Are you skeptical of Global Warming?

Question

Want answers to some of the contrary issues like accepting temperatures from the 1800's, natural causes beyond our control and past evidence of warming/cooling? Click here to get show times and take 60 minutes to get those answers.
http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/special.html?paid=48.13784.120360.0.0

I'm no slack. I believe we are contributing to global warming, but I know some people have contrary views. This show addresses some of the major points of those views. Watching may not change your mind, but might educate you as to why the millions of other people on the planet do believe.

If you discovered you had a disease that warmed your body to 100f and there was nothing you could do about it. The doc says you must take steps to keep yourself cool or you will overheat and die. Would you throw on your wool coat and hat just because you really liked it and spent your hard earned money on it? A bit like having a volcano spewing on the planet contributing to global warming and people saying there is nothing we can do about, sure there is, TAKE OFF THE COAT!

Yes, it is a question. All of the pertinent parts are there.

Answer 1

I'm a scientist, it's my nature and my job to be skeptical. I have always questioned global warming and climate change and will continue to do so, that's what science is all about. We observe something, hympothesis about it, test it then debate it. Global warming is at the debate stage, the stage that never really ends.

I'm not skeptical that global warming is happening. I've studied it, analysed the evidence, seen the effects, know the causes, having done that makes it nigh on impossible to deny.

There are any number of arguments that are put forward in an attempt to refute global warming, some of them have already been mentioned in previous answers. Without exception, they are nothing more than a distraction from the facts. Nobody has yet come up with any credible suggestions or evidence to counter our current understanding of global warming. There's lots of supposed reasons that are put forward, none stand up to scrutiny.

The debates amongst those who know about global warming aren't centred on whether it's happening or not, this is pretty much universally accepted. The debates focus on specific aspects, the reliability of modelling techniques, the accuracy of data. Some skeptics pick up on this and consider it proof that global warming is false, thats kind of like reading a book on American History, finding a spelling mistake and concluding that George Washington never existed.

Answer 2

Depends.

Am I skeptical that the global average temperature has risen since 1900. At this point no.

Am I skeptical of the assertion that Humans are the primary cause off GW? Yep.

Why?

1. Climate models do a poor job handling clouds. Clouds are very important. Until they can be handled, the models mean very little.

2. I am awaiting the results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN. This should tell us a great deal about the cosmic ray mechanism proposed by Svensmark.

3. CO2 is the only mechanism that is rated at a high level of scientific understanding by the IPCC. Coincidentally, it is also the mechanisitic cause of choice right. I have been looking, but not finding thus far, for how the radiative forcing equation the IPCC uses came into being. I want to know what assumptions were made regarding absorption and emission efficiencies (% of photons absorbed and emitted since no process is 100% effcicient). I want to know if the handled collision relaxation of the CO2 molecules after absorption of IR radiation. What atmospheric lifetime are they attributing to CO2? If I can find those things out, CO2 as a factor or non-factor will be settled in my own brain.

4. Why are people so vocal about it? It is like Shakespeare said "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." The caterwaul has far exceeded the level needed for the rather modest temperature change projections spit out by the latest incarnation of inadequate climate models, as given to us by the IPCC. The volume of the noise and the ad hominems launched on those that are skeptical points not towards sureness, but rather an unsureness on the part of those that are unskeptical of AGW.

5. This isn't a reason that I am skeptical, it is more of the political consequence of my skepticism.

The law of unintended consequences vs the Precautionary Principle. Action before adequate knowledge necessarily leads to unintended consequences. The precautionary Principle argues that we shoudl take precautions, even though our knowledge may not be thorough enough. I hate unintended consequences, thus I think there should be more science before the policy makers go off half-****** and get us into something really problematic.

Answer 3

Take off the coat as a cure for "global warming"? Wow, now I've heard it all.

No, the Earth doesn't have a fever, like Algore rants. The Earth naturally heats or cools, as there is no such thing as a static climate. For the last several years, the temps have actually been decreasing since reaching the peak in 1998, the number of hurricanes are down, there's been only some scattered small scale floods while the southern hemisphere is breaking record cold temps and snowfall amounts.

Global warming is just leftover panic from the Y2K bug.

