Neither you nor I are climate scientists and must appeal to authority for input. That has been a major political difficulty. Some “authorities” have a hidden agenda. The author of the article points out disagreements, but he didn't seem to take sides. That is why I thought his article was fairly written.
No the author did not cover human influence, but the IPCC did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report
A general conclusion of the 5th IPCC assessment is that,
“Warming of the atmosphere and ocean system is unequivocal. Many of the associated impacts such as sea level change (among other metrics) have occurred since 1950 at rates unprecedented in the historical record. There is a clear human influence on the climate. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950, with the level of confidence having increased since the fourth report.”
The IPCC statement was a world consensus of 800 scientists from many countries and disciplines. They based their findings on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies.
Sure, world cooperation will be difficult but that doesn't mean that we should give up. Already China is getting concerned, albeit because the pollution is choking some of their areas. Getting third world cooperation is one focus point on climate control and we shouldn't ignore it.
