When will the global-warming deniers lift their heads out of the sand?

Question

Who do sensible people really trust? I tend to trust thousands of respected scientists who have each given years of their lives to get educated and to conduct research. It wasn't too long agot he public were in denial over the effects of smoking, now people with such views are not so common. Will people who deny global warming and humanity's role in it also be seen as ridiculous in years to come? Can we afford to risk it and do nothing in the mean time?

Sensible people do not dispute there is a natural element involved in mean temperature variations, but to deny man's involvement is folly.

Answer 1

Yes, the majority of people already understand the scientific reality of global warming. Over time it will become more and more difficult to remain in denial, and eventually denying the reality of global waming will be equivalent to denying that smoking causes lung cancer today.

In the meantime we still have to do what we can to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, because if we wait too long we may not be able to avoid the worst effects of global climate change.

Answer 2

The "deniers" might lift their heads out of the sand once they are presented with some compelling evidence rather than just being harangued and abused for not believing.

The responses to this Question are a case in point, the only rational, reasoned responses are from the so called "deniers". By comparison all the believers ever seem to do is trot out the same old propaganda and demand unthinking compliance. Well I'm sorry but that wont do. I'm not going to be brainwashed and if recent polls are to be believed the majority of the public wont either.

I'm afraid that you're starting to lose the argument and this is likely to continue unless you can begin to put forward cogent theories rather than rely on some kind of religious eco-faith.

Face facts, TV programmes such as the Great Global Warming Swindle present a very believable, coherent alternative explanation for the phenomena of climate change. They also provide plausible motives to explain why some scientists seek to propagate Anthropogenic GW theories.

The main response to this from the AGW camp is to resort to personal abuse against the program makers. This isnt going to persuade anyone. Why cant any of the "thousands of respected scientists" manage to articulate an explanation for GW that people can actually understand and believe?

Not until you do that will the deniers lift their heads out of the sand.

Answer 3

Global climate is a dynamic process, and as such, is always in a state of change, always was and always will be as long as this planet has an atmosphere. The last 30 or so years it has been getting warmer and the previous 30 or so years it was getting cooler.
Carbon dioxide is only a minor greenhouse gas, contributing on 3% to the green house effect, and man's contribution the total of CO2 in our atmosphere is only 2.75%, so man's contribution to the greenhouse effect is 0.08%. If we stopped all fossil fuel use it would not make a measurable difference to global temperature.
A recently publish paper in a meteorological journal demonstrates that a doubling of CO2 would raise the global temperature by between 0.5C and 1.5C while the IPCC claim it will cause a rise of between 2.5C and 4.0C, so AGW is not so much a lie as a gross exaggeration.
I have spent most of my working life in nature conservation and believe we should use our resources carefully and clean u p after ourselves, this will not make any difference to global climate, but it will make this planet a better place to live for humans as well as the c.2million other species we live with.
I have beento both the Arctic and Antarctic and met many of the scientists working there. The vast majority do NOT accept the 'man made' part of the story and I have more faith in them than a Washington desk jockey

Answer 4

Danny K - answered and rebutted your question beautifully.

I ask you to consider why the panic about GW is being led by the political Left. What do they have to gain? Power and tax money that can be used to buy votes. How does the Left gain support? By their usual methods of intimidation. A scientist who wants his job, wants his government research money, wants to publish in order to work, who doesn't want to be ridiculed and denigrated as a non-scientist, or be accused of being "bought", must support the Leftists view on GW. You have seen them question the Honor, honesty and integrity of all scientists who do not agree with GW. Anyone who disagrees is slapped with a label, "denier" as if their views and evidence is automatically wrong simply because they do not agree.

There was a time when there was a consensus of learned opinion that the Earth was flat, those who disagreed were deniers of fact, but the consensus was wrong. A consensus of the most powerful men in governments, science and the church declared the Sun revolved around the Earth, they too burned at the stake those who disagreed, those who denied that statement. A consensus can be wrong, especially if it is achieved by political pressure.

Our effect upon the global climate is so minuscule that even if we disappeared tomorrow the Earth would still go through Climate Change. Why not stop the volcanoes, since they do more than Man? Because it is Nature. We can clean up our act, and should, but that will not stop Climate Change.

