Valli2 Jun 21st 2012 10:52 GMT Why was the temperature on the planet not increasing 1960-1980? Possibly because of the cooling effects of sulfuric oxides, which were from 1970 and onwards gradually being faced out of the smoke from coal-powered electricity generation and other coal smoke. Now the Chinese are dumping into the atmosphere lots of sulfuric oxides from burning coal. When they need to clean the smoke, as they shall have to do now due to health hazards from continuing the present SOx release, the planet´s average temperature might jump upwards rather abruptly, much as it did in the period 1975-1990. The SOx stay in the atmosphere for about 5 years on average, a much shorter duration than that of CO2, if I have understood it correctly. I think scepticism towards whether the heating of the planet is due to natural causes or is man made is understandable, since the cost of countering climate change is huge. However the cost of doing nothing might also be huge, if the causes for higher average temperature are rooted in human endevour. It is worth noticing, that the cost of countering climate change can be made more tolerable, if "the forest alternative", meaning less forest destruction, a changed management of existing forests and the planting of new forests, if the forest alternative to fix carbondioxide is used along with measures to curb increase in total anthropological generation of CO2. It has been calculated, that by using the forest alternative along with curbs on increased CO2 generation the price ticket for stabalizing CO2 levels in the atmosphere and staying within 2°C increase of average temperature could be lowered by 50%. Some "environmentalists" don´t want to accept the use of the forest alternative, since suffering is a neccessary part of the remedy picture in the eyes of puritanic protestantism, which is driving the environmentalist movement in the well off western countries. The calculations I am refering to were published last year in a book edited by Björn Lomborg, with articles from various scientists. Various kinds of geo-engineering are all much more costly, than the forest alternative, according to those calculations.