Global Warming?

Question

Do you think that global warming is something that was human created, or just a warming period that the earth is going through?
Now before you answer it, do at least a little research on the topic. I did, and i found a lot of websites that had both answers. Let me know what you think.

Answer 1

First of all, while I do agree that any kind of debate on this should require some evidence, I also think that there's a void where common sense used to be. Also, just to be clear, I agree that we need to protect and preserve the only place humans have ever known as home, and it wll require changes on our part, BUT....

Let's look at Earth's history and Ice Ages. We've had multiple periods of climate cooling, some to the point where the Poles and their ice caps stretched almost as far as the Equator. Where did all of that ice go? We've obviously made it through a couple of ice ages, so, how did all of that ice melt? It's been awhile since I've had to take a History class, but I don't think the internal combustion engine was invented until the 19th century. So for the sake of arguement, we'll say that we've had the automobile for 200 years, give or take a decade. So that leaves us with 4,599,999,800 years of unexplained global warming and cooling. Unless the Flintstones is more historically acurate than first thought, there were no types of machines or pollution producing equipment that contributed to melting the ice caps back to about where they are today.

Also, we now have people who wish to rid the world of carbon dioxide it seems, and to me, that's just plain ignorant. Sure, maybe there's a surplus of it, but let's break this down. In the beginning, there was no oxygen on Earth. It was mainly composed of volatile gases that included methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, as well as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. This environment created the "soup" that eventually fostered the beginnings of evolution as we know it best...plants, animals and humans. These prehistoric plants...much like the ones of today...took in the volatile gases like CO2 and created oxygen. As oxygen increased, the animal kingdom essentially began, and now, here we are some 100 million years later partaking in the same cyclical process: we breathe in oxygen, exhale CO2, the plants inhale CO2, and exhale oxygen and from there it goes. So to me, trying to correct 4.6 billion years of evolution with less than 200 years of science is a bit pompous and ignorant.

Maybe, just maybe, as "all-knowing" as we humans are, this 4.6 billion year old rock, which weighs somewhere close to 59,736,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kg should be a little more humbling.

Answer 2

Regardless of whether global warming is natural or man-made, it's a total wuss-out for people to say "Oh well, it's natural, so I should keep on doing what I'm doing." People pollute like never before.

Any high school biology textbook will attest to the fact that when you introduce something new into the ecosystem (plastics, gasoline emissions, nuclear weaponry, toxic waste), you can affect it in ways that you cannot predict in a hundred years' time. Yeah, the Earth has gone through warming and cooling phases, but the dinosaurs didn't mass-produce automobiles and drill for oil. The Norse didn't float around in gas-powered ships. Hell, even George Washington didn't heat up his lunches in microwaves and then throw away the plastic containers. You can't accurately predict what's going to happen apart from using the limited information we have within the last 100 years.

Whether or not global warming is man-made is entirely moot. People have a moral obligation not to turn a blind eye to the post-Industrial Revolution rape of the planet's resources. If global warming happens, it happens, but we don't need to help it along.

Answer 3

I can't be bothered to go into statistics.

Global warming is happening, that goes without saying.

But the fact that it is put down to humanity, is just a sales front.

Money. They'll try anything.

Over the last 200 years, plants have had less and less pores on the underside of their leaves, because CO2 us so much more plentiful that they don't need to try as hard, this has began well before the invention of vehicles and the mass use of fossil fuels.

Another fact, and I'm being 100% serious, is that we have technology to replace fossil-fuel based engines. We've had it since before our parents were born (mine anyway).

Alien technology has been meticulously studied, reverse-engineered and modified for the last 50 years, and they only won't release it because of the multi-trillion industry that is Oil.

People wouldn't even be suprised that extra-terrestrials have been here for so long. They'd be suprised they had their human rights taken away for a few extra bucks.

I have a friend in NASA, you know Google Maps? She was part of a team that had to airbrush out / delete UFO's from the 35 million satellite photos taken. Ever wonder why they had detailed photos of plenty of areas, but then you get "We don't have aerial photography of this area, please try a less clear picture".

Point is - Global warming = Money. That's it.

--Edit-- Also we're moving towards the sun, so that probably doesn't help.

Answer 4

In the late 19th century a Swedish chemist named Arrhenius came up with a relation between temperature and CO2, basically stating that if there is a geometric increase in CO2 then temperatures will increase in a arithmetic fashion. In essence saying that if one increases so will the other. What we have today are the highest concentrations on CO2 ever recorded, ergo the highest temperatures ever recorded. This is not speculation. This is fact. Looking at ice core data we have approximately 700 thousand years of climate data, basically showing that yes climate change is cyclical, but the degree of variation in the cycle has increased dramatically. Looking at isotopic forms of oxygen dissolved in these cores is an indirect means of measuring temperature, basically showing the current mean temperature on earth is the hottest it has ever been. I don't know what will happen with regards to all of this but when all the climatologists believe this is happening thats good enought for me.

Answer 5

wow I'm embarrassed that a fellow geology phd can something as utterly idiotic as "if it's global warming why did the hotter states get winter storms". Sadly some geologists are as bad as Creationists when it comes to a truth they don't want to face.

Every time that global CO2 levels have gone up in the geological past, global average temperatures have also gone up. Completely as the modern climate modelling science suggests they would. It is mind-numbingly obvious that we are pumping a lot of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere, and that CO2 and methane levels are rising. Therefore...

