Why are people still treating global warming like a debate topic?

Question

Global warming is FACT. It is not a theory.

It is caused by humans, and don't even TRY to mention that the polar ice caps of mars are melting, or that it is a natural cycle.

Global warming has happened in the past. Climate does change naturally. But the previous changes happened when the carbon dioxide levels were natural. Because of us, the atmospheric levels of CO2 are higher now than they ever were. We are now outside the realm of natural climate variation. More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to higher temperatures.

Given these facts, why do people ignore them and treat global warming like a theory? Why do they assume it's natural? IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?

Answer 1

Really now.

We've totally bypassed the theory phase and have now jumped straight to fact? I don't know what to say to a person that is clueless as to what constitutes theory and fact.

Global warming is a loose set of hypotheses. If people are treating it as a theory, then you should be happy that it is getting more respect than is due.

How do you know that "we are now outside the realm of natural climate variation"? We have had higher temperatures and higher CO2 concentrations. Or do you mean that anything not yet experienced by this generation of humanity is "unnatural"?

Answer 2

Alarmist Global Warming Claims Melt

Under Scientific Scrutiny ---

By James M. Taylor --- Chicago Sun-Times --- 30 June 07

In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop
tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end
to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of
intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore
repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing
as the central focus of public discourse.

If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a
difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming.

A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and
honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and
mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of
building support for a desired political position.

Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,''
have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can
show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging
where science has rebutted his claims.

For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global
warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American
Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing
in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who
recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to
blame."

Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that
global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of
Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global
warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is
the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously
moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is
evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has
been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes.

Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes.
However, hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1
documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past.
Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27,
that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic
coast has declined in the past 40 years. Hurricane scientists reported in
the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters that global warming enhances wind
shear, which will prevent a significant increase in future hurricane
activity.

Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts.
However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's
deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in
what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise
sea levels by 20 feet. But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of
Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing
inland, with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the
Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the
coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming.
Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a
whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More recently, scientists
reported in the September 2006 issue of the British journal Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and
Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet
showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003. And the U.N. Climate Change
panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice
mass during the remainder of the century.

Each of these cases provides an opportunity for Gore to lead by example in
his call for an end to the distortion of science. Will he rise to the
occasion? Only time will tell.

Answer 3

Global warming, like global cooling is inevitable - The Earth experiences global climate change in intervals.

For someone to say that Global warming doesn't exist, is speaking from ignorance. Likewise, for someone to say that only humans are responsible for global warming, is also speaking from ignorance.

The questions are, "Are we in a period of global warming and if so, to what extent are humans increasing the rate of global warming?"

Those are the arguments.

There is no doubt we effect our world and there is no doubt we have the ability to cause major damage to the ecosystem.

Regardless of what one's view is on global warming and the impact humans have on it, does not negate our responsibility to try an minimize the negative impact we have on our world.

Pollution is not a good thing, not only does it have immediate negative effects on our health, it also has long term effects on the ecosystem. Abusing our planet is not without consequence, whether it be in the short or long term.

It is inevitable that as our civilization advances and grows we will negatively effect our ecosystem, but we certainly have the responsibility to minimize the damage we do.

Why do some people deny that we are doing damage to our ecosystem? Ignorance.

Answer 4

There really isn't a debate over global warming. The debate is what the primary cause is. Everyone knows that man and nature are both partially responsible. But, we don't have hard statistics regarding which of the 2 is the most significant cause.

Answer 5

yep, I agree they are morons. I'm not one of them, and for that I'm glad. I'd rather be among people like u when the time comes. It'll probably come don't to this in the end; the people who give a damn versus the people who don't give a damn. The latter deserve each other, and they don't deserve to be among us as long as they insist on being ---holes. It's that simple! leave em be. We don't need them. Leave em in the past with their dynosaur technology and fossil fuel- a thing fast becoming obsolete, as will their gas hog vehicles. Those people are people not really worth knowing. They are the kind who'd be the last to help others as well. I hope that when the ---- hits the fan, they run into only people just like themselves. That's their carma, and that's the way it'll be. u and me and thousands of others, will explore all kinds of technology and advancements made in a large spectrum multidisplinary sciences, leading to all kinds of discoveries. Negative , cynical people, with defeatist attitudes never did great things. Leave the losers be, and join the ever growing number of people who are trying to find out how to break free from the dependancy monster, and stop feeding it. Your friend!

