Pick a side- what causes global warming??

Question

almost every major ecological phenomenon- global warming, holes in the ozone- can be seen from two perspectives: Humans are to blame, or is it the natural order and would have happened anyway?

Answer 1

A friend who lived in Beijing as a child said she remembered blue skies and moderate temperatures every summer. 25 years later, Beijing's bicycles are replaced with autos. When she goes back to visit, the skies are no longer blue and the summers are almost always unbearably hot. At a localized level, I would say humans can definitely cause warming. At the global level, I would lean towards humans again, but I'm not completely convinced yet as there are some normal natural things that are at work.

Answer 2

God just lit up a big smoke with a big lighter.

Warming and cooling cycles have been happening thoughout time. The time of the dinosaurs was tropical and much hotter. The Ice Age was much colder. In relatively more recent times, the 1300's and 1400's were much warmer.

The ozone holes have grown and diminished throughout the centuries, as proven by ice core drilling in glaciers at the poles. Actually the ozone hole is almost closed compared to as early as 10 yrs ago, but that doesn't get much press nowadays.

Solar activity has greatly increased in recent years to the point where even the ice caps on Mars are shrinking. I have yet to hear a good explanation on how SUV's have caused the ice caps on Mars to melt. Damn Martians.

There has been a great deal of geological activity as evidenced by earthquakes and volcanic erruptions. The Mt. Pinatubo erruption a short time ago was estimated to have put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than all human sources combined and the ash cooled the Earth's surface for 2 yrs. It was a big erruption.

And to finish it off, 97% of greenhouse gas is one compund...water vapor, ie. humidity.

To say that global warming is caused by man ignores history. So I'll just say the jury is still out for some people.

Answer 3

Its natural. The Earth goes through natural cycles of heating and cooling. We are in a heating cycle and we are closer to the sun than ever before. Also, the main contributers to polluting the ozone are volcanic eruptions. Last I checked humans don't make volcanoes to erupt. If humans are to blame, it's China and India. They are the 2 most populated countries and are extremely industrial. They didn't even want the reports of pollution findings reported to the UN because then the world would know the damage they were doing. If we did anything now, the results wouldn't be seen for 500 years. Sooo. all in all, I will continue to drive my big Diesel truck and my 300C and will not worry about it. I will not give in to liberal propaganda, which is all it is. It's Mother Nature, not humans.

Answer 4

It is in part both causes. A it is natural, after all the world has had 5 to 7 ice ages which means 6 to 8 warm ups that fallowed. B: Man is making it worse with pollution, cutting down to many trees, Cars & JET planes, all the black topped road-ways cause the earth to heat up, excessive water run off: water that other wise would help cool the soil, but can not because the black top will not let the rain reach the soil. The trees removed can not shade the soil and keep it cooler, nor when removed can they produce oxygen for us to breath. Yes it is natural and we are making it worse as we go along. That is my Educated opinion.

Answer 5

I am glad U asked! I would love to give my input! I feel that it is natural order. I am a christian and go to church regularly and the Bible says that in the last days we will not know the seasons. That tells me that God already knew what was going to happen. He knew that we were going to have 80 degree weather one week and then 40 degree weather the next. So I feel that no matter if we would of all rode bikes our whole lives we would be experiencing this right now. If U don't know Jesus as your Lord and savior I suggest U get a personal relationship with him. He is coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkle! R U ready for heaven in 2007? If U have any questions feel free to contact me. [e-mail]

Answer 6

You can only see two sides on those issues if you ignore the scientific data.

Global warming is real and mostly caused by us. Three reasons, with solid support, most important first.

There's an overwhelming amount of peer reviewed scientific data that says that. Short and long summaries.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html

There's a large number of people who agree that it is, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy". Just three examples of many:

"Global warming is real, now, and it must be addressed."

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart

"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."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/329.php?nid=&id=&pnt=329&lb=hmpg1

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

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

Good website for more info:

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 7

Humans

Answer 8

Can't really tell because humans have definately contributed more than too much to the problem. So I say humans, some humans, but then I don't know what ife would be like if humans did respect nature a little more and tried to adjust to it instead of attempting to make it adjust to humans.

Answer 9

Humans

Answer 10

it is a natural occuring process that has been speaded up by human activity, therefore, global warming is natural, however human activity has increased and speeded up the process.
for example cfc's are man made and they are major causes of global wamring, while buring of fossil fuels has also contributed to this.
but there are other natural processes that contribute. so we cannot say that it is 100% man made or natural. like i said earlier, man has increased the rate through unnatural porcesses