Global Warming?

Question

Why is all of the sudden i hear this subject very frequent on the news? It's on there almost every time i open it up. Today it was how global warming makes avalances harded to predict... What a load of crap! What's tomorrow's? Global warming causes earthquakes?

Answer 1

You hear of it because it has become a huge political issue. I do think that the world has become warmer, but is it cyclical? Remember, there was an Ice Age, but the earth warmed up didn't it? Or can the rise in temperature be attributed to man (or people, if you are a lib)? Some think that global warming started with the Industrial Age around 1850. I think it's blown out of proportion. Also, have you ever noticed that you hear a lot about global warming when it's most convenient for the media, and for people like Al Gore? Every summer, there is a heat wave that affects the whole country, but you turn on the news, and guess what, you hear about global warming! Wake up, it's summer time, it gets hot in summer!

Also, this winter has been fairly mild, and global warming once again has been blamed, even though it's an El Nino year. Now that much of the country has had to deal with snow storms, ice storms, and cold weather, global warming no longer leads off the evening news. But you can bet if there's a winter thaw, it will be the first thing you hear of.

Also, is it true that Al Gore will not discuss the issue of global warming with someone who does not share his view? Is he afraid of being made to look like the idiot he is? It is especially hilarious to hear a millionaire celebrity trying to educate us about global warming. They live in their enormous mansions, fly on private jets, have fancy cars, but feel the need to tell US how to stop global warming. It's funny to sit back and listen to this stuff sometimes.

Answer 2

Global Warming is crap. I have a degree in meterology. I took climatology. The Earth has natural warming and cooling patterns. There is nothing out of the ordinary with the earth warms up or cools down. It's the liberals trying to point the finger about how the conservatives are ruining the earth, how they dont care about pollution and only about money. It's a blame game. Thats all. Global Warming DOES exist- but its normal. it's natural. It's not political AT ALL. this is the biggest mistake ignorant people make about it.

Answer 3

Global warming DOES make avalanches that bit harder to predict - I know about avalanches, I teach people about them.

It'll be on the news more because it's made it onto the political agenda and is a vote winner.

As for global warming causing earthquakes - in the long term it will contribute towards earthquakes. As zillions of tons of ice melt and the entire mass of the planet shifts the tectonic plates will move in different ways. At the same time as causing eathquakes it could also prevent them as well.

Answer 4

Here's an article I wrote earlier this week...and by the way, there is no PROOF that global warming will do anything but warm the globe

I was reading an article today about how a "smoking gun" report on global warming would be out on Feb 2. it will present new facts about how global warming is gonna destroy the world by 2100...Now, some of you may not believe this, but there are some things that I don't like. Some may call me a pessimist, but i'm really just more of a realist. I can be as optimistic as the next guy, and I try to find the good in most things...However...I can't quite grasp the importance or the reality of this global warming bullshit. So here's my rant...

"The world's global average temperature has risen 1.2 degrees F in the last 104 years." That may strike some people as catastrophic, but I just don’t see the big deal. I had a fever of 101 last week, but I didn’t ***** about it. It didn’t even really bother me. So the earth has a little fever, and apparently, it has only been getting worse. I was checking out some temperature measurements from 1250 while I was reading this article (yes, they certainly are able to tell how hot it was back then…how do they do it?). Well apparently, to tell the temperatures from before there were thermometers (~1592 to be generous), these genius climatologists would check out diaries from people who were alive at the time. They would read up on things like when there was a frost and how well the grape harvest was to reconstruct the temperature readings for the year. While that may sound like a very promising idea, it sounds like **** to me. I don’t have to listen to some jackoff French farmer to know that it was hot in July in 1250 or cold in December in 1368. I’m pretty sure that I, in my vastly inferior mind, could have figured that one out. While they may not place a lot of weight on these measurements, the quantitative temperatures they do use are from 1850 - now. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really trust some thermometer that Ezekiel built out of wood 150 years ago to tell me how hot it is. Do you think that maybe these temperature readings could have been off by at least a degree or more? I know people were smart back then. What with the invention of fire and the wheel and electricity making front page news. But I really don’t think we should make predictions using these measurements. I give these climatologists as much credibility as I do psychics because they are doing the same damn thing. You can’t predict the future. And you sure as hell can’t predict the weather. Hell, Ned Perme and Barry Brandt can’t even tell me what it’s gonna be like tomorrow. Now, I’m not saying that global warming isn’t happening, but I am saying that it won’t destroy my world. These experts say the temperature will increase anywhere from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees by 2100? They can predict 10.4 degrees but they cant narrow it down any closer than somewhere between 2 and 10. The sea level will rise between 4 and 35 inches? Does anybody else see the difference between 4 and 35 inches? Can you tell the difference b/w my hand and my leg? That’s a pretty freaking big difference. How can these guys have any credibility? It’s as bad as Nostradamus writing in his diary that a mouse ran into a hole and people take it to mean Osama is hiding in the mountains somewhere (I made that example up, but it sounds like something they would believe). Well hang on, let’s give these guys a second chance. Surely, they can predict something within, let’s say a year.
Rewind back to May 2006…
”…a very active hurricane season is looming…”
“An active hurricane season appears imminent…Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas will all be hit hard this year…”
“…NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, 8 to 10 hurricanes, 4 to 6 major hurricanes…”
“With neutral El Nino conditions…neither El Nino nor La Nina will be a factor this year...”

