do you believe us (humans) have as much to do with "global warming" as alot of people say we do?

Question

i think we (humans) have contributed a little (maybe 2-5%) to global warming. if you look at earths history (from what we know) you will find several periods of global warming and global freezing (ice ages). i believe that global warming and freezing is just one of earths natural cycles. although i also believe that we strongly contributed to the decay of the ozone layer.

what are your thoughts on global warming?

Answer 1

I believe global warming is a natural cyclical event that evolves over tens of thousands of years.
I also believe that mankind's Industrial Revolution of the past 150 years has contributed to the escalation of that natural cycle, which means that man, animals and plants have not had time to adapt to the climate changes.
Our smoke-belching factories, vehicle emissions, depletion of the ozone layer, destruction of rain forests and mangrove forests, over-fishing of the world's oceans, and ruination of the land through coal mining, gas exploration and oil drilling has ALL played a significant role in what is now a serious threat to the future of our planet.
When I answered a similar question a few days ago, one 'enlightened' individual responded by saying that "man does not adapt" to the Earth; we make the Earth adapt to us. That kind of false superiority is exactly what has caused the situation we're in today. Instead of being responsible stewards of the planet, we have squandered Earth's precious resources for our own comfort, gluttony and greed. Instead of having dominion over all animals and plants, we have exploited them to our own advantage.
Americans have been especially negligent as they drive around in gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs; buy cheap plastic junk at WalMart without understanding how much petroleum was used to manufacture all that crap we don't need; refuse to REduce, REuse and REcycle just because we're too lazy, inconvenienced, or ignorant to do it; ripped up the rain forests to make room for more cattle grazing so that we can continue to buy cheap BigMacs; destroyed the mangrove forests along coastlines just so we can build luxury resorts and beachfront homes; and continue to strip the land of its nutrients as we mine for coal, drill for more oil, and explore for natural gas.
Global warming will continue to evolve as it has over the millennium. We've just helped to 'speed up' the process, which means that in fifty years many parts of Bangladesh and Florida will be underwater; our grandchildren will have to wear gas masks to breathe fresh air; there won't be sufficient clean water supplies; millions of species of insects, plants and animals will disappear (which will hasten the extinction of man on our planet); remote Eskimo tribes, polar bears, elephants, Asian tigers, and thousands of other creatures that deserve to be part of this planet will be gone....and our beautiful little grandchild will climb up on our laps and ask, "What did you to, Grandpa, to help save the planet's environment and maintain the delicate ecological balance between man, plants and animals so necessary for our survival?"
HOW WILL WE ANSWER HER??
-RKO- 10/21/07

Answer 2

You're absolutley correct that Earth has warmed and cooled in the past as a consequence of natural cycles. The important thing to note is that they are 'cycles' and as such they're predictable; they're as predictable as the cycle that Earth takes to rotate on it's axis (a day) or around the Sun (a year).

The difference with the cycles that cause global warming and cooling is that there are many of, they interact with each other and occur over very long periods of time. The two most noticeable effects they have are the mini ice ages at 100,000 year intervals and the full ice age cycles at approx 125 million year intervals.

We know whereabouts the planet is within these cycles and we know that the world should be warming of it's own accord very slowly. Indeed, this is precisely what is happening and the underlying natural trend is just what we would expect it to be.

The concern is that Earth is currently warming many times faster than it should be doing and at a rate that has never before been known. Again, this is no surprise as we figured out more than 100 years ago just what was going on. The whole concept of global warming might seem to be something new but it's been a scientifically understood phenomenum for quite some time.

If the warming were solely a natural event then the planet should be witnessing a long term warming trend equating to approx 1°C in 10,000 years. This is what we saw in the 10,000 years prior to industrialisation but is the equivalent to what we're seeing now in just 56 years.

Further, we know about the greenhouse gases and we know they have the ability to retain heat within the atmosphere. Any increase in their atmospheric concentration inevitably leads to increased heat retention, it can't possibly be anything else. Worryingly, we're now producing so much greenhouse gas that levels are higher now that at any time since humans appeared on the planet and have gone way beyond their natural limits.

Answer 3

I have some good news and some bad news for you.

The bad news first:

Human activity is responsible for the majority of the Global Warming that we are observing.


Now the good news. The popular media has over hyped and exaggerated the results of Global Warming to the point of being ridiculous.

For example the Movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is nothing more than science fiction. This horror flick makes ridiculous unsubstantiated claims regarding what Global Warming will do.

There is no responsible scientist who will go on record as saying the sorts of things that are depicted in "The Day After Tomorrow" will happen as a result of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Global Warming is a rather unpleasant challenge, however we are not all going to die as a result of Global Warming and cheap horror flicks such as "The Day After Tomorrow" are nothing more than cheap horror flicks that have nothing to do with reality.


