Is GLOBAL WARMING a hoax?

Question

Seems like it might be.

Answer 1

Man made global warming is. No one can predict the future, not even the scientist who study global warming.

For all anyone knows it will be much colder 5 years from now.

Answer 2

JT and Bob mentioned Y2K, and as Bob points out Y2K was a real problem. Had nothing been doing about the Y2K bug it would, undoubtedly, have caused a global disaster.

Where I disagree with Bob is in his statement…

“Their only mistake was that they didn't know what a good job they did and didn't have the arrogance to tell us it had been fixed in December, 1999.”

This simply isn’t true. I worked in I.T. at the time, for one of the biggest merchant banks in the world, and we *knew* we had fixed it many months before December 1999. We’d actually hired a second computer system and had run the batch of 31/12/1999 and beyond many times. No one was the slightest bit worried. And I knew from fiends in other companies that they felt the same way. So Bob is simply wrong. We *did* know what a good job we’d done.

The problem was, that’s not what the public were being told, was it? The public were being told that everything was going to go horribly wrong on 01/01/2000. We were being told to expect total chaos. But what actually happened? Nothing.

And this is where there’s a similarity with Anthropogenic Global Warming.

The truth is that the data does not support the suggestion that we are heading for any kind of catastrophe. That belief is fuelled by people’s *opinion* on what’s going to happen, not on facts. There can be no *facts* about the future – we aren’t there yet – we can only make predictions.

Sadly, a study of the predictions made by the IPCC, carried out by experts in forecasting, shows that the predictive methods being used are so flawed that they could just as easily predict cooling. In fact, sometimes they did! But those predictions were ignored, because they were “obviously wrong”. Er? Okay. (See.. http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf )

And this is why I have doubts. I don’t doubt that the level of CO2 has gone up. I don’t doubt that temperatures have risen. What I doubt is that they will rise anywhere near as much as the scaremongers are predicting, or that we are going to face any kind of problems as a result of any rise that does happen.

There’s no getting away from the fact that it has been warmer than it is today in the relatively recent past and there was no hideous catastrophe. Far from it, in fact. The Medieval Warm Period was a time of great prosperity and growth. It is historic cold periods that have caused hardship.

As with the Y2K bug, there are an awful lot of people who are effectively lying about what is going to happen in the future – the Global Warming Alarmists don’t call it lying, of course, they call it “over-representing the facts”.

In terms of this scaremongering, yes, Global Warming *is* a hoax.

As ever with global warming - don't believe the hype.

Answer 3

I don't know much about Global Warming, but I'm sure the Earth is like everything else if it is abused, bad things will follow. I think our Earth has been treated with little respect and it will continue to be as long as there is money to be made. A lot of people live in the now ,but what will it be like for our children and grandchildren. We always seem to have something or someone to blame our problems on,but what about the solutions to fix these problems? I hope everyone is blessed with a good future and has the ability to make some changes for our childrens futures.

Answer 4

Global warming has been happening, but it is not our fault. The greenhouse keeps the planet warm by the atmosphere capturing a portion of the heat radiating from the surface. For man made global warming to be true, the atmosphere should have heated up at a faster rate than the surface. But that has not happened, the surface has warmed up faster than the atmosphere. Which means that there is no accelerated warming associated with an enhanced greenhouse process.

There are also other important events observed that can disprove the AGW theory, but I will get to that later.

Answer 5

Gases like carbon dioxide and methane present in the Earth's atmosphere trap some of son's heat. This is the greenhouse effect.The greenhouse effect helps keep the Earth warm and hence, life can survive in it. We humans have been increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Obviously, with the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases more heat will be trapped making our planet warmer.

I don't think that Global Warming is a hoax. Even if it is a hoax whats the harm in being prepared or trying to prevent it. People who say that its a hoax mostly just want to give an excuse for laziness. They don't want to 'waste time' trying to stop it. Anyway, it is NOT a waste of time. But isn't it always better to be cautious?
[All this is just my opinion. I take environmental issues a bit seriously.]

Answer 6

JT - You're exactly right. Global warming is just like Y2K.

