Is Global Warming Man Made?

Question

Conventional wisdom says that man is responsible for global warming. Is this hype or is it backed by scientific data? Please provide data if possible.

Here's a very interesting video of a presentation given by Professor R.M. Carter on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

If you're really interested in this subject, and you've got lots of time check this out. Courtesy of another YA skeptic.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/Skeptics_Guide_to_Anthropogenic_Global_Warming_v1.0.pdf

Anyone that says "all credible scientists are on the side of the AGW alarmists" has no credibility IMHO. The debate is "heated" for sure.. Unfortunately, the media has made it appear that there is no debate.

What was the cause of global warming and cooling periods PRIOR to the "evil" industrial age?

Answer 1

Global warming is happening. However, there is no scientific evidence which supports the man made theory. The science is still to young and misunderstood to point to any exact cause. The only thing we do know is that the earth has fluctuated in temperature since pre-historic times. There have been warmer and colder climates. 10,000 years ago, much of north america was covered in an ice sheet a mile thick. Since then, the temperature has consistently warmed with minor periods of cooling.

People will claim a consensus of scientist has claimed we are the problem. These individuals claim this only because they do not have actual scientific proof to validate their claims. If they did, then they would use this data, not claims of consensus to prove their point.

Hundreds of years ago, the scientific consensus was that the earth was flat. Since then, we have scientific proof that the earth is round. The current consensus crowd is like the "flat earth" people of old. They would like to quell the opposition and claim it as science. Sorry, it does not work that way.

Here is one rather long article (but an easy read) that delves into the matter. Read both sides of the issue, then make your own guess.

Answer 2

The answer is yes and no. Really. This planet has been heating and cooling in cycles for millions of years. This up and down swing has been pretty even with little net gain until the beginning of the industrial age some 100 or so years ago, when co2 emissions from first coal and then gasoline and fuel oil were added. That was the point where we as humans have added to the co2 content of our atmosphere on an ever increasing scale. Samples from ice cores drilled out of arctic and antarctic ice has shown conclusively the increase in co2 and when compared to temperatures for the same periods have gone up and down relative to the co2 content of the air. Temperatures since the industrial age have gone up relative to the increase in co2.
uUnfortunately this is closely tied to the use of coal and oil. Sorry, chemistry don't lie. Our entire global economic and industrial system is based on those two products providing the energy sources from raw material production to delivery, from heating our homes to lighting the world. Let's not forget transport and most ironicaly the fuel to fight the war for fuel!
Whether we are in a dire crisis or the planet running out of oil in 50 to 100years, depending on who you trust, saving our butts really doesn't matter all that much. We are on a course where we are leaving our children and grandchildren with a planet that will be in a much worse shape than when we got here. So weather you believe in global warming or not really does not have to be the reason for you to go green. How about the other green? Fluorescent lights use about one third of incandescent lights with the same lumen rating. I like green, especially the kind I keep in my bank account. How about better fuel economy, or alternate transportation? Instead of getting 15 mpg at $3.00 plus (20 cents per mile) a vehicle getting 30 mpg costs 10 cent per mile and 40 mpg equals 7.5 cents a mile. You get the idea. That's thinking green. You save money, feel good about not making the oil barons any richer than you absolutely have to and for a free bonus you do the right thing environmentally.
If you are able to take it a step further, get some solar or wind power going to supplement your electrical needs. Solar also works real good for hot water. Again, that's keeping green in your wallet and what's wrong with that.
You asked for data. here are a few to check out. NASA.gov has data as well as different weather services, both government and private. An inconvenient truth is a good documentary too.

Answer 3

Mostly (70-95%). There's so much data proving this, I have to use links. The first one (from the source below) is pretty short. The second is over a thousand pages long with hundreds of references.

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

Carter says crazy stuff like "global warming stopped in 1998". That's ridiculous. 1998 was an unusually warm year (an "outlier" in scientific parlance), but the long term warming trend continues. This graph shows both facts clearly.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

His historical graphs of temperature often conveniently ignore the last 100 years. Yes, we were cooling until we started warming things back up with greenhouse gases.

His specialty is historical geology. He seems to have a blind spot in understanding that the modern industrial world is quite different.

Good websites for more info and data about the reality of mostly man made global warming:

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"

EDIT - "the scientific consensus was that the earth was flat" This statement is totally wrong. About two thousand years ago, Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth. Once that data was available scientists accepted the fact that the Earth was round.

It was "skeptics" who ignored the data and science, who said the Earth was flat.

Answer 4

Global warming is man-made-that is a proven fact. And--despite the cliaims of this "skeptics" viteo--there is no "debate." Oil companies pay for such propaganda in order to create that impression--but the reality is that the debate is over--and has been for years.

And--the speaker is not a scientist--he is a fake. That's obvious from his introduction--he is so ignorant of science he doesn't even know what the term"scientific consensu" means.

To be specific--a "scientificconsensus" does not mean--ans the skeptics say--that some scientists got toghether and agreed on some particular "accepted wisdom." Rather, whenever a new phenomenon is under investigation, many different scientists study it, forming hypotheses and testing and retesting them, submitting their results in the literature--where other scientists then take the information and retest the hypotheses independantly.

The "scientific consensus" is simply a shorthand for the point at which every single point a particualr model (in this case, man-made global warming) has been tested and retested in a variety of ways a variety different scientists--to the point where there is simply no possible doubet tht the model is not accurate.

As I said--this fake isso lacking in even basic scientific procedure he doesn't even know that. Which is typical of the so-called "skeptics>' They are either paid propagandists for special interests--as in this case--or simply deluded crackpots. In either case, no one takes them seriously.

Answer 5

Global warming is both natural and man made. We are mostly responsible for these changes to the climate. We are affecting our environment in a bad way and should take action

Answer 6

IF Global Warming is "man made," then man can only be blamed for SOME of it.

Of course, since the DATA show that the globe is no longer on a warming trend, I'm thinking we'll take the credit for making the earth a bit more habitable for billions of other creatures, take a bow, and move on.

Answer 7

it is backed by scientific data.

BUT - i knew it was happening before it was covered - if you are old enough - you can see and feel the difference and noticed it was much warmer in the city then in the country as well as much dimmer.

it also helps if you grew up with farmers and understood the planting cycles or know ice fishermen.

it is also very well accepted by almost everyone - i do not know why there is a small minority in america that have not understood or accepted it.

maybe a small number of people in america feel like they will just die if they recognize it.

Answer 8

Global warming is not man made. Think about it, we had an ice age and then a stone age, another ice age and then another stone age. The earth undergoes natural cycles that may be thought as man-made. We're just about to go through another stone age. It's fine. Al Gore is an idiot; he probably goes to the Antarctic with a flamethrower to prove his fake "THEORY" true. Think about this: If global warming was man-made, why did the Bering Strait get covered by water 10,000 years from melting glaciers if all the things we're blaming global whining on weren't invented then? HUH????? STOP GLOBAL WHINING!!!

Answer 9

Global Warming:

Yes, it is man made. Human are creating a big trouble. They are producing lots of pollution that makes hole in the atmosphere and so it allows that some dangerous rays of some cross from it and it will kill poeple too. And let me tell you that the atmosphere will be replaced by thunder of clouds if we stop producing this much pollution.

Answer 10

Yes, it is. All scientific evidence points to humans as the primary cause of the current warming. See my discussion of the most recent IPCC summary here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgCxBALgHOtjhactMX_WFDjsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071117100323AAaNk2C

Prior to the Industrial Revolution climate changes were due to natural cycles. This one is not.