Is there any significant effect of man's activities on global climate change?

Question

I suspect that all this talk about how man is causing global warming is merely political hype. Of the two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and water vapor, how come no one EVER mentions water? It is important to have a certain concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to support plant life. Has this percentage changed significantly over the past 100 years? I doubt it.

Answer 1

THE GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERICS STRIKE AGAIN

By William Rusher
Thursday, February 22, 2007

The media have recently been blaring what they depict (inaccurately, by the way) as the latest grim warning from the practically unanimous ranks of the world's climatologists concerning global warming. It is time to take two aspirin, lie down and consider the matter calmly.

The global-warming controversy is powered by three mighty engines, which are almost never recognized. The first is the natural human impulse to fear allegedly forthcoming disasters, especially if they are clothed in the raiments of scientific certitude. The media can be depended on to ferret out and wildly overhype any potential negative development that any so-called scientist is willing to predict and deplore. Remember "acid rain"? The factories of the American Midwest are supposedly belching enormous quantities of sulphurous gases into the air, which then drift eastward, pollute our pristine lakes and lay waste the Appalachian forests. We had barely had time to digest this awful news when the same media introduced us to the ghastly phenomenon called the "ozone hole," a gap in the Earth's protective layer of ozone that had developed (thanks to human pollutants) over the Antarctic and threatened to increase hugely the amount of deadly interstellar radiation reaching the planet's surface, causing millions of fatal skin cancers. The subsequent news that the ozone hole was actually diminishing was lost in the gratifying burst of terror over the discovery of global warming.

Forrmer U.S. vice president Al Gore speaks at a news conference for the 'Live Earth' concerts in Los Angeles,, California February 15, 2007. The planned July 7, 2007 concerts will take place in Sydney, Johannesburg, London and other cities to mobilize action to stop global warming. REUTERS/Fred Prouser (UNITED STATES) The second engine (which was also influential in the flaps over acid rain and the ozone hole) is the traditional liberal hatred of "American corporations," which is mobilized whenever some new misfortune can be laid, however speciously, at their door. All sorts of manufacturing operations emit carbon dioxide, which are thus responsible for some uncertain part of the seven-tenths of one degree Celsius by which the earth's surface temperature rose in the 20th century. Actually, believe it or not, cows emit far more greenhouse gases (from their rear ends) than corporations do, but corporations are easier to hate than cows. So the ancient cry has gone up, "Stop the corporations!"

The third and final engine is, as you might expect, money. Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars the United States paid "scientists" (mostly in universities) last year to study this or that aspect of global warming? They are raiding this El Dorado with both hands, and you can imagine their attitude toward any colleague who dares to doubt their warnings.

The latest incitement to panic over global warming is the recently released summary of a 1,400-page report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We won't get to see the actual report till May, but the IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, says "I hope this report will shock people."

Given the media's hype concerning the human causes of global warming, it undoubtedly will. But the actual figures, when compared to those in the IPCC's last report in 2001, are downright encouraging. Christopher Monckton, a British analyst, points out that the new summary "more than halved its high-end best estimate of the rise in sea level by 2100 from 3 feet to just 17 inches." (Al Gore predicts 20 to 30 feet.) Monckton adds that "The U.N. has cut its estimate of (the human) net effect on climate by more than a third."

Part of the problem is that the earth's temperature is always in motion, up or down. At the moment, it is trending slightly up -- three-hundredths of a degree Celsius since 2001. Before that, in the midyears of the 20th century, it was actually falling -- providing grist for the media's hysterical predictions of a "new Ice Age" back in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, you can count on the liberals to demand savage cutbacks in the output of America's "greedy" corporations (never mind what that does to the economy) and on the opportunistic hacks in the science faculties of our universities to carve still bigger grants for themselves out of the federal and state budgets to finance more justifications for the panic.


William Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy

Answer 2

Global warming is a scam. There are temperature fluctuations, but there is no proof that they are caused by man. The surface temperatures of Mercury and Venus are increasing at the same rate as that of Earth. Increased sunspot activity is the likely cause. As it stands "Global Warming" is just a scam to get "Carbon Taxes" passed. Think about it. Every living thing on our planet is carbon based. They do not care about the environment. If they did, they would not sell carbon credits, which are, in effect, a liscense to pollute(if Co2 was a pollutant, which it is not).

