Are humans really powerful enough to create or accelerate global warming?

Question

Ponder this... 70-71% of the earth is covered by water. That means 29-30% is covered by land. The earth is 200 million square miles. Humans take up 58 million square miles of the earth's land. That's 29% of the earth's land that we inhabit.
About 25% of that land is occupied by poor/3rd world countries.The world population is around 6.5 billion humans. 20%-30% live in those poor, undeveloped countries.

My point? I’m getting there…
So you have around 80% of humans who are polluting and even less that are adding significant amounts of pollution to the earth. Put all these humans in one place and let them pollute. You know how much of the earth they would be affecting? Most definitely less than 5% of the entire earth. It’s actually more like 1%, but I wanted to account for any math error I may have made. So our pollution is like a needle in a haystack.

I would like to ask how it is possible that we are ruining the ozone when we account for less 5% of the entire earth?

Other things to consider….

-Mars is experiencing global warming, it’s ice caps are melting just like ours.

-This is a natural geological process, which has happened before, is currently happen and will keep happening, with our without our pollution.

-When the earth came out of the ice age, it warmed up all on it’s own. We weren’t polluting it and supposedly killing the ozone at that time. Isn’t it possible that this is the case now, that it’s warming up all on it’s own?

Why are we trying to prevent something that we can’t control? Why aren’t we preparing for it?

And if you still believe we are accelerating global warming, why aren’t we focusing on the main cause- air pollution? Air pollution mostly comes from vehicles, so why not press that issue? The rising cost of gas is a more urgent issue than global warming, but it gets put on the back burner because it would be “impossible” to relieve our oil dependency, at least for cars right now. If that’s near impo

(as I was saying...)
If that’s near impossible to accomplish, how in the heck do expect to stop global warming?!?!? Don’t they go hand in hand? If cars become ‘greener’ it will do nothing but help our atmosphere, if you believe we are harming it. So why does global warming seem easier to everyone than lifting our oil dependency? It does NOT make sense!!!!

Mr. Taco, I put that last part in there for people like you. So if you think my statistics are irrelevent, fine. If you think global warming is caused by us, fine. So my question is why is it so impossible to stop using oil and so much more possible to prevent global warming? Can't you answer the question? Somehow, I bet all the refried beans you eat are polluting the earth more than my car.

Answer 1

pink,

Human arrogance and narcissism assumes we have control over things where we actually have none. this is a good example.

To address the "Supercomputer modeling" the assumptions were made with exponential rather then logarithmic data. The dolts that claim "the models tell" are part of the problem. I am a scientist, I know statistics, I know how to use statistics to get the data I desire to make my point, the same hold true for these ecoidiots.
Manipulate data, feed it to the sheep and see if they will eat it. Doh!!

Simple common sense.. The ecomarxists are exploiting fear (and ignorance) for political gain. The eco-marxist religion is clearly agenda driven. It lacks scientific validity. It is a "belief" not fact.

One fact they have correct, the earth's mean temperature has risen 7/10s of 1 degree over the last hundred years. That is the end of their factual evidence.

There is no evidence it is human caused.

Here is a website that contain a large compendium of valid scientific climate information. I could list dozens if not hundred or thousands, this is a good place to start your own research on the subject.

http://www.junkscience.com

Any time the word "BELIEF or BELIEVE" enters the conversation think "RELIGION". It is cult of epic proportion. The only way to deprogram yourself or others is with facts and understanding.

I am a lifelong student. when I first heard of "Global Warming" I recall in my environmental studies in college the "prevailing" wind was around a new Ice Age.

With certainty climate changes, and has been doing so for 4.6 billion years. Sometimes quickly sometime slowly.

Man is inherently narcissistic and our cultural shapers have found ways to manipulate this for the purpose of gaining power.

The validity of IPCC report fails based on inadequate peer review, Most of the supposed 2500 scientists involved are saying the content of the report is NOT what they recommended of even wrote.

What we can do about it? nothing. Don't believe it. Use your common sense. If there is money involved, someone's pocket will be lined.

Al Gore's is definitely one of the primary pocket liners of the ecomarxist religion.

Answer 2

You set up a false dichotomy. Accepting all the facts about land, sea, humans - the fact is that pollution travels in the air. We are polluting 100% of the atmosphere, and it is changes in the atmosphere that cause global warming.

