So you're arguing that the temperature readings collected BEFORE there were even thermometers (or thermoscopes as they were first called) are valid and deserve consideration? I haven't seen the animal pelts, parchment and rock carving data that you refer to but somehow I doubt they were collected in a scientific and reliable manner.
Absolutely. The records match the thermometers for 200 years. We know how they're calibrated an they overlap with each other for significant periods of time. Even single samples can give multiple different metrics for measuring temperature.
And you're saying that we humans have been using "large amounts" of fossil fuels for about 200 year even though the first oil well wasn't drilled until the mid 1800's. Other than coal, it would have been pretty hard for the pioneers and turn of the century consumers to use "large amouts of fossil fuels".
Look at what powered the industrial revolution. Coal.
I mean, what if all this climate history actually meant that the Earth really DOES have climatic cycles?
Um, the climatic data that you discount shows exactly that. No one denies that natural cycles of warming and cooling have occurred and continue to occur. It's a straw man argument.
If a real (i.e. unbiased, I'm not trying to get another grant to pay the rent) scientist were to present such a small sampling of data in any other type of scientific study they would be laughed at and ridiculed.
They have presented the data multiple times. There are no scientists getting grants to pay the rent. People making that argument really demonstrate their ignorance of how granting works.
First of all, most scientists are paid primarily by salary. There are almost always strict limits to how much money we're allowed to keep from grants. Usually that's less than 1-3 months worth of summer salary. In practice, almost no one is keeping nearly that much. To give you an idea of how much we make from grants, I'm currently working under a $150,000, 3-year grant. From that 3-year project I'm pocketing as much money as I could make working a minimum wage job for 5 of my normal work days.
Also, the idea that we have to drum up crises to get grant money is complete garbage. To get those grants we have to submit proposals to panels of experts on the subject, some of whom are likely to be competing with us for grant money in the near future. They expect you to cite the previous work on the subject and stay within what's known. Being overly dramatic and making unsubstantiated claims is a great way to send up a red flag and get the proposal shot down. They don't really care if you propose to solve some crisis anyway. They want to know how your work will contribute to our understanding of something we don't know yet. Basically, they want you to demonstrate a knowledge gap and how you plan to fill it. The practical reason for answering it is not of primary importance.
Again, using my current grant as an example. I'm working on how increasing sea temps affect clowns and anemones. To get the money I was competing against people who are looking into things like the decline of reefs. However, IIRC the grant proposal didn't even mention temperature increases or how they're affecting reefs. It simply said that virtually nothing is known about anemone metabolism, so we're seeking to study it to understand the nature of symbiosis between the two animals and how they benefit.
What would Al Gore and his disciples do?
It annoys me to no end to keep seeing this man's name mentioned. He is a politician and did not write the science and IMO doesn't do a great job of promoting it. Study into anthropogenic warming started about 100 years before he was even born and the science was already well established by the time he wrote his book. No one who is actually educated on the subject is a disciple of Gore, and I'd venture most of them were already well educated on the subject before he picked it up. I've personally been following it for almost 20 years and Gore has done absolutely ZERO to influence my knowledge or stance on the issue.