Answer 6

Political correctness will be the death of us all.
Overpopulation is the principal cause of global warming. Yet we still have religious and political leaders actually encouraging more births among their population.
Nuclear power has great risks but could also be a great solution to our environmental problems. It needs improvement but that is what scientists are for. I wish the other alternative energy sources had more possibilities but progress has been slow and unconvincing.

Answer 7

Global warming is not just happening on Mars, it's also happening on Pluto, Jupiter, and on moons. Remeber in the 70s it was a global cooling. Global warming has become the new scare tactic for Americans.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aj3SrNiVEmzo6ebsynzj7rAjzKIX?qid=20061216061130AANYAiV

Answer 8

Many are conservatives who take their political beliefs to an extreme. If liberals, environmentalists, or, worst, Al Gore say something it simply must be wrong.

It's easier to believe propaganda from someone like Rush Limbaugh than it is to actually look at the science. And it makes discussions resemble political debates.

You can't change that, but it may change as more and more indisputable conservatives accept mostly man made global warming as real. Such as:

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives Tuesday to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate." Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader)

“It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

Clearly, those people didn't get that from Al Gore.

Answer 9

Only your opinion. I see some on here talk about population. That's Gods law. Be fruitful and multiply. It was a command. Not an option.

Answer 10

They are because it IS still a theory, with substantial uncertainties and conflicting results. Remember...these same folks were a few decades back hollering gloom and doom about "Global Cooling"??

I am glad that you said all the past peaks, and valleys were natural, because many of them are far bigger and longer than what we are looking at, if the published graphs purportedly supporting Global Warming are in any whit accurate

And it is based on computer models which do not agree, and which so far cannot take the data and produce results that agree with what we know from history. And you trust something that cannot be compared with known history and come up with the right answers? Stake your very life on something that has to have the history erased into a "hockey stick" to predict the future? That's SCIENCE???

Why do the "Global Warming" folks not want you to recall that in the MWP Greenland was farmland, mankind flourished, and as the ice melts we find those evidences now?

Why do the "Global Warming" folks not show how the LIA came to be...it is historical and recent? If they researched that, maybe it has the key to reversing what is going on...it reversed the 500 years of the MWP period! And drove the Vikings out of Greenland, covering it over with ice again.

I am minded of the adage, "Those who do not learn from History are condemned to repeat it."

How about the "Carbon Credits" fiasco. Where the BIG Corporations can bulldoze the jungles, drive the poor people off their lands and into poverty and camps, and plant Oil Palms that only sequester 80% of the carbon the jungle did? Looks like going the wrong way to me... increasing the CO2 for money. Right? And how many important GW advocates share in that largesse?

Remember, even the curves I see in the pro-GW reports show apparently natural peaks and valleys, some apparently higher than the projected ones I hear about that are "awful" and must be stopped at any cost to the public. If man is millions of years old, how did man then survive those peaks, and through the 90,000 years of intense glaciation separating the peak times? We might need to learn something about such times?

But remember, all the stuff that I see is based on computer models with limited data, suppressions of historical data, and cannot cope with the past. Not to my mind good models.

And I have read things about the data that they do NOT want to put into them!! One of our own American greats, Daniel Boone sticks in my mind, said it this way, "Be SURE you are right, then go ahead." I do not see the surety, unless the constant stream of conflicting data is suppressed, along with those who find it. Then we are sure to go ahead wrong.

And remember, humans want a faith, and false ones are a lot more popular, because in general, people do not want to think.

Remember the governments who relied on a distorted religion to keep the serfs under control and rejected real science for pseudo science that supported their positions in power. I think we called it the "Dark Ages?"

And no, really, what is happening now is not hard to understand, if you remember history, know somewhat of human psychology, and of political power, and how science has been bent before for political reasons.

I know you will not like this answer, but if you reject it out of hand, you are rather proving many of the psychological and historical points. In my opinion.