The latest news on Global Warming - anyone still in doubt?

Question

Here's part of today's story from AP:

"For the first time, more than 200 of the world's leading climate scientists, losing their patience, urged government leaders to take radical action to slow global warming because "there is no time to lose."

A petition from at least 215 climate scientists calls for the world to cut in half greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The appeal from scientists follows a petition last week from more than 150 global business leaders also demanding the 50 percent cut in greenhouse gases.
"It's a grave crisis, and we need to do something real fast," said petition signer Jeff Severinghaus, a geosciences professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "I think the stakes are way way too high to be playing around."

The unprecedented petition includes scientists from more than 25 countries.

Answer 1

There will always be people who ignore all evidence contrary to their preconceived notions. There will always be people who put their faith ahead of science. The government is full of people who think "truth" is whatever they say it is. It worked for the Soviets, so why not here? The good news is we don't have to convince everyone. Just enough to take action.

Answer 2

that's all alarmist crap and continually has been. returned interior the 60's in grade college replaced into as quickly as I first heard approximately this international warming stuff. (specific until eventually now then). on the time the concentration replaced into on the "inhabitants explosion". We have been instructed that with the help of the 12 months 2000 maximum of manhattan city could be under water from the turning out to be oceans. The oceans have been meant to upward push from each and all of the glaciers dropping Ice burgs into the sea. in basic terms like putting too many ice cubes in a glass of water we'd flood the earth. Then interior the overdue 70's into the 80's it replaced into the hollow interior the ozone. This replaced into going to destroy all flowers with too plenty extremely-violet radiation. nicely guess what I even have been going to the sea when you consider that i replaced right into a new child and the water at intense tide is not any greater now than it replaced into then.

Answer 3

Well already you've got 6 examples of people still in doubt, for the classic reasons.

Some are paranoid conspiracy theorists who think it's all a scam.

Some think they're smarter and know more about climate science than the world's best climate scientists.

All of them are in denial about the scientific reality of the situation, and thus the words of climate scientists won't do anything to convince them.

However, these people are not important. They're in the vast minority. Almost everyone has accepted the reality of the situation. Even George W. Bush and almost all of the Republican presidential nominees have figured it out.

Global warming deniers are a dying breed. A lot of them congregate here so they can feel like they're a larger and more important group than they really are, but in reality they simply don't matter. We'll make progress solving the problem without them.

Most people are smart enough to listen to the scientific experts.

Answer 4

I wonder how many of those 215 "scientists" believe the earth is roughly 4.5 BILLION years old, and how they determined what the optimal temperature of the earth to be? One thing we all know for sure, things change - that includes the climate and why Greenland was once GREEN, not WHITE. Maybe the earth is moving toward a more natural, friendly climate, and we are getting in her way? One thing I know for sure - we do release CO2; however, by releasing CO2, we are doing nothing more than recycling what the earth locked up over millions of years as part of an ongoing cycle. For you first timers, this means than CO2 was once much more plentiful in the atmosphere that it is now, along with oxygen, methane, etc. And real scientists realize that there seems to be a greater correlation of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere due to a temperature increase, rather than a temperature increase due to excessive CO2. To have the arrogance to claim we know precisly what is happening and how to fix it is on the order of claiming the earth is flat. And why is there not genuine, open dialogue to try and determine what is actually happening instead of jumping to conclusions? You know why, THERE IS MONEY IN SCARING PEOPLE!!!!! Open your eyes - after all, as was already mentioned in a previous response, the "scientists" of the day only a few hundred years ago riduculed those in the minority who believed the sun ROTATED AROUND the earth.

Answer 5

Since weather has been a passion of mine for my whole life I've been aware for quite some time that there is no time to lose. I hear people say all the time they don't believe it. Of course they don't believe it because they have not personally seen the damage caused by greenhouse gases. Most people live in cities where you don't normally see the damage it's causing our world. To learn about greenhouse gases all one has to do is study Venus. Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon. Venus has the densest atmosphere of all the terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide. The CO2 rich atmosphere, along with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide, generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the solar system. Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus's atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere. In the absence of the greenhouse effect caused by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the temperature at the surface of Venus would be quite similar to that on Earth except for the fact the actual temperature on Venus can reach over 460 degrees Centigrade. You see, it's a grave crisis and we do need to cut greenhouse gases very fast so we don't see a runaway process. The stakes ARE way too high to be playing around. The current administration wishes just to pass it off to the next administration. If we just keep passing it off and hope it just goes away may prove to be the downfall this world will not want to face.

