Global Warming - Real or Not?

Question

Ok, well I'm 15 and I've heard a lot about global warming and climate change. I wanted to know if that's actually true or not. I watched "An Inconvinient Truth" by Al Gore in Geo, and my teacher said that all of that was true. Is the climate really going to change and be catastrophic in my lifetime? Or is it just a natural thing that we're going through and everything's gonna be alright? Also, if global warming is true then why are the presidents and prime ministers not doing anything? Are they thinking only about their economy and not what's better for the world or do they not care and think, "Oh, who cares? I'm gonna die soon and the other ppl can look after that problem." What if it's too late then?

Answer 1

You need to research the data and not just rely on what the teacher tells you.

I wouldn't give it a second thought. People have been predicting the end of the world since we could walk on two legs.

Answer 2

Don't believe anything you read and only 1/2 of what you see. Of course, Global warming is real. The last Ice age has gone away, has it not? So, we must have global warming. Do people contribute to global warming? Probably some small amount, after all we ARE Warm and we breath in oxygen and breath out CO2, we must be part of the problem. What is Al Gore going to do about it? Kill a whole lot of people? Invariably that is what Socialists do when they take control of a country. Is that better than destroying their economy and causing millions to starve to death?

Answer 3

Global warming and global cooling have been a part of the earth from the beginning. We have gone through several ice ages and eventually there will be another one, in many, many thousands of years. Since the end of the last glacial age, about 10,000 years ago, the earth has been in a warming stage. This is a natural cycle of the earth. Don't worry, nothing catastrophic is going to happen in your lifetime.

There are things that people can do about pollution and to quit adding to greenhouse gases, but this will not stop global warming. It might slow it down, but very little. Nature will prevail and the planet will continue to warm until this present cycle is over. Read any book on climatology and you will see this is correct.

Answer 4

“I've heard a lot about global warming and climate change. I wanted to know if that's actually true or not.”

It depends very much on what you’ve heard and whom you’ve heard it from. Both sides of the climate change debate are guilty of distorting the facts and in some cases making things up. Sometimes it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.

It may be prudent to discard anything you hear or read that’s not from a reliable source or can’t be substantiated. In short, rely on first hand information and what the experts are saying.


“I watched "An Inconvinient Truth" by Al Gore in Geo, and my teacher said that all of that was true.”

By and large the movie is accurate but there are some aspects that could have been better presented, some key climatological aspect are missing completely, others are brushed over. There is also a tendency to over sensationalise and over simplify. In order to keep the movie in perspective a broad understanding of climate change is required so it’s perhaps best to take what’s said with a pinch of salt.


“Is the climate really going to change and be catastrophic in my lifetime?”

Earth’s climate is always changing, even before humans were around it was either warming or cooling; this is the result of a whole series of cycles the Sun and Earth go through. What we’re seeing now, and have been for some time, is the climate changing at a rate beyond natural limits, what we could call anthropogenic climate change – the human induced aspect.

One thing the media are often guilty of is over sensationalising the effects of climate change. For many people the effects will go almost un-noticed, it could be rather like moving to a state slightly warmer than where you are now – a bit warmer but no big deal.

In many parts of the world the effects will be very dramatic and those that have been hardest hit, and will continue to be, are those who are least well placed to mitigate the effects of climate change. Many people in African and Asian nations will suffer much more than those in Europe and the Americas.

This page looks at the current effects of climate change http://profend.com/global-warming/pages/effects.html and this one looks at possible future effects http://profend.com/global-warming/pages/future.html


“Or is it just a natural thing that we're going through and everything's gonna be alright?”

It’s partly natural but what we’re seeing now is the climate changing much more rapidly than any combination of natural events could cause. If humans weren’t around the planet would be in a warming phase of it’s own making but it would be a slow one. The majority of the current warming can be put down to human activities, mainly the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases.


“Also, if global warming is true then why are the presidents and prime ministers not doing anything?…”

Most of the are but there’s a certain president with the initials GWB who is doing a lot less than others, preferring it would seem, to delay taking action until later. Call me cynical but perhaps it’s because he hasn’t got much longer in office so he’s passing the problem on to someone else.

