Is global warming the new Y2K ?

Question

Is global warming , carbon offsetting and energy saving the new Y2K business and money making scheme for the government and other business'

Answer 1

I think any sensible (perhaps I should have said 'cynical) person could be forgiven for thinking there is some truth in what you say. Like most people I am willing to accept a natural general trend in global temperature increase at this moment in the Earth's history. However, I am old enough to recall that there were _no_ warnings of a new Ice Age in the mid 20th Centruy, particularly after the appallingly long, freezing winters of 1947 and 1962. And in the equally long - and ridiculously hot - Summer of 1976 there was no mention of global warming, even though the UK was a straw-coloured land of scorched grass and dying trees. Furthermore, according to the scientist who first reported the ozone layer hole enlarging, the hole is now shrinking rapidly - but you don't see any reports of this in the media. Indeed the scientist says that no one seems to want him to propagate his new findings. Similarly, the scientists studying melting of artic ice recently said it is not as severe as they originally predicted. But how many media reports have you read about this? Currently, a lot of 'bandwagon' people are saying the present UK flooding is a direct result of global warming (as they did about the New Orleans flooding). Yet highly respected meteorologists, climate scientists and forecasters have categorically stated that these incidents are _not_ caused by global warming. But how much air time are they given?

Still, as long as governments keep on about climate change they can justify the ludicrous increases in taxes in so many spheres of our lives. And climate scientists with university departments to run can push for more funding.

Incidentally, in the mid 1970s scientists stated that, effectively, we would be out of oil by the end of the 1980s, and in the mid 1990s another group of scientists said that the UK would be decimated by AIDS by the end of the century. Now that we have passed those significant dates it is no wonder that the oridinary citizen becomes so cynical about 'experts' and their gloomy prognostications!

PS For those Y!A members who live in the UK, try to get hold of a copy of today's (25th July) Times newspaper and read the main Leader (page 14). Very appropriate to this question. The article is headed 'Soggy Thinking' and is well worth reading.

Answer 2

The answer to your question is "Yes, global warming is the new Y2K."

But not for the reason you think.

Your assumption is that Y2K was a con job perpetrated by alarmists. As a software engineer and tester for a large software company who tested for Y2K-related bugs, and was at the office at 11:59 PM December 31, 1999, I can say we found at least one Y2K bug in our product -- you didn't hear about it because we fixed it in time. Other companies did the same.

The reason global warming is the new Y2K is that:

1) there IS a threat (just as there was for Y2K);
2) nobody knows exactly how large that threat is;
3) it's easy for people who don't know what they're talking about to claim that the danger is exaggerated;
4) if we do nothing we will be harmed a lot (but nobody knows exactly how much); and
5) if we make a serious effort to solve the problem then we can prevent most of the damage -- as we did for Y2K (at a cost of a lot of money).

So, yes, global waming is the new Y2K -- it's up to us to prevent the problem from spiraling out of control.

Answer 3

Global warming is a real thing. It's also a natural part of the worlds ongoing climate changes for 100's of millions of years. There is usually a spike of high temperatures called global warming that is caused by CO2 and methane gasses being released into the atmosphere. This is usually followed by an ice age as the earth's natural processes reabsorb these gasses causing the earth to cool and freeze. They've studied this by drilling ice cores from the polar regions going back some 650million years. I think I viewd this on Discovery or the History channel or something like that. It come on regularily.

Answer 4

Sorry to disagree with anyone but there is 'no' conclusive proof that this current temperature fluctuation (called global warming in the media) is not natural in the same way there is no conclusive proof that it is. I read scientific papers not just news papers and although virtually the whole scientific community agrees the Earth is getting warmer there is a great deal of disagreement as to why this is happening. It is very difficult to model the Earths energy flux system as we are still finding factors that effect incoming and outgoing radiation.
Having said the above I don't think it is a good idea to keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and that erring on the side of caution may be a good idea. However, environmentalist producing scare stories based on scant scientific evidence does their case among many scientists no good at all.
As to turning peoples environmental fears in to a business I would like to say 'caveat emptor', buyer beware.

Answer 5

Global warming is part of a natural cycle. It has nothing to do with humans. Trouble is, there are now thousands of jobs and budgets that depend on 'global warming' that they would still be rambling on about it if we were going through an ice age. Ignore the idiots for long enough and they will go away in the end.

Answer 6

Global warming is happening but Its a natural occurence and I don't think theres anything we can do about it. So yes it is a money making scheme. Its all got out of control now and to suddenly stop the hype would cost business and government millions. I am wondering where its going to all end!

I'm not ignorant. I oppose deforestation, recycle everything and save energy wherever possible but thats just because its the right thing to do, not because of this global warming crap.

Answer 7

No. The fact that there have been natural climate changes before does not mean the present change is natural.

And the scientific data clearly shows that this change is not natural, but is caused mostly by us, mostly by burning very large amounts of fossil fuels, rapidly.

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

This is science, not politics:

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

The data is why:

"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"

Answer 8

If you consider that most of europe was covered in ice a few thousand years ago, do they blame the dinosaurs for this. They'll bullshit people to feel guilty so they spend a lot of hard earned money on unnessary energy saving products etc.
If they really want to convince us they should start with shutting all the major plants etc. that actually cause most of it.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE!!!!!

Answer 9

YES. In 50 years you will see no important effects. Just slightly warmer weather and fewer glaciers and maybe a few inches higher sea level. Then the world runs out of oil anyway.

Answer 10

No. Global warming--and its human causes--are a proven scientific fact--and proven science.

This BS about it buing "a money-making scheme" is probaganda put out by special interests-mostly the oil and coal companises. Only people who are ignorant and gullible are still falling for it.

And BTW--the only people who turned Y2K into a "money-making" deal were the right-wing scammers who sold "survival kits" and such crap--the same jerks who are claiming that global warming is a "liberal/government plot." If you want to find someone running a scam based on global warming--that's where to look.