Is it true that scientists use global warming as a fund raising tool????

Question

We all know that the earth goes through cycles of temperatures of about 32 degrees from its highest point to its lowest, plus humans arn't the main cause of CO2, so is it just a great fundraising tool then, or what?? And where does Al Gore fit in to all this???

well I'm glad that those of you who wrote early feel so strongly towards what Al Gore has to say, but what about when the Dino's roamed the earth there where no Ice sheets and if you believe it or not we are still in an ice age, and those my friends are cold hard facts.....

Answer 1

The point about the being in an ice age is actually a fact that many forget to take into consideration. We are actually coming out of the last ice age still. What was the temperature BEFORE the ice age? Then we'll know where we're headed.

Also, although trivialized in the online Q&A, there are a number of highly educated and specialized scientist's that do NOT agree that global warming is a problem. Over 17,000 have signed a petition indicating such beliefs. I have listed the source info below about the petition.

As also pointed out in a previous answer, people are NOT the number one cause of global warming. The sun is increasing in it's solar outburst which directly affect the rising temperature of the earth, therefore, lets try to keep our minds open and use logical reasoning, something being taught less and less in our public schools.

We must NOT become sheople of the governmnet, but instead become self-educated people that have as many facts as possible before making any absolute judgements.

Is it bad to try and be more aware of what we're doing? Of course not, but so far none of the governments have come up with a solution that will affect this alleged major 'issue'. And NO, the 'Kyoto Treaty' is NOT the solution, just more big government causing more oversight using more of our tax money resulting in higher taxes to support a flawed proposal. I'd prefer to see our tax dollars helping those American's here at home that are at or below poverty levels.

This is just my 2 cents worth, but don't discount it too quickly. Despite what Al Gore's mockumentary states, it's not all true, nor all agreed upon by the top minds in the world.

Answer 2

Have you stopped to think that maybe you've got it backwards? Maybe climatology funding has increased because global warming has been discovered to be a huge threat, rather than looking at it from the conspiracy viewpoint that scientists are creating a hoax to get funding?

That's not how science works. Scientists cannot falsify data because their experiments are repeatable. If a scientist is found to have falsified data, his career is over.

Evidence for anthropogenic global warming:

We know from ice core samples that historically when global warming occurred, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations also increased, but not until about 800 years later.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Many global warming deniers think this is evidence that CO2 can’t cause global warming. In fact, that’s the very first argument in the terrible Great Global Warming Swindle. On the contrary, this is actually evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are currently causing global warming. Compare the following global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration plots from 1960-Present:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

As you can see they’re both rising – not with an 800 year delay, but at the same time. If CO2 wasn’t causing global warming as was the case in the past, then why is there no 800 year delay?

This only proves a correlation between CO2 and global warming and not a causality. The reason we’ve concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming (or more accurately, accelerating it) is because natural causes can’t account for the increase in global warming over the past 40-50 years. They account for most of the warming prior to that, but climate models have determined that greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80-90% of the recent global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The very first inputs into climate models were solar, volcanic, and sunspot contributions, but they simply couldn’t account for the recent acceleration in global warming. Thus climate scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause.

Answer 3

Big deal. funding has increased in pretty much every Field of science in recent years and deservedly so given the multitude of problems created be humans such as overfishing and pollution. You should consider that since the late 1908s and into the 90s governments began to recognize the value of scientific prediction models after the collapse of several fisheries and the degradation of many coastal and marine ecosystems. This increase of money is large but it correlates to the adopting of the principles of ESD Ecological Sustainable development which have been adopted in most modernized countries. I would err on the side of caution when it comes to most things and there is a very strong possibility that man is responsible for global warming thus a concerted effort should be made to reducer emissions as a precaution. imagine if when you went to the doctor the doc told you that you have contracted the bird flew and need further tests but you ignored it because you read on the net that the flew was going around and it had nothing to do with the bird flew virus. You would look like an idiot if you died.

Answer 4

How do you know that the earth goes through those temperature cycles? Could it be that scientists have studied climatology and global warming for many years now, and have worked out ways to research the records?

Yes, global warming is used by scientists studying it to get funds. They didn't invent it, they are just studying it and what it will mean to the world. Scientists are supposed to be looking at all the evidence, not just what supports one side or another. In this case, most of the evidence points to carbon dioxide and water based warming.

Of course, there is a lot to be gained by proving that it doesn't exist, so there is quite an effort to show that too. Some scientists are studying solar radiation, magnetic fields, carbon seqestering, volcanos, etc, to try to explain the warming trend in other terms. Unfortunately, many of the predictions that were being made in the 80's and 90's are now considered mild, compared to what has happened.

Al Gore actually comes a bit later to the picture than the scientists. He has been following the last 3 or 4 decades of research and is presenting them to the public. Scientists don't generally like to get in front of the public to explain themselves.