Answer 3

global warming is not a hype. it has been an actual topic throughout the world (especially europe) for the last 2 decades.

it has recently, partly because of Katrina, and Al Gore convinced America, and it has been made into a hype.. in america...
that doesnt make it anyless true.

teh concentration of carbon dioxide reletive to the oxigen is what keeps us alive.

we all know, humans breathe o2 in and co2 out. burning fuels, also converts o2 into c02.
plants do the opposite, they breathe co2 in o2 out.

in the past 200 years, weve industrialised the world. beginning with brittain, then europe, the us. and nowadays China is converting into an industrial powerhouse (90% of the worlds production already comes from china)

the world population has increased to 6 billion. (it was 5 billion in the 90ies) and were cutting down rainforssests by the square kilometer.

anyone can imagine, if things that expel co2 increase, and that convert co2 to o2 get cut down, it is going to do SOMETHING to the air at the very least.

the co2 perctage, doesnt realy affect the ability of plants to life, infact it only supports plantgrowth. the problem is, were cutting the trees down for lumber.

Answer 4

the answer depends on whether you are a scientist or a politician.

most respectable scientist accept global warming and are only disagreeing about the level of impact, politicians don't want to believe it so don't (most have legal backgrounds where proof is something different to scientific proof)

btw the level of CO2 has almost doubleed in the past 100 years

also the effect of H2O is well documented but has a self regulating cycle in cloud formation (which blocks sunlight and reduces warming) followed by rain which lowers the water vapour.
CO2 requires much longer term control through growth of plant life and may be disrupted by large release of gas from soils when warming occurs

Also, methane is another greenhouse gas that is increasing through mans activities (eg cattle ranching, pig farms, waste dumps etc) - it is worse than CO2 and harder to remove from the atmosphere as it does not dissolve in rain water and has no known natural cycle other than possible reacting in the ozone layer (another bad outcome)

Answer 5

"It is not political hype. scientists have spent mos tof the last 20 years getting the information to verify that there is global warming--and that the warming we are experiencing is caused by humans."

Is that the 20 years since the scientific consensus hyped up the coming ice age? No, that was 30 years ago...

Answer 6

One article I read recently was about the amount of sulphur in the atmosphere and how it has decreased since clean air acts.
Apparently the lack of sulphur is increasing the amount of sunlight getting through to the surface. Scary?
Could be deforestation is decreasing the amount of CO2 used, therefore the overall CO2 is increasing (just a guess)
The will be figures on the Internet.

Answer 7

It is not political hype. scientists have spent mos tof the last 20 years getting the information to verify that there is global warming--and that the warming we are experiencing is caused by humans.

There is no "debate." Its established fact. The only "debate" is over the best way to deal with the crisis.

Answer 8

i agree with your thoughts..there seems to be no solution of any kind over this huge issue..i hear people talk about it everyday, but no one seems to have a solution..i dont even think the government or let alone anyone has incresed their efforts to stop this thing or prevent total melt down..but im not quite sure anout the precentage of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 100 years....thats all i have to say...

Answer 9

Man has practically custom made the climate we have today
in the dinosaurs days there were no desserts and just about all desserts are a result of mans interventions
ghengas Khan burned all the forrests and filled the wells with sand turning huge teritories into desserts
the phoenician fleet deforested Lebanon and created those desserts ,Spain was deforreseted for building the Armada
and the Sahara used to be forrests ,until a n ancient civilization opit an end to that
now it is like a fire growing by 7 kilometres a year the heat consuming the plant growth on the edges.
collectively all of this has had a huge impact on gobal cilmate ,
but this is nothing compared to the effects of the expanding irrisponsible modern agriculture

Is global warming a man-made menace?

not all there are natural cycles in the planets life
but a lot is influenced by mans existance ,and this is increasing with overpopulation,putting strains on Natural resources and increasing contaminations as well as destructions of essential componants the ensure living conditions for all life forms

some home truths

politicians and scientists who work for politicians have downplayed the facts because solutions are expensive and means change and change effects many people income,and most of the world is kept in the dark of the real things that are going on.


in North Africa,India,Mexico ,millions of people are effected by land loss and desertification


in recent times thousands of people have died because of exessive heat,usually old people.in India ,Mexico and France,
deforestation causing desertification,the desert conditions causing very cold nights and scorching hot days

in china, thousands of what used to be farmers are running for their lives from the dust storms that have burried their towns and turned their lands into dessert,the globe where they were got to hot for them .
and instead of producing food they are now needing it from some where else,and they will drastically effect the world food prices when they start buying water in the form of grains ,at any cost destabalising governments, in some countries ,could be the result
(are you seeing more Chinese around interested in agricultural lands ,we do here in Mexico)

