's the world in most moments.

[laughingwillow]

/me hands cen a box of Kleenex brand tissue......

Life is messy, bro. Always has been, always will be. Life daily consumes life in an epic battle for survival. Now, that doesn't mean CO2 emissions are good for the environment. I think we need to drastically cut those emissions in order to protect all the species that breath clean air.

Feel free to get back to the hand wringing and nashing of teeth, if that's really where its at for you, cen.....

lw

[senorsalvia]

I buy into the whole 'Climate is changing' thing...  Granted, I have not really sought out and studied much data to support my belief, but c'mon; surely one does not have to be a certified climatologist to know that the weather patters are screwy...  I do alot of the hand wringing/nashing of teeth thing, as well....  It satisfies my need to feel I am 'above the fray, more concerned and aware than the average Joe Schmo....  Guess you could say I agree that the earth is goin' to hell in a handbasket; woven by it's greedy, consumerism...  senor sal will, of course, just muddle along.  Just don't forget he is always around to bitch n moan about things......  Damn now;  where's that Utopian Society my benevolent guvmit promised me!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :wink:   sal

[cenacle]

Life being messy need not be so. Let me tell you a personal story. I've been having some health problems lately, not to get into them too much, I have problems with my feet. Doctors give me pills, and modern technological shoes to help. All good, I am grateful for such things. But it took asking a third doctor to be told, yes, I can learn to walk in a way that is less harmful to my feet. See, I think we can learn, I think, in fact we are here to learn, to grow. I think as individuals we can learn from our own past experience, and as a species we can learn from our collective history. That is what I believe.

So now maybe our science is better than ever before at telling us what's wrong, what we are doing that we did not know was causing harm, like me and my feet. But science cannot solve things. It is up to us, in our individual ways and in smaller and larger groups to decide to change. It's that simple, and that hard.

So, like Fuzz says, stop buying shit. Well put. Most things come from shit and go back to shit. But I think cultivating awareness is important too, a greater knowing of how A affects B and causes C. I want to learn as a single soul, but also to be part of a general learning. It will take many, many of us to move the world into a better space. Like that 100th monkey theory that was talked about back in the bad old nuclear nightmare '80s.

I'm not without hope or I would not rail against the things I oppose, and for the solutions that seem evident to me right now.

I am trying to learn to walk differently, and why I need to do this. I think, as a species, we need to do this as well. Learn what the problem is, why it came to be, and how to improve things.

I don't need tissues, LW, I need your good brain on the case :twisted:

[laughingwillow]

quote cen: I don't need tissues, LW, I need your good brain on the case

Sneaky focker went and found the one way to shut me up....

But seriously, you have my brain on the case. I agree something needs to be done about CO2 emissions.

lw

[cenacle]

well done, man :twisted: in some other world, we'd seal our deal with a puff of something sweet & exotic

[laughingwillow]

This is an interesting read on the subject, imo.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editor ... l_climate/

ELLEN GOODMAN
No change in political climate
By Ellen Goodman  |  February 9, 2007

On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.

No, I do not think that if everyone lit just one little compact fluorescent light bulb, what a bright world this would be. Even the Prius in our driveway doesn't do a whole lot to reduce my carbon footprint, which is roughly the size of the Yeti lurking in the (melting) Himalayas.
But it was either buying a light bulb or pulling the covers over my head. And it was too early in the day to reach for that kind of comforter.
By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

But light bulbs aside -- I now have three and counting -- I don't expect that this report will set off some vast political uprising. The sorry fact is that the rising world thermometer hasn't translated into political climate change in America.

The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration.
One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.

This great divide comes from the science-be-damned-and-debunked attitude of the Bush administration and its favorite media outlets. The day of the report, Big Oil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma actually described it as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report.

But there are psychological as well as political reasons why global warming remains in the cool basement of priorities. It may be, paradoxically, that framing this issue in catastrophic terms ends up paralyzing instead of motivating us. Remember the Time magazine cover story: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." The essential environmental narrative is a hair-raising consciousness-raising: This is your Earth. This is your Earth on carbon emissions.
This works for some. But a lot of social science research tells us something else. As Ross Gelbspan, author of "The Heat is On," says, "when people are confronted with an overwhelming threat and don't see a solution, it makes them feel impotent. So they shrug it off or go into deliberate denial."

