"This chart of data obtained from Ice Cores collected near the South Pole displays the longest known record of the climate of Earth. It goes back 400,000 years."
-Wrong. We have ice core data that goes back 800,000 years;
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html
"Clearly the civilized activities of mankind including the burning of fossil fuels had nothing to do with these historic changes, large and small."
-True, there are natural variations of the climate, but the current warming trend is not natural - this is not debatable, we are absolutely positive - look at the graph Coleman himself provides, it takes tens of thousands of years for the climate to change naturally:
Now look at the rate of change that has taken place over the past 135 years:
That cannot, and never has happened naturally
"Look at the tiny, little warm period on the extreme right hand side of the chart. It is during this period that our civilization began to make extensive use of fossil fuels for heating, cooling, electrical generation and to power internal combustion and eventually jet engines.
Please note that this current warm spell looks no different than the others during the last 11,000 years."
-Wrong. The rate of average temperature change over past climate change events took place over thousands of years, the current warming trend, again, has reached what took the Earth thousands of years to do in just 135 years. Coleman is discounting the rate of increase in temperature
"The Medieval Optimum was the period in which the nations of Europe grew and prospered and many of the great European cities were founded and flourished."
-This, among other earlier claims that mirror the same sentiment, is irrelevant. Causation =/= correlation
"There is nothing exceptional about the current warm period."
-Wrong. The rate of average temperature change is exceptional
"This chart is used these days by climate alarmist to show the warming and increase in carbon dioxide in the age of fossil fuels. When you haven’t seen the previous charts, this one looks rather ominous. However, when it is put in perspective by the previous charts, it does not constitute a dramatic departure from the natural pattern at all."
-Really John? Let's take a look...
That looks like it does constitute a pretty dramatic departure from the natural pattern to me.. I mean, neither of us are climate scientists, so what do I know, right?
"First of all, the warming from 1880 to today is less than 1.5 degrees, hardly dramatic and very much in keeping with the gradual warming pattern since the end of the last Ice Age."
-Wrong. You're forgetting about the rate of temp change again, John... No natural known process can change the average temperature of the Earth in that short amount of time
"There has been no warming for over 18 years. "
-Completely wrong. 2000-2010 was the hottest decade on record & 2014 was the hottest year on record;
https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014-warmest-year-in-modern-record
I have a feeling it'll continue like this throughout Mr. Coleman's whole essay... So instead of wasting more time debunking his claims, I'll let one of the comments on the page speak for itself;
"Wow. You certainly have people convinced. It’s unfortunate that you don’t have any credentials to legitimize your pontifications. You are no more qualified to discuss global warming than a runway model is qualified to give a lecture on anatomy and physiology. You reported the weather, without even having a degree in meteorology, and that makes you an expert in what exactly? You have no expertise in weather, climate change, scientific study, data interpretation or really anything. Your financial success appears to have given you an overinflated sense of ego and importance. You are simply not qualified to lead, or even to make a meaningful contribution, to climate change discussion. I am a fan of a healthy dose of skepticism but you appear to have either your own agenda or are content with extreme ignorance. You mention carbon tax and the pitiful subsidies available for solar and wind initiatives as reasons for this bamboozling known as global warming yet you make no mention of the extreme investment that big corporations have in creating skepticism for global warming. The government still gives oil subsidies, which is a ridiculous and appalling fact but that isn’t mentioned in your blog. Scientists are manufacturing skewed data to justify their research dollars but big fossil fuel companies have no investment in continuing the status quo and nurturing our fossil fuel dependency? Really? Your position is seriously flawed and it is unfortunate that uneducated people or people who lack the scientific foundation to recognize your shortcomings, or people who lack critical thinking skills will all buy into your misguided interpretations of reality. There is absolutely no reason to not initiate changes in our energy platform except that the elite rich who benefit from our current state of fuel consumerism stand to lose. If you want to make contributions to the climate change discussion maybe you should go earn a legitimate degree and present some research that is meaningful and upholds the rigor of scientific process. Anyone can just run their mouth and sound informed and intelligent; it is irresponsible for you to do so especially without the benefit of any genuine expertise. Go home and please be quiet.
Linda"