,the Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year
and all of the desserts we know are a results of mans actions ,and they are increasing ,not getting less ,in the dinosaurs days ,there were no desserts.

collectively this planet is drying up because of bad farming practices like,over grazing and fertilizers,

as far as the food production is concerned, Global warming or some of its effects are serious,rising seas result in landloss

each degree rise in temperature means 10%crop loss

more landloss because of desertification every year,we have less areble land to produce food ,for an extra 70 million people ,

and there is less and less water (because of deforestation),to irrigate this production ,
and there are less and less farmers to do it..
who are overpumping deep carbon aquifiers
who are plowing more and more unstable lands because they have lost so many million hectares to desertification ,
because of bad farming practises ,such as using fertilizers and heavy machinary or over grazing

RISING SEAS
The northpole is melting ,and we will know it without ice in our life times.
this does not affect the sea level because it is ice that is already in the water.but the melting ice from Green land and the south pole ,are another matter.

Global warming is in theory reversable,but it will mean global co operation between all countries ,and taking into account human nature and the world politics ,it is unlikely that this will happen,

At least not untill we are all in the middle of planetary disastres and it becomes a battle for the survival of humanity every where.

SOLUTIONS
if you want to help the planet ,plant a tree every week ,if everyone on the planet did we we would be able to reverse the destructive processes

reduce carbon emisions,and they are already working on that by alternative forms of energy and regulations on carbon producing materials,aerosol cans,burning rubbish,industrial chimneys,powerplants etc.

the capture of carbon and the production of water and assist the aquiferous manta.

the world bank pays large subsidies for reforrestation to capture carbon and the best tree for this is the Pawlonia

Waterharvesting projects ,such as millions of small dams.to redirect over ground waterflows from the rains into the ground to supply subteranian water supplies.

the protection of existing forrests.

stop building more highways,urban planning to include vegetation stop building cities encourage people to return to the land to conduct their business from there which now has become possible thanks to the internet.

education to motivate people to auto sufficiency by building more home food gardens.

education on environmental awareness
education on family planning to curb over´populaion

Agricultural education and improvements to follow the principals or sustainability and soil management.

more environmental or land ,design to prevent bush fires,such as--fire breaks

,more dams.regulations and control for public behaviour

alternative effeciant public transport to discourage the use of the internal conbustion engine

recicling wastes,limit water use

i am a Permaculture Consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government in Guerrero Mexico
http://spaces.msn.com/byderule

Source(s) Lester E Brown is the director and founder of the global institute of Environment in the United states .he has compiled a report based on all the satalite information available from NASA,and all the information that has
come from Universities and American embassies WORLD WIDE ,
his little book--a planet under stress , Plan B has been trans lated into 50 languages and won the best book award in 2003.

Answer 10

no.
because they cherry pick info to support their wacko ideology.
no.


Top 10 'Global-Warming' Myths


Compiled by Christopher Horner, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" (Regnery -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).

10. The U.S. is going it alone on Kyoto and global warming.

Nonsense. The U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol’s energy-rationing scheme, along with 155 other countries, representing most of the world’s population, economic activity and projected future growth. Kyoto is a European treaty with one dozen others, none of whom is in fact presently reducing its emissions. Similarly, claims that Bush refused to sign Kyoto, and/or he withdrew, not only are mutually exclusive but also false. We signed it, Nov. 11, 1998. The Senate won’t vote on it. Ergo, the (Democratic) Senate is blocking Kyoto. Gosh.

Don’t demand they behave otherwise, however. Since Kyoto was agreed, Europe’s CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the climate-criminal United States, a gap that is widening in more recent years. So we should jump on a sinking ship?

Given Al Gore’s proclivity for invoking Winston Churchill in this drama, it is only appropriate to summarize his claims as such: Never in the field of political conflict has so much been asked by so few of so many ... for so little.

9. Global-warming proposals are about the environment.

Only if this means that they would make things worse, given that “wealthier is healthier and cleaner.” Even accepting every underlying economic and alarmist environmentalist assumption, no one dares say that the expensive Kyoto Protocol would detectably affect climate. Imagine how expensive a pact must be -- in both financial and human costs -- to so severely ration energy use as the greens demand. Instead, proponents candidly admit desires to control others’ lifestyles, and supportive industries all hope to make millions off the deal. Europe’s former environment commissioner admitted that Kyoto is “about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide” (in other words, bailing them out).

