It is important to distinguish the idea that the Earth may be warming up from the idea that the Earth is warming up because my car is too big. In other words, "The arctic ice is melting, therefore we have to cripple Western industry" is not a straight-line proposition. Go over that paper I linked to again. The scientists are concerned, but they still cannot nail fossil fuels as the main culprit.

Again, to separate the reasonable people from the agenda people, ask them about nuclear power. Most people on this board concerned about global warming see nuclear power as one major solution, which is a major factor separating them from those whose real motivations are hatred of capitalism and a desire to destroy Western technological civilization.

And while I sometimes take great joy in poking holes in the usual laundry lists, I'm only going to do one on this post:

How many class 5 hurricanes per year beyond the norm for how many years will it take to convince doubters GW is real?

From this article. Read the article, and look at the tables. If you see a significant trend of any kind here, your eyes must be better than mine.

Table 5, which lists hurricanes by decades since 1900, shows that during the twenty year period 1960-1979 both the number and intensity of landfalling U.S. hurricanes decreased sharply! Based on 1900-1959 statistics, the expected number of hurricanes and major hurricanes during the period 1960-1979 was 36 and 15, respectively. But, in fact, only 27 (or 75%) of the expected number of hurricanes struck the U.S. with only 10 major hurricanes or 67% of that expected number. The decade of the eighties showed little change to this trend. Even the decade of the nineties, showed below average landfall frequencies. It could be noted that of the most recent four decades, only the 70's and 90's were significantly below normal.

On the average, a category 4 or stronger hurricane strikes the United States once every 6 years. Even though two category 4 hurricanes struck within three years, (Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992), they represent the only category 4 hurricanes since 1969. Fewer hurricanes in a year do not necessarily mean a lesser threat of disaster, however. The 1919 hurricane, which is both the third deadliest and fourth most intense to strike the United States beginning 1900, occurred in a year which had a total of only three storms/hurricanes. Records for the most intense U.S. hurricane in 1935, and the costliest, Andrew in 1992, occurred in years which had only six tropical storms or hurricanes.

Of course, this does not take into account storms since 2001, and it refers only to the hurricane strength at landfall, which is almost always less than in the open sea. Ideally, one would want a worldwide accounting of storms too, not just Atlantic hurricanes.

If you have better numbers, let me know. Until then, I suspect someone pulled that "beyond the norm" factoid out of their ass.