Debate Against Global Warming Is Tomorrow...?

Question

Any last minute thoughts, websites, advice?

I was hoping some people could answer a few questions is have about 'global warming'.

1. Is the globe really warming?

2. Is it true that we have had the hottest past 7 years in history?

3. What are green house gasses?

4. Something about a hockey stick?

5. Is the sea level really rising and the ice caps melting?

6. Is global warming to blame for natural disasters?

I'm researching the internet for possible things the other team, who is for global warming, could possibly say.

Anyone with any ideas, or facts, or questions you think they could ask, and I could give an answer back to, would be great.

Also, any websites are great.

It's crunch time for me, and as I said, I'm surfing the web right now, like no other.

Thanks for all of your help in the past and to come.

Mackenzie.

Answer 1

Re# 4 and crazycons reply to #4

As someone who works in science I am open to any theory that has science behind it. But it really gets on my wick when people lie about facts. The hocky stick diagram had some minor errors 'which were corrected' in 2006 it was independently accessed by the National Academy of Science and found to be correct with some small errors that didn't affect the overall result. i.e. not debunked at all!

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Answer 2

1. Is the globe really warming?

Yes... It's been warming for thousands of years.

2. Is it true that we have had the hottest past 7 years in history?

Absolutely not. It was incredibly hot in the time of the dinosaurs, for example.

3. What are green house gasses?

These are emissions that create an envelope around the earth that don't allow some heat to escape the atmosphere. It works like a greenhouse.

4. Something about a hockey stick?

That's the shape of the temperature graph in Al Gore's theory about the global temperatures rising significantly in the recent past.

5. Is the sea level really rising and the ice caps melting?

Yes, that would cause the sea level to rise.

6. Is global warming to blame for natural disasters?

Well, no... That's a good scapegoat that politicians use to promote themselves. Natural disasters have *always* occurred. I believe hurricanes were actually much worse in the '60s than they were this decade ... even though one of them had a really unfortunate destination.

Answer 3

1. Yes, the globe has been warming for the past 15,000 years since the last ice age. As far as man made global warming, no scientific evidence currently exists to suggest we have a significant impact.

2. Absolutely not. We are currently just a little above the 2,000 year average. Hardly the warmest on record.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index....

3. Green house gases absorb certain spectrum's in the suns energy and remit them as infrared energy.

http://www.carbon-sense.com/wp-content/u...

4. The hockey stick was the center piece of the IPCC's third report. It tried to show that current temps have been unprecedented. However, after the publication of the data, it was found to be riddled with errors and was removed from the 4th IPCC report. It has been completely debunked.

http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.h...

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/researc...

5. Yes, they have been for the last 15,000 years or so. Hardly earth shattering news.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/i...

6. NO scientific studies have yet to draw any correlation between natural disasters and global warming.

Here is a previous post of mine which will answer many of your questions.

Some interesting facts.

1. During most of the past 2,000 years, the temp has been about the same or higher. Currently, we are barely over the average for the last 2,000 years.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index....

2. During the medieval warm period (820 – 1040 AD), Greenland supported farming. Those areas previously farmed are now covered in glaciers. Obviously the melting and reformation of glaciers is a cyclical occurrence.

3. The earth experienced a little ice age which ended around the late 1860's or so. This is about the time man started recording temperatures. This would be like measuring a lake depth after a severe drought, then worrying about it flooding as it rose to normal levels.

4. The earth has been warming for the last 10,000 years, since the last major glacier time period. Also, for most of the last 1 billion years, the earth had NO glaciers or ice coverage.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/i...

5. The AGW theory states that CO2 is the primary driver of temperature. They arrived at this idea because they did not know of anything else which could cause it. But during the 70's and during the current decade, temperatures dropped while CO2 continued to rise. This means that natural occurrences are driving temp, not CO2.

6. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and sun spots provides a much better correlation to earths' temperature than CO2 levels ever have.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

7. Polar Bears are experiencing a population boom. Coke sales in the arctics are through the roof. Polar Bears have been around for thousands of years, and remember, we are only at the average for the last 2,000 years. They lived through all the previously warmer climates.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/...

8. The glaciers have been melting now for over 10,000 years. the current rate of melting is similar to previous melting.

9. There is no consensus on AGW. This was a lie that has been propagated by the media.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckt...

10. Yes we emit CO2 into the atmosphere and it is a greenhouse gas, but, we only contribute about .28% of all the greenhouse effect. Water vapor makes up about 95% of the greenhouse effect. CO2 and other trace gases round out the greenhouse gases at about 5% for all of them. Of that 5%, only 3% is CO2, and most of that is natural. Again, our contribution to the greenhouse effect is a paltry .28%

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenh...

