Why don't humans acknowledge that climate change is the norm?

Question

There was a dramatic case of global warming about 15,000 years ago during glacial retreat. Many ecosystems were displaced or destroyed and and sea level rose dramatically. This is just one instance over the last billion years or so. Climate is always changing and who is to say our current one is best for humans? The problem is that our society has developed with the assumption of no change. I promise climate will change someday, and dramatically, no matter the cause. How would we be reacting if global warming was proven to be nature-based? And if global warming is universally bad, is global cooling universally good?

We need to be focusing on long-term planning to adjust to it, not the cause. Fire away, alarmists...

Answer 1

The thing is that a lot of people don't even believe that there WAS a 15,000 years ago. Also, this current change in climate could threaten over half of all human life, people who live near the coasts, and people don't want to accept that threat

Answer 2

1) Nobody is disputing that climate change occurs naturally.

2) This fact does not mean that humans can't cause climate change.

3) Humans and all other species on the planet have evolved to survive in a climate not very different from the current one. We don't know what the perfectly ideal climate is, but we know a significantly different climate would make survival much more difficult.

4) If global warming was proven to be nature based then there would be nothing we could do about it, and we'd just have to cope. Fortunately that's not the case. We can do something about it, so we must.

5) No, global cooling is not universally good, nor is global warming universally bad (like if you're in an ice age, global warming is something you would look forward to!).

6) Ignoring the causes of global warming is ridiculous. That's like saying "oh well 50% of the population has skin and lung cancer, but we only need to learn how to adjust to it. The cause isn't important".

Answer 3

There is NO resemblence whatsoever between the climate changes that are going on now and ANYTHING that has occurred in the past, with the possible exception of the Permian Extinction. The major difference is that the Permian Extinction took place over a 9000 year time span. Global warming if it continues at its present pace, will achieve the same or greater effects in a few hundred years.

Answer 4

First, we know the climate is ever changing. We know it's changed in the past and can be expected to change in the future. No one has ever doubted this fact. However, the majority of dramatic climatic changes in the past took place over millions of years, and those that didn't almost invariably resulted in mass extinctions. So the problem lies with the speed of this change, not necessarily with the change itself.

You say that we can't be sure if the climate we have now is best suited for us humans, which is technically true. A warmer climate might (although likely wouldn't) be beautifully suited for human needs. But we aren't sure of that. And I'll be damned if I'm going to roll the dice with the entire human race at stake just to see. As far as I'm concerned, the climate we have now is working perfectly well, thank you very much.

Answer 5

Two points.

The scientific data clearly shows that, starting about 40 years ago, man made greenhouse gases became the major factor in increasing temperatures:

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

If the temperature rises just a few degrees we will have huge expenses to relocate people, replace stuff lost to flooding, and fix damage to agriculture. The result will be an economic depression that will make the 1930s look like fun.

So, it is clear to most people that we need to reduce greenhouse gases to avoid economic disaster:

Here's the affordable and practical plan:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,481085,00.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf

We'll still need to cope with some warming, but that will be manageable.

Answer 6

Thank you for entertaining me with your useless abstractions and generalizations, that lack any substantial evidence. You have no facts or research opposed to the thousands of PhD scientists around the world who almost unanimously agree about human influence on climate change. If you saw The Inconvenient Truth, which I assume you have not, you would see that 600000 ya until now there have been steady, regular fluctations of CO2 levels found in ice core, (CO2 levels have been shown to directly relate to temperature changes). Now, the CO2 levels surpass by far anything in the last 600000 years. That alone makes a lot of sense, but in addition to that there are books of research demonstrating how human activity (air conditioning, driving, anything that uses energy, power plants, etc.) increases dramatically CO2 levels. CO2 doesn't magically disappear.

A nature-based global warming? OK. I don't see how a hypothetical situation, i.e., with nothing to back it up, is reason to ignore a realistic situation, one that one most already understand to a great enough extent.

Focused on long-term planning to adjust rather than fixing the problem, is that what you are saying? So, considering thousands of environmentalists have spent their lives studying the world and have concluded that we, humans, are the cause, that our activity has dumped billions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, (which is sensitive because it is so thin compared to the earth), humans should continue destroying ecosystems, warming the planet, melting ice continents, drowning the coasts, leading thousands of species that we depend upon to their extinctions? Why not change our lifestyles to halt the problem, to minimize its effects.

You have no argument...but you appear to be a troubled and scared individual, perhaps so scared of a global problem that the entire research world has recognized that you try to deny it with illogic.

Answer 7

Long term managing is more costly then proactive efforts. But I suppose your party won't win the election, or the oil companies won't continue making the big buck any longer in that case. Holding back technological development, and causing troubles for everyone. How will it be seen in 100 years?

Btw, this will cause a recession for all industries and, with it, financial trouble for all people. We can do our best now, or let a few make money at our, and our childrens, expense.

Answer 8

Um...the concern here is that are WE EFFECTING GLOBAL WARMING. I'm sure it's natuarlly occuring, but can you really turn a blind eye to it all and say it's natural? We've damaged the earth/environment so much, I'm pretty damn sure we have something to do with it.

And of course climate will change~! But that doesn't mean it'll be good for anybody/thing. Global warming is BAD because it's predicted to destroy all we hold dear. Global cooling would be equally bad probably, cause that would STILL destroy everything. We want a livable climate that doesn't fluctuate too much so everyone can be happy. Of couse, we have to go and destroy all that anyways, so who's fault is that?

Answer 9

my god, do you actually think the PhD's who study global warming are not aware of earths climate cycles? Those nights you were out binge drinking, those scientists were plugging differential equations into climate models. THEY KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO.

do you think your smarter than this anthropogenic global warming believer?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-06-22-hawking-warming_x.htm

Answer 10

Because alarmists scare them so the alarmists can make a buck. These are the same type of people who were selling bomb shelters in the 50's and tried to tell us in the 70's that the food would run out and there would be no room for us all at least the ones that were left after DDT killed us all. BS is BS and has been the same down through the ages. This time we have a failed politician using powerpoint and data twisted by socialist weasels at the UN.