2006-12-29 07:44:07 · 10 answers · asked by ryled30 2 in Environment
If the climate was clearly warming then we would have to ask if humans were causing the warming. Worldwide temperatures dropped from 1940 to 1970. Some say this is because pollution masked the effects of global warming. But it may be that we are still emerging from the last ice age and there isn't an unusual warming occurring.
If global warming is occurring then what is the cause? 95% of all greenhouse gases are water vapor. And water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than CO2. If you just look at CO2, then we have to ask if the 3 billion tons we are releasing to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels is significant. It seems like a lot, except that the total CO2 released from the land, oceans and other sources is approximately 210 billion tons.
Climate science is just beginning. When I was a kid they were predicting an imminent ice age. If we continue to study this for 20 years before taking any radical actions, we'll be less likely to take the wrong actions and we'll have better technology to use to take the right actions.
2006-12-29 07:59:08 · answer #1 · answered by MSpalding 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Self-interest obviously plays a role in someone's perception. From a scientific perspective, it is true that CO2 acts to trap heat in the atmosphere and will lead to a build up of heat, causing global warming. What is less clear is exactly how much of this type of global warming would occur without any human intervention. The reason for this lack of clarity is that scientific evidence also shows that the global climate has changed on its own before people were capable of affecting it. Since it's impossible to run a controlled experiment (two earths, one with human intervention, one without) it's a little tougher to "prove" that global warming today is primarily caused by humans. However, if you seriously consider the evidence, it would seem that the great preponderance of the available evidence points to a significant component of the recent warming being directly related to humans burning fossil fuel.
2006-12-29 15:54:41 · answer #2 · answered by Gene 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The climate has been changing on it's own long before humans existed. There is a correlation between CO2 emissions and global temperature, but correlation does not equal causation. In fact, there is evidence that an increase in temperature causes more releases of CO2 from the ground. It's just a question of is global warming real, but what are the causes, can or should we do anything to change it? Is it caused by solar fluctuations? Cars? Power plants? Deforestation? Natural causes? Cow farts? The debate needs to continue, there is still research to be done.
2006-12-29 15:54:40 · answer #3 · answered by Charles S 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why don't people who discuss global warming on Yahoo actually take the time to learn something about it? Most of the info going back and forth is goofy nonsense, both pro and con. You cannot understand a scientific debate over something as complex as global climate change just from watching Fox News or reading a book by Al Gore.
Here's two summaries of consensus views on scientific findings and scientific uncertainty regarding climate change. Read them and then ask questions.
http://www.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11175.pdf
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/climate-change-final.pdf
2006-12-29 16:34:19 · answer #4 · answered by formerly_bob 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why? Because there's not enough evidence. The climate has changed a tiny bit, yes, but there's no way we know that its not just a natural process. People assume that its going to keep getting warmer and warmer and warmer while there's very little tangible evidence that that is true.
Oh yes, some minimum wage scientists wave around charts prophesying the world's inescapable doom but they've got no evidence to back it up.
2006-12-29 15:52:55 · answer #5 · answered by Simon 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No global warming isn't a fraud, but I am not convinced that humans are the main cause of it.
2006-12-29 15:53:43 · answer #6 · answered by HAGAR!!! 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My husband watched discovery a lot & they are always showing stuff about the planets history. It seems like it has happened in the past. The world is always changing, but it is going to repeat itself. Didn't you watch Ice Age & Ice Age 2 the Meltdown?? No big deal. Stuff happens.
2006-12-29 15:54:40 · answer #7 · answered by shouldbworkn 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
cause i live in colorado and just got 3 feet of snow plus last week. the fact is ,is that global warming will not happen and if it did the world would fix itself later on. example you nuke the whole world we get a lot of bombs and heat from it,but we still will freeze to death from nuclear winter after the nukes
2006-12-29 15:49:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe because it's become a political, rather than an environmental, issue.
If some public figure other than Al Gore was raising the clarion call, I think more people would take it seriously.
2006-12-29 15:52:12 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
because when they work in the auto industry then it would not be in thier interest to be concerned - or in alot of factories etc
2006-12-29 15:47:16 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