How did you find the temperature was 59 degrees? Care to mention your source? It was not obvious when I ran a similar search and Mr. Sajak is correct to ask the question what is the average temperature because the technique varies quite widely over the last 50 years. I discuss this on my blog quite often.

While I feel impatient with Mr Sajak’s elementary and border-line irrelivant questions, I have one of my own that I feel is directly relevant:

How likely is it that mankind will cut their emission so fast and drastically that either abrupt climate change or runaway global warming?

My answer is it is very unlikely due to political/social/economic inertia, plus carbon sinks becoming carbon emitters in a warming world. In other words, drastic emission cuts is an unfeasible strategy.

Instead, any feasible planetary rescue plan must include a method of removing the CO2 from the air. I suggest using the low cost method of biosequestration: seeding an extensively tested GMO into the ocean.

I’d like to see where you got that 59 degrees answer, too, and see their science. The Earth is a dynamic system, in which it gets warmer, cooler, hot, and cold, depending on many conditions.

Pat misses the fundamental question, though, being “if anthropogenic climate change is so bad, why are most of the supporters, particularly the leaders, failing to change their lifestyles to match their rhetoric?”

The Truth is a beautiful thing.

FACT: We are currently enjoying a warm interval (interglaciation) between ice ages. Our interglaciation is called the Holocene. The last interglacial (before the last ice age) was called the Eemian. The Eemian Interglacial was WAAY HOTTER THAN TODAY AND CO2 WAS SKYROCKETING AS WELL!!! Modern Man was not here yet during the Eemian but if we were some Al Gore type would have been blowing hot air and blaming “human activity.”

Thank God the Earth naturally warmed up from the last ice age, because my country – Canada – was covered by ice several kilometers thick about 12,000 years ago. These warm interglacials typically end after about 12,000 years so statisticly the next ice age is getting close.

Climate is ALWAYS changing. Look at the Vostok ice core charts and see if you can find any spot where temperature and CO2 are stable (a flat line). GOOD LUCK!

It is also helpful to understand if there is a rationale behind the queries — does the questioner aim to elicit a particular answer or direction in us?

Looking at an issue from many different directions (oceanic temp, earth temp, etc.) may allow us to understand the issue with creativity in observation and solutions.

I, for one, wish to act with precaution in areas of suspected influence, regardless of the debate. In the case of global warming, it is quite a small percentage in the scientific community debating our influence on the planetary climate.

By the way, Pat, our company has launched a mainstream board game in which there are no right or wrong answers — instead, it is entirely dependent on the creativity of the players in a news headline game. Oh, and by the way, this party game uses authentic earth-friendly production methods and materials!

he should be the host of Jeopardy, because that is what he is putting us all in.