So who still believes all this hype about Global warming then?

Question

I believe that the whole subject is a job creation sham! The evidence points to CO2 NOT being anything to do with the warming of the planet.

Global warming is happening yes but it has Many times in history too! we could just as easily go the other way in the next twenty years

Answer 1

According to last night's C4 prog, most of it is due to the activity on the Sun - solar flares etc.

Answer 2

As a scientist myself who has been involved in research, I can tell you that some scientists, can and do play politics with important issues such as this, usually for either their own financial gain or that of companies or organisations that they work for.

In the case of global warming though, it certainly isn't the scientists who have been gathering data on the human contribution to climate change for the last 30 - 40 years who are playing politics. I would certainly rather trust them than the small minority who deny the overwhelming evidence.

Yes - there is a natural cycle of climate change where the planet has warmed up and cooled down periodically. This does not, however, remove the fact that carbon emissions pumped into the atmosphere by human activities are accelerating the natural processes of global warming at an unprecedented rate.

If we do nothing to prevent it, there will come a time in the not too distant future (probably in 100 years or so at the current rate) when the methane hydrates on the ocean floor destabilise and emit massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is eight times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 . So when that happens we're finished - the earth will become uninhabitable.

All the petty arguments and squabbles over whether its actually happening, whether humans contribute and what we should do about it are distracting us from what needs to be done. The scenario outlined above can and must be avoided at all costs. As a nation, the UK can't do it alone, but we can set an example to the rest of the world by setting the right targets. If other nations take notice and follow our lead we might just save ourselves. If not and it all ends up counting for nothing, then at least we tried.

Even if 90% of climate scientists do turn out to be wrong and last nights documentary was correct, can we afford to take the risk that it might not be? If we're going to go down, lets go down fighting at least.

The irony is, there is an obvious solution that would actually enhance our way of lives and produce all the energy we could ever need or want in the long term with no emissions whatsoever from the energy production itself. Nuclear fusion power. Massive amounts of relatively cheap energy, with no waste products except helium and water. Very expensive to get it going initially - which is what puts governments off the idea, but inexpensive to run in the long term. I think its now the only way we can reduce carbon emissions by enough to avoid catastrophe. Its already too late for anything else.

Also, I find it interesting that many of the people posting here who deny the human contribution to global warming, or even global warming itself, are the same people who moan on and on about immigration and how its ruining the country. I wonder if they might change their minds about climate change in 20 - 30 years time when parts of Africa and Asia become uninhabitable (at current rate if nothing is done), When that happens millions - yes MILLIONS, of refugees will be heading north, many of whom will be heading for the UK. If they think immigration is a problem now - think of that and multiply it by ten thousand. That will be the first real catastrophic effect of global warming.

Answer 3

Some very interesting comments here. I personally don't believe global warming is man made, not when you look at the true facts of how long we've been producing CO2 and in that time the world has world temperature has continually fluctuated with periods of cooling and warming. 1940 to 1975 the world went through a cooling phase. From 1975 the world has entered a warming phase and so on. The middle ages the world was a lot warmer than it is now, but many of you appear to completely ignore these facts it's almost as if you don't want to hear an alternative argument.
Last nights programme had a Japanese scientist who was head of the Antarctic survey. He stated that the melting of the Artic ice is a normal phenomenon. Over thousands of years the ice pack has increased and contracted in size throughout the history of this planet and nothing is going to change that process.
No one is saying we should just standby and ignore pollution and keep producing gas guzzling vehicles. Our resources are finite but at the same time lets calm down on the hysteria because that's exactly what it is, hysteria.

Answer 4

I personally don't believe it is happening. We have no real evidence that it has not happened in the past apart from records of heat. Also, being 15, i had to do something on global warming and found a lot of interesting facts that i didn't know before. these include that the ice caps are actually increasing and the earth has always been heating up and cooling down over centurys in a normal pattern.

I wouldn't say it is a job making sham. However, i think the hype of it is slowly wearing away. I still think we should recycle and use other forms of producing electric though. Just to be on the safe side.

Answer 5

Global warming is a natural cycle caused by many things. The main causes are sunspot activity and the heating/cooling of the oceans. How else can previous temperature fluctuations be explained. How many factories and cars were there when there were vineyards in Scotland?
Non political evidence proves that rising temperatures CAUSE rises in CO2 and not the other way round. The human CO2 production is no more than 1% of the whole produced by mother nature.
Its a political strategy to prevent third world countries expanding their economies.
Dont blame the terrible human suffering on global warming, its down to overcrowded populations in the worst possible places. Yes the western world could do more but how many £billions have been poured into helping such suffering in the last 5 decades?
I'm not keen on the good old USA but they are not responsible for global warming and all the bleeding heart liberals screaming about people suffering in Africa and similar places should look at how their economies have been destroyed by their own ineptitude and corruption. Wake up and smell the freetrade coffee - Many of these countries governments are responsible for their own suffering to a great extent and I truly feel for their people.
Its time to change direction and concentrate on the real causes of the problems.

