Are we causing global warming?

Question

Considering that we've only been measuring the climate for 150 years on 5 billion year old planet, and considering that this planet has been warmer in the past than it is now, how can we be so certain that this time we are the cause of global warming? Feel free to attack. Being a Global Warming denier is nearly as bad morally as being a Holocaust denier.

Answer 1

take a good, hardy look at these links, from the scientific community...not the oil industry or other corporate fat cats

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/

the UN's most recent report is a resounding yes:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16760730/

i don't know about you but, i truly feel that i would rather move to protect the environment and be wrong about the danger than to move NOT to protect the environment and be wrong about the danger...if we make preventive efforts and find there is no improvement (given sufficient time) than we're wrong...but what if there is improvement? i think the consequences vastly outweigh the risks...repubs need to realize that this is not a political issue, it is an ethical one, a moral one and we need to do what is right for everyone, not just the wealthy

reports show that big oil http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
and the government
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/atmosphere-of-pressure.html
have been obscuring facts about climate change...why would they do that if there was nothing to worry about?

Answer 2

We have measured 150 years with thermometers and 5 billions with ice layers.

Fortunately human beings are resposible of global warming, it means we can fix it

We know because nowadays the speed of temperature rise is more than 10000 times faster than how it did at jurasic era when tempaerature reached the current temperature.

To be a global warming denier is just lack of information or dishonesty, i cann t know what is your case. What is really bad morally is to call for inaction, even if human contribution to global warming would be 1% and natural causes 99%

Answer 3

True that this planet has been warmer in the past, but those changes took thousands if not tens of thousands of years. At this moment fossils that have been in the ground for millions of years are being burnt at a tremendous speed. So yes, it is very very probable that humans are the cause of global warming

Answer 4

Global warming can DEFINITELY be caused by natural factors, not just man. The Sun greatly affects climate change on Earth, sunspots, solar flares, solar radiation storms and all solar activity affects the Earth greatly.
Also, CO2 from volcanic activity can unleash more harmful pollutants in a matter of hours than man has in the last 100 years- so temper your cries of blaming man for climate change with that knowledge. Methane released from the ocean floor can also be a large factor in the Earth's climate, as methane is 20 times more potent than carbon monoxide.
Sure man has affected the Earth's climate to some degree- how could he not? If you strike a match, you raise the temperature of the Earth, don't you?
Yet, for all the crying the recorded scientific data suggest that the overall temperature of Earth has risen less than one degree in the last 100 years. What, I ask you is that small insignificant amount? Merely by having more acurate thermometers and taking into consideration the urbanization of recording areas which were previously rural, could account for that slight elevation in readings.
Quit being a dope- climate change is a naturally occuring process that has been recorded to greater degrees- both warmer (the great warming) and colder (the little ice age) just since 400 AD- what we are seeing is somewhat due to man, but it isn't anything to become overly alarmed about either.
The Earth has proven it can regulate itself in the past through salinization and desalinaztion of the ocean currents from melting and re-freezing fresh water, so why would it not regulate itself now?

Answer 5

The scientific debate about whether global warming is real and caused by man is over. This is not some treehugger Commie conspiracy to control people.

Scientists agree it's real and caused by man:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4520346.html

Business leaders agree it's real and caused by man:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/22/news/companies/climate_emissions/index.htm

Republican leaders agree it's real and caused by man:

"We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late. The science is clear. The global warming debate is over."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, Governor, California

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

John McCain, Republican, Senator, Arizona

"These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment - and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

President George Bush, Republican

The global warming deniers are exactly the same type of non-science believers as the people who don't believe we landed on the moon.

I would have added "or those who believe the Earth was made 6000 years ago". But I can't. Evangelical Christians believe it's real and caused by man:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243801,00.html?sPage=fnc.science/naturalscience

The scientific debate over whether global warming is real and caused by man is finished. Yes and yes.

The latest move by the global warming deniers is a straight cash payment ($10,000) to any scientist who will attack the ipcc report:

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/uk/news/article_1254871.php/Scientists_offered_cash_to_dispute_climate_change_study_-_report

Answer 6

international warming turns into international cooling by using fact once you have invested a large volume of potential faking, forging, manipulating archives and advertising the fake perception that CO2 motives a international temperature upward push however the suggestions starts off to instruct a cooling vogue then you definately pull the previous switcheroo and with slightly of luck wish everybody is so recommendations broken by potential of the real pollution, mercury, lead, fluoride and Fox information that their gentle minds may even settle for that its achieveable. the reality is obviously replaced into that there replaced into no genuine guy-made international warming to start with, and any easy warming replaced into thoroughly organic. international temperature is pushed specially by potential of photograph voltaic interest, and photograph voltaic flare interest is now at a low so the planet is easily presently cooling after an ever so easy upward push. So the respond is..... it can not. One does not reason the different the temperature purely fluctuates counting on photograph voltaic interest.

Answer 7

global warming is product of a much larger thing called Climate Change... and it's natural...


over the course of the Earth's history, things like Carbon dioxide levels, the paths of the sea currents, and the types of animals on the Earth have changed greatly, and continue to change...

the earth makes changes too...

it's natural and is the Earth's way of regulating things

There is currently a warm current that runs from the equator... there by melting the Polar Ice cap... as it melts the sea level rises... when the level rises enough... the current will change and run strait across Mexico and Central America... Then the Ice caps will freeze again... and the sea levels will decrease, and the process will begin again...


It's Natural... and we just have to deal with it

Answer 8

Nope. 400,000 years of temperature and CO2 data shows that CO2 has *never* affected global temperatures. This being the case, it is ludicrous to say that our production of CO2 is somehow different. What the anthropogenic global warming advocates are saying is that if you raise the level of mercury in a thermometer, the room will heat up. Preposterous. Apparently the most dangerous aspect of global warming is that it seriously degrades the intelligence of some scientists.

Answer 9

If you want to know why "we" are so certain, you might have to do a few minutes of reading. If you seriously want help in finding reliable information, post a serious question and people will help you.

You do know that the IPCC released their report today and what it says, right? And that this represents the worldwide view of the scientists that have been studying this for years, right?

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BTW, (To Slim, above) "National Center for Policy Analysis has received $390,900 from ExxonMobil since 1998" -- http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=55

This stuff isn't hard to dig up. It took me all of 5 minutes to find it.

Answer 10

Caused by man?? You sheep have bought the commie line.

Here is a bit of news for you.

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming

"The Public Has Been Vastly Misinformed," NCPA's Deming Tells Senate Committee

12/6/2006 5:57:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis, 972-308-6481 or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- David Deming, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

"In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.

"I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. ... The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."

"In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph. "Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

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The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.

http://www.usnewswire.com/