It is also true from the paleontology record that there have been natural shifts in global temperature over time - and it's also true that the rate of change in the last 50 years far exceeds anything we can see in ice core and rock samples from the last few million years. Yes, there may well be a natural warming happening anyway, but it is absolutely true that we have accelerated that process with pollution by adding millions of tons of unnatural carbon dioxide and other green house gases to our air.

Other changes, such as the release of CFCs over a 30 year period, have substantially damaged the structure of the atmosphere, affecting not only global warming but our overall exposure to radiation from the sun. The fact is that there is an uneven distribution of ozone anyway, and it is thinnest at the polls. CFCs moving through the atmosphere end up at the polls, further reducing the ozone layer. This may well have genetic consequences in some parts of the globe.

Answer 3

If Global Warming is occuring naturally, I don't want to do anything to stop it, even if it gets to the point where no one can survive in the heat. But the problem is that it's not. Turn the lights off in your room, and light a little candle. The room is the earth, and the candle is those 5% you were talking about. However much of the room is being illuminated, that's how much you're affecting the earth.
Even if it's not real, and we don't exaggerate it to the point calling it Global Warming, we should just stop polluting the air. Nobody wants to live in a place where the air is so polluted. So we should stop. It's simple.

Answer 4

I love how everyone argues with unsupported "facts" and expects you to take them seriously.

I agree with what you say. I have my own ideas that I would like to contribute for your acceptance/use or denial/rejection.
Entirely up to you.

I think government funded activities-that account for data on the political, and media announced "problems"(which open doors for infinite spending of american tax dollars) cannot be trusted as accurate based on the idea that scientists must be professionals.

All of the entire solar system is heating up.
This is because the solar system has a combined force.
A compilation of planetary and solar energies creates a capacitor or spherical store (like a battery) of energy.
If additional energy is added by an outside source, then the whole capacitor absorbs the energy and it is distributed amonst the planets by the increased output of the sun.

The sun is like a generator, and the planets draw from it.
If another source creates a draw then the sun heats up to compensate. Only we are affected, because there is not seperate links between the suns output and each individual planet.

Its like being in a room full of people that produce body heat and carbon dioxide. With every added person, the room gets hotter and stuffier. It is nature's course to then balance out the changes. Someone opens a window or props a door open, they wave books and papers at their faces...

If you're in a company and there is an increase in demand because a new country opened a market for your product,
you increase production. The consequence is increased consumption of resources, with increased profits.

When you add something to the equation, you get more.
The earth already had everything that is on it. Moving it around and even changing the form of things chemically has such a miniscule effect on a planet that is so wrapped up in bigger forces that control it.
The earth is influenced by all of the surrounding balls of mass and energy.

If anything, we are en extention of earth's "personality" and all that we do is drawn out of us by the bigger forces that influence earth.
What choice or free will do we actually have?

My point here has been that you don't end up eith extra energy for no reason. Something has been added.
Either there is a large body (planet X) entering the solar system (I hear there is a large scale project to construct 4 giant land -based telescopes across the southern hemisphere of earth. To measure distance and movement of an object you need at least 3 points of reference.)
It's that or the sun is just randomly burning at a fast rate producing extra rays.
What else causes cancer except radiation?
Why has cancer become so prominate? Extra radiation from the sun. Why the higher SPF sunblocks now? Because there are more UV rays and Infared.

On another note, wouldn't we first be most likely to have an impact through our deforestation and exponentially increasing carbon dioxide production from 6.5 billion people?

Im willing to bet that oxygen levels are diminishing.

Answer 5

You have to consider that the 80% that are polluting aren't just having a campfire and trip to the store in the car. Energy production as well as cars and regular households produce millions of tons of CO2. Then add all the CO2 that's been produced since the industrial revolution to the natural CO2 that is produced by the earth and yes suddenly when you add up all these factors, tiny little humans can have a huge impact. The earth naturally reabsorbs CO2 through trees and water, but when we are cutting down those trees the CO2 isn't being reabsorbed.

Answer 6

When I was in college, I was having breathing problems and a doctor ordered xrays of my sinuses.

He said there was nothing more wrong with them than having lived in the city.

I was only 20 at the time and had lived in Boston for less than two years. My previous 18 were on a farm in the country.

If more people worried about how negative behaviors are affecting the health of themselves and their loved ones on a daily basis, the Earth would become a generally better place to live.

By using terms like, "global warming," I believe it desensitizes the issue and makes it easier for people to believe their individual behavior doesn't matter.