Now go run in the street, waving your arms, shouting "The sky is falling!" You will make just as much sense.


Ureshii - you emit CO2, you should be taxed for breathing and if you cannot pay the tax , you should be stopped from breathing. It leads to pure, vicious tyranny.

Answer 5

Like most who toss out these politically charged "thoughts", you are not being honest with the science, the scientists, or the public.

No one denies that global warming is occurring. It is a fact that the earth has gone through numerous warming and cooling cycles - can you say "ice ages"?

The politically motivated would have everyone believe that man is the sole cause of global warming. That is where science, scientists and politics disagree. While man may be a contributor, man is NOT the cause.

An honest scientist would look at the data being promoted as the proof and examine it in context to that data to which it is being compared. Take the politics out. Rely on the science not hearsay or some clever movie.

If those such as Branson and Gore who are so vocal about global warming would STOP their own excessive use of polluting devices, they might be more credible themselves -- not correct but at least more credible.

(To say they are doing their part by paying for "carbon offsets" is tantamount to saying it's ok for someone to kill their neighbor because they paid a surrogate to have a baby to offset it!)

Answer 6

When they understand the science instead of spouting hot air and nonsense, just had to reply to set record straight after reading misinformation posted here.
Volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans? False old favourite this...see:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/223957/72
but basically measured increase in CO2 doesn't show any volcano spike due to the massive human emissions.

Mars Ice caps melting at same rate? Who knows? 1 martian year is two of ours, we have enough problems accurately monitoring our own ice caps, no way can we compare Mars. If the sun is warming mars then we're in more trouble due to CO2 physics (see below).

Trees and oceans and creatures respire CO2 - yes, but not fossil CO2, except where recycled from fossil fuel emissions...this ocean misrepresentation is what really annoyed Carl Wunch in the GGWS:
http://puddle.mit.edu/~cwunsch/

Natural climate changes are not absent but added to by humans.

90% LA smog from vegetation, rubbish! I bet this unreferenced study does not say that. NO and NO2 and O3 gases are involved, they may react further with natural gases (usually produced in response to heat/water/ozone stress).

Plus most importantly there is of course the fundemental physics of the CO2 molecule. It absorbs infra-red radiation trapping heat. Increase CO2, you increase air temperature, it has been measured - you cannae change this law of physics cap'tn.

We have doubled the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere compared to the warm periods of the past 400,000 years. We did this in 200 years, a very short time on the climatic timescale and so it is hard to predict (apart from global warming) precisly what will happen. e.g. where increased H2O vapour will casue more snow on certain ice sheets. Really, so what if they are growing in a few places? Net shrinking of all ice fields is occuring.

This should not a polictical issue, both left and right need to find a common solution in order to continue to arguing about traditional left Vs right issues.

If scientists were driven by money they would not go into environmentalism, but accountancy (or plumbing!).

For more in-depth balanced info in more scientific language look at www.realclimate.org

Answer 7

Did you ever stop to think that the thousand's of respected scientists that believe in this load of crap, all assume each other have worked the numbers out. That is what peer review is all about. Anthropogenic warming cannot explain the FACT that the continent of Antarctica has not warmed! Changing ocean currents have eroded the ice from the Antarctica peninsula, that is not warming.

Antarctica has not warmed, it does not matter if a million scientists believe in AGW, they are wrong, the laws of physics governing absorptivity and emissivity regarding greenhouse gases cannot be censored from an entire continent.

Answer 8

Will we deniers of man made global warming be seen as ridicules, No more so than the people who thought the world was round back in the 13th century, even though thousands of scientists were convinced it was flat

Answer 9

We'l lift our head out of the sand when people like you can tell us what caused the last Ice Age to melt, as for man trying to make a change over a fifty year period is about as farsicle as as frying Ice Cubes

Answer 10

well said hun....i dont think i need to add to that but,are you also someone who chooses to ignore the possibilities of such,as we watched the many "natural" disasters throughout the world on sky news....did it make u change ur ways? Really the small things we could do wouldnt make such a diff,new factories will keep going up,more cars will go on the roads etc etc.....we dont deny global warming but at this stage perhaps its beyond our control.

Answer 11

The scientists have been saying that global warming is happening to get government grants, as the government will only give money to the scientists that give them the answer they want. Look at http://www.iceagenow.com