What are the best arguments to convince a skeptic of global warming/climate change?

Question

Comment on the answers so far: Yes, I agree Gore's movie is excellent (saw it opening night), but the problem with a movie is that the people who go see it arn't really the ones who need to be convinced: we need massive opinion change amonst the population. So... ideas?

Answer 1

Greetings from inside the Yahoo Brain in New York City!
Hope you're catching the live webcast at: http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/asktheplanet/brain.html !

Take them to see the new movie, An Inconvenient Truth, with Al Gore. It is very effective at portraying both the seriousness of the issue, and the mistakes made by taking in lightly.

Hope this helps!

--J.

Answer 2

There is a serious problem with your question. There is plenty of evidence that the climate changes, so a skeptic is just ignorant. There is not conclusive evidence that the increase in global temperature over the last hundred years is due to anthropogenic sources. It may be true, it may be a minor factor. But there is no scientist worth anything who can predict for you what the global temperature will be in five years.

I assume that you are really asking how to convince people that the climate change we are experiencing is conclusively anthropogenic. This is a debate among differing opinions, both in the general population, and among the scientific community. It is not a established fact.

For instance, fifteen thousand years ago, the sea was forty meters below its current level. Certainly man had no impact in melting the ice caps from 15k to 14.9k years ago. And we continue to see a rise in the sea level, there could even be a increase in the rate. But why is the earth warming up then no issue, but its continued warming now a 'impending global crisis'? We do need to study the climate extensively, but it is irresponsible of scientists to promote causation that is unproved.

Once you see the issue in this light, it will be easier to promote your political agenda. Convince your skeptics of the need to become aware of what is possible, and to fund research into climate systems. Skip the doomsday rhetoric and fear mongering and just engender the positive questioning of our current limited knowledge.

My best argument is this:

The ocean has a average residence time for exposure to the atmosphere of ~150yr. Since the ocean is the climate systems sponge of CO2, how will we know what the effect of the Industrial Revolution on this cycle will be? There may be impacts we have no idea of, so lets massively explore climate systems and try to prepare for the future.

Answer 3

Global warming myth or truth

For many scientists especially in the past decade global warming has become a serious environmental debate. Looking through the Internet it seems that there are three sides to the argument and one scientist called Michael Crichton who blames global warming on aliens.

The first theory says that global warming does exist and is heating up the world (the most famous and popular). And say man-made gases like chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) cause it and gases released by use like nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane thickening the ozone, trapping more heat in. And the only way of redeeming the ozone is to enforce the Kyoto Protocol, forcing developed nations to cut back on carbon emissions, which will save the world from this disasters such as floods drought, hurricanes, ice-ages and the world frying.

The second argument is that it does exist but it is not due to humans its natures for example the American president is paying lots of money to stop global warming e.g. planting trees reducing pollution but, the biggest polluters are plants, trees and animals. Trees and plants only clean the air while they are growing. Once fully grown, they actually give off carbon dioxide and animals give of carbon dioxide and methane. Further more one volcanic eruption for example, puts more pollution into the atmosphere than ten years worth of human activity.
The third and final theory is that global warming does not exist. Firstly because the temperature has only increased in the last century by 0.45-0.6 °C and the temperature has been the most stable in the last thousands of years then ever and this tiny increase can be cause by a number of reason for example.
 Changes in the Sun's energy output.
 Rotation and revolution of the Earth.
 Debris from comets, meteors, and asteroids, actually has an effect on the climate.
 Dust from earthquakes and volcanoes.

Also their theory says that the whole global warming is exaggerated because of the dramatic change of weather each year e.g. very hot summers and mild winters and natural weather disasters around the world. This is said to be the cause from a thing called the El Niño phenomenon (Which is Spanish for "The Christ Child," because it comes about the time of the celebration of the birth of the Christ). El Niño phenomenon is an abnormal warming of Surface Ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific and among other places. It is said that they contributed to the 1993 Mississippi and 1995 California floods, drought conditions in South America, Africa and Australia. Even now NASA’s earth scientists are researching into the El Niño phenomenon as not all of them effect the weather and the atmosphere the same way.

Answer 4

The first step to "convincing" a skeptic is more surgical than argument. The first thing you have to do is gather a few people together (and perhaps a couple crowbars for the truly "conservative") and pry the skeptics head from its firm position in his own colon. Have some cleaning supplies ready as most of these folks have had their head there for a long time and the effects of such prolong exposure can be kinda messy. After the craniumectomy, slap the mess out of em for a while till they seem mostly snapped out of their "its too much to think about so I'm gonna ignore it" coma. Finally, proceed with the obvious evidence presentation. If they still remain a "skeptic" then just kill them and add their body to your compost heap so they can begin the only useful part of their existence as fertilizer.

Answer 5

I suggest you do a simple experiment. Build a small "hot house" using a piece of semi transparent plastic. Place a thermometer in side of it. If the temperature rises, you'll know the hot house effect works.

Now ask yourself, could such an effect work on a global scale, using a gas like CO2. If you believe it can, then we may be the cause of some of the warming that may be taking place, because we make a lot of CO2 gas.

Keep in mind that if global warming turns out to be, on the money, it will be game over for all of us if we don't act quickly. If it turns out to be inaccurate and we invest in an air clean up: we get to breath clean air again. Unfortunately, those in the oil industry, will have to find another job.

Using a sophisticated computer model, which includes the effects of green house gases, and running the model for several days in a supper computer, Purdue university, forecasts some hot whether headed our way. See URL below:

Answer 6

Ask the skeptic to give peak summer temperatures in say, World Cup Germany over the last five years and then show them why FIFA has agreed to allow the footballers to drink more water during matches in this tournament. That alone should convince them the globe is getting warmer.

Answer 7

a brilliant style of individuals have faith that what's taking place is purely the earths organic technique for warming and cooling and that's purely a point. we've purely been recording climate seeing that i think of the previous due 1800's so it rather is incredibly new to us. a number of those scientists say they might anticipate the climate in one hundred years or regardless of yet they might't tell me what the climate would be at this correct time in 3 months

Answer 8

If they (skeptics) aren't able to look at the weather changes during what the month of the year is and tell that the seasons are different,they will remain skeptical. Save your breath

Answer 9

Look at governments around the world who are prepared to reconsider generating electricity by nuclear fission. It is hazardous and hugely expensive. If they are getting panicky there must be something in it!

Answer 10

just print out that recent article about Siberia's permafrost soil not longer being frozen. It is supposed to release up to 75 times the amount of carbon that fossil fuels release.