Global Warming a hoax?

There's a sign, by the looks of it made by a 4th grader, in my neighborhood that says "Global warming is a hoax". It's surrounded by trip wires in his/her side yard, almost as if it were concocted to be protected by an electric fence. In my fairly conservative (at least for CA bay area) little suburbia bubble called Danville, I'm actually amazed it's survived the at least 2 months it's been up. Tolerance? I think not. Haven't seen the new "Expelled" movie by Ben Stein, but it pretty much has the same theme of (in)tolerance. I have one former colleague that spewed profanity at me and cutoff the friendship at the audicity of me to doubt global warming. And I wasn't even arguing against it per se, just offering the possibility that there could be other explanations. Granted as a staunch athiest, he threw in the kitchen sink regarding many of the spiritual conversations we've had, but that's really part of the point. There's a religion issue here, man wants to believe that he has ultimate control, that our actions somehow control our own destiny, even if it takes millions of years. Hence the emotion, you get to the root of it, and we're back to God, a creator, and the rebellion of man.

So anyhow, here's some interesting comments by a world renowned meteorologist in the attached article. This is the guy who everyone looks to for prediction of the hurricane season. These are similar comments to that of a local radio personality who was once a local TV meteorologist (Brian Sussman).

* "I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people,"
* "I've been in meteorology over 50 years. I've worked damn hard, and I've been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who've been around have not been asked about this. It's sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing."
* "The models can't even predict the weather in two weeks, much less 100 years, he says."

Good read if you have the time...
Washington Post "The Tempest" An article about interview w/ Dr William Gray