At the recent G8 summit (meeting of the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations) President Bush stood in isolation as the only person not willing to commit to taking a serious stance towards the issue of climate change.

Answer 5

After reading the answers you've gotten I can see how you could be even more confused than when you started. There is a way to tell who is right without becoming a climatologist yourself. There's an old Roman saying that applies: qui bono? Who benefits?

Now of course the quick answer is that if human beings have caused catastrophic global warming already, nobody benefits. Over the long term everybody loses. So step back and look at the proposed solutions to the theoretical problem.

The Kyoto Protocol has two main parts. The first is a cap or reduction on carbon dioxide production back to 2000 levels, the second is a carbon credits trading program that would be administered by the UN. Reducing our output of carbon dioxide (just considering the USA here) would reduce the overall size of our economy by something like 30%. Where we're going to get the additional power is a serious question. Since we can't build nuclear, and none of the other systems (solar, etc) can produce anything like the shortfall, we're basically talking about a depression like the dark ages. So essentially the solution to global warming is to destroy the capitalist system and replace it with a police state where power, food production, etc, is controlled and distributed by the government. It's literally the only way any country could survive that kind of disaster intact; otherwise we could always bust up into little kingdoms like the barbarians after the fall of the Western Empire, which seems more likely to me.

The second part of the Kyoto protocol is the supposed to be the solution to the first; anybody who owns a jungle or forest can trade the carbon dioxide sink potential of their land with somebody that's emitting carbon dioxide (like a coal-burning power plant) for cash. So instead of actually reducing carbon dioxide output we just pay somebody to keep their forest or jungle from being cut down. And of course the UN gets a cut of every transaction.

So the only proposed solution (so far) to cure global warming is to create an international trade which provides the UN with lots of extra cash that is a big fake-out. There's actually no reduction, we just pretend there is by paying people (like the Sierra Club for instance) to not develop the wilderness they bought specifically to save it from developers.

So when you realize that the very people who are screaming about global warming and believe in it so religiously, are the very ones who'll bank the proceeds of the Kyoto Protocol, you would be right to suspect that perhaps the environment is not their primary concern.

What's more, if we actually did the damage their advocating to our own economy, that would be a great boon to the petty tyrants who long to tell us all what to do because they'd get a nice police state to play with.

Now the power producers and oil companies really win either way with the Kyoto Protocol. Sure they'd have to pay environmentalists and third world countries to keep their forests/jungles intact, but what better advertising could they do? Filling up with premium is the ecologically responsible thing to do...you're saving the rain forest with every gallon of gas. So instead of the bete noir of the left suddenly Big Oil is the darling.

There are lots of other industries that lose out with the Kyoto protocol, however. Walmart would benefit, but all the pricier stores would be out of business but soon. Ben & Jerry's ice cream couldn't be made anymore because it requires too much power to store cold stuff like that.

The consumer loses because of all the stuff that could no longer get to market because of the increased cost of fuel. You don't really expect that the oil companies would refuse to pass along the extra cost they incurred by paying 3rd world despots to preserve a patch of jungle to their consumers, do you?

So if global warming is really caused by humans, environmentalists, the UN, and lovers of government will all reap fantastic benefits without reducing that warming by even a single degree. Everybody else loses.

Now you know why I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming. The science is still iffy, and the motives of the advocates are hardly pure as the driven snow. When they propose a solution other than socialism and a gigantic international boondoggle I might listen to them.

Answer 6

Global Warming is not only a meteorological issue. Oceanographers are concerned with the increase of the sea surface height and glaciers. Economists are concerned with change in crops and commodities caused by the warming. Environmentalists are concerned how plant and animals habitats may be altered from the warming. Global Warming is also very much political. Treaties are developed to attempt to control the warming, and global efforts are beginning to develop.

The facts that scientists strive on are the observations that are agreed upon by many scientists. The foremost observation to observe is the global surface temperatures. If global warming is occuring, we expect thew surface temperatures increases across the globe.