Answer 5

No, scientists get funding to get the facts one way or another. In most cases, the funds do not reflect the results.
Now some scientists do get paid to disagree publicly with some research results, because the results are perceived threats to industrial profits somewhere> you can usually tell these people, because they will generally talk a lot without presenting a journal that was published for pier review.
Kind of like Lizden when he was trying to make people think second hand smoke and pollution could not possibly lead to lung cancer, several years ago. The cigarette companies still funded the research to prove whether or not smoking had an adverse effect, but cigarette companies still paid for the research even though they attempted to cover up the results.
that is usually how things work, when your results conflicts with millions in profit.

There is nothing wrong with accepting properly presented research that discredits other research about global warming, but much of the opinions from skeptics, are just that...opinion. And lately scientists start crying that their OPINION is ignored by media, and other scientists, but when you are looking at a published journal versus another man's opinion, which would you accept?

Answer 6

As several folks have already stated, funding is necessary to perpetuate research, regardless of where that funding comes from. That's just simple economics. Research wouldn't get accomplished if there was no funding for it.

The research has been and continues to show overwhelmingly that global warming is real. The scientists don't create the truth, they simply look at what is and do their best to break it down, study it, try to make sense of it, and then build upon their knowledge and understanding of the world around us. All scientists really do is study what is and try to explain it.

Human beings with political or personal motives can affect what information gets shared and what gets closeted.

Al Gore is simply an individual who has been looking at the data and the trends over a long period of time, and feels strongly enough to act. He's also in a position of power and influence, and has the advantage of being able to reach millions of people. You don't see little old me out there, doing what he's doing, not because I don't care but because no one has any idea who the heck I am - I don't have any money, power, or influence, so no one would listen to me. If it was Leonardo DiCaprio out there in stead of Al Gore, people would probably be whining just as much about Leo as they do about Al.

Here's my take on the whole thing. Your mom told you to clean your room as a kid. You didn't want to, because you didn't want to go through the trouble; you didn't want to do the work; you didn't want to have to stop doing whatever it was you were doing, which was clearly far more fun; you didn't want to have to do something your mom told you to do; you didn't want to have to change your habits; and the list goes on. But your mom wanted your room cleaned for a reason - your clothes were all over the floor and hadn't been washed in 3 weeks; there were dirty dishes piled up on every surface, in corners, growing mold; half of your toys, books, CDs, and other sundries were missing or broken because they weren't put back where they were supposed to go; your sheets hadn't been changed in 3 months and now they reeked of body odor; and this list, too, goes on. Whether you wanted to acknowledge that you were living in a bacteria-infested pig-stye or not, the fact of the matter is that if you didn't take care of things, you were going to get sick, or hurt (tripping on something on the floor, no doubt), you wouldn't have any clothes to wear...and yet another list goes on. The difference here is that if you came of age (18) and moved out and got your own place and wanted to live like that, that was fine, because it didn't affect anyone else but yourself; but if you've got people living with you, sharing the same living space, the same food, the same breathing air, etc., then you're putting them at risk as well. As a kid, you didn't necessarily understand why mom told you to clean your room. All you knew was that you didn't want to, and you found every reason under the sun as to why you couldn't, shouldn't, and wouldn't do it. As an adult, it would seem that the childhood mentality still prevails - "I'm not gonna buy it, because I don't want to have to change my habits! I don't care if that means all the rest o'y'all choke on my tailpipe!" With this mentality, no amount of scientific evidence is going to change the minds of the naysayers.

But if you'll only take one thing away from my post, take this: regardless of whether or not Global Warming is a reality, how in the world does becoming more environmentally responsible a bad and awful thing? Wherein lie the fundamental evils of recycling, or reducing emissions and finding alternative sources of energy, or planting and maintaining sustainable crops? If the answer involves "because it's all political propaganda" or "because it would force me to change my wasteful and gluttonous consumer habits," then I don't consider the question properly addressed and answered.

Answer 7

Have you seen any scientists with blings? I've seen lot of rich law makers and rich oil company executives.

Let me give you an analogy here. Please read it carefully.

Let say you're driving your car. Most heat come from your engine. Your funny buddy put a blow torch on your engine. It will slowly overheat. So, ok, your engine is now over heating.

You say well most heat is caused by engine, so the blow torch is not the problem. So you let your friend fry the engine with blow torch.

See the problem?

Scientists know about natural cycle, they know CO2 by human is not big relative to other sources. But they know what is causing unusual acceleration of warming.

You say it's car engine(Earth), I'll say it's blow torch(human produced CO2).


Sure, you can shut off engine. Can you shut off Earth?


Of course human CO2 is not majority of CO2 on Earth. But it is accelerating warming. Just like the blow torch on your engine.

Answer 8

Actually Global warming is true if u look at the temperature scans of the earth u'll see some hot areas and Al Gore tries to help us understand the problem.

Answer 9

Global Warming is very profitable. Dr. James Hansen took $250,000.00 from John Kerry's presidential campaign to endorse Kerry, and tell people Kerry had a better plan for the environment.

Hansen also took money to work on Algore's movie and work on other movies and the "It Could Happen Tomorrow" series on TWC.

He has made a very good business at his tax payers job.

Answer 10

No.

There are natural cycles. But, the scientific data clearly shows that, starting about 40 years ago, Man took control over climate away from nature.

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

We need to give it back.

Who cares about Al Gore? I listen to the scientists. They say global warming is real, and mostly caused by us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"