is global warming really a problem??? couldn't it just be a faze the earth is going through???

Question

when the world changed temperatures in the past didn't the inhibitants of the earth then most likely have somehting to do with global warming??? i just don't see why everyone is so freaked out about it. maybe this is suposed to happen. is it really even proven???

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

Anyone who looks at global warming with a critical eye knows that it is far from "proven." There are plenty of doubters out there, including in the scientific community. But they are ignored and we are told that scientists are in consensus about it. Never mind that it's a lie, but since when has consensus in science actually meant a damn?

Science is about proof and evidence. There was a time when the consensus was that the earth was flat. There was a time when the consensus was that the heavens revolved around the earth. There was a time when the consensus said that man will never fly. Scientific proof has proved these wrong.

Just in the last couple of days, the UN has revised downwards by 25% it's estimations of global sea level rise due to global warming.

The earth goes through natural warming and cooling cycles, including periods warmer than now, even before man had much of a footprint on this planet. Somehow, nature, and man, survived just fine.

Don't fall for all the global warming doom and gloom stories. Man has been predicting environmental doom for decades. Remember Erlich's Population Bomb. The world was supposed to be plunged into worldwide famine back in the 80's. Billions were supposed to die off because the planet could not sustain us. Did it happen?

No less than 4 times in the past century has the media warmed us about climate change. First it was global cooling, then global warming, then cooling again, now warming again. Do you sense a pattern here? We go through cooling and warming cycles, and the media jumps on it and tries to scare the hell out of us.

Answer 3

Yeah it's really a problem.

Well its always possible all the scientific evidence is wrong and it's some phase the planet is going through (That's actually the latest opinion of the good people at Exxon/Mobil), unfortunately nobody outside the oil and coal industry really believes that, anymore.

In the distant past when similar temperature increases occured there weren't inhabitants, but there were mass extinctions associated with increase in temperatures.

More or less humans have lived on a planet that has always been increasing in temperature. Occasionally decreasing and increasing, but in total increasing just 4 degrees over the last 20,000 years or so.

The problem is that with the arrival of the industrial revolution and the widespread use of coal and other fuels which release CO2 into the air, the temperature ticked up 1 degree in just the last 150 years. It will likely go up another 1 to 1.5 degrees before 2050 and may go up 3-4 degree's by 2100.

It doesn't sound like much but that's the AVERAGE temperature.

But in some spots - like the polar ice caps, it will get colder in some spots and warmer in others.

Again - one could say "Who cares it's polarbears and penguins which are screwed. not us." Ok. fine most of the ice melts from the poles, that doesn't sound too bad - except for 2 things.

1. Have you ever filled a glass up to the top and then tried to put ice in it? That's part of the problem.

2. The rest comes from heating the ocean, warm water takes up more space than cold water. Warmer oceans mean stronger storms as well as many other things (both good and bad)

Those two things will mean that the coastal cities of the entire planet will become kinda like Venice or New Orleans, mostly underwater, most of the time.

The need to make levee's and dams and pay money to hold back the oceans won't be cheap. Saving just New York City could cost billions of dollars saving all the cities of the US could cost trillions of dollars.

Currently the state of New Jersey spends millions dollars a year to replenish the coastline beaches which get eroded away each winter with storms. They didn't have to start replenishing their beaches with sand until the mid 1950's with failed projects in erosion prevention.

Among scientists there is no longer any debate. I don't suppose too many people in New Orleans really doubt that it's real any more either. There have been an increase of 30% in the power of hurricanes & typhoons across the planet over the last 25 years.

Oil companies and coal companies and electric power companies and industries that use alot of both and the politicians they support are fighting very hard to prevent the basic science of global warming from being accepted in popular culture.

The reasons are quite simple , doing something about it would endanger their profits because people would shift to energy efficient cars and high efficiency energy production, and all that costs money that the energy suppliers and producers would have to pay out big time.

The bigger problem comes if the weather patterns change as a result. If you look at the earth you notice that just south of Europe and the US are deserts (the Sahara and Sonora deserts respectively).

It is believed that weather in Maine would simply become more like New York, New York more like Atlanta, and Atlanta more like -maybe Havana or San Juan. Again that might not sound too bad.

But having Oklahoma or Kansas become more like the Sonora is a big problem, we go from having a big farming belt with corn and wheat and cows to a big desert with nothing but maybe cactus.

The basic economic problem is that we have a situation where we as a country and a planet are setup to work with weather and rainfall the way they are.

What happens to the economy of the US when we can't feed our own citizens and have to import food from some other country?

When we don't export food in massive quantities to countries in Africa or Asia or wherever. What happens to them?

There are many more questions than good answers at the moment. In short Global warming is very likely real, very likely caused by humans and our politicians in the US pretty much refuse to do much about it. Our industries are actively working against the interests of addressing this issue since it would cost them alot of money.

Answer 4

The earth has been a lot hotter in the distant past. There was a time when CO2 was very much higher in the atmosphere than it it today.

However the earth was a very different place.

