Do you believe global warming is a real threat or is this just a normal warming phase?

Question

If so, what makes you feel the way you do?? Do you think this is just a media fad for now??

Answer 1

It is just normal. It has happened many times in the past and it is happening again.

Answer 2

I dont know how could anyone think that man doesnt play at least a small role in damaging the world we live in. We have created toxic chemicals which is not of natural origin that is released into the air - which causes our protective ozone atmosphere to slowly disintegrate. There will always be a cause and effect. For people who does not believe in global warming then show some proof that toxic gas can magically dissappear.

In recent years global warming has gained recognition. I see more and more green cars and people are starting to be more aware. It is not a fad but a nomalcy of life to take care of this earth. I think we are accelerating the destruction of earth if we were not mindful of what could hurt us.

Answer 3

No I do not believe global warming is a threat, it is partially human caused and primarily solar induced. There are many different solar cycles of varying lengths such as the 90 year Gleisberg, 200 year Suess cycle and 1500 year bond cycles. The total effect of solar variability on earths climate is not fully understood, but new theories are being validated that will help explain some of the climatic change in the past and future. The real threat to humanity is that if the climate is more sensitive to solar variability than what most scientists are admitting. Solar cycle 25 in 2022 is forecast to be very weak, and could lead to a dangerous cooling episode.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
.
.

Answer 4

"The pattern, or fingerprint, of human-caused climate change is distinctly different from a natural warming pattern.

For example, when the planet warms naturally due to
changes in the Sun’s intensity the entire atmosphere
warms. But a buildup of greenhouse gases will warm the lower atmosphere while cooling the upper layers." We KNOW the latter is happening, and we KNOW we're creating these ghgs!

We need to act now, because even if we were to all stop producing greenhouse gases tomorrow, greenhouse gases will be increasing for the foreseeable future because the damage is "already in the pipeline."

That's why it's in the media - we haven't got much time left to sort ourselves out!!

Answer 5

Real. Mostly caused by us.

The proof is massive, so this will be long. And most of the proof is actually in the links, which are much longer.

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://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
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 above 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/412.php?lb=hmpg1&pnt=412&nid=&id=

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

"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 6

Global warming has nothing to do with water/air pollution at all. Air pollution is caused chiefly by car and factory emmissions, sulphur and carbon MONoxide. Global warming is all about carbon DIoxide.
I think it's a bunch of crap...we've had ice ages in the past and will again in the future here on earth. Ice recedes and progresses over eons.
I'd LOVE to have the opportunity to debate this topic on tv with Al Gore, but he has never publicly debated it with anyone and never will, because he knows he is wrong.
Sad bastard, Gore. Wonder what he's really up to?

Answer 7

We know this is not a normal warming phase, nor is it a fad.

Basically we know it's warming, and we've measured how much:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/ann/global-blended-temp-pg.gif

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming. What they found is:

Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming. This is during a very rapid period of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming. They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a cooling period right now.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovich_cycle

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles. They looked at volcanoes, and found that

a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight

b) humans emit over 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://www.gaspig.com/volcano.htm

So it's certainly not due to volcanoes. Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions. We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels. We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%). You can see a model of the various factors over the past century here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

Answer 8

well, there is actually quite a bit of evidence that global warming is real. The evidence I found most convincing came from the super cold regions where the eskimos live. Where glaciers were once visible, they are no longer, it's raining in the winter creating a crust on the snow which cuts up the legs of the elk that live there. Mosquitos can now thrive in the warmer temps, giving the elks disease and therefore eliminating the eskimos main source of food. There are quite a bit of other instances, you just have to look. the earth is definitely warming up, why is the question we should be trying to figure out.

Answer 9

Normal warming phase. In the 70's the left-wing environmentalists and the media were hyping "man-caused global cooling" which turned out to be false. Even if the Earth is on a warming trend, and 1 degree F in 100 years certainly doesn't prove that, there is nothing to indicate with any certainty that man is causing it.

Answer 10

Normal

Answer 11

im not going to say we have no effect on the environment or the ecosystems. however, when it comes to things on the scale of the global weather patters, we are but a butterfly flapping its wings in a hurricane. to say humans in their extreemly breif history on this planet have put into motion events which are terraforming the planet i would liken to saying me typing on this keyboard is pushing the American continental plate into the Atlantic Ocean. these things have been going on since the dawn of earth 4.6 BILLION years ago, and they have never been in a steady state. From our tiny slice of understanding we cannot claim we have done anything to the climate. there are just FAR TOO MANY variables which we have absolutely no control over like the SUN and the Continential drift and volcanic activity, and the changing magnetosphere, and lets not forget about the cycle of Ice ages of which we are taking part right now.

WAKE UP PEOPLE. are we really that self centered to think that we have such control over the thing which has brought us into existence and which has sustained us for all of our existence? the earth is changing US. we are not changing IT.