Y2K was a very real problem. It took many computer programmers many thousands of hours to fix the problems and avoid disaster. Estimates of the total cost of fixing it are close to 500 billion dollars.

Their only mistake was that they didn't know what a good job they did and didn't have the arrogance to tell us it had been fixed in December, 1999.

So too with global warming. It's a real problem that will require a lot of hard work to avoid disaster.

5_for_fighting - You're dead wrong that there was scientific consensus that the world was flat. Over 2000 years ago Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the world. After that anyone worthy of the name "scientist" accepted the reality of the data and knew the world was round.

Only ignorant "skeptics" who denied the data and scientific fact thought the world was flat.

So too with global warming. It's scientific fact. Proof, short and (very) long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarised at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

The consensus is not the proof. But the consensus exists because there is proof.

"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://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 7

Global warming itself may not be a hoax, but the furore around it is sparking some off.
We are learning more and more about the planet and it's history, finding out via geological structures and ice cores what has been happening over the last thousands and millions of years.
Unfortunately we still don't know enough to make definitive statements or answers to the 'dilemma' we're encountering now.
Before we look at 'human causes', we need to consider other factors.
Vulcanism, solar output, orbital variations, seasonal aspects like bush fires or phenomena like El Nino or La Nina, to name a few.
We need to be aware of persons with agendas, who have compulsions to cry wolf or just stir up controversy, we know these as "environmentalists" or "greenies" who while may be doing some good, are one of the biggest reasons we are often being held back from developing and using alternatives to what we use now. Other interested parties are known as "big business" and their friends, "politicians" who pretty much do the same, but for different reasons.
After all this, we should then look at the real statistics and work it out accurately, then we MAY know the answers.

Answer 8

I used to think so just because i am so ready to disbelieve anything Al Gore has to say. But i recently read an article that presented facts from the scientific community that said they are so many more carbon emmissions in our environment nowdays as compared to the last 65,000 years or something like that. So now i think that it may partly be true but people like Al Gore are blowing it way out of proportion. I think the earth goes through natural cycles of heating an cooling and maybe we are just in one of the heating cycles. But if we plan to have a future on this planet, it is better to err on the side of caution and accept global warming to be true and do all we can to combat those earth changes.

Answer 9

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Peace
GG

Answer 10

Anthropogenic global warming is a theory. Contrary to the public opinion expressed in this forum, a theory is not scientific law which means it HASN'T been proven. So anyone saying it has is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest.

On top of that, scientific theory is not based on a consensus. It is based on observations and reproducible results. AGW computer models are not observations. They are "anthropogenic" models with a built-in bias, intentional or otherwise. AGW computer models do not count as reproducible results. For that matter, AGW computer models don't agree with each other from one day to the next. Let's not forget the consensus that the Earth was flat.

Finally, science invites skepticism. For a theory to become a law, the theory must be tested and criticized by skeptics. On the other hand, ideologues ignore, repudiate, denounce, and ridicule skepticism.

Does the AGW crowd sound more like scientists or ideologues?

Answer 11

'No one can predict the future, not even the scientist who study global warming' Jello 2007

We CAN make predictions about the future. But I agree with Jello our predictions may be wrong. Even if every pro and for Global Warming scientist in the entire world did the same research and experiments and they came to the same conclusion - Lol - but imagine - it COULD still lead to wrong predictions about the future.

Science changes in light of new research/facts. Any prediction is that; a prediction. Not fact. However, when many people agree on the same prediction we term them believers, so imply their predictions are facts. We must remember that they are predictions and as such can change with new research.

Jello says 'For all anyone knows it will be much colder 5 years from now' I agree anything COULD happen. I COULD walk out of my front door and be hit by a couch dropping from the sky. It is unlikely but it COULD happen.

Clue: Look at what is most probable.

EDIT: Just to be clear I am a GW 'believer'

EDIT 2 A couch has fallen from the sky ......
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlyflZ7vVol_te41JFJoT7Dty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070830140645AAeYvxO&show=7#profile-info-x55ufBWuaa