In spite of this evidence some scientists still strongly believe this is not a big concern and global warming is truly not occurring. Some current debates are global warming may be a climate fluctuation or due to urban expansion.

Answer 7

Global Warming is one of the real matter.

Actually this is not a problem for a single country or a person it is problem for the whole mankind, but only some of the humans are care about this.

The most developed countries will not take care about this. The industrialists does not set the proper pollution control to their industries. the developed and the developing countries will let out the dangerous SO2 and carbon monoxide gases out.

I think the UN want to set a global rule about this and all the countries want to obey this rule strictly, but there is also a problem the VETO power countries will want to support to make the new rule otherwise...

some of the countries go under the seas, the temperature will go high upto 10deg celsius from the normal temperature.

The climate will changes rainy in sunny seasons and sunny in winter season.

Answer 8

Climatic cycles are natural. Anthroprogenic global warming does not exist. Al Gore's movie is essentially a load of nonsense designed to frighten the uninformed and easily led.

Global warming is one-half of the climatic cycle of warming and cooling.
The earth's mean temperature cycles around the freezing point of water.
This is a completely natural phenomenon which has been going on since there has been water on this planet. It is driven by the sun.
Our planet is currently emerging from a 'mini ice age', so is becoming warmer and may return to the point at which Greenland is again usable as farmland (as it has been in recorded history).
As the polar ice caps decrease, the amount of fresh water mixing with oceanic water will slow and perhaps stop the thermohaline cycle (the oceanic heat 'conveyor' which, among other things, keeps the U.S. east coast warm).
When this cycle slows/stops, the planet will cool again and begin to enter another ice age.
It's been happening for millions of years.
The worrisome and brutal predictions of drastic climate effects are based on computer models, NOT CLIMATE HISTORY. As you probably know, computer models are not the most reliable of sources, especially when used to 'predict' chaotic systems such as weather.
Global warming/cooling, AKA 'climate change':
Humans did not cause it.
Humans cannot stop it.


BTW, science is NOT a consensus activity. Science deals with data. ALL the available data not just those which further someone's agenda.
Carbon credits, carbon footprints, and AlGore's anthroprogenic global warming are all scams designed to frighten people into giving up their freedoms and money, in that order.

Answer 9

Honestly I believe that Global Warming is real and it's here! Some people just won't believe it when actually it's right in front of their eyes. The weather has been changing. So many natural disasters have disturbed the Earth. Such as the tsunamis that happened in Asia. Have you noticed time has been passing faster? The contributions to by the tsunami has made the Earth spin a little faster. I am worried also that people are hardly giving a care about the Earth. A lot of people are trying to change their daily lives just so this world can last longer. I for one are one of those people. I am 15 too.

Answer 10

An Inconvenient Truth is true, some of it is exaggerated and some things in the movie are just predictions or best guesses, but it is true. The climate has already changed and is catastrophic now.

Global Warming has been happening longer than you have been alive, it is just recently that the weather effects have become so acute that they are mentioned on the nightly news. Global Warming is superimposed over natural patterns, those patterns are still there but are overwhelmed by the greenhouse effect.

Governments are taking action against GW, even if they are not advertising it. CO2 sequestering and H2 alternative fuel are two of the largest international projects (still underfunded) in the US Dept of Energy. California is changing their building code to account for GW. One benefit of politics, maybe the only benefit, is that governments change.

It might be too late to fix some things, it may not be too late to fix others. It will be too late if we all sit in a circle peeing on each other arguing whether or not we should get up off our butts and do more.

Answer 11

it's possible, but it hasn't been proven -- see my question i posted earlier entitled "global warming advocates" and take note how few attempted to discredit my arguments (and those that did were wrong. i messaged them and explained why and as of yet they have not replied).

scientists who claim to be skeptic lose their jobs and grant money. if i'm not mistaken, a meteorologist who wants to work at the weather channel has to sign a statement saying they agree taht global warming is real.

when there is no money to do the necessary experiments for one side of the argument, then the only side that gets built up is the other side.