TB knows exactly what I was saying,
but for ideological reasons, he must reflexively ridicule any mention or discussion of global warming, just like RJ Reynolds had to pooh-pooh any talk of carcinogens in tobacco smoke. It's bad for business, and we can't have that, can we? Someone might lose his freedom to profitably pollute with impunity.

The earth will radiate any excess heat off into space, but it will do so at a higher temperature, not necessarily hundreds of degrees, but even a few degrees will have consequences for our weather and climate. I have repeatedly said here a runaway greenhouse effect was highly unlikely on earth because after billions of years of asteroid strikes and volcanic episodes the earth has never had one. The earth is self-regulating, but not perfectly so. We do have Coal and Ice Ages. But of course, TB has accused me of something I've never claimed, and that he knows I've never claimed, so he
can cleverly produce a pithy counter-example.

No one knows why Venus had a greenhouse excursion, which is why astronomers are so baffled by it. It may have been Venus' chemistry, or its distance from the sun, or even its rotational mechanics, did not allow an earth-type feedback weather moderating system to evolve there. But no one knows for sure.

But even a slight excursion in temperature over a short time span will alter ocean currents, wind patterns, precipitation, little things which may wreak havoc with our agriculture, settlement patterns, and civilization. According to TB's politics, we're supposed to do nothing about it until it can be definitely proven. Unfortunately, there's only one way we can definitely prove it, and that's to suffer from it.

As the earth heats up from the effects of the sun, there is only one way it can cool off, by radiating its excess heat into space. It's the same physics that causes any heated object to give off heat until it stabilizes at some higher temperature. The power radiated, P = kT**4, so equilibrium is quickly reached. But greenhouse gases can potentially alter the proportionality constant k so equilibrium may be reached at a slightly higher T. But even a rise of an average of a few degrees C will probably cause weather changes, and maybe corn won't grow in the Iowan Desert any more.