"Since about 80% of the greenhouse gases that are currently in the atmosphere come from us in the developed world....." says Divergence.

Oh, so when the CO2 was about 4 times as concentrated in the atmosphere millions of year ago, we were around with our factories and SUV's were we?

CO2 is great stuff, wonderful plant food and it is part of the Earth's climate's natural checks and balances.

The Oak Ridge per capita figures given in the article
are called both carbon dioxide and carbon in different
places. They are, I think, carbon and not carbon dioxide
(CO2) and need to be multiplied by 44/12 to be
converted to CO2.

Divergence,

I think if you look at the countries that are classified as "developing" in the Kyoto protocol incl China, India and generally 90% of the world's population, I think you will find that the emissions from these countries are far from 20% and closer to 60%.

The article is correct. Any action by the "developed" world without some action by the "developing" world will be pointless.

It might not be PC, but it is reality.

Froggie and Shadow Minister,

I meant and should have said, "80% of the excess greenhouse gases over pre-industrial levels". This is the figure that is commonly quoted, but it may be out of date. Perhaps Shadow Minister could post a link. I am interested in the truth, not political correctness.

The earth science journal Eos reported on a survey last January of more than 10,000 earth scientists on global warming that had a 31% response rate. 97% of the active climate scientists that responded agreed that human activities were a significant cause of climate change.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

If the experts are divided on a subject and it has significant practical implications, then the community may have to come to some sort of decision about who should be believed. With 97% agreement, there is no division, just the scientific community and a few mavericks. This doesn't mean that there is absolute proof or that there haven't been times in the history of science when the maverick was right and the scientific establishment was wrong, but statistically, it isn't smart to bet the farm on such an outcome.