I can almost guarantee that the anti-global warming websites you've seen are nothing but propaganda. Anyone can say anything on the web, or in the media. What matters is the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Answer 6

Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural, Moderate
www.cgfi.org/cgficommentary/two-new-books-confirm-global-warming-is-natural-moderate

Del. global warming skeptic stands pat. State climatologist on opposite side of governor in court case
www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/NEWS/702010363/1006/NEWS

Against the grain: Some scientists deny global warming exists
www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=156df7e6-d490-41c9-8b1f-106fef8763c6&k=0

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide
www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

Scientists blame Hollywood for increased fears over global warming
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=443043&in_page_id=1965

Del. scientist's view on climate change criticized
www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070206/NEWS01/70206001/1002

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2f4cc62e-5b0d-4b59-8705-fc28f14da388

Danish scientist: Global warming is a myth
www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/danish_scientist_global_warming_is_a_myth/20070315-012154-7403r/

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece

Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics
epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=E58DFF04-5A65-42A4-9F82-87381DE894CD

Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-atd021207.php

they all must not know....
Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/ngreen211.xml

Answer 7

Global warming is proof that when you throw money at research the research will provide conclusions that lead to more research. If the researchers concluded that there is no problem, they would be out of a job since public funding would no longer be required. They invent all sorts of interesting phenomena to prove global warming exists and that it is really serious and that it is man made. If any of these scenarios were not concluded then we wouldn't need to fund them. Is it any wonder that the billions we throw at global warming research concludes exactly that. Take the hockey stick. It researches temperatures back 1400 years. The selection of 1400 years is an interesting one. That goes back to when it was warm. So they start at a time when it is unusually cold, they cherry pick the data and presto you get a hockey stick making it look like global warming is our fault. A review of CO2 levels shows that it has been increasing for thousands of years and is following the same trend. The fact that it is maybe over a hundred parts per million higher now than most previous highs indicates that some of the CO2 increase may very well be due to human influence. The problem is that there is very little evidence that the CO2 is causing the increased temperature. It seems that a better explanation is that the increased temperature was causing CO2 levels to rise. The other problem arises when one side only sees doom and gloom and almost comically can see no beneficial effects. It is almost as if they want continental glaciers to return to Chicago.

Answer 8

Global warming/cooling is a *natural* cycle that Earth has been experiencing for hundreds of millions of years. That's a scientific and science-verified fact. Our civilization is certainly contributing to the current warming cycle rate and is acerbating its severity. Civilization should start doing something about that right now..! However, given that civilization is split into countless opposing factions the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

Yes, I've done my homework but I'm not about to sit here and waste my time citing them all for folks who have convinced themselves, ala Al Gore, that global warming is happening strictly because of Bush and the entire Republican Party.

Answer 9

I believe we are experiencing a warming period or cycle as previously stated. However, deep core sampling in the polar regions has shown that there have been many events similar to this. The earth naturally cools and heats in a cyclic fashion as others have stated on this forum, however we may be providing a mechanism that accelerates that cycle with polution.

However, I have to take exception to Al Gore's theoretical hockey stick graph. If you look closely at the graph there are many millenia represented in a small portion of the graph, then suddenly there are a few decades represented in nearly the same amount of space on the graph. Now think about that. If the atmosphere experienced a change over 100 years in the first part of the graph it would be indicated, if at all by a tiny bump, which is evident in the graph statistics. When you move further, horizontally, down the graph you stop counting in millenia and start counting in decades. Those tiny bumps suddenly become huge spikes as would the tiny "bumps" represented in the millenia stats. The hockey stick, J-curve, whatever it is being called today is skewed to show statistics in a way that is, at first glance, alarming. However, as a former climatology professor and ardent scientist, I find these statistics to be grossly overstated and manipulated in order to cause panic and thus draw attention to a semi-natural event.

Is there an increase in greenhouse gases? The answer is yes. Is man the main contributor? I would have to study that more, but it is a fact that volcanic activity can stimulate the environment's cyclic actions and we have definitely seen an increase in volcanic activity. Most of those "bumps" I referred to earlier were also indicative of increased activity along the tectonic plates which of course would cause increased volcanic activity.

In short I think we do need to look into our impact on Earth and find alternatives. However, do I think it is a panic situation where we find ourselves on the brink of destruction? No.

Answer 10

CO2 is 30% higher than it has been for 650,000 years. Methane is 130% greater. These are two of the main pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in excess, and they are two of the primary greenhouse gases.

Look at the 'hockeystick', which shows a dramatic warming since 1950 after a fairly stable climate for 1000 years. In fact, the 10 hottest years in recorded history have all happened since 1990, with 2005 being the hottest.
(see links below)

How's that for proof of man's fault in this? There is ample proof, any real scientist will tell you that.

There has NEVER been an article doubting man's influence on global warming published in a peer-reviewed journal. A recent study of almost 1000 proved that.

Yes, the earth naturally heats and cools, but the rate and amount we are warming now is unprecedented in the recent geologic past. We are doing this, and we must stop it. This is not some political statement or rhetoric. This is science trying to educate a crass, ignorant public of the damage they are doing. The magnitude of temperature increase ALREADY is about 10x that of the 'little ice age' of the middle ages, and rate and amount are only going up.

Just to be clear, glacial and interglacial cycles are mainly controlled by astronomical fluctuations, but we have a detailed record of the last 7 cycles, and what the climate and CO2 is doing now is way different and extreme. The rate of increase is much higher than in the past AND the value itself is much higher.

HI CO2:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm
HOCKEY STICK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5109188.stm
General climate stuff:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3897061.stm