Michael Shellenberger, co author of "The Death of Environmentalism," adds, "The dominant narrative of global warming has been that we're responsible and have to make changes or we're all going to die. It's tailor-made to ensure inaction."

So how many scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
American University's Matthew Nisbet is among those who see the importance of expanding the story beyond scientists. He is charting the reframing of climate change into a moral and religious issue -- see the greening of the evangelicals -- and into a corruption-of-science issue -- see big oil -- and an economic issue -- see the newer, greener technologies .

In addition, maybe we can turn denial into planning. "If the weatherman says there's a 75 percent chance of rain, you take your umbrella," Shellenberger tells groups. Even people who clutched denial as their last, best hope can prepare, he says, for the next Katrina. Global warming preparation is both his antidote for helplessness and goad to collective action.

The report is grim stuff. Whatever we do today, we face long-range global problems with a short-term local attention span. We're no happier looking at this global thermostat than we are looking at the nuclear doomsday clock.

Can we change from debating global warming to preparing? Can we define the issue in ways that turn denial into action? In America what matters now isn't environmental science, but political science. We are still waiting for the time when an election hinges on a candidate's plans for a changing climate. That's when the light bulb goes on.

lw

[laughingwillow]

I know some of you think I'm stoopid for asking these questions, but at least there are some educated folks who are apparently a lot dumber than me, as they should know better....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... warm11.xml

Cosmic rays blamed for global warming

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 11/02/2007

Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research.

Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought.

In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

    
High levels of cloud cover blankets the Earth and reflects radiated heat from the Sun back out into space, causing the planet to cool.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

This, he says, is responsible for much of the global warming we are experiencing.

He claims carbon dioxide emissions due to human activity are having a smaller impact on climate change than scientists think. If he is correct, it could mean that mankind has more time to reduce our effect on the climate.

The controversial theory comes one week after 2,500 scientists who make up the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change published their fourth report stating that human carbon dioxide emissions would cause temperature rises of up to 4.5 C by the end of the century.

Mr Svensmark claims that the calculations used to make this prediction largely overlooked the effect of cosmic rays on cloud cover and the temperature rise due to human activity may be much smaller.

He said: "It was long thought that clouds were caused by climate change, but now we see that climate change is driven by clouds.

"This has not been taken into account in the models used to work out the effect carbon dioxide has had.

"We may see CO2 is responsible for much less warming than we thought and if this is the case the predictions of warming due to human activity will need to be adjusted."

Mr Svensmark last week published the first experimental evidence from five years' research on the influence that cosmic rays have on cloud production in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Journal A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. This week he will also publish a fuller account of his work in a book entitled The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change.

A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.

They hope this will prove whether this deep space radiation is responsible for changing cloud cover. If so, it could force climate scientists to re-evaluate their ideas about how global warming occurs.

Mr Svensmark's results show that the rays produce electrically charged particles when they hit the atmosphere. He said: "These particles attract water molecules from the air and cause them to clump together until they condense into clouds."

Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.

Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.

He said: "Evidence from ice cores show this happening long into the past. We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.

"Humans are having an effect on climate change, but by not including the cosmic ray effect in models it means the results are inaccurate.The size of man's impact may be much smaller and so the man-made change is happening slower than predicted."

Some climate change experts have dismissed the claims as "tenuous".

Giles Harrison, a cloud specialist at Reading University said that he had carried out research on cosmic rays and their effect on clouds, but believed the impact on climate is much smaller than Mr Svensmark claims.

Mr Harrison said: "I have been looking at cloud data going back 50 years over the UK and found there was a small relationship with cosmic rays. It looks like it creates some additional variability in a natural climate system but this is small."

But there is a growing number of scientists who believe that the effect may be genuine.

Among them is Prof Bob Bingham, a clouds expert from the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils in Rutherford.

He said: "It is a relatively new idea, but there is some evidence there for this effect on clouds."