Global warming means simply that the earth is getting hotter.  How much?  That depends on who you ask.  NASA has recently stated that it made an error about the hottest year.  It turns out that 1934 was the hottest year on record, not 1998.  Still, we may be warming up some, as we are still recovering from the "Little Ice Age" which devasted Europe for several hundred years.  

Many think this warming  will lead to catastrophic events such as higher sea levels, increased storms with more violence, drought, floods, famine, and melting ice caps.  So far, the weather pundits have been extremely bad at predicting the severity of hurricanes even one year out.  Its hard to believe that they have any degree of accuracy in their long term forecasts.  

What is supposedly causing the alleged global warming?  The standard line is that we, the human race, are.  Driving our SUVs to work, using electricity, heating our homes, and in short, enjoying our industrial lifestyle is to blame.  All of these activities use fossil fuel, hydrocarbons, and when that fuel is burned to release its energy carbon dioxide is released.  Supposedly, this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts as a blanket, and causes heat to be retained that would have otherwise radiated into space.  But, there are problems with this explanation.  First, the ice core temperature and CO2 data going back over 400,000 years shows that rising carbon dioxide levels come after global temperature rises, by about 800 years.  That is, warming causes increased CO2, not the other way around.  Secondly, It seems that every planetary body in our solar system is exhibiting some kind of warming... even as far out as Pluto.  Obviously, soccer moms driving their kids to school in their H2 Hummer cannot be the reason that Mercury is getting warmer can it?  Thirdly, CO2 is a heavy gas, so it would tend to sink toward ground level instead of rising into the atmosphere creating a blanket.  So something else must be going on, something that we don't understand, or don't want to admit because of political reasons, but is most likely linked to increased activity from the Sun.  Global temperatures correlate much more closely to sunspot activity than to atmospheric CO2 levels.  

Over the last 2 billion years, the earth has existed as either a hot house or an ice house like we are in today.  During that long geologic period, the CO2 concentration has varied from as high as 18 times what it is today down to similar levels.  In all that time, CO2 has never been shown to have caused temperature rise.  Neither was man responsible for the large swings in Earth's temperature.    It is probably not possible for man to stop the natural earth cycles of changing temperatures, nor even desireable.  

Nasa says that solar activity is greater now than it has been for thousands of years, and when solar flare activity is compared to the earth's temperature over time, the two track very closely.    Knowing that warming is occurring on other planets, wouldn't it be wise to consider that humanity and fossil fuels may not be the root cause of global warming?  If we fail to identify the true cause, there is no hope in finding a solution to our survival.  We, as an intelligent species, should instead spend our resources learning to live with the Earth instead of fighting it.

And from Nasa:

Of course, the political agenda is to tax global warming out of existence through carbon credits or some other such hoopla like the Kyoto protocols.  Al Gore who is part owner of the company set up to trade carbon credits stands to make a lot of money from carbon trading.  Should anyone be surprised by this?  

These schemes are simply an attack on the US, since the largest countries in the world, India and China are not required to limit their CO2 emissions (which will not help anyway).  Any method that reduces our carbon emissions necessarily requires people to use less fuel.  That translates into less driving, less heating of homes, lower standard of living, and ultimately death for a portion of the populace.  It may also reduce our food supply, as CO2 is a necessary gas to plant life, just as oxygen is to humans.  In fact, greenhouse operators routinely inject extra CO2 into the greenhouse to increase their plant yields. 

Interestingly, CO2 emissions will naturally decline in the future.  The world is currently at Peak Oil, Peak Coal, and generally Peak Energy according to the energy pundits.  There certainly is a plethora of evidence suggesting that oil production has peaked as early as May of  2005.  If true, from this point onward, our energy (carbon) consumption will begin decreasing from lack of supply, rather than from any political scheme.

Perceived global warming is going to contribute to the drama leading up to the 2012 event, both in political terms and in physical terms.  We are already seeing disturbing natural changes in weather all around the world.  We live in a delicate balance with nature, and nature has the ability to decimate populations through floods, drought, and violent storms as we have recently seen.  Politics also has the potential to destroy civilization though doesn't it?