Do you believe in Global Warming? Why or why not? And how can you explain 20+ yrs ago's idea of Global Cooling

Answer 1

I belive that the Earth goes through cycles. There is no possible way to connect humans effect on climate change. We recently discovered an ocean current we didn't even know about! What else do we not know about the Earth that could alter our calculations?

There are many arguments that are false when it comes to global warming. Such as warmer weather creates more severe storms. When it comes to cyclones, colder air creates the more severe storms (ie. F-4's & F-5's). The relation between CO2 gases and temperature rise has publicly mistaken. Taking a look back thousands of years ago (the last time CO2 and temperature were relatively high) the graph would show that there is an 800 year lag between temperature rise and CO2 rise. Thus making CO2 a result of higher tempertures and not the other way around, as we have been told in the media. The list goes on. Watch the 25 min video link below.. it will help.

Answer 2

many scientists say global warming is true, but its not at all bad. some say that for the last like thousand years we have been in a mini ice age and we are slowly going back to normal. also if you look at weather graphs there was a midevil period where the temperatures increased for about 100 years.
If, as many people think, CO2 is causing global warming, then most of the warming of our earth should have happened in the later part of the 20th century because our use of it has gone up to so much more than it was in the beginning, but the warming was spread fairly equally over the century.

Honestly, nothing we do now will have any major effect on the earth. It was made to be damaged by humans.

Answer 3

I'm certainly convinced that this is something we should be taking seriously. The warning from almost all of the world's top independant scientific research bodies that this has the real potential to spark a future global catastrophy is enough to convince me.
It's true that there are still gaps in the scientific understanding but all this proves is that there are gaps in the scientific understanding, not that the theory is wrong and we should therefore discard it.

I'm not an expert, all I understand is that the Earth's climate temperature has been rising steadily since the Industrial Revolution. I can't see how a slump in this temperature in the 1970's, which as I can tell has now ended and was never supported by solid scientific evidence anyway, is particularly significant considering the bigger picture.

I can't explain it either. The 1970's saw a global depression, maybe it was an attempt to scare people into increasing production. Who knows.

Answer 4

I believe that the earth goes through periods of warming and cooling and that it is a *natural* occurrence. The hypothesis of "global cooling" never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to press reports following a better understanding of ice age cycles....

Sure, man's activities have had an effect on the trends, but I do not believe it disastrous to the extent that the media/Al Gore pushes it to be. Maybe in 5 billion years though....

Answer 5

Global warming is an undeniable phenomenon which is supported by reams of scientific evidence and it is the majority opinon among climate scientists that there is a real effect at work which is mostly caused by human activities.

I find it depressing and frightening, in fact, that the majority of those answering are ignorant of the actuality in this matter or don't seem to find it important enough to care about.

The theory is not based on bad science, nor misinterpretation of data. This is the same science that your toaster or the space shuttle is based on. The data increasingly confirm that Global Warming is happening. Sea ice is shrinking in the arctic, permafrost is melting from Siberia to Alaska and specifically, data from satellite and monitoring stations around the world indicate an upward trend in global temperature. The top five warmest years since 1890 have all occurred since 1998.

It is important to clearly understand what the theory of Global Warming states and does not state. The theory states that the average amount of energy (heat) in the entire atmosphere of the Earth is rising and that this is primarily due to a greenhouse effect caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide (and other gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide) generated by human activity.

Let's break that down. We are talking here about an average. It does not necessarily mean that it will get warmer where you are. The Earth's atmosphere is huge and we know that it can be warm in the tropics and cold at the poles, for example. So what we are talking about here is considering the Earth's atmosphere as a whole. Because we're dealing with averages, a single hot day doesn't count. As some folks have noted in earlier answers, the weather is extremely variable and goes through cycles and various blips, so if we didn't take an average we couldn't figure out long term trends.

The Greenhouse Effect of certain gases is a known fact. There is no dispute that some gases are heat-trapping as this can be proven with simple experiments.

Your question about Global Cooling is an interesting one and provides a counter-point to those who think we puny humans, even in our billions, can have no effect on the Earth's atmosphere. In fact, the average global temperature did drop during the early part of the last century. This was largely due to the effect of what are known as aerosols to climate scientists. Aerosols are tiny particles (like dust) in the atmosphere which have the opposite effect to greenhouse gases. Volcanic eruptions, for example, spread a lot of aerosols into the atmosphere and usually cool things off a bit.

