Why is it hard for people to buy into global warming?

Question

(This is an unbiased, no stance or position, question.)

Answer 1

People buy into religion, not science. Science is knowledge that can be proved by almost anyone, and the data can be repeated.

Climatology is in it's infancy. We still need to learn much more before we understand mans impact on the environment. What the current climatologist are doing is to rush untried, untrue, and outright false information to the public in order to make a name for themselves.

Answer 2

It is easy for folks that want to buy, however, if you look at the the data bought by the global warming crowd....remember:

1. They submit a chart that shows a +.8 degree C change of temperature in a time frame of 150 years. This looks horrific, if your mind is thinking of man and pollution in the past 150 years, but it does not show you how the temperature has changed for 750,000 years.

2. They do not mention the fact that Earth's average temperature has changed significantly over the last 750,000 years from +4 degree C to -12 degree C and that at any given time a +1 to -1 degree C change happens rapidly and can be described as background noise. There are periods of warm ages, transition periods, and ice ages ( a +1/-1 degree C change within any one of these phases is common within a 100 years and is best described as "noise". What causes the major shifts from a warm to an ice and then back to a warm age is still unknown.

3. Greenland's ice sheet formed 100,000 years ago, prior to that date it was too warm for ice to form there. Mankind has been creating pollution for 2000 years, at most. How could mankind have influenced the temperature back then?

4. They claim that volcanoes, changes in Sol's output, Earth's orbital variations, water vapor changes in the atmosphere, Earth's albedo, dust storms, natural increases in greenhouse gases, and changes in earth's magnetic field or any other combination of events that may amplify each other cannot account for a change in Earth's average temperature and *only* the output of mankind's greenhouse gases influence it. Yet, mankind has been causing pollution for at most the last 2000 years.

5. They seem to think that sea level has remained constant for the last 750,000 years, along with Earth's average temperature, however, the sea has gone up with each warm age and down with each ice age. The changes are on the order of scores of feet. Nothing in the universe is static.

6. They always bicker about 1934 or 2005 as the hottest year ever, when in fact, the Earth was +4 degrees C hotter in the last warm age some 120,000 years ago.

7. They can not predict what the Earth's average temperature should be at any given point in time and cannot tell you what, if any, mankind's pollution has contributed to it.

8. They seem to think that without mankind's pollution, the Earth would not experience extreme weather events. It turns out that 500,000 years ago the entire English Channel was carved out in 4 weeks of flooding by a glacier that burst because it warmed up. Also Northern Washington State was carved out by a similar event.

Please look at the temperature data, note the scale of time in the graphs, and the magnitude of change. This is the big picture and remember you will see temperature changing and for 99% of the time mankind was not around!! Mankind is not the master of climate change. Climate change is inevitable.

http://www.socialtext.net/wired-mag/index.cgi?what_causes_ice_ages

Answer 3

for me, i studied the "ozone hole" hoax in great depth. since i'm in the hvac feild and handle cfc's daily, i was concerned i was causing damage.

well, as some one else said, all the facts didn't add up. which brought more information that didn't fit the theory.

well know one could explain the discrepencies.

instead i was given the run around, more half truths or name calling (i'm a stooge, an idiot, too dumb to understand the REAL problems)

the "experts" now want to say there is global warming- which there is, just like there is an ozone hole.

but they claim man is doing it.

just like in the 70's they claimed man was going to cause an ice age by y2k, unless we stopped using fossil fuels NOW! there were going to be famines, because food wouldn't grow where it normally did. millions of people would die. (sound familiar?)

fact is, we don't know what it is causing the temperature rise.

but the "experts" are scaring people into changing to what THEY think is the way you should live, using something you can readily see as cover.


as a side note, these same "experts" also claimed that we shouldn't build the space shuttle because too many rockets passing thru the ozone layer would deposit NOx up there and cause more ozone holes.

Answer 4

Again, we believe in global warming. Global Warming is nature at work. We just don't like to be sent to market like lambs.

I watched Al Gore's presentation and he presented nice pictues of the glaciers melting and poor polar bears with no place to live. He said if something wasn't done within 10 years it was too late, and showed maps with Manhatten, south Florida, and many other areas under water. That was about a year ago.

Scared me to death. I started studying and found out the glaciers have come and gone naturally over and over again. The coastline was much higher in the past naturally. The earth cycles warm and hot naturally. The temperature is changing about 1 degree every 100 Years, and has been for hundreds of years and probably nothing is going to happen quickly. I study more and find conflicting data and good questions about the data and assumptions used.

When I ask questions, all I get is ignorant arrogant comments like you see on here every day.

I am an old engineer. I have done a lot of testing and research work in my career. I question how they measure temperature down to .01 degres accurately from analysis of an ice core 5000 years old. I even question their ability to measure .01 degrees accurately in all the climate data gathering stations around the world today. I looked at my own states official temperature data and it shows no change in average temperature over the last 30-40 years that we have good data.

