What's your opinion on this article on global warming?

Question

I used to be very doubtful, but now, I'm not so sure.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070202/ap_on_sc/france_climate_change

Answer 1

are you guys STUPID? global warming, in whatever sense , is upon us...i too believe that the planet has a cycle, going up and down, and yes it is the WEATHER that is affecting us...but its much more than that guy on the corner with his Hummer...

look around your house.whats made from timber? computer desk? bookshelf's? floorboards? the frame itself?

we use so much timber, it just aint funny. the south americans are cutting down the amazon at ridiculous rates, indonesia has barely any timber left and rain won't fall near Austarlia's major cities, leading to out worse drought ever.why? we need trees

i am definitely no greenpeace, tree-hugger...but in the modern day where cars can prevent accidents with ESP, music players hold 1000's of songs but are just 1/2 inch thick and a program connects us to the world (the net), it's apparently all-too-hard too hard to work together and invent a reusable, recyclable, tough, trendy, durable material that could be used in various forms

do we need a timber desk, or table? not really...yet we have no real alternative, because we just haven't been innovative enough, in most part because we have become to accustomed to 'simple' things....
the easy route, the quick way home, the short cuts,cost cutting...well, guess what world, that stops NOW.

i know we have LOADS of issues to face (ageing population, increasing crime,racial and culture issues, worsening infrastructure etc.) but global wamrning and continued pollution of the world, will only lead to our own deaths. im worried, as a 15 year old, that my kids (hopefully i have some) will suffer what we, I, havn't been able to fix....the decline of the world into a massive pit of sh*t.

we need to bring to the table a NEW agreement...the Kyoto plan is just foolish...i mean, emissions trading, what the f*ck kind of idea is that?

this is it, the now or never...we will have to suffer in different ways....less economic growth (yea business terroists, less profit), less (unfortuantly) sports and go-fast cars, and in general, much less waste of what we've got left

lets do this, if not for ourselves, for the generations we will never know...beacuse it is them how will truely suffer far worse complications

Answer 2

Well I'm not an expert but I would agree mostly with the article. It has been known for a long time that the planet was warming up. The only argument was weather burning fossil fuels was to blame or if this was natural. The planet has had a history of warming and cooling. Now the problem is that we do not know for sure how fast this normally occurs. Ive heard some people say that we are still in an ice age and are still warming up from that. What scared me about the article was that the Bush scientists actually agreed that it is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels. My suggestion is that next time you see someone drive a Hummer just shake your fist at them or cry out "Do you have an game tokens!!!???"

Answer 3

One of the things about the historical climates are that we’re pretty good at recreating them, and therefore we have a decent grasp of what’s happened in the past. We’re not so good at explaining why things have happened and often stumble around for an answer. A variety of reconstructive techniques are used and these provide us with 542 million years of climate history. Within this long record there are many familiar and easily identified patterns, the causes of which can be explained. There are also numerous anomalies and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is one such example. No-one in the world of climate science is in any doubt that it happened and there is general agreement that the warming spanned a period of about 20,000 years during which time the average global temperature increased by 6°C. Such a change in temperatures isn’t unique and we see something similar happening at intervals of 100,000 years when the periods of glacial maxima (‘ice-ages’) come to an end. For the last million years this has been happening and it’s caused by changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit around the Sun (orbital eccentricity). However, the PETM signature doesn’t remotely correspond with that of eccentric cycle, most notably the chemical signature. We look to the chemical analyses of deposits in order to reconstruct past temperatures, most notably the ratios of different isotopes of chemicals such as oxygen and deuterium. For example, the heavier oxygen 18 isotope prevails in warmer conditions and thus the ratio between O18 and O16 allows us to calculate what the temperature would have been. Similarly, carbon has different isotopes and the concentration of gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be deduced from deposition records (rocks, fossils, shells etc). During the PETM we find that there was a massive increase in the amount of carbon. But unusually this isn’t consistent across the surface of the planet, thus suggesting that the factors that caused it were localised. The actual increase is hard to quantify with any real accuracy but it’s probable that for a time levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by about 5 trillion tons (in today’s atmosphere there is a little over 2 trillion tons). This massive increase would have let to very substantial global warming. So what caused it? The simple and honest answer is that we don’t know. There are numerous possible explanations but they all have major flaws in them. Jeff M mentioned possible methane clathrates. This certainly has the potential to cause warming on the scale that occurred but the release of the clathrates requires a trigger and there’s no hard evidence for this (there’s also no hard evidence against it either). We’d need something like warmer oceans or a significant change in oceanic circulation. In the right bathymetric conditions such a change can trigger a release of methane across a 2000m plane within the oceans, this would be oxidised within the ocean and released at the surface as carbon dioxide gas. Changes to ocean circulation could have occurred, but reconstructing historical ocean currents is very difficult and we can only guess that this may have happened. If it did, then the right conditions could have been formed which would explain the significant rise on both CO2 and temperatures. It may be that the PETM was the culmination of many different components. In their own right each one being fairly insignificant but coming together the effects would be much greater. Especially considering that many changes in climatologies can be amplified by feedback mechanisms. Possible contributory factors include a warming ocean, changes to the thermohaline circulation, multiple changes to the way Earth moves in space, a prolonged period of increased solar intensity, increased volcanic activity, methane (clathrate) destabilisation, decreased precipitation (somewhat paradoxical but possible) and even changes to the type and extent of fauna and flora on Earth’s surface. Bring together enough of these contributory factors, amplify the effects with some feedbacks and you could easily achieve the changes that happened during the PETM. One day we’ll know more, that day is probably many decades away so for now we have to speculate. • As to my opinion of the article… I’ve read the whole thing and it’s a very interesting article. It essentially reconsiders some of the possibilities that exist and applies a different perspective.

Answer 4

This report means nothing. It's politically motivated and the language they used still makes it skeptical. It said "very likely" that is not 100% sure. It also said there is NOTHING humans can do about global warming. In other words, we can't control the weather.

Answer 5

It's definitely happening. The latest articles on this subject on Yahoo News were very good; one thing that is hopeful is that predictions aren't as dire as in 2001. We certainly, as governments, could have done more to help. But, esp. the American people, are we ready to TRULY sacrifice to not "have so much ???" that takes all this energy. I don't think so.
The best we can do individually is to do whatever we can. And, to prepare ourselves as the Earth changes; which it'll do anyways. Human Usage of fuels as well as deforestration have only speeded it up. The destruction of the rainforests--maybe contribute something to that. Definitely, if in your forray, make people aware; education never fails to raise consciousness of those who are open.
But, it is happening. Biggest recent proof are the polar bears endagerment & reports from Alaska of people seeing glacier pieces breaking off & floating away. To me that is scary.
If I lived on the coast, I'd be planning to move. Even if it's another 100 years till the coastline drastically changes, another Katrina and future tsunamis could happen.

Answer 6

The Global warming nonsense is motivated by $$$$$. Nothing more,nothing less.Since ALL the planets are getting warmer,and only one of them is inhabited by ppl...we CAN NOT be the cause of it,therefore we can NOT stop it,either.