Is global warming a natural phenonomen or is it man made?

Answer 1

Both. The Earth goes through periodic cycles of cooling and warming due to a number of factors including small but significant variations of the Earth's orbit which take place over long periods of time.

Even without pollution and burning fossil fuels, etc the Earth would probably be warming up as we are at that stage in the natural cycle. At times in the past it has been very much warmer than it is now... dinosaur fossils have been found in Antarctica which was entirely ice-free for millions of years so to say that the Earth is somehow undergoing an entirely unusual phenomenon is not strictly true.

However, the big factor in the current cycle of warming is man's intervention. This means that the Earth may warm up more quickly than it did in previous "warming periods" or that it may get hotter than it otherwise would. All this means that while global warming may be part-natural, it is still a good idea to reduce man's contribution as far as we possibly can.

We are likely to be the ones that suffer irrespective of the causes - flooding of low-lying areas including many major cities, increasingly violent weather, the potential of triggering an ice age through disruption of the Atlantic Conveyor system, crop failures, etc etc - so it's in our own best interests to reduce the effects as much as we can

Answer 2

Global warming is definitely a purely natural phenomenon. In the past, the earth has been hotter than it is now. And it has most certainly been colder, during the ice ages for example.

Some western governments have climbed on the band wagon, and are using global warming as an excuse to raise taxes. For example, the UK government recently increase gasoline taxes - to "help save the planet".

There is an excellent discussion on this subject at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org

Answer 3

Yes the earth is changing naturally and we don't know everything about global warming (my weatherman's never right). But we are changing our environment for all sorts of reasons, by rapid growth, deforestation, and massive amounts of pollution. The worst that could happen is that we turn out like Venus, temperatures hot enough to melt lead and sulphuric acid rain

global warmng is a fact

Answer 4

New Report Has 'Smoking Gun' on Climate:

"Human-caused global warming is here, visible in the air, water and melting ice, and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070123/ap_on_sc/warming_climate_report_6

Answer 5

I'll take global warming or global freezing anyday. I wonder if the earth is being prepared to be destroyed by fire like the bible says it will. If so don't worry about it.

Answer 6

The worlds experts have shown beyond doubt that mans involvement is insignificant.
However,the news needs to catch up to gordon brown who uses the issue as leverage to extort yet more stealth taxes to hide his incompetence.

Answer 7

we have allowed this happen, definitely man made. Its all about the money and revenue. The main figureheads all over our globe are to blame. They have destroyed our beautiful earth, as the bible had warned us they would, must be something in this God thing! Buy yourself a big boat and hope for the best.

Answer 8

It's a natural phenomenon that is exasperated by man.

Answer 9

Both, man has hurried the process though

Answer 10

definetly made by man. pollution of our planet is made by man's technology and global warming's first cause is pollution.