However, one culprit behind the cooling was also us. It was the soot from our factories, burning and other activities which was partly to blame for the cooling period. Since then, many countries have enacted laws to control this kind of air pollution and there are fewer aerosols being emitted in developed countries. Also, as the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to rise, it offset this cooling effect. The net effect of these changes is that the Earth's atmosphere is retaining more and more heat.

I don't have enough time to write up a more complete answer for you, but believe me, this effect is real and it will have a huge impact on some parts of the world, especially for poor countries.

To those who pooh-pooh the idea, I suggest a re-think. Big Tobacco managed to delay and derail efforts to get the word out about the dangers of smoking. Similar efforts have been made around this issue. Don't be swindled by the professional con-men. One of the strengths of science is that it admits that it could be wrong. That does not mean that scientists are completely unsure. There is a clear consensus about this in the scientific community and they agree that the effects will be powerful.

We can now have an impact on even something as huge as the Earth's atmosphere and we are. Witness the destruction of the Ozone Layer. We can also do something to change the path we're on, or at least slow down from our headlong charge. We have banned or reduced the chemicals responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer.

If you think that means we have to all go live in caves and give up our comfortable lifestyles, that's not true either. Acid rain was a big issue during the 70's and 80's. When people began to complain that some areas were beginning to show the acidity levels of vinegar and that whole lakes were dying off, the answer was that it was economically impossible to clean up the crap coming out of factory smokestacks and car mufflers. We were told that we'd be pushing ourselves back into the stone age. Since then, the emissions responsible have been massively reduced. Do you feel like we took a huge economic hit? This doesn't seem like the stone age to me.

I hope you find this answer helpful.

James aka lookatimgo

Answer 6

Global warming was started when margaret thatcher turned public opinion against the miners and the burning of fossil fuels in the early 1980s,At that time it wasnt a big deal,Since it has esculated into a billion £ industry with everyone and his grandmother jumping on the bandwaggon.The science lacks concrete evidence and the increase in c02 levels has no significance with the increase in temperatues.A more beleivable explanation could be solar flares or the earths tilt as it orbits the sun.

Answer 7

Scientist have found tropical debris in ice core samples recovered from both polar regions,only after a natural event such as the "ice age" did it become frozen, the earth is repairing itself by recovering from that by thawing out, however, the earth is cooling off too as the core continues to burn up it's energy source.This is not to say we should not be responsible for our actions, but unless another mega natural disaster befalls us or a all out nuclear war(which would take a long time to recover from but it will recover), we should not be worried until our science can improve to the point where we have an objective view of things as a whole picture. For example, we deplete the ozone but the earth produces more/stronger hurricanes which is the way it produces more. so, until we realize that every action has an equal and opposite reaction AND what those reactions are, no one can say for sure.
The question should not be about the earth because unless we can break it into millions of pieces it will recover from anything we can do to it but ,what can man do to adapt and survive various conditions that the earth produces.

And one more thing while we are on the subject, Al Gore DID NOT get the Nobel prize in Science for his data on the subject but the peace prize for doing what this question is doing, getting people all over to DISCUSS this subject across religious and cultural differences!!!!

Answer 8

The world will continue to do what it does ie cool and warm despite the fact we are living on it, ice ages come and go, continents are still moving about, and there are hot periods, so no I dont believe in global warming as its sold to us by the governments and media, but I do believe its time we started cleaning up our act, millions of tons of plastic and rubbish every year has to be cut down or future generations will be unable to sustain any kind of life quality, pollution and the blatent poisioning of water tables has to stop, large corporations have to take responsibility for their actions, and not just by moving their dodgy factories to third world countries who have no legislation to protect their workers, or are so poor they will take any rubbish to bring in some money thats whats got to be addressed, its all very well western scientests ranting on while their fat checks lay in the bank, the third world is polluting more and more so that western fat cats can still get their million pound bonuses.

Answer 9

No I find it very boring! I refuse to be held responsible for the planet's welfare. I always turn the tap off when I brush my teeth, only use heating and gas as is necessary, I don't drive, I didn't have the luxury of childhood holidays abroad using a plane so really I don't care about my "carbon footprint" - whatever that may mean: I really don't care enough to look into it!

Why suddenly blame this generation?? Maybe it's just part of evolution and time the planet took a break from what's been the norm for thousands of years. Maybe it's time humans weren't in charge!

Answer 10

I believe in global warming and cooling and that it's down to nature and the sun, not man. I also believe that we have stopped warming and are now starting to cool. check out http://www.iceagenow.com