8. Climate change is the greatest threat to the world's poor.

Climate -- or more accurately, weather -- remains one of the greatest challenges facing the poor. Climate change adds nothing to that calculus, however. Climate and weather patterns have always changed, as they always will. Man has always best dealt with this through wealth creation and technological advance -- a.k.a. adaptation -- and most poorly through superstitious casting of blame, such as burning “witches.” The wealthiest societies have always adapted best. One would prefer to face a similar storm in Florida than Bangladesh. Institutions, infrastructure and affordable energy are key to dealing with an ever-changing climate, not rationing energy.

7. Global warming means more frequent, more severe storms.

Here again the alarmists cannot even turn to the wildly distorted and politicized “Summary for Policy Makers” of the UN’s IPCC to support this favorite chestnut of the press.

6. Global warming has doomed the polar bears!

For some reason, Al Gore’s computerized polar bear can’t swim, unlike the real kind, as one might expect of an animal named Ursa Maritimus. On the whole, these bears are thriving, if a little less well in those areas of the Arctic that are cooling (yes, cooling). Their biggest threat seems to be computer models that air-brush them from the future, the same models that tell us it is much warmer now than it is. As usual in this context, you must answer the question: Who are you going to believe -- me or your lying eyes?

5. Climate change is raising the sea levels.

Sea levels rise during interglacial periods such as that in which we (happily) find ourselves. Even the distorted United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports refute the hysteria, finding no statistically significant change in the rate of increase over the past century of man’s greatest influence, despite green claims of massive melting already occurring. Small island nations seeking welfare and asylum for their citizens such as in socially generous New Zealand and Australia have no sea-level rise at all and in some cases see instead a drop. These societies’ real problem is typically that they have made a mess of their own situation. One archipelago nation is even spending lavishly to lobby the European Union for development money to build beachfront hotel resorts, at the same time it shrieks about a watery and imminent grave. So, which time are they lying?

4. The glaciers are melting!

As good fortune has it, frozen things do in fact melt or at least recede after cooling periods mercifully end. The glacial retreat we read about is selective, however. Glaciers are also advancing all over, including lonely glaciers nearby their more popular retreating neighbors. If retreating glaciers were proof of global warming, then advancing glaciers are evidence of global cooling. They cannot both be true, and in fact, neither is. Also, retreat often seems to be unrelated to warming. For example, the snow cap on Mount Kilimanjaro is receding -- despite decades of cooling in Kenya -- due to regional land use and atmospheric moisture.

3. Climate was stable until man came along.

Swallowing this whopper requires burning every basic history and science text, just as “witches” were burned in retaliation for changing climates in ages (we had thought) long past. The “hockey stick” chart -- poster child for this concept -- has been disgraced and airbrushed from the UN’s alarmist repertoire.

2. The science is settled -- CO2 causes global warming.

Al Gore shows his audience a slide of CO2 concentrations, and a slide of historical temperatures. But for very good reason he does not combine them in one overlaid slide: Historically, atmospheric CO2, as often as not, increases after warming. This is typical in the campaign of claiming “consensus” to avoid debate (consensus about what being left unspoken or distorted).

What scientists do agree on is little and says nothing about man-made global warming, to wit: (1) that global average temperature is probably about 0.6 degree Celsius -- or 1 degree Fahrenheit -- higher than a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen by about 30% over the past 200 years; and (3) that CO2 is one greenhouse gas, some level of an increase of which presumably would warm the Earth’s atmosphere were all else equal, which it demonstrably is not.

Until scientists are willing to save the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 billion per year thrown at researching climate, it is fair to presume the science is not settled.

1. It’s hot in here!

In fact, “It’s the baseline, stupid.” Claiming that present temperatures are warm requires a starting point at, say, the 1970s, or around the Little Ice Age (approximately 1200 A.D to the end of the 19th Century), or thousands of years ago. Select many other baselines, for example, compared o the 1930s, or 1000 A.D. -- or 1998 -- and it is presently cool. Cooling does paint a far more frightening picture, given that another ice age would be truly catastrophic, while throughout history, warming periods have always ushered in prosperity. Maybe that’s why the greens tried “global cooling” first.

The claim that the 1990s were the hottest decade on record specifically targets the intellectually lazy and easily frightened, ignoring numerous obvious factors. “On record” obviously means a very short period, typically the past 100+ years, or since the end of the Little Ice Age. The National Academies of Science debunked this claim in 2006. Previously rural measuring stations register warmer temps after decades of “sprawl” (growth), cement being warmer than a pasture.