Rig, regarding global warming...

My impression is that we have been experiencing an overall warming phase, yes....but I am skeptical that the human contribution to it is a major factor. I do think it is a partial factor, so I have no objection to efforts to, for instance, reduce carbon emissions, but I doubt it's the main factor.

There was a major global cooling phase in the mid-1940s. Human industry was increasing rapidly during that period, due to war production...but the planet cooled during the same period.

There was another notable cooling phase in the 1970s, despit the steady continuance of our industrial civilization, and there were scary articles being written then about the danger of a new ice age. After awhile that stopped and we went into another warming phase. I don't think you can tie any of those past phases to man-based carbon emissions, I think they were cyclical in nature, not human-caused, and I think that may well be true of the present warming phase.

I think that what we are experiencing is more likely a natural event that has a great deal more to do with cyclical changes in the sun's output of energy than with man's industrial activities on this planet. In a period of heightened sun activity, this planet warms. In a period of lowered sun activity, it cools.

I will further add this: I don't KNOW for sure. I'm not in a position to. I'm merely making the best speculative guess on the matter than I can, given all the stuff I've read about it so far. I may be entirely wrong. And that goes for anyone else here too, despite their level of enthusiasm and their utter certainty that they are right.

(As I said, most people are a lot more scared of being proven wrong about something...anything...that they espouse or believe in than they are of global warming. That's what makes them so darned intolerant when they argue with others about it.)