The question scientists have to answer is this. Is the effect of man contributing to the effect in such a way as to lead to a permenant change in the behaviour of earths geological and biological processes. This is an extremely complex question to answer, as the factors that effect these processes which contribute to warming (or cooling) are numerous and varied.

The jury is still out on this question. The politicians need to decide whether to take the precautionary, or reactionary approach to the issue, based on what we know so far.

The consequences are potentially dire... the downside ? we end up wasting a trillion dollars and make lives a little less comfortable and expensive for what could have been a false alarm. Given this choice, personally I would opt to err on the side of caution.

Answer 5

It could be a phase, but it may not be. Are you prepared to experiment with the world.

One of the problems with modern warming is that there is nowhere for the population to go because of crowding and political boundaries. In earlier warmings humans were nomadic, and simply cruised along with the climate. (Freezings were a different issue, but we adapted.) Should, for example, the population of Mexico be allowed to migrate into the USA if that is what climate change requires? What will happen when water becomes a scarce resource (if that happens)? There is a real likelihood of catastrophic political and social dislocation.

Answer 6

We are in a warming cycle and have been since the end of the little ice age a couple of hundred years ago.We have had numerous peiods of warming and cooling. Fossils of tropical ferns can be found in Siberia. Man made sources of CO2 are about 5% of the total, the rest comes from natural sources. Most of the hysteria is simply the 'politics of crises' that governments use to control, and tax their citizens. But make no mistake, its going to get warmer, till Greenland is green again.

Answer 7

t's too late for anything and everything now. Yeah .. alright .. we talk of saving energy, afforestation and other to-save-the-world blah blah but it's all just too late to get anything out of these. Yes, the only result we can expect out of all this is the fact that the freezing of the earth will be delayed .. at most by an additional 50 years or so .. but that too .. only if each one of us on Earth consistently follows these steps. But that's certainly not going to happen. Population is on the rise like anything, men can't keep themselves off there mates .. and Indians and Chinese will be a major part of this census. The pressure on Earth's resources is already way too much .. the future is going to be a treachery to handle. All this global warming $hit is melting polar ice caps, so obviously .. the water level of all the water bodies on Earth is on a constant rise. Most of the coastal landmass is going down for sure in near future. And as you people know, the polar water is fresh water ..it doesn't have salt. When fresh water mixes with saline water, the pressure within increases, thus fueling the movement of tectonic plates (read 'landmass under the sea') .. which consequently leads to tsunami and earthquake and $hit. And this ain't just it. When fresh water mixes with saline water, the direction of the current changes, and there is steep drop in temperature. And by steep, I mean 'steep'. It's like a fckuing cold wave freezing everything in a matter of a second. Scientists and Researchers around the polar regions have already recorded such drops in temperature at certain points. Masses of ice have been displaced further beyond from the polar regions. So all this ain't some Christmas news. We've got to work it out, but even the extreme steps are going to just delay this Ice Age. If we had worked out over if beforehand like .. say 20 years ago or something, we could have really barred the reasons that have caused all this fcuked up mess. But now, I guess, there's no harm trying and delaying this freeze hour.

EDIT: Gawd Gawd Gawd please let there be five more Pirates movies before actually there is no more water for the ships to sail!


° Uncontrollabe population boom: In the last 4 million years (until 1970) the population came to round 2.5 billion people. In the LAST 35 YEARS the population has increased to an INCREDIBLE figure of 6.6 BILLION! IF it continues with this rate there will be a SHOCKING MAXIMUM OF 9.5 BILLION people on this earth!

° Disasters of 2006: A very unlucky year...COINCIDENCE??Or the FIRST SAMPLE of a never-ending exponentially increasing RESPOND to the changing atmosphere by nature --> KATRINA, BOMBAY RECORD FLOODS, TSUNAMI, RECORD AMOUNT OF TYPHOONS NEAR JAPAN, FIRST EVER HURRICANE IN BRASIL (where SCIENTISTS had ABSOLUTELY DECLINED their OCCURENCE in the past years), droughts, INCREASING diseases (through mosquitos and other dangerous and new species of insects) (SARS, new types of Tuberculosis..etc.)

° If half of the glaciers in Greenland (1/15th gone) and half of Antarctica (1/30th DISSAPEARED in 30 days!!!! in 2005) melt off, which IS going to be the case in 5-10 YEARS (!!!!!), big parts of SEVERAL countries will be flooded! --> Tony Blair's environmental advisor predicts all books on geography, all atlas' and connection topics have to be REWRITTEN! --> Holland/Bangladesh/Manhatten/Beijing/others will NOT or partly exist ANYMORE --> OVER 200 MILLION will be HOMELESS!

° CO2 is rasing RAPIDLY at a pace which will lead to BOILING conditions or an eventual 4th ICE AGE in approximately 50 years

Answer 8

global warming is a problem we all need to do something about cause it is getting worse year what make it worse is the pollution and one day we will all be under water

Answer 9

its a huge problem, human settlement is disrupting natural gasses on air or something theres a real strong movie about it that recently came up i wana see it

Answer 10

duh, duh and duh this isn't a teenage growing up kind of phase