are people wrong to blame mankind for global warming.The world has had ice ages and tropical times before.?

Question

The world has its own system of heating and cooling vastly more powerful than mankind. Seems totally pointless to fight it. Why dont we work with it and look to surviving with it rather than fighting it.

Answer 1

Just because we've had natural changes in the past doesn't mean this one is natural. It's been proven that it isn't.

Global warming is real, and mostly caused by us. Don't take my word for it (or anybody else's on Answers). Everything I say is proven in the links.

This is science and what counts is the data, not political opinions.

"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 and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

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

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://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

Answer 2

Hi Fred,

You're absolutely correct in pointing out that the world has had ice ages and tropical times before, but there is a fundemental difference between what happened then and what's happening now - and that is one of speed.

Historically the climate is always changing, if it's not warming up then it's cooling down, never static. In the past these warming and cooling events have taken thousands or even millions of years but today we're seeing the same sort of scale of change happening in just a few years.

Temperatures are rising now at a rate 19 times faster than has ever before been known and 177 times faster than they did in the thousands of years between the end of the last ice age and the onset of industrialisation.

Temperatures are now at their highest level for 100,000 years and nearly at the highest level for 3 million years. Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmopshere have never been higher during all the time that humans have been on the planet and in the last few decades have risen by the same amount that it took nature millions of years to change.

You're correct in saying that the natural heating and cooling systems are more powerful than we are but it's not a question of power. We're providing the mechanism (greenhouse gases) that switches on global warming, and you don't need to be powerful to flick a switch.

You mention the point about working with global warming. For those in the developed world this is quite easy to do as we have the finances and the resources to mitigate many of the effects of global warming. It's the less developed nations that are going to be the hardest hit and ultimately up to 2 billion people could be displaced through famine, drought, flooding, rising sea levels etc. It will be the African and Asian nations that are by far the hardest hit.

For example, when higher temperatures lead to the failure of just a single crop in Africa the result is starvation on a massive scale, when the same happens over here the result is an increase in the price of bread.

Answer 3

Your logic is flawed. Here is an equivalent statement:

The world had forest fires before humans came around; therefore, humans can't cause forest fires.

Doesn't make much sense, does it?

There are many factors which effect the Earth's climate. Variations in the Sun, in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, volcanic eruptions, ozone, human aerosol emissions, human greenhouse gas emissions, etc. etc. It's not just one thing, it's very complicated.

Believe it or not, climate scientists have considered that the planet's climate has changed in the past. In fact, they've studied it very thoroughly. Scientists have also studied where we are in the natural cycles and the output of the Sun.

The Sun's output has remained essentially unchanged over the past 30 years while global warming has accelerated rapidly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm

We're also in a cooling period of the Earth's orbital cycles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#The_future

Climate scientists have studied all these factors. It's their job. They have determined that humans are responsible for 80-90% of the global warming over the past 30 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

Answer 4

The difference in a climate change such as ice ages and tropical times and global warming is in the air quality. The ozone was perfectly fine during those changes, but today, the ozone is being depleted. In layman's terms, the earth can't breathe and get rid of the carbons in the air from car exhausts, manufacturing fumes, etc.
Yes, humans are to blame for this.

Answer 5

Since I have heard that Mars is also heating up I would guess that the current heating must be, at least in part, coming from the sun.
Second. Who are we to say it is proper for the earth to have so much carbon locked away in coal and oils? What was the earth like before that occurred? Was that the proper state for the earth to be in?
We should blame the US government for such poor gas mileage requirements though. Letting SUV's fail to abide by the same rules as other autos for such a long time is unfathomable.

Answer 6

Global warming is a thing which occurs day by day from the early ages.But now a days the level of global warming has been raised by the human activities due to the need of the people.Global warming has crossed its limit .Obsolutely,humans are to be blamed for that,but unfortunately global warming is unavoidable....

Answer 7

This is a natural cycle. This planet earth is bound to finish a day. Million or billions other planets are there in universe. The life is a eternal process which goes on in different form and shapes.
So protecting environment is one as pact and saving world is another. We can help to prolong the process, but end is inevitable.
Navin Maheshwari

Answer 8

Mankind has indeed done far more to hurt the world and we are suffering the consequences now. Even though it seems too late but we have to do something for our next generation.

Answer 9

Bingo. But then, how would the elites get control over all of us? This whole argument is not over global warming, it is over control of the masses for the benefit of the elites. And to many of the masses are falling for it.

Answer 10

they can be right. but will we wait for the time that we can't survive it because it is very worse? i would rather prevent it now instead of crying at the end why i didn't fight global warming.