Answer 6

Not really. You are right when you say a job creation scam. By creating a whole fear consciousness about the heating up of the planet, environmental scientists 'scare' governments into giving them lots of money in research grants. They even have a one-time American presidential candidate, acting as their mouthpiece.

I believe global warming is a cycle of nature. The world has heated up and cooled down since time began. We have had ice ages, and also much warmer times when vineyards could grow in southern Britain. In fact, this is probably a cooler period of history because we actually have ice caps. There were times before when we didn't have them.

The exact same thing happens on Venus and they don't have cars and power stations putting so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Could it be that these elements are present in nature anyway? And in the post war boom in consumer goods (more cars, more flights, more demand for electricity etc) the temperature actually decreased for a few years.

It doesn't mean we should get complacent. We should still work on ways to conserve energy (ie switching off lights, walking instead of driving 5 mins down the road) because this will encourage us to be more responsible and less wasteful.....but let's not get worked up and fearful.

Answer 7

I was always thought that global warming was dubious but after watching last nights program I feel that we have all been lied to.
Time and time again we are told that humans have produced co2 gases that is the root cause of global warming but when you look at the facts it becomes obvious that this in not only not the truth but is a fairy tail.
We are a part of an extremely complex Ecosystem that we still do not fully understand and it is plain stupid to thing that we can change the temperature of our earth.
For all the eco-warriors out there consider the following facts:-
The highest contributors to co2 production are as follows:-
1) The sea
2) Volcanic action
3) Decomposition of organic matter.
4) Cows/Sheep/Animals farting
Mans co2 production is a fraction of the total co2 products every day by cows farts.
Green house gases, if we agree that green house gases are reflecting the earths heat back down to the earth. Then we would expect that the temperature rise would be not only seen at sea level but also at altitude. Why then is there not only no increase in altitude temperatures but in fact temperature reductions.
Ice core sample, we are all told that core samples prove that with and increase in co2 there is a co-responding rise in temperature. The main thing that was not told to us all was that there is an 800 year delay in the increase in co2 relative to the temperature rise. In other words when the temperature increases over an 800 year period the co2 production from the sea is also increased.
For all those Eco-warriors out there please remember that when we ask the third world to reduce its co2 emissions what we are actually asking them to do is stay in the middle ages and not bring electricity to the population.

Answer 8

The sun being our nearest star is enlarging all the time..so it is becoming closer to the earth thus heating it up.

Yes there is a lot of hype from both camps and yes maybe we are contributing to it but hey...we gotta live somewhere.

No seriously...I remember better summers when I was a wee tot in the 70's than the summers now.

Yes they may be a degree or so hotter...but its the wetter weather I hate.
The West of Scotland is wet enough for 9 months of the year without the summer months being wetter too.

12 months of wet is a bit much

Answer 9

FACT: global warming is occurring

FACT: human activities are contributing to global warming

FACT: by reducing our CO2 emissions we can help reduce the rate of global warming

FACT: global warming has occurred many times throughout history

MYTH: global warming is a result of human activity- there is a distinct lack of information to support any claim otherwise

MYTH: the world is about to end

MYTH: the weather models can predict what the weather is going to be like in the furure. We currently have great difficulty predicting what the weather is going to be like in a couple of days time. All weather predictions make a large number of assumptions each of which may or may not occur.

Answer 10

I watched a show on TV last night that showed that CO2 didn't cause global warming and that the earth has been warming since before industry was very big. It aslo pointed out that in when there was a lot of industry starting after the war, temperatures actually dropped and that a lot of people thought there was going to be another ice age. I still think global warming is happening but it is not being caused by human activity. p.s. wildlife produces more CO2 each year than all industry put together!!!!

Answer 11

Going green is big business these days and governments know this, unfortunately some of the facts and figures have been distorted or missed out all together to confuse us into thinking its all our fault so we pay big money to put it right. Global warming does exist but then it has since the earth started orbiting the sun millions of years ago and will carry on doing so no matter how green we try and get, sooner or later everything will start to cool down and there will no doubt be a panic about that until things warm up and the whole cycle starts again. I say drive your car, burn your coal then act all smug when we start getting 2 feet of snow and short summers back or at least try and make some money out of those people who'll buy any product that claims to be eco friendly then preach to you about how big your carbon footprint is