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Answer 4

There is no question the earth has been warming. Some scientist believe, It is coming out of the "Little Ice Age".

However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a "Little Ice Age" for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time.

Though, humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny.

Answer 5

Andrew, what are your credentials, if I may ask, since you're coming up with the 2-5% statistic?

We're past the point of asking if humans have influenced the natural cycle of climate change. Now we're trying to determine how the matter can be addressed, the cost, etc.

Visit the United Nations websites shown below, there's a wealth of solid information there for you to chew on.

Then come back and share your thoughts.

Answer 6

I agree completely with you that changes like this to the earth is normal and a natural thing - anyone who thinks the earth is a stable structure is only fooling themselves.

But when you consider how much crap we throw out from our cars and factories and everything else, it seems perfectly feasable to me that we're speeding things up and may bring this next cycle about more quickly then it would have, and that we may even be changing the nature of it.

To say humans are completely responsible doesn't make sense, yet to ignore the fact that we are contributing harmful products to our environment (and destroying the forests that help clean it), doesn't make much sense either, though it's much more convenient for us.

Answer 7

It's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of looking at the evidence. We know what causes natural cycles of climate change, and those causes have been ruled out.

Ice ages, and inter-glacial periods, are caused by small changes in Earth's orbit called "orbital forcing" by climatologists, or Milankovitch cycles by astronomers. Since Earth's orbit can be computed for thousands of years into the past and future, we know that orbital forcing peaked 6000 years ago, during the Holocene Maximum, and should be cooling the planet right now.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207/4434/943

The Sun goes through natural cycles too, but we can rule out the Sun as the cause of the current warmth, for the following reasons:

1. If the Sun is causing the current warmth, then we're getting more energy, and the whole atmosphere should be getting warmer. But if the current warmth is caused by more greenhouse effect, then we're getting the same amount of energy, but it's being distributed differently: more heat is trapped at the surface, and less heat is escaping to the stratosphere. So if it's the Sun, the stratosphere should be warming, but if it's greenhouse, the stratosphere should be cooling.

In fact, the stratosphere has been on a long-term cooling trend ever since we've been keeping radiosonde balloon records in the 1950's. Here's the data:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/hadat2/hadat2_monthly_global_mean.txt
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/sterin.html

2. If it's the Sun, we're getting more energy during the day, and daytime temperatures should be rising fastest. But if it's greenhouse, we're losing less heat at night, and nighttime temperatures should be rising fastest. So if it's the sun, the difference between day and night temperatures should be increasing, but if it's greenhouse, the day-night difference should be decreasing.

In fact, the daily temperature range has been decreasing throughout the 20th century. Here's the science:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0450(1984)023%3C1489:DDTRIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(1993)074%3C1007%3AANPORG%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/2004GL019998.pdf

3. Total solar irradiance has been measured by satellite since 1978, and during that time it has shown the normal 11-year cycle, but no long-term trend. Here's the data:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/solarda3.html

4. Scientists have looked closely at the solar hypothesis and have strongly refuted it. Here's the peer-reviewed science:
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publications/preprints/pp2006/MPA2001.pdf


So the cause of the current warmth must be increased greenhouse effect. CO2 levels in the air were stable for 10,000 years prior to the industrial revolution, at about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv). Since 1800, CO2 levels have risen 38%, to 384 ppmv, with no end in sight. Here's the modern data...
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
... and the ice core data ...
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domec/domec_epica_data.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html
... and a graph showing how it fits together:
http://www.columbusnavigation.com/co2.html

We know that the excess CO2 in the air is caused by burning of fossil fuels, for two reasons. First, because the sharp rise in atmospheric CO2 started exactly when humans began burning coal in large quantities (see the graph linked above); and second, because when we do isotopic analysis of the CO2 we find increasing amounts of "old" carbon combined with "young" oxygen. Here are the peer-reviewed papers:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984JGR....8911731S
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mksg/teb/1999/00000051/00000002/art00005
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/5053/74

Answer 8

You know we could have an abrupt climate change come about through natural means like they talk about during the middle ages and viking era Think one was called the mini Ice age or somethin. It seems these events would actually happen faster than the Anthro Monkey GW predictions that so many are up in arms about. We wouldn't know the difference with all the hoopla about it.

Answer 9

I think 'global warming' is a poor description of the devastation that humans have put the environment through.

Humans have overpopulated the Earth with our own species, overused fossil fuels, destroyed many, many other species, seriously polluted the air, oceans, and land, and you're worried ONLY about temperature change?

Sheesh!

Answer 10

If you want to see something interesting try googleing the scientists that stand behind the theory. I haven't found that many that have the qualifications in climatology to form a valid opinion. Yet they are the only ones being listened to.