I also see more and more scientist questioning. There is a good list in the Canada Free Press -

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming051607.htm

I just want facts. Not Al Gore Kindergarden classes.

Answer 5

Do you want the easy answer or the real answer?

The easy answer is it means significant changes in life style and real personal involvement - which is always someone else's responsibility.

The second reason is there is not a single answer or a proven difinative set of causes.

Let me answer/expalin through a series of questions:

1. Is the earth really warming up? Yes, there has been an increase in CO2 since the industrial revolution (approximately 100 ppm) and a highly correlating increase in average temps? But, remember correlation is not causation, and averages are highly skewed by extremes - what are the median and mode temperatures of this time period. What is the correlation to sloar output?
2. What is your basis for the average increase in temperature? How far do you want to go back - 300 years, 3,000 years, 30,000 years...? Each time period paints a different picture and set of data. And remember, there are facts, analysis, and interpretation of the facts....
3. Are we really just coming out of the Mideval ice age? (research the Mideval Iceage, Maunder minimum, sun spots and solar activity/intensisty, the Year Without a Summer which helped ignite the French Revolution).
4. If the world is truely warming up is it due to CO2 or an increase solar activity? (Sun spots are a measure of increased solar acitivity, and have been measured daily since Galeo built the first telescope. And due to the thermonuclear nature of the Sun, its core is increasing in mass & gravity, causing acceleration of the internal nuclear fusion reaction.)
5. What about the other greenhouse gasses, such as water vapor - what are there heat capacities and how much do they contribute. What are there relative contribution to the BENEFITIAL Greenhouse effect? Can other pollutants such as SO2 cool the atmosphere? And remember, rain deforestation is destroying the ability to re-create a large portion of the worlds oxygen supply.
6. Is it warming up all through the atmosphere, or mostly at the surface due to increase solor activity/conversion?
7. If it is truely CO2, is it because of fossil fuels, or can other human activities such as eating fastfood hamburgers and drinking coffee be part of the problem. There is a lot of rain forest deforestation to raise fastfood beef and coffe plantations. CO2 has a greenhouse factor of 1, methane generated from cattle has a factor of 21.
8. If the industrialized world cuts it CO2 emissions to Kyoto levels - will the CO2 emissions increase halt (answer is no - there are the 2X & 3X senarios where CO2 levels are estimated to increase to as high as 1200 ppm from the current level of approximately 370 ppm.
These increase are primarily from emerging industrialized nations (e.g. China, India)
9. Do we want to buy cheap material goods products made in China & Inida where environmental regualtions are not as important as industrialization?
10. What will happen to our economy if CO2 emissions cuts are forced? -( hint: possible major recession or even depression, and significant cost increases)
11. Are our weather models accurate? Why can't we predict the weather more than 48 hours in advance? It was not until the late 1990's that clouds were included in the weather models.

It is highly political for a number of national and international economic reasons, and it makes sensational news. Contrary to the popular press, there are a number of credible scientists saying the reports are simply "bad science".

I hope this provides some insight.

Answer 6

We really don't yet know enough to make definitive answers about global warming, except that it is historical fact, along with global cooling.
In our planet's life time, we have had cold periods and warm periods as part of natural climactic changes.
This can be seen in geological records in rock formations and ice cores.
We can probably influence our climate, but we can't be definite about it.
We may just be hitting a 'natural' change coincidentally.
We really can't be sure.

Answer 7

Be honest about this whole situation .I don't give a damn about Global Warning .There isn't any thing we can do to fix this problem. My priority is focusing on my self and my family, That's the most important thing in life for me .But sitting on my *** wondering if tomorrow is going to be 2 degrees hotter than today.

Answer 8

We don't by in the the Al 'Chicken Little' Gore theory of global warming, doesn't mean we don't buy into climate shift as part of a natural cycle.

And it's because there is NO proof that it's man made, in fact there really isn't any credible evidence that it is.

Answer 9

Because people are ignorant and uneducated. All the people that don't believe in it have NO scientific background and don't even know what the definition of an ecosystem is...go ahead ask one of them. Also ask them if they have thoroughly researched global warming reading both sides of the argument of if they just regurgitate what someone else tells them. Ask any of them if they have personally been to the arctic..or ask them if they have studied wildlife first hand and spent everyday out in nature studying wildlife and see weather, and migration patterns changing before their very eyes. It is easy for them to say nothing is changing when they are sitting in their offices in front of a computer screen 8 hours a day in an air conditioned room.

Also people are putting WAY to much emphasis on WHAT or WHO is causing it...WHO CARES...it is happening..that is what is important.

Answer 10

People tend to be blase' about things that's human nature and global warming is no exception.Because in people's eyes it is not indirectly affecting them at the moment,or so they think.It's "someone else's problem" so it hard to change attitudes but yes it is happening and we are changing the speed in which it is happening through industrialisation.