Is global warming a man-made problem?

Answer 1

No it's cyclic. Consider what one volcanic eruption puts into our atmosphere. Then how many we have a year.

I think it's funny how they'll tell you it's man-made and in the same breath refer to the last ice age, meaning we've had more than one. I wonder who was driving the SUVs during the last warming period.

Answer 2

Probably not entirely but I'm sure that we contribute. The planet has been around for a long time and has gone through all kinds of cycles and changes.

Our polution here though can't explain why there's also some climate change that's upposedly happening on Mars too. There has also been a very large increase in solar activity lately. That effects us probably in more ways than anything man-made but unfortunately you won't get any votes or support for your interest group let alone get anyone to come to your music concerts if your group is called something like "People Against Our Sun Causing Global Warming (PAOSGW)"

Answer 3

It is not totally a man-made problem....but you should also consider the facts regarding our times as opposed to the history of the earth's climate change and the conditions of those changes. Because of man - there are many more factors added into the equation and it has accelerated what the 'norm' may have been. Sending the SpaceShuttle in and out of the earth's atmosphere and not expecting to do any damage is obsurd. Man is playing a big part in the global warming that we are experiencing now.

Answer 4

Check out the film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" a rebuttal to Al Gore's fictional piece titled 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

Answer 5

Unknown.

The evidence just isnt in yet.

Due to that, it would be best to try to start limiting pollution and to further studies of this. Especially considering the control we could gain over the planet if we learn we are contributing and to what extent. Ice Ages happen-wouldnt it be nice to be able to prevent or at least postpone the next one until we can prepare?

Answer 6

Yes. 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 7

Only nature (nuclear fusion to be specific) has such power. The arrogance of man to imagine such importance in the world. Any man who considers himself responsible for the climate of an entire planet must think of himself as a god, and be quite out of touch with reality. I know the theories and technical details behind such arguments, but politics and research grant pursuits overpower the weak speculations and assumptions behind man's role in the world.

Geological records clearly show a strong correlation of world climate and solar activity, and not at all with CO2. I think that I'll just program a computer model of the earth's heat transfer mechanisms this week myself, just to end this political, anti-industrial insanity.

Answer 8

In a word, yes. The psychological paranoid fear that our minute forcings on the blobo-sphere amount to anything significant, whilst oceans, volcanoes and other things dwarf us is a product of the return to irrationalism and faith in our day. Too bad, we had a good thing going - the enlightenment thing, ya know. Maybe someday, it'll make a comeback.

Answer 9

Yes, and you can find scientist on both sides of this debate. Unfortunately this global warming is aggravated by humans making it much worse than in the past. There is to much evidence that it is man-made to refute it.

Answer 10

It has definitely contributed to the problem a thousand fold.

You can't just torch billions of years of fossil fuels in two hundred years and plow down all the earth cooling greenery on the planet and expect everything to be fine.