Answer 7

Actually, I don't care if the global warming arguments are accurate or false.

The things that are good for reducing global warming, like reducing energy consumption of fossil fuels are good in the long term because fossil fuels just won't last forever. That just makes economic sense, even if one disagrees with global warming theory.

I tend to look at our addiction to petroleum much like I look at addiction to cocaine. I don't like who gets the money from the addiction (oil sheiks, terrorists or organized crime thugs) and I don't like how those people use the money to destabilize society. So I would love to see different energy sources and different ways of handling waste. One need not be a hardcore environmentalist to prefer change.

As to your question about how a small percentage of humans can destroy the environment, it is not just 5% of the planet involved. Europe, Asia and South America also contribute to air pollution, water pollution and overfishing of the oceans.

If you were a student of the First World War, you would know that a relatively small amount of mustard gas could kill people because the gas expanded into a larger airspace. That is somewhat like we are doing on a larger scale with Earth's atmosphere. Sure, it takes time to make the atmosphere filthy, but humans have been doing it for at least 100 years now, and are doing so at an accelerating pace worldwide. I don't need to believe in global warming or environmetalism to recognize that I now travel to places I first visited 30 years ago and see that the quality of the air and water have dramatically gotten worse.

I have lost a loved one to lung cancer that was probably the result of copper smelter emissions in her home town when she was a child and have seen an amazing string of relatively rare cancers in that community that are probably due to the same conditions. Sure, my observations are "unscientific", but I know what I see.

Students of biology have learned that there are species that are actually too successful -- they reproduce and essentially destroy the basis of their existence. Humans are not any different and the same rules apply to us. Like other creatures, we can soil out own nest to our own destruction. And I am an optimist.

Answer 8

you are right on and dont listen to these blind mice.if we are so arrogent to think that the ant farm civiliation we have created for ourselves can destroy a part of this universe as large and in charge as this earth, then we are not as smart as we think.this planet can and will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.lets see huricane katrina,mass flooding along mississippi cold snaps on east coast, the sunami that recently happend,tornados in the rockies,shall i go on?wake up people we're only one step above our pets ruffly speaking.globle warming,itl'll do its thing with or without us this land has been here how long and surrvived it'll be here long after the human race has been forgotten.dont get me wronge im all for cleaning up after ourselves.i hate dirty roads,and camp sites just hate trash.but lets get off the high horse.your scientists will be gone with the rest of us.lets concintrate on something a little more now like raiseing our children the right way.then we might not have to ask these sort of questions.

Answer 9

Nearly 100% of the land is involved in farming / ranching / mining / landfills. We have changed the surface reflectivity of Earth, including "oils slicks" on ocean surfaces. Take each human and multiply it by the 2 - 4 animals (equivalent mass to humans) required to feed each human on average annually. More meat than this planet has ever supported. Take the US alone, and add the CO2 of something on the order of 9 trillion human beings (normal respiration) just from combustion of fuel made from crude oil, to say nothing of coal. Extend that to other countries. Now factor in change of ocean currents when we capture and evaporate nearly every drop of water on land, and under the land, and send out pollutant-rich water in the rivers, that quickly consume all the available oxygen. We know water vapor, CO2, and methane have increased by a factor of 3 or more, worldwide since the 1700s. We know this "blanket" (that keeps heat in) is getting thicker. We know we are capturing more insolation due to surface changes. We know temperatures have been climbing, globally, on average. So, here comes your answer: Water vapor both blocks production of ozone, and provides a decay path for ozone. Since aircraft belch out water vapor at altitude (even flying through the ozone layer on polar overflights), since more water vapor has been noted with the Rise of Man, and since global temperatures are on the rise which weakens the thermocline that keeps water vapor out of the ozone layer, then add in the little CFC debacle uniquely sourced by Man... you've got plenty of evidence that the cause of increased cataracts, cancer, mutation, loss of crop yields, and loss of arable land... points squarely at Mankind and him breeding like a virus.

Answer 10

the ozone hole is repairing itself now (that's how we know :-) )
But it's important to save on gas by driving less and using other means to depend on it less because other very large countries are now coming up to production levels and they are no longer poor countries and they are using gasoline (us too) at alarming levels and so are we...keep that up and the resources diminish quickly. So we in the US have to plan ahead as to what will we do in the future and for the next generation. We didn't create global warming but we sure are adding to it a lot and quickly.