Answer 6

Interesting response by Mikira (sorry to pick on you Mikira - you were just the first in the list I came to that didn't seem to take the issue seriously. It is serious as a heart attack and all of your arguments are easily rebuted. I just didn't want people to think this issue was as simple as it seems to be in your response.)

Why are people soooo afraid of dying? That's what all your irrational fear stems from.

***** You don't have a handle on the problem. it is NOT just the HUMAN SPECIES. The environmental systems that make life on the planet possible may undergo radical and relatively fast (geologically speaking) changes ***************

And NO!! Just because 200 scientists got together at a conference and cry that the sky is falling am I going to believe Global Warming is caused or being sped up by man. Or can be stopped or slowed down by man.

********Show a real lack of basic understanding. 200 of the world best climatologist that study this phenomenon are afraid. They tried to stay out of it and let the politicians do their job, but the politicians are not acting. These scientist are begging us slow down a slow-burning catastrophe that can not be turned off with the flip of a switch! Like a doctor begging a 3-pack-a-day smoker to stop. It will take decades to mitigate if we start NOW ****************

We can stop polluting our environment, but we can't change a natural event

***** this is COMPLETELY WRONG - much of it is caused by human activity. The natural variations have been considered in the warming - just a few folks refuse to recognize this. We can't completely stop polluting, but we've got to reduce our impact as much as possible. ***********

Answer 7

Sure, there'll always be people in doubt.

There are people who doubt we went to the Moon.

There are people who think the Earth is 6000 years old.

There are people who think everything is a conspiracy. Or that thousands of scientists are lying, and that world leaders and corporate leaders are either in on it or being fooled.

People believe all sorts of crazy things.

The good thing is that there's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/412.php?lb=hmpg1&pnt=412&nid=&id=

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

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

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

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"

VLADOVIKING - I'll gladly put my money on those nerds. They're very successful nerds:

http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/pubs.html

OK, you win my "belly laugh" prize this week. "Term papers". Heh.

Answer 8

Proponents of the notion that increases in the air's CO2 content lead to global warming point to the past century's weak correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global air temperature as proof of their contention. However, they typically gloss over the fact that correlation does not imply causation, and that a hundred years is not enough time to establish the validity of such a relationship when it comes to earth's temperature history.

The observation that two things have risen together for a period of time says nothing about one trend being the cause of the other. To establish a causal relationship it must be demonstrated that the presumed cause precedes the presumed effect. Furthermore, this relationship should be demonstrable over several cycles of increases and decreases in both parameters. And even when these criteria are met, as in the case of solar/climate relationships, many people are unwilling to acknowledge that variations in the presumed cause truly produced the observed analogous variations in the presumed effect.

In thus considering the seven greatest temperature transitions of the past half-million years - three glacial terminations and four glacial inceptions - we note that increases and decreases in atmospheric CO2 concentration not only did not precede the changes in air temperature, they followed them, and by hundreds to thousands of years! There were also long periods of time when atmospheric CO2 remained unchanged, while air temperature dropped, as well as times when the air's CO2 content dropped, while air temperature remained unchanged or actually rose. Hence, the climate history of the past half-million years provides absolutely no evidence to suggest that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration will lead to significant global warming.

There is always doubt when it comes to the unknown. How the earth's climate as a whole works is unknown.

Answer 9

Why are people soooo afraid of dying? That's what all your irrational fear stems from. And NO!! Just because 200 scientists got together at a conference and cry that the sky is falling am I going to believe Global Warming is caused or being sped up by man. Or can be stopped or slowed down by man.

We can stop polluting our environment, but we can't change a natural event.

Edit: Bubba, why do you care so much about what I wrote that you structured your whole answer around it. I'm not trying to get best answers, especially on questions like this one, since I know the answerer who best answers the questioners belief system will be approved as the best answer.

Sorry, my points in this answer are valid, since most people only think of themselves and not about what happens to the things around them.

I did state we need to stop polluting our environment.

Oh and I'm supposed to forgo common sense, because a group of credentialed scientists agree. Sorry still ain't buying it.

Other so called great scientists have been proven wrong when it comes to things pertaining to this planet.

You people don't like me, because I make you doubt your belief system, but bringing logic and psychology to the equation.

Answer 10

All gvmts have to do is start generating power with nuclear power.

50% of all co2 is formed by power generation. This would be eliminated by nuclear.

However nuclear power doesn't appeal to politicians and businessmen.

Politicians want more control over peoples lives, and a deeper hand into the pockets of the people, and businessmen want gvmt welfare programs for the development of 'green' energy.

It's a scam. Don't fall for it.