Fast Forward to Nov. 2006
• 9 named storms, 5 hurricanes in 2006
• No U.S. hurricane landfall for first time since 2001
• El Nino helped prevent storms, forecasters say

So let’s see here…El Nino was a factor…9 named storms (13-16?), 5 hurricanes (8-10?), 0 US hurricane landfall (4-6?)…The first two predictions I can let slide, but swinging and missing 4 to 6 times is pretty unacceptable. Hell, they even tweaked their numbers in August (halfway through hurricane season) by 12 to 15, 7 to 9, and 3 to 4 and still missed completely. And these guys want to predict the weather in 90 years? Get ******* real. California just lost its fruit crop to a frost, people are probably still trapped at the Colorado airports, and it freaking snowed in Phoenix and Dallas. PHOENIX!! PHOENIX, ARIZONA!! Since 1896, it has snowed more than .1 inches seven times (the most recent…1985, 1990, and 2007…right in the middle of global warming). A huge ice shelf broke off that was the biggest one in 30 years? So a bigger one broke off 30 years ago? If this one doesn’t even break a freaking record and it has happened before, what’s the big deal? Then the ice shelf floated out to sea and froze into the sea ice? Isn’t that what we want it to do? Freeze? I guess I just don’t get it. The sheer genius of climatologists blows my mind.

Global warming DOES NOT make avalanches harder to predict. Warm temperatures DO. just because it is warm one day and cold the next DOES NOT mean global warming is doing anything out of the ordinary. Its just a hot day. it happens. get over it.

Answer 5

Dude, global warming is a serious problem now with all the pollution and crap in the air, and it involves you, I, and the other 6 billion people on this planet. The effects of this could be devastating, taking the lives of many and ruining our homes. There's other things global warming has done, including releasing diseases from bugs that were once contained, etc. I recommend you watch Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth movie, and get the big picture of global warming. Nothings gonna come any good of this if we don't act now.

Answer 6

I don't know if global warming is real or not but I think it's best if we don't call nature's bluff

Answer 7

It is people like you that really need to learn more about global warming! Wake up and do something about it!

Answer 8

Everybody open your freezers... we'll beat this thing if we all work together!!!

Answer 9

The following is copied from http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/15656 :

Fact vs. Fiction on Climate Change
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We've just had the coldest day in June -- so much for global warming!


Fiction: Just look at X: it's the coldest day/month/year on record ... or: Region X has cooled by Y°F over the past two years! There is no global warming!


Fact: Statements like the one above are deliberate attempts by climate contrarians to confuse and mislead the public. It's an attempt to disprove the reality of global warming with a cold weather anomaly. This is not only scientific bogus, comparing apples and oranges, but outright dishonesty. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, defined by variables such as temperature, moisture, wind, and barometric pressure. It is highly variable from day to day. By contrast, climate describes long-term weather patterns, with average temperatures and precipitation totals as well as typical occurrences of climatic extremes (such as normal dry periods or tropical storms) being used to characterize the climate for a particular region. This distinction is very important. Averages are always made up of numbers differing from the mean. Global warming is about the average going up. Over time this will make extreme colds become less likely.



Oh, what's a few degrees?


Fiction: A few degrees temperature increase won't matter much, and besides, warmer is better -- fewer cold-related deaths, longer growing seasons, lower heating bills. How many people actually notice the difference between 86 and 88.5°F?


