Global warming & abrupt climate change - Fact or fiction?

Question

To all the doomsday harbingers. There is no scientific consensus view on what is causing our planet to heat up. There have been major climate changes since the dawn of time. The planet have been significantly warmer at times when the CO2 levels in the atmosphere were considerably lower than they are today. And to the Al Gore answer, have a quick look at www.worldclimatereport.com. See the inconvenient truth that was skipped over and ignored by said Mr Gore.

Keep these coming though. Great work.

nomark is in the lead for best answer here. Scientifically balanced and no fearmongering. Well done

Answer 1

Yes, good answer nomark. Where did you get that from?

I read a piece in the Telegraph today. Have a look at the web version...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml It makes for very interesting reading!

What I hear said about the whole climate change debate leaves me with two prevailing thoughts;

Firstly, that there certainly appears to be enough doubt about what's going on that it seems to me it would be insane to spend billions of pounds on the problem at this stage.

And second, the people who are trying to convince us that it's a big problem are frequently giving us "facts" that are at best misleading and possibly blatant lies. If global warming is such a "fact", why do they need to lie to us to try to convince us?

A classic example is Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." I've only seen the trailer for the film, but even that had me rolling my eyes when I was faced with him talking about the melting icecap of Mount Kilimanjaro as proof of the consequences of climate change. But this has nothing to do with Global Warming! It's caused by deforestation of the mountain's foothills. Now, either Al Gore didn't know this, so he's a moron (which I don't believe), or he's deliberately lying to us, because it sounds plausible - and he's hoping no one bothers to check his "facts"!

Another example is the now famous "hockey stick" graph that was produced by the UN and seems to show very clearly a sharp rise in temperatures in the last century. When I first saw it I immediately thought to myself "Hang on, wasn't it warmer in the Middle Ages than it is now? Where's that warm period on this graph?" It was quite a while before I found out what had happened. The UN had "massaged" the software that produced the graph to get rid of the warm period, because it spoiled what they wanted their graph to look like!!!!

In fact, it turns out that they massaged the software so much that if you put completely random figures into it, you still get a hockey stick graph as a result!!! Have a look at the link above and there's a graphic showing the UN's graph and another without the UN "massaging".

And recently things are getting somewhat darker. Since the sceptics are doing rather too good a job at creating doubt, the "doomsday harbingers" as you describe them are now trying to censor those sceptics. Some have even suggested that it be made *illegal* to speak out against Global Warming!!! Frankly, that kind of talk scares me far more that Global Warming does!

Answer 2

I am all for taking care of our planet, but... Does this sound familiar? "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!" On planet earth, there once roamed dinosaurs. The climate was extremely tropical. Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico were all under water. The lower peninsula of Michigan was a mountain chain that was surrounded by salt water. The climate changed (having nothing to do with man). The dinosaurs all but completely died away. The vast oceans too all dried up, leaving behind deserts. An ice age overcame the land and then after that, a warming. In the 1400s decades long cooling took place and more rains came. Throughout the 1970s we were told by leading "experts" that the world was running out of oil and all would be gone within a decade. We were told also that another ice age was coming. When you think of all of the oil spills from ships sinking in WW II, of all of the fire bombings of cities like Dresden and Tokyo and of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and then add in the decades upon decades of nuclear "testing," people are only now thinking that "MAYBE" the climate is beginning to change? My wife is going through menopause. Maybe SHE'S the cause for the "global warming!"

Answer 3

seems to me that the earth warms up and cools down over great periods of time, only 10,000 years ago most of the planet was iced in, even now we are still recovering from such a event so things will get warmer, if man made events are speeding this up is prob true but I would think it was a mix of man and nature. of course taking better care of the planet we live on would help not just climate change but a better place to live for all.

Answer 4

Global warming, eart cycle? Instead of blaming ourselves shouldn’t we look if earth isn’t heating from inside? We know that global worming did happen several times before. It always appears 10 years before ice age. Also we know that earth poles where moved many times. If we add that fact together, we can be at the door to new ice ages. Earth’s crust is wobbling on the earth core, that's way pole isn’t a pinpoint, but a circle. More wobble, more heat is generating, until the point when it shift in to smooth spin, when crust start spinning same speed as core, also theirs shafts will align. [Mayas lived true something similar; they fall down on heir side] The heat will be no more generated and ice will start grove on bough poles. Our earth has longer periods of ice age, then worm claimed. Is more natural for earth be icy, our whether is only brake between ice ages. Get your coat folks!!! Or we all move to Sahara!! I wrote this on US yahoo, i know here we are mor openminded. :-)

Answer 5

global warming may or may not be a fact. the theory is based on rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. actually though i have done a little research on the subject. between 1880 and 2000 the global temperature has actually only risen about a third of a degreee Celsius. the whole time the carbon dioxide levels have been rising. the funny thing is tha between 1940 and 1970, even the carbon dioxide was rising, the temperature actually FELL. you be the judge

Answer 6

It's a fact.

Local warming is obvious; that's the phenomenon you get in towns & cities where the temperature is higher (therefore less snow, smog gets trapped by 'temperature inversions' etc)because there are so many sources of heat in a small area.

With so many cities round the globe doing this local warming, the whole planet is bound to heat up. Simple as that.

People said that the smoking issue was 'scaremongering', and they said the same about Lead in the atmosphere, and about Phosphorus and Asbestos and DDT and Thalidomide and CJD.

Wake up, grow up, and take some responsibility for the damage caused by your luxurious western lifestyle!

Answer 7

The Earth is going through a cycle of warming.
Although I'm against pollution, Man's contribution to global warming is almost negligible 97% coming from natural sources.
So called Green taxes are therefore a con and are just another excuse to take your money!

Answer 8

Even if you want to completely disbelieve that global warming is true, we do have limited fossil fuels, we are very inefficient at the way we use them, and could save oursolves money by taking steps to reduce our CO2 emmsions.

Check out this short film on YouTube narrated by Clive Anderson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kloors-jj...

Answer 9

A load of tosh. Mother Nature has been dealing with the ups and downs of climate change for millions of years with no problem. 20 goevrnment reports so far with dire warnings but oddly no action-now they want to tax us for something that may never happen-scary.It opens up a real Big Brother scenario of taxes against things that may occur one day in THEIR opinion. We are on a dangerous course........ but not fron the climate.

Answer 10

FICTION . Wasn't it 18 year ago that Ted Danson was spouting off that our oceans would all be dead in 10 years if we didn't clean them ?
This is nothing more than liberal extremists trying to keep people poor and ignorant and ultimately dependent on communism .