how do you feel about global warming?

Question

this is a large debate and a serious conflict happening in todays world - how do you feel about it - do you agree / disagree? if so what are your thoughts. is there something that makes you belive stronger towards global warming or against it?

Answer 1

I feel that global warming is a largely natural event. Mankind may have some impact on climate, but not enough to make a significant change.

Most of the warming of the last century has been caused by an increase in the output of the sun. The warming over the last century followed a cooling trend on earth that lasted for 4 centuries. Scientists believe that this cooling trend was caused by a reduction in the sun's output known as the maunder minimum. As the sun's output has increased again, the earth's temperature has gone up accordingly.

Some global warming fanatics, such as Bob who posted above, ignore the evidence of the sun's role in the current warming trend. He will give you quotes from an astronaut, a senator, and two CEOs of major companies to prove that global warming is man made. I, however, would rather look at scientific evidence, and not the cartoon-like evidence like the stanford solar center link that Bob likes to give as proof that the sun isn't causing the warming. There is a problem with that link, though. It only compares temperature to the 'number of sunspots' over the last century. The number of sunspots does not equal total solar output, so that link does nothing to disprove the effect of the sun on global warming over the last century.

Bob also says that anyone who thinks the sun is causing the warming thinks climatologists are stupid and don't look at the data. Really, does he mean climatologists like Richard Wilson froom the Center for Climate System Research at Columbia University? He did a study with NASA that found, looking at solar irradiance data recorded from satellites starting in the 1970s, that there was a significant increase in solar irradiance seen in just 2 decades of monitoring that if the trend lasted for a century "it would have provided a significant component of the global warming...over the last century." This study was published in the Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 30, No 5, 1199 (2003.) It was also trumpted in a news release from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (see attached links.)

Maybe Bob was refering to the astrophysisist Peter Foukal, who conducted the only comprehensive study of the sun's irradiance using CaK spectroheliograms obtained between 1915 and 1999. This study looked at not only the number of sunspots (as Bob's link does) but also at the increase in total solar irradiance, the area of sunspots, and the area and intensity of the bright magnetic plage elements around the sunspots. This study found that the increase in total solar irradiance over the study period accounts statistically for 80% of the temperature variance over that period. 80% is quite alot more than the 10% that Bob believes. This study was published in the Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 29, No. 23, 2089 (2002.)

I have compared Bob's link to the Stanford Solar Center, which is clearly not a complete study of the sun's influence on global warming, to the two published studies I list above. The studies listed above provide solid evidence that the sun is responsible for MOST of the warming over the last century. This is convincing enough for me.

Answer 2

Like I've said before, the whole man-made global warming garbage is the new terrorism. I think most of us are going to see some affects of climate change in our lifetimes. Is it something we can stop or reverse? I don't believe so. I think it just makes good sense to use the sun as a free source of heat and electricity, but not because the world is going to come to an end if we don't. I want, and plan, to go green because it will reduce my costs - not my carbon footprint. The global warming alarmist have turned people into a bunch of nuts. They've taken some people's attention away from the practical and focused it on the illogical. It's like raising two year-olds; if you can divert they're attention, you can get your house keeping done. That's what they're trying to do with the public.
By the way, someone above states that the winters in the Artic are becoming shorter. Okay, now how does this happen? Seasons are a function of the rotation and tilt of the earth. So either the tilt of the earth's axis has changed or winters in the Arctic are the same length that they've been for eons. See, this is what happens - you have some writer, who might not know anything at all about climate or weather or even writing for that matter, and he writes some incredible claims and they're published. Then one of you reads that article, takes it as factual, start touting the claims in public, and make yourselves look foolish. People should be taught to think before they're taught to read.

Answer 3

Nick C, Cindy's factor used to be wholly meaningless. Gore didn't "invent" worldwide warming. Global warming have been in clinical circles method earlier than Gore ever knew approximately it! You can't hyperlink worldwide warming to politics on this method. If you return in technological know-how books and courses lengthy earlier than Gore and Clinton, you continue to see worldwide warming! It used to be learned through clinical study, now not through Al Gore, and practically all scientists who specialize in atmospheric study and feature entry to all of the knowledge feel it, now not simply Al Gore!

Answer 4

A bunch of fear mongering and with some it is working.
But we know the world has warmed and cooled on its own many times I just like the idea of milder winters because I live in the north.

Answer 5

man made global warming is a hoax, The earth is going through a natural cycle that is all.

Answer 6

If these people in videos feel the earth needs help then why they don't take action to help out? I strongly disagree with it because these people say its bad and they support it, but don't take action. Makes me upset.

Answer 7

I could care less if the world is melting.. :)

You know that most the rich people who preach global warming use private jets and live in houses that use a **** load of energy.. they arent hippocrites at all.

But if global warming is true i still wouldnt care.

Answer 8

It's real and mostly caused by us.

This is science and what counts is the data.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It's (mostly) not the sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2.html

And the first graph aboves shows that the sun is responsible for about 10% of it. When someone says it's the sun they're saying that thousands of climatologists are stupid and don't look at the solar data. That's ridiculous.

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html

There's a large number of people who agree that it is real and mostly caused by us, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy". Just three examples of many:

"Global warming is real, now, and it must be addressed."

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/329.php?nid=&id=&pnt=329&lb=hmpg1

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 and:

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 9

I agree. Something must be done to massively reduce our emissions before the damage become irreversible within the next five years.

Answer 10

Why do you have to "believe" global warming? Why can't you just prove it?

People need to believe in religion. There is no belief in science.