Why is previous global warming that wasn't cause by humans proof that we are not causing it now?

Question

People say things like "the last ice age ended without people" and think that is proof that man cannot affect his environment. That just means global climate changes can occur without man, it doesn't prove that man cannot do it. It's like saying My great grandfather died of a heart attack so no person can ever kill another person. I'm not saying global warming is man made, though I believe there is some good evidence for it, I am saying this argument doesn't make sense.

"Your question is not logically thought out. The thing is that climate change happens all the time here on earth. Man may escalate the effects such as city heat zones etc, but to say man alone is causing the current warming trend is beyond the pale of intellectual laziness."

There are over 6 billion people on this planet, how is it "intellectual laziness" to say we can directly affect the environment? It seems to me it would be crazy to think we cannot affect the environment

xjmox14x you say we have proof? show it to me, I guarantee you will not be able to show me anything more than opinion, not proof.

People just don't listen. I'm not saying global warming isn't something that happens naturally, I'm saying the fact that in the past it was caused by something other than man doesn't prove that man couldn't be the cause now.

Answer 1

You pose a good logical question.

The answer is that it's not proof. Nobody has claimed that climate change can't occur naturally. Of course it can, but the fact that it can occur naturally doesn't mean that humans can't also cause global warming.

It's really a completely illogical argument. Obviously humans didn't cause previous climate changes, because the human species hasn't even been around very long! And we've been burning fossil fuels for a relatively very short timespan.

The very first inputs scientists examined in climate models were natural effects - the sun and volcanoes. They found that natural factors could not account for the acceleration in global warming over the past 40 years. Then they input human greenhouse gas emissions and found that they accounted for 80-90% of this recent warming:

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

The evidence that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming is simply overwhelming. To argue that humans aren't causing it now because we haven't caused it in the past is illogical and ill-informed.

Answer 2

You know what I think, I think the whole global warming thing is simply a front for argument. While we are arguing about whether man is causing it or not, the heart of the matter, the pollution we know is clogging our lungs, eyes and hearts, is going unremarked. As long as we can focus on the politics of global warming and split people on party lines, we can overlook the PCBs and mercury and other crap that's sent into the air. Man or nature, that's an argument we can have for decades and we will probably die before we know for sure. But schmutz in the air that you can see over every city in America, China, and Germany, that's not even discussed anymore. Maybe we all ought to look at the stuff they want us distracted from.

Answer 3

Your question is not logically thought out. The thing is that climate change happens all the time here on earth. Man may escalate the effects such as city heat zones etc, but to say man alone is causing the current warming trend is beyond the pale of intellectual laziness.

Answer 4

It's not. There's a great book coming out about what would happen to the world if we, the human race, just up and disappeared tomorrow, showing the real harm or changes in the world we are making just by being here.

The previous global warming was caused by the earth development and many overactive volcanos spewing heavy carbon dioxide into the air continuously, until it eroded the ozone layer, the seas heated up and began to lose oxygen, etc., etc., etc.

So, now, last I checked, the earth was not in such magmatic changes and pain that it was releasing tons of its own carbons into the air through overactive volcanos all over the planet erupting at the same time, so something tells me it's something else.

Answer 5

We can certainly affect the environment but we are not the cause of global warming. Gloabal Warming is a NATURAL process that's been happening for a long time. It goes back and forth - cooling, then warming, cooling again, then warming again. We're currently coming out of an ice age, thus why it is getting warmer, but global warming doesn't last. If anything, we're speeding up the next ice age but we won't be around to see it anyway so live up the warmth.

Answer 6

Consider this....

500 or 1000 or 10,000 years ago, humans had not covered any significant portion of the planet with cities and roads and other artificial structures that change the albedo of the surface. We also had not cut down millions of square miles of forest.

So, the natural ability of the planet to maintain balance was unimpaired.

Now, in addition to us contributing at least to some degree (whether tiny or primary), we have also reduced the ability of the planet to process these gasses (by cutting down so many trees) and changed the way the planet holds and reflects sunlight (by changing the surface albedo).

So, even if the cycle IS natural -- we're changing the extent to which the cycle affects the planet (whether a lot or a little, it's not nothing) and we have changed the extent to which the planet can respond.

Why is it so difficult for people to admit that we are having at least some effect on the process -- and that having 7 billion people with tens of thousands of square miles of cities means the situation is different than when there was 1% of that population and no cities???

Answer 7

We don't know enough about world heating and cooling trends to make a call on it. Back in the 70's we were headed for another ice age and of course all the tree huggers back then blamed it on pollution. Today we are all going to die from global warming caused by the same pollution that we were going to freeze from 35 years ago.

Answer 8

We DO have proof that our presence has effected it less than 2% and that it is inevitable anyway. That analogy made no sense whatsoever. The fact that humans may contribute to it or not is a moot point because it is going to happen regardless. A GOOD analogy would be, a man drove his car an extra mile today, and then saying that global warming is happening because of him.

Answer 9

Some people will do anything to preserve their present state of denial, even if it means fighting the use of technology that will save them on their utility bills, just because they don't believe in global warming/climate change.

Answer 10

Biota has long played a feedback role with the atmosphere.

In fact, how is it that our atmosphere became oxygenated in the first place?

To suggest humans have no impact is ludicrous.