If scientists announced that global warming wasn't caused by greenhouse gases...?

Question

Scientists have long stated that global warming (the human induced part of it) is being caused by greenhouse gases. In fact, the whole theory of global warming is built around this premise.

But what if it were discovered that greenhouse gases weren't to blame and the warming was the result of some other human activity. Same warming, same consequences, same everything, just a different cause.

Would you still beleive the scientists? Would the new arguments have any credibility? Would you dismiss them as charlatans?

Answer 1

I would need to examine their evidence, since such a claim would go against all current established scientific evidence.

How would they explain that the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 which has been shown to be due to human emissions has not caused most of the recent warming?

How else would they propose that humans could possibly be responsible for the recent warming?

If this announcement were made by a large number of climate scientists, or for example by an expert organization such as the IPCC, then I would expect them to have a very good explanation for their new theory, and for why their old theory was incorrect.

If the announcement were made by a small group, such as Svensmark et al and their GCR theory, I would be extremely skeptical of their claims, but give them a chance to support those claims with scientific evidence.

Answer 2

Actually, there are a couple of climatologists who hold a very similar view. Reid Bryson, the father of modern climatology, and Roger Pielke, the most prolific and highly cited climatologist, both reject CO2 as the main driver of the recent warming.

They believe the recent warming is partly natural and partly man. They also believe land use/ land cover changes by man play a larger role than CO2. Land use/ land cover changes mainly affect local and regional climate, which in turn affects global measurements. The main difference is the theory does not include positive feedbacks that will doom the planet.

When an "incredible" prediction is made, you have to expect people to look at it more closely - to demand evidence. You would have to expect scientists to look at any theory closely regardless of how incredible it may seem. Unless the science has been reproduced, it cannot be accepted into the body of scientific knowledge.

Answer 3

It is all a lie. The earth is naturally going through a cycle and this time it happens to be a warming cycle. It is not caused by us. Scientists have recently said that even if all US citizens stopped driving cars for the next fifty years, the only difference that we would make in the temperature would be 1/700th of a degree. I also saw a scientist on tv who said that scientifically speaking, as long as the north and south poles have ice, then we are in an ice age....

Answer 4

well greenhouse gases is not proven yet to be the major cause of global warming but there are many circumstantial evidences that can prove that this is the cause. there will be to many questions if ever a finding like this will be said to us. it might be a bad effect also because other people who are doing environment friendly things might stop their campaigns due to this finding. even though these gases is not the cause, many people will still advocate to stop the use of these. the only thing is that we must not dismiss those people who found this things they just want to know the real source.

Answer 5

What if scientists said greenhouse gases didn't contribute to global warming - but some other human activity??
What other human activity do you think possible?
We could be sure that if the same scientists were involved - their credibility would be in question! Their demands seem to verge on Eugenics or at least destroying the present standard of living.

What will happen if global temperatures begin to trend down 1 or 2 degrees - will they turn it around to Global Cooling Alarmism?

Best Question:

Is not one of the contentions of the GW CO2 theory that CO2
rises up into the atmosphere to 'reflect/hold in' the sun's heat on earth???
What about CO2 sinking back to the ground - found at:
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/V...
"Carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air and the gas can flow into in low-lying areas; breathing air with more than 30% CO2 can quickly induce unconsciousness and cause death."
Can Anyone answer this?


O BTW - Liwie point there is no predator for man?!?
Hasn't man been his own predator? Look at ALL the wars.

Answer 6

I would accept that there could be more than one factor (that is already established knowledge though), I would be really surprised and intensely curious to evaluate the new information.

If they said that Greenhouse Gasses had nothing to do with it I would be VERY sceptical, as they are named Greenhouse Gasses because of the warming effect they have after all.

If you define something and give it a name because of a specific effect it creates and then say that it doesn't create that effect after all, that's a BIG boo-boo. Theory, ok, theories are made to be disproven, definition on the other hand ... BIG boo-boo.

Answer 7

Scientests never said that global warming was the caused by greenhouse gases. They said that they may be CONTRIBUTING to global warming.

Anyway, there is evidence that the world goes through cycles and at the moment, we are going through a warm wave. It should be followed by a cold spell in a few years time.

Some say that global warming is a marketing tool by the government.

What you believe is up to you.

The ecosystem can't handle humans anyway. The environment relies on that predator-prey relationship. Without a sturdy predator, humans will populate and eventually the environment will not be able to support us and it will collapse.

Take rabbits and foxes for example... the foxes eat the rabbits and so the pop. of rabbits go down. Then, as a result of a lack of food, the foxes go down. Because of a lack of predators, the rabbits go up. Abundance of food- foxes go up. More foxes- rabbits go down... and so on. There is no predator for humans.

Answer 8

Since the warming shows very little correlation with CO2 increase over the last two hundred years, any data that correlated with temperature increase should be thoroughly investigated. For instance, if it is found that irrigation is a primary cause of anthropogenic warming, then clearly spending trillions on CO2 output reduction would not make much sense.

Answer 9

Scientists have already announced that global warming is not (mostly) caused by greenhouse gases. It just gets hushed up by the media.
There is already an answer to your question. People DO dismiss the scientists who say this. No one believes them, because what they're saying is not politically correct. It goes against what everyone is hearing, or what they want to hear.
Trevor, I know from your previous answers that you already know a lot on this subject. You already know that there are many good scientists who have announced that CO2 is one of the least likely causes of global warming, and you already know that people dismiss them as heretic's, as lier's, or as "being payed by the big oil companies," and thus being biased. It's not news to any of us who have researched this in detail.

Answer 10

You masochist! Why do you think that humans are the sole factor. It's called Ontario flattened by glaciers 10000 years ago. OH NOEZ! TEMPARETUER R GOIN UP! WE NO HAS BIN SCAYURMONGERZ! MANBEARPIG!!!!!