Answer 4

I believe that the earth goes through a process of global warming naturally. I do not believe in the, sorry for sounding rude, democratic dramatized version of Global Warming. For thousands of years before people walked this earth, patterns of global warming had exist. In fact there was a period of time before humans that the earth had levels of carbon dioxide far greater than it is today. The ozone layer also constantly changes thickness yearly, therefore we are not the main causes of global warming. I personally think this idea was created to start up more dispute between party lines. It is obvious that the Democratic party is using this to try to gain more power and the Republicans are feeding off it.

Answer 5

Global warming is one-half of the climatic cycle of warming and cooling.
The earth's mean temperature cycles around the freezing point of water.
This is a completely natural phenomenon which has been going on since there has been water on this planet. It is driven by the sun.
Our planet is currently emerging from a 'mini ice age', so is becoming warmer and may return to the point at which Greenland is again usable as farmland (as it has been in recorded history).
As the polar ice caps decrease, the amount of fresh water mixing with oceanic water will slow and perhaps stop the thermohaline cycle (the oceanic heat 'conveyor' which, among other things, keeps the U.S. east coast warm).
When this cycle slows/stops, the planet will cool again and begin to enter another ice age.
It's been happening for millions of years.
Humans did not cause it.
Humans cannot stop it.

Answer 6

I'm not so skeptical of the underlying premise of the greenhouse effect but of the ulterior motives of the people complaining about it, from Al Gore and his carbon credits to John and Teresa Kerry who now have a book on it and even to the organic food and vegetarianism crowd.

Answer 7

Lots of stupid answers so far from the skeptics! here's why:

If global warming is a "scam" then who is benefiting from the scam? It's much more likely that global warming skepticism is a scam, since there are somany multi-billion dollar enterprises that depend on polluting. They have a reason to lie, and they pay their scientists very well to "prove" what they want proved (these are the 5% of scientists who claim that global warming is not real).

Even if humans are not causing global warming, the same polluters that are emitting greenhouse gasses are still poisoning our air and water with toxins like pcb's and mercury, causing cancer, birth defects, asthma, destroying the natural environment, etc. So either way fossil fuel burning is hurting us more than we can afford.

What is the point of this skepticism? It's a capitalism thing. the rich run the world aqnd own the media, so even something that scientists overwhelmingly agree on can be be disputed by a few well paid scientists and discredited.

What scam?!! What does Al Gore have to gain from global warming? You sound like some right-wing gun nuts paranoid about "the guvurnment". It's not even a conspiracy theory, it's just a conspiracy claim.

Answer 8

I can't add much to what Joe U and Fred F have already said - They nailed it right on.

Global warming is a political scare tactic used to control the population. Whether or not there is any "significant" mean temperature fluctuation around the globe, it is completely natural, and NOT caused by man. You can open your eyes to the reality or you can keep being led around by the nose by people who have hidden agendas.

Wake up and smell the scam, folks. You have to wonder about the motivations of people who want you to believe something SO BADLY that they beg, plead, cajole, harrass, shame, deceive and highbrow you into seeing their point of view.

The only "inconvenient truth" is that human-caused climate change (in either direction) is a farce and a fools errand. We have no control over even local weather, who are these nitwits saying we can change an entire ecosystem for the "better"? And whose definition of "better" are we using here? The Inuits? The desert nomads? Residents of the equator? Some bubblehead from Miami? Are we supposed to vote on this? Or just take Al Gore's word on what is best? Please.

Answer 9

I am not skeptical of the concept of "global warming", what I am aware of is that it's happened many times before. Has nothing to do with the ozone layer. Mr. Gore wants to scare us all to create a platform to run in 2012. Yet, when asked what he has done to cut the electrical use at his ranch in Tennessee, that he rarely stays at but it uses 4 to 5 times that fuel than any normal home, he couldn't answer. Mr. Gore and his pundits are making an attempt to scare the hell out of everyone, when what we have going on is a natural part of nature. Yes, land may get covered by water. But, to stop that from happening.........isn't that more unnatural?

Answer 10

If Al Gore would keep his mouth shut the earth's average temperature would fall a degree or two. Think of the water needed to bathe his big fat a.s.s., or the gas to haul his butt around his own house.

Global warming is only a scam brought on by the moonshine chugging cousin humping hillbilly from tens knee and other tree hugging meadow muffins of the world.

There is no global warming, it's a scare tactic to keep those losers employed and busy. Like racism. Jesse and Al wouldn't have a job if they didn't perpetuate the racism card.

Al would disappear and get fatter if he didn't perpetuate the global warming scam.

Not to mention making his millions selling carbon offsets thru his company. Gee isn't that a lucky coincidence?