Do Global Warming skeptics believe in Greenhouse gases?

Question

I was watching a documentary on the History channel last night, and to me it seems like a solid arguement that increased industrial activity and growth has put tons more CO2 in the atmosphere, trapping in the Sun's rays.

I know the Sun is getting brighter and the Earth naturally changes, but even a 2 degree increase in global temperature has exponential effect like the oceans rising 3 feet.

I don't want to talk about Al Gore here so please don't bring him up, I'm talking about melting ice caps, rising oceans, and greenhouse gases, CO2.

What part of Global Warming do skeptics say is not real?

to answer your comments:

I asked this question in politics cause i like your answers better than the science answers. if i wanted to really research it i will.
I heard some scientists say the sun is getting brighter, I can't prove it though.

fourthy is an idiot, get bent dude.

Answer 1

Global warming deniers usually fall into 1 of 2 categories - misinformed and uninformed.

The uniformed will say things like 'it's cold today, so global warming isn't happening!' They don't understand what global warming is and won't take 5 minutes to do a little research on the issue. Basically they don't care. This attitude makes me angry because if scientists are correct about global warming, it's probably the most important issue the human race has ever faced, and they can't be bothered to learn about it. Approximately 10-20% of Americans fall into this category.

The misinformation group is really no better. They'll look for information which says what they want to hear - that humans aren't causing global warming. Things like that it's due to volcanoes or the sun or water vapor - things that have been ruled out by scientists. Often they'll just group it into "natural causes" and use the argument you've seen in this question - that global warming has happened before as a natural cycle and thus humans can't be causing it. This is a lazy and stupid argument, because the fact that global warming has happened before certainly doesn't prove that humans can't cause or accelerate it.

So basically global warming deniers simply don't want to believe humans are responsible, and thus don't bother to learn about the issue (complete denial) or latch onto some sort of misinformation (factual denial) which confirms what they want to hear. The vast majority are conservatives, and as you've probably noticed they'll use Al Gore as an excuse to dismiss the issue, since he's a liberal and they think anything liberal is bad.

Answer 2

Most skeptics say that global warming is a natural fluctuation and man has very little impact on it. The earth does fluctuate in temperature naturally (during part of the dinosaur era, there were no ice caps), but man is having a serious impact and speeding up the process. The skeptics tend to come from two camps (or both):
- The earth was put here by God for man to do what we want, so he'll fix the problem
- To curtail greenhouse emissions would hurt our economy and doesn't make sense until China and India agree to

Both of these are false (God and the belief that we shouldn't do anything unless everybody does).

Answer 3

Why is this in Politics? This question should not be anywhere near the Politics & Government category. But the topic of the science of Global Warming is present here everyday.

What do we Politics junkies REALLY know about green house gasses? We know what Al Gore has told us. We know what the news has told us. OK, some people might have done a little research...but look at the sources of your knowledge of Green House Gasses and Global Warming - people who use it for their benefit. Whether to make a profit or to win votes - it is being exploited, therefore I can not 100% believe that A. We caused it or B. It is something that we can even fix. Convincing the public of these two things is a breeding ground for greed and profit - of which I want no part in.

Answer 4

Most of the global warming skeptics believe that the global warming is not actually occurring. They stress on the fact the climatic conditions vary because of volcanism, the obliquity cycle, changes in solar output, and internal variability. Also the warming can be due to the variation in cloud cover, which in turn is responsible for the temperatures on the earth. The variations are also a result of cosmic ray flux that is modulated by the solar magnetic cycles.

The global warming skeptics are of the view that the global warming is a good phenomenon and should not be stopped. There are various benefits of global warming according to them. According to the skeptics, the global warming will increase humidity in tropical deserts. Also the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere trigger plant growth.

Answer 5

The man-made part. It's been occurring naturally since time began. Have you ever thought about what one volcanic eruption puts into the atmosphere. Not to say though that we shouldn't be good stewards of the planet. Just that GW as put forth by the man you don't want mentioned is the biggest scam in world history.

Answer 6

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930's the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920's until the 1960's they warned of global warming. From the 1950's until the 1970's they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.

The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth's climate. In fact, scientists believe the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland.

What the climate alarmists and their advocates in the media have continued to ignore is the fact that the Little Ice Age, which resulted in harsh winters which froze New York Harbor and caused untold deaths, ended about 1850. So trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend.

Something that the media almost never addresses are the holes in the theory that C02 has been the driving force in global warming. Alarmists fail to adequately explain why temperatures began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, long before man-made CO2 emissions could have impacted the climate. Then about 1940, just as man-made CO2 emissions rose sharply, the temperatures began a decline that lasted until the 1970's, prompting the media and many scientists to fear a coming ice age.

A letter sent to the Canadian Prime Minister on April 6, 2006 by 60 prominent scientists who question the basis for climate alarmism, clearly explains the current state of scientific knowledge on global warming. The 60 scientists wrote: "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary." The letter also noted: "‘Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise."

In 2006, the director of the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks Alaska, testified to Congress that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than "science fiction."

"Geologists Think the World May be Frozen Up Again." That sentence appeared over 100 years ago in the February 24, 1895 edition of the New York Times.

A front page article in the October 7, 1912 New York Times, just a few months after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, declared that a prominent professor "Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age." The very same day in 1912, the Los Angeles Times ran an article warning that the "Human race will have to fight for its existence against cold." An August 10, 1923 Washington Post article declared: "Ice Age Coming Here."

By the 1930's, the media took a break from reporting on the coming ice age and instead switched gears to promoting global warming: "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise" stated an article in the New York Times on March 27, 1933.

The media of yesteryear was also not above injecting large amounts of fear and alarmism into their climate articles. An August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune declared: "Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada." The article quoted a Yale University professor who predicted that large parts of Europe and Asia would be "wiped out" and Switzerland would be "entirely obliterated."

A December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling reported that climatologists believed "the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade." The article also warned that unless government officials reacted to the coming catastrophe, "mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence" would result. In 1975, the New York Times reported that "A major cooling [was] widely considered to be inevitable."

On February 19, 2006, CBS News's "60 Minutes" produced a segment on the North Pole. The segment was a completely one-sided report, alleging rapid and unprecedented melting at the polar cap. It even featured correspondent Scott Pelley claiming that the ice in Greenland was melting so fast, that he barely got off an ice-berg before it collapsed into the water. "60 Minutes" failed to inform its viewers that a 2005 study by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showing that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice and mass and that according to scientists, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930's than today.

According to data released on July 14, 2006 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the January through June Alaska statewide average temperature was "0.55F (0.30C) cooler than the 1971-2000 average."

In August 2006, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist who heads the space research sector for the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun's output.

Answer 7

What is in question is the percentage of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses that are actually caused by Man. I've heard estimates that it may be as high as 2%, and that a single volcano eruption can match it easily.

Answer 8

skeptics DO believe in global warming, they just believe man its not the main reason for it but nature is. did you know the oceans give off millions of tons of co2 gases alone?

Answer 9

The oil companies started this wonderful campaign stating that how can the CO2 be bad for us, it is all ready in nature. People need to stand up and think.

Answer 10

the fact that the sun is getting brighter. That statement is not real.

"Global Warming" is not man made, people fail to realize but Earth is bigger than us, and there is nothing we can do about changing anything.