11. The spread of disease is not attributed mainly to temperature. If this were the case, Florida would be a giant festering disease ridden cesspool. Economic standing is the primary determining factor in the spread of disease. Poor cultures can not fight the disease or eradicate the pests like more successful nations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12077886...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.h...

12. Natural climate disasters (hurricanes, cyclones, etc) have never been scientifically linked to global warming (whether natural or man made).

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppa...

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?i...

Also remember, many of the arguments used by pro AGW supporters have no bearing on the argument. Such things as glaciers melting, sea levels, etc are not evidence of MAN Made warming. These happen because of the natural warming so can not be used by the other side. And if they are, you can score some easy points by pointing out this fact. Good luck. Would love to hear the results after the debate.

Answer 4

Here is a link to ALL the global warming myths...

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global...

Answer 5

Mckenzie--

re #3--a greenhouse gas is any gas that has the property of trapping heat--in effect acting like a blanket.  Specifically, the problem istha t one of those gases (CO2) has increased,  There are normally several such gases in the atmospere--including water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas.  But until recently, the level of these gases has been stable--what scientists call an "equilibrium."  The rise in CO2 is modest--but enough to knock theings off balance, causing blobal warming.

There are no arguements "aginst" global warming--it is a proven scientific fact.  I  realize you are doing a school project, but that's all there is too it.

Properly speaking, this not the type of question that should be used for a school debate--very much so.  Your teacher is being highly unethical in using this as a topic--and should be reprimanded at the very least, if not fired.

Answer 6

For global warming and against global warming could be a terminological problem.

Is the other team proposing to increase global warming while you are proposing to halt it?

That might be the meaning of for and against global warming.

The hockey stick analogy comes from 'Inconvenient truth'.  The graphical evidence is presented that with minor ups and downs, global average temperatures have turned a corner, like the bend in a hockey stick.

There have been other periods when temperatures have risen with only slightly less abrupt angle. Since the mini-ice age there has been none that has been as consistently upward.

Sea levels may have risen slightly, or land masses may have settled into the magma just a bit. We would see the same result. But are the ice caps melting? Antarctica is maintaining its ice mass. Some parts of Antarctica, in particular the peninsula that points to South America, has lost a lot of ice. The rest of the continent has been receiving extra snowfall, resulting in more movement of glaciers toward the oceans.

Be careful of this line of reasoning. While the ice level has been maintained, it has been maintained by larger snow falls. Larger snow fall is predicted as oceans warm and are covered with more water vapor. It is an evidence of warming.

The single most significant Greenhouse gas is water vapor. This gas increases as air temperature increases. So, global warming causes global warming. It is the main reason previous warming periods have continued.

Carbon dioxide is a significant GHG. And in previous warming periods we have seen an increase in CO2 levels, as evidenced in ice core samples  (reported in inconvenient truth).

CO2 rises as temperature rises, whether it is because of man's actions or not.

Failure of plants to absorb CO2 is consistent with drought and desertification. It takes water for plants to absorb CO2. Global warming creates drought and desertification, so global warming creates more CO2 in the air. Little question that CO2 and temperature might be correlated.

Oceans get rid of a lot of CO2. As temperatures rise, oceans will get rid of less CO2, even return some CO2 to the air. Again rising temperatures drive up CO2.

Rising temperatures cause more rapid breakdown of soil carbon stores, into CO2. So we again get warming causes more CO2.

Now all of this does not imply that more CO2 does not cause global warming, even though global warming does cause more CO2. What it says is that global warming does cause global warming by adding CO2 and water vapor to the air.

A greenhouse gas is one which bends long wavelength radiation, and by repeated bending keeps it from escaping into space.

Note that water vapor and cloud are not the same. Cloud is not a greenhouse gas. When clouds are warmed up, they become water vapor, and do trap heat. As cloud, they reflect more heat than they trap in daylight.

This is significant. Global warming causes global warming by allowing more sunlight to reach earth by evaporating the clouds, reducing reflectivity, and trapping heat with water vapor.

Global warming and cooling are real and very significant. We may not be able to stop global warming by removing our contribution to global warming. Once it gets going it has a life of its own.

Is global warming the cause of m=natural disasters?

Perhaps some, certainly not others to any extent.

Droughts and torrential rains, often with major winds will be more common as there is more water vapor in the air, and that is a characteristic of GW.

Tsunami? no. earthquakes, volcanoes, epidemics... generally no.

Tornadoes are an in-between situation. They can occur without GW. More water vapor does suggest more volcanoes. GW does tend to increase the temperature difference from lower air to upper air, so we should expect more, and more intense tornado activity.

Be careful... GHG does not absorb sunlight and reemit it as infra-red. The light comes down to solid or liquid matter, the earth, is absorbed by that matter, and re emitted as infra-red, long wave length light from the solid or liquid. Then  greenhouse gas reflects it.

If GHG were to absorb and reemit incoming sunlight, we would have no greenhouse effect.