Global Warming?

Question

i just want your opinion.
what do you believe and why?

Answer 1

I believe that it's part of the earth's cycle, and man has insignificant effect on it.

It is true that 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 2

I think a previous person mentioned that we've had temperature fluctuations in the past, and this "global warming" is just another fluctuation.

This is a valid point that scientists have wrestled with for many years. However, the main reasons why a great majority of scientists believe this is different is because: (1) CO2 concentrations are significantly higher than in years past..the only possible explanation is human activity; (2) global temperature changes are happening very quickly, compared to the last major ice age occurring thousands of years ago; (3) many computer models are all predicting dire predictions due to increased CO2 concentrations.

Answer 3

First off, I just want to clarify what the argument really is. Democrats and Republicans both agree that global warming is occurring. The difference in thought is whether our actions are making it worse. Being a biology major, I know for a fact that carbon is cyclic in that it doesn't waste away after a use, but keeps on going. So, when you put more carbon dioxide in the cycle, and don't counteract it with more vegetation to photosynthesize all the carbon into oxygen, more heat will be held in that carbon.

With that said, I honestly do believe that we are increasing global warming and at a sharp rate as well. I was born in Galveston, TX, and attend the University of Texas at Austin and do not like the idea of sea levels rising and washing away the place I grew up at. Sure it may happen in 100 years or maybe even more, but it still hurts thinking about it.

Everyone has their own beliefs. Believe what you want, but even if you don't believe it, try to make an effort to help out for aesthetic reasons.

Water vapor is not a greenhouse gas. The three prominent greenhouse gasses are Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide(not sure of this one).

Answer 4

I believe that earth is getting warmer and people do have a small effect on that, but I think it's mostly due to a phase earth is going through. Think about this, even if global warming was entirely our fault do you really think after all the damage we've already "caused" is going to be undone by using slighlty more efficient light bulbs and cars? Also, some study reported that hybrid cars are worse for the environment than normal cars 'cause their batteries give off more toxic gases than gasoline.

Answer 5

Real. Mostly caused by us. There's a ton of proof.

99+% of scientists around the world believe global warming is real and mostly caused by us. And any number of very distinguished people, too.

"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, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics. Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 6

The basic science behind global warming is very clear. It's a simple physical fact that the greenhouse gases have the ability to retain heat within Earth's atmopshere, you can quite easily demonstrate this for yourself using some simple household objects. This much is irrefutable and as such, even the most ardent of skeptics, steers well clear of this issue - it simply can't be refuted.

Further, if the greenhouse gases were bereft of this property then you, I and everyone else wouldn't exist. In fact, the planet would lose it's natural greenhouse effect and be a frozen ball of ice floating in space, too cold for life to have ever evolved. Something else most skeptics steer clear of.

Knowing that greenhouse gases warm the planet the basic question boils down to - are we adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere? If the answer is yes then there's no alternative but for the planet to warm up. It's pretty clear cut that we are producing greenhouse gases (currently 40+ billion tons of them a year). Guess what most skeptics do regarding this issue - yes, they avoid it.

There's no question that we're contributing to global warming, we're not the sole cause of it as there is natural warming as well but in recent decades this has been overshadowed by the human component. One of the good things about natural global wamring is that it's caused by solar and terrestrial cycles, being cyclical it's predictable, being predictable means we can calculate what the planet would be doing if humans weren't influencing the climate.

Answer 7

I believe that the earth is in a warming phase, but I believe that even though humans are consuming tremendously, that we are having less of an impact on the planet than Al Gore would have us believe. He recently made a big deal over a section of glacier which melted exposing a tree stump. Because there was a large tree stump in the glacier, the earth must have been warm enough near the arctic for a tree to grow for several hundred years before the glacier formed and killed it. There are well documented times in the earths history when it was warmer than now. If you learned about the Vikings in your History classes, you know that they colonized Greenland between 1300-1400 AD. It was warm enough for them to farm then, but the climate gradually got too cold to farm and then gradually got covered with glaciers. There were far fewer humans then, but the earth was warmer than now and it cooled. In 1977-1979, there were two winters that set extreme records for cold temperatures in the US, prompting Time magazine to predict a new "Ice Age", but then came the summer of 1980 with searing heat and drought in the Western US. Mainly, I see the US Television and News companies trying to create frenzy over the weather for extra income.

Answer 8

Remember last February when the
Global Warming convention in upstate New York was canceled due to a snow storm

Answer 9

I think we are damaging the earth faster than it can repair it's self. As for global warming, things change for good and for bad.

Answer 10

The concept of global warming is based on bad science. It was basically a scare tactic used by environmentalists to promote an agenda that was being ignored.

Oh, and you know how you're always hearing about greenhouse gas emissions? The most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor(~70%). Think about that next time you boil a pot of water or take a hot shower. And that also means those beautiful oceans we're fighting to protect are slowly killing us as they evaporate, leeching their toxic water vapor into the atmosphere.