If you believe Man is the cause of global warming?

Question

Then who caused global warming the 1000000+ times it has happened in Earth's past? And then tell me who caused the global cooling in between?

Answer 1

The first respondant quoted the "famous" hockey stick graph, that shows a level temperature for 1000 years and then a sharp upswing (like the end of a hockey stick) at the end.

This has been shown to be something of a fraud, as the team who came up with this levelled out statistics from earlier periods.

There was a Medieval Warm Period early in the 2nd millenium, when the conditions in Greenland were so good that the Vikings settled there for several centuries, and even grew wheat.

After the middle of the 2nd millenium, the Earth entered what is termed the "Little Ice Age", a period when crops failed worldwide, there was widespread famine with its consequence of disease (black death), and in Pepys time (17th century) people could skate on the River Thames in London, a condition that has not been seen since.

The important point is that after the earlier warm period, the people quit Greenland, which returned to its inhospitable condition, and has not (even with so-called current global warming) recovered the conditions that enabled people to grow crops there in medieval times.

Yes, there is global warming. But it has all happened before. It may be our doing, but would you like to bank the future of mankind on a hazy theory? There are 6.5 billion of us and that is growing - to curb production for some unproven theory could be suicide.

All the stuff about catastrophic weather conditions is just hype. Nobody knows what a few degrees will do worldwide. the Medieval warm periods was not a time of dramatic weather - it was time when our civilisation got going again after the dark ages in the previous millenium. In Britain the monks grew grapes on the scale of France. Global warming could be good for the world - more food production and more places suitable for food production.

Do not listen to hype. Listen to both sides, but I tell you this. Thousands of scientists stipends and retirement pensions rely on human-induced global warming being a fact. So, they will support it to the hilt.

To my mind, we are at the mercy of a star that does not, and will not always produce energy at the same rate. We are at the mercy of orbital characteristics that have changed the climate dramaically, giving us major ice-ages during the evolution of humans. To ignore these facts is folly.

Answer 2

CO2 is 30% higher than it has been for 650,000 years. Methane is 130% greater. These are two of the main pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in excess, and they are two of the primary greenhouse gases.

Look at the 'hockeystick', which shows a dramatic warming since 1950 after a fairly stable climate for 1000 years. In fact, the 10 hottest years in recorded history have all happened since 1990, with 2005 being the hottest, and 2006 is shaping up to maybe break that record.
(see links below)

How's that for proof of man's fault in this? There is ample proof, any real scientist will tell you that.

There has NEVER been an article doubting man's influence on global warming published in a peer-reviewed journal. A recent study of almost 1000 proved that.

Yes, the earth naturally heats and cools, but the rate and amount we are warming now is unprecedented in the recent geologic past. We are doing this, and we must stop it. This is not some political statement or rhetoric. This is science trying to educate a crass, ignorant public of the damage they are doing. The magnitude of temperature increase ALREADY is about 10x that of the 'little ice age' of the middle ages, and rate and amount are only going up.

Just to be clear, glacial and interglacial cycles are mainly controlled by astronomical fluctuations, but we have a detailed record of the last 7 cycles, and what the climate and CO2 is doing now is way different and extreme. The rate of increase is much higher than in the past AND the value itself is much higher.

HI CO2: 4467420.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm
HOCKEY STICK: 5109188.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5109188.stm
General climate stuff: 3897061.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3897061.stm

Answer 3

The long-term variations track the envelope of group sunspot numbers and have amplitudes consistent with the range of Ca II brightness in Sun-like stars. Estimated increases since 1675 are 0.7%, 0.2% and 0.07% in broad ultraviolet, visible/near infrared and infrared spectral bands, with a total irradiance increase of 0.2%.
Earth is estimated to have warmed 0.6 °C ± 0.2 °C so all we need to do is divide the estimated temperature increment by Earth's temperature (288 K) and times by 100 to get the percentage increment thus: 0.6 (K)/288 (K) x 100 = 0.2%. So, the sun is 0.2% more energetic and conveniently the planet's temperature is believed to have increased 0.2%. Solar influence explains the entire change, now everyone's content the global warming thing has been solved, right? No? Us neither, although solar variance seems a likely candidate for at least a portion of the apparent change

Answer 4

Your question is missing the point of the debate. Humans did not cause the cycles of warming and cooling but we are having an impact on climate change. The first poster has the right idea. We are burning through fossil fuels at a rate far greater than that in which they were formed. This is releasing carbon dioxide into the air at a far greater rate than at any other time in history. What this means is that the rate of temperature change and the degree of that change are influenced by mankind. The initial impact may not be large but it is amplified by a natural feed-back loop that can cause a significant shift in our climate in a relatively short period of time.

Answer 5

That's a beautiful point that I try to tell people when the topic comes up. They try to bring up melting northern ice caps and neglect to talk about refreezing southern ice caps. There is always someone who will throw the "recorded statistics over the last hundred years" argument at you. The last hundred years don't even register in comparison to the life of the planet. Whatever needs to be said to keep research grants going and give people something to crow about will keep being said as long as they have the general public to scare and the government shelling out the cash.
People try to take weather phenomena and make them into a human-Earth destruction singularity. Maybe we should examine the huge holes in the ozone layer we "created" which have magically closed up and popped open in a different area, like they are supposed to, lilke they have been for eons.

Answer 6

Global warming theories are just that: theories.

Most of the tree huggers are rich, and their followers are uneducated young people direct from the American educational system.

Why don't the rich stop flying in their private jets (Al Bore) and being driven to their vapid events in limosines.

Man cannot destroy what he did not create and has no ability to create.

The Earth will be here long after we are gone.

Answer 7

Anyone who believes Man causes global warming is;

1. Completely oblivious to fact.

2. Amazingly arrogant to believe that WE control the PLANET.

Answer 8

No this is a cycle in earth's warm cold cycles. Changes of a few degrees have been noted for ages. Next maybe another ice age. Man has no control or blame for it.

Answer 9

Volcanic Activity and Extra-Terrestrial Intervention (i.e. Meteorites).

But the last 1000000+ times it happened we were lucky enough NOT TO BE LIVING HERE because we'd be DEAD. I don't know about you, but a big block of ice the size of Texas on my front lawn would ruin my day.

Answer 10

Wildfires caused by lightning strikes. Volcanic Eruptions setting stuff on fire. Meteor Impacts. The caveman discovering fire.