Global Warming (nothing new)?

Question

Is the latest "Global warming" threat just something that happens to our planet every few million years. I understand that in the past millions of years there have been many cold and warm spells?

Answer 1

It is the absolute truth that the last 2.6-3.0 million years on this Earth have been some of the coldest in all of Earth's history. The pattern during these last few million years has been ice ages lasting 100,000-120,000 years in which locations such as Detroit, Michigan are buried under 10,000 feet of ice, broken by much briefer warm periods lasting 25,000-30,000 years. The last ice age ended ~10,000 years ago, so we are currently in one of the "brief" warm spells. The last warm period before this one was called the "Emian period", which was much warmer than our current climate is today, complete with both polar ice caps completely melted and alligators roaming the swamps of Washington, DC. Humanity was somehow able to survive the (even warmer) Emian period as well as the ensuing ice age, (although the Neanderthals didn't). Even if there were no humans on Earth currently, the polar ice caps are certainly going to melt during this warm period as well, only to re-freeze in the next 15,000-20,000 years from now. To say that humanity and our CO2 emissions are going to drastically change these events is quite a stretcher, in my opinion, although some man made change is undeniable. Me, I am looking forward to perhaps not having any more ice ages, which is the best outcome we can expect from our human activity.

Answer 2

Sure, there have been many cold and warm spells. However, you have to distinguish between non-human (non-anthropogenic) and human (anthropogenic) caused global warming.

Wouldn't it be awful to have one of these warm spells that happen every few million years just "happen" to occur in the 10,000th year or so of our existence on this planet? Coincidence? I think not.

Answer 3

Yeah, but this is an unusually rapid warming, easily linked to human activities by the data.

Scientists studying this stuff are not fools. They understand the natural causes of climate change. And the vast majority of them are convinced that manmade warming is real, and a serious problem.

A few fringe scientists have crazy ideas about this, but they aren't able to convince other scientists. Some lay people find it hard to believe or accept, but their ideas are even less scientifically valid.

More info:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Answer 4

There might have been these cold warm moments before but they were not likely caused by humans. It was natural. But now the global warming now is due to man.

Answer 5

This could be the case. Michael Crichton has written a book on the subject "state of fear" and during his research discovered a global rise of 0.2 of a degree in the last 100 years. This author really does his research before putting pen to paper. Panic mongering..? Tony Blair is to shortly approve the 2nd generation of nuclear power stations. The price of domestic fuel these days is high isnt it....!!!!!!!

Answer 6

all i know is that with all the cars, trucks, planes, factories, trash dumps, nuclear waste sites, strip mining, deforestation, boats, ships, diesel trains, power plants, expansion, and homes in the world has to be having some kind of an effect on the environment that is probably not in our best interest. i'm not too worried about the details of will it be hotter, will it be colder? either way it is probably not going to be much fun.

Answer 7

yes and no.Our planet goes through cycles like this,but the pattern has been aggravated by human activity.