Fact: Considering that in some regions people experience large daily temperature ranges (20-30°F), climate skeptics try to convince the public that global warming by a few degrees is nothing to worry about. This is another version of deliberately confusing weather and climate (see above). A small increase in the average temperature, however, obscures extremes and patterns of warming that are quite troubling: nighttime temperatures increase more than daily averages; there are already and will be more extreme heat but less extreme cold events; poleward latitudes warm more than other areas, etc. While the benefits of warming pointed out in the skeptics argument are certainly among the potential impacts of climate change, the potential negative impacts -- such as heat-related illnesses and deaths, increased heat stress for crops, greater energy needs for cooling etc. -- are strategically omitted. Moreover, it bears emphasis that the difference in global average temperature between the last ice age and the present day is about 9°F! This puts the IPCC's projected range of climate change-related global average temperature increases of 2.5-10.4°F in an entirely different light.



Human CO2 emissions are small compared to natural CO2 exchange.


Fiction: The 4.5% of the world's greenhouse gases that humans generate is insignificant when compared to the 95.5% generated by nature.


Fact: It is indeed true that human emissions of CO2 are a small percentage of the total carbon cycled through the different components of the Earth system: plants, soils, rocks, the oceans, and the air. But these human emissions are by no means insignificant. For the last 420,000 years, until the beginning of the industrial revolution (~1750), this cycle of carbon exchange was in a quasi-stable equilibrium, i.e., the continual release and uptake of carbon kept CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere fluctuating between 180 ppm (parts per million) and 280 ppm. Since 1750, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31%, to a present level of 367 ppm. This increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale deforestation and land-use change. These human activities have forced the carbon cycle out of the state of equilibrium and out of the known range of variation.



Satellite temperature records don't show any global warming.


Fiction: Satellite temperature records do not show a warming trend over the past 20 years, and ground-level data are incorrect and exaggerate the warming.


Fact: It is true that temperature records derived from satellites show either less warming than surface temperature data or even a cooling trend. Recent studies (most notably a study by the National Academy of Sciences published in 2000) found, however, that satellite data needed to be adjusted for some measurement and calibration problems. These adjustments bring surface and satellite records into better agreement, both showing a warming trend. It is important to note that many surface temperature records date back to 1860, while satellite records only date back to 1979. With such a short data record, observed trends can be strongly affected by extreme conditions -- such as the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo which decreased atmospheric temperatures for several years. In addition, satellite and surface data differ in what they record: surface thermometers measure the air temperature at the Earth's surface, while satellite data take temperatures of different slices of the atmosphere. Including records for the upper atmosphere -- where the depletion of the ozone layer has had a cooling effect -- will lower the overall temperature trends observed from satellites.



The observed warming is all due to solar variation, not human activities.


Fiction: An increase in solar irradiance is the main cause of the Earth's current warming trend. Therefore, reducing fossil fuel emissions would not impact the Earth's temperature.



Fact: Current scientific understanding leaves little doubt that the sun's radiant output impacts the Earth's climate on both decadal and centennial time scales. However, it is only one of many components affecting terrestrial climate. According to the findings of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, the warming effect due to increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is estimated to be more than 8 times greater than the effect of solar irradiance.



What about the 19,000 scientists who claim we should not worry about global warming?


Fiction: There is no scientific consensus on climate change. Just look at the 19,000 scientists who signed on to the Global Warming Petition Project.


Fact: In the spring of 1998, mailboxes of US scientists flooded with packet from the "Global Warming Petition Project," including a reprint of a Wall Street Journal op-ed "Science has spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth," a copy of a faux scientific article claiming that "increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have no deleterious effects upon global climate," a short letter signed by past-president National Academy of Sciences, Frederick Seitz, and a short petition calling for the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that a reduction in carbon dioxide "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."


The sponsor, little-known Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, tried to beguile unsuspecting scientists into believing that this packet had originated from the National Academy of the Sciences, both by referencing Seitz's past involvement with the NAS and with an article formatted to look as if it was a published article in the Academy's Proceedings, which it was not. The NAS quickly distanced itself from the petition project, issuing a statement saying, "the petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."


The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science. In fact, the only criterion for signing the petition was a bachelor's degree in science. The petition resurfaced in early 2001 in an renewed attempt to undermine international climate treaty negotiations.