Global warming skeptics - What's your answer to this?

Question

Hey, skeptics. Before you post, think of the best argument you have for why humans aren't causing global warming. Then look it up here: http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics.

You'll find that most anti-global warming arguments are based on simple logical fallacies like cherry-picking and attacking straw men. There's also a lot of manipulation of data and simple confusion of scientific findings.

If you're still skeptical, tell me why you're right and thousands of trained climate scientists are wrong. And remember, "scientists" who accept oil and gas company money and don't submit their findings to peer-reviewed journals aren't real scientists.

Answer 1

The earth goes through cycles we are just now beginning to understand and in our recorded time have no idea how the system works..
Who are we to say it isn't normal?
Remember we are the flat center of the universe...right?

Answer 2

You're never going to convince global warming skeptics of anything because they want to be skeptics. Over 90% of scientists are convinced that the vast majority of the recent global warming has been caused by humans. If that's not enough to convince you, then you're probably not willing to be convinced. I just want to address 2 misunderstandings which have been repeated in this discussion.

1) "Natural cycles". Yes, there have been natural cooling and warming cycles over the Earth's history. Does that mean that humans can't amplify these temperature variations or cause our own? Of course not.

If you examine the natural cycles you will realize that they don't change as much or as fast naturally as the recent global warming. In addition, the cooling and warming in the 20th and early 21st centuries have been very accurately modelled by a combination of human and natural effects. For example, cooling in the 70s was caused by particulates spewed into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions and human emissions of aerosols. As we've reduced our aerosol emissions and increased our CO2 emissions, humans have contributed to global warming.

We can model both the natural and human contributions to global warming and cooling much better than people think, and scientists are convinced that most of the recent warming is caused by humans, not natural cycles.

2) Meteorologists. Meteorologists have zero climatology education. If you ask a meteorologist if something (for example, increased hurricane power and frequency) is due to global warming, they will have no clue. They'll probably guess so that they sound like experts, but they really have no idea. Thus citing a meteorologist (like skeptic Jason A does) is completely meaningless.

You might as well ask Kobe Bryant how to throw a curveball. As an athlete he can guess, and he probably will to preserve his ego, but in reality he has no idea.

Answer 3

Scientists who accept oil company money to critique GW studies can indeed be real scientists, they're just dishonest sell-outs.

Although I'm on your side, I have, for many years, been astounded at how dishonest some scientists can be when their livelihoods are in jeopardy. Reputation doesn't seem to be important to some of them.

That is why, as you point out, peer-review is essential.

As well, it's important for other impartial scientists to confirm the results by reproducing them in a different laboratory. Fortunately, that is being done in the area of Global Warming, and soon only the crackpots who insist on politicizing the issue will be on the side of the skeptics.

Answer 4

I'm not a skeptic, but I think the main argument is that Earth's climate has always been in flux and constantly changing. We have just discovered climate models that predict changes in temperature within the last 100 years or so. What's to say this type of swing in temperature hasn't happened in the past before human records? There has been quite a few known ice ages in Earth's history.

Do we really know what is the full cause of Earth's dramatic climate changes in the past, and are we likely approaching another bump in the natural cycle.

Answer 5

If you watch "The Great Global Warming Swindle," it will explain that Co2 follows temperature change and not the other way around. On the second link believers admit that Co2 does lag but they still think that Co2 is still a threat. I do not need scientists, who are getting funds from the government by continuing the fear, telling me that Co2 is still a threat when I have 650,000 years of data to show otherwise. In Al Gore's movie they stopped plotting the temperature data for the last 10000 years.

Refer to the first link for the link to the video above and a link to an excellent lecture. I watched the lecture by clicking on http server(on the site). Even though the video is very small, they will display the charts in the middle of the screen.

Answer 6

Thousands of "trained climate scientists" can still get it wrong. Trained climate science can't even tell me if it will rain tomorrow with 100% certainty most of the time. Someone pays for the work they do too. Their "convenient truth" can also be their "bread and butter". Concensus is not science. When global warming becomes an established "scientific LAW of the universe"...well, but until then, I'm not buying it.

Answer 7

You pose a very interesting question. While I was in college I took a class called The Atmospheric Environment and the final exam was a debate about global warming. I choose to argue that global warming is a natural phenomena. There is actually compelling data out there to prove that global warming is cyclical and natural. Whether you want to believe that is your own opinion, I personally believe that humans are a large contributor to the global warming of the planet. But that is just me.

Answer 8

And scientists that accept grant money to study global warming and develop solutions to the problem are not real scientists either.

Answer 9

Assuming people on both sides of this can be bought off, I like the "common sense" approach too.

Does it make sense to argue about the merits of one theory in order to avoid doing something constructive for yourself?

Global warming, whether real or not, should never be construed as a Get Out Of Jail Free card for people who pollute, strip mine, clearcut, or drive up fuel costs through excess.

Common sense dictates you should follow good resource management techniques no matter what the temperature is, especially if the bottom line is saving money overall.

I'm tired of all the whining about why people shouldn't have to change bad habits. Life is about getting off your duff and doing something positive, whether the benefits to you are immediate or not.

Answer 10

Let's skip "science" and let's skip politics and go right to lessons learned as a kid. Remember the "chicken little story" or "the boy who cried wolf". For decades the scientific community comes out with this and that, there was supposed to be global ice age, we would be wiped out by mad cow disease, bird flu and oh countless other topics. Always humans bad, always it's our fault, always change to do what we say.

Scientist have know been classed with the sci-fi world is coming to end moving of the week. They are the boy who cried wolf and the chicken afraid the sky is falling.

Answer 11

I can't believe people are still recommending the "swindle" movie. It's bad science.

The director made a similarl movie in 1997, which compared environmentalists to Nazis. Channel 4 had to issue a public apology for that one.

"Against Nature argues that greens in First World countries are responsible for the deprivation and death of millions of children in the Third World. In their callous disregard for human welfare and their fetishism of nature, greens, it maintains, are not merely conservative, but fascist, drawing their inspiration from precisely the same ideologies as the Nazis. It would be laughable, had it not been given three hours of prime time TV."

http://www.videonetwork.org/stuff/againstnature.html

This one is similar in quality.

" A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the film was riddled with distortions and errors."

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece

Even Channel 4 doesn't believe that nonsense is correct. If you go to their website, on the page for the film are links to factual global warming sites. You can "Ask an Expert" and your question goes to a respected mainstream scientist who says man is mostly responsible for global warming.

So why did they show it?

"The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy."

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032572,00.html