Do you believe in Global Warming? What are your opinions on it?

Question

I do believe in global warming, i think that the earth is going through a stage though as it has done that before. But I think we are having an impact on our environment by messing around with the balance of gasses in the air, which is heating the planet. So we are having an effect on our environment but maybe not exactly in the way we think.

Answer 1

i believe in it because we can see how its effecting lives. but 2 day at school i heard about this film about global warming and how it isn't allowed to be shown in school because its really influential.

Answer 2

Unfortunately I don't like the world "believe" it is not a religion or a prediction, it is a scientific fact and their is many research on it, reference is made to most of the resent studies, human being is responsible! hi is the one to be blamed. (actually this is what I believe too)

And I think that the following text will be a good beginning for you.

Actually, "some, not within the scientific community, argue that

warming is happening but that it is simply part of a natural

cycle. They point to the relative warm period in Europe in

the Middle Ages and the cooler conditions that occurred

in the 17th and 18th centuries, the so-called mini-ice age.

There are undoubtedly natural fluctuations but we are

now facing a sustained warming trend that can only be

explained by the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The effect of such warming is seen in glaciers,

which are in retreat around the globe. Some have been

dated back to the last ice age, 12 000 years ago, and are

in retreat for the first time in our warm period. The latest

supporting data were published from the Chinese Academy

of Sciences late last year (Tandong et al 2005). A 25-

year analysis of the Chinese glaciers, which correspond

to 15% of land-based ice on Earth, based on more than

30 000 aerial photographs and satellite images, has demonstrated the loss of 8000 km of ice cover in this period.

Tandong et al 2004 estimate that the Chinese glaciers

will have disappeared by the end of the century.

Impacts of climate change predicted by the modelers

are already occurring. Climatologists are currently

focusing their attention on a number of key factors.

These extreme events include a slowing, or even termination,

of the thermohaline circulation that maintains

Northern temperatures about 8C higher that they would

otherwise be (Woodet al. 2005; Challenor, Hanlin &

Marsh 2005); loss of the Greenland ice sheet, which

would produce global sea level rises of about 7 m over

a time-scale of a thousand years or more (Gregory,

Huybrechts & Raper 2004); enhanced retreat of glaciers

in some regions; major alterations to the Indian monsoon

and desertification of increased areas of the African

continent.

As carbon dioxide levels increase, all models show an

increase in the temperature of the earth and sea. In

turn, this increases the amount of water vapour in the

atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas itself and will

further raise the temperature. This is a big positive

feedback. However, this water vapour can form clouds,

and the clouds can have opposite effects: they can act as

a blanket, adding to the greenhouse effect, or they can

reflect sunlight back into space, especially high white

clouds, and cause cooling. This is difficult to model.

Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Deforestation as a result of human activity is a well-known

problem. But sophisticated models now show

that decreased rainfall is likely to accompany global

warming in some critical forested areas. These include

the Amazonian tropical rainforests. Reduced rainfall

could lead to dryer conditions and increased numbers

of forest fires. This would increase global warming

quite substantially.

As the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere increases,

so it also increases in the oceans, which raises the ocean

acidity (lowers the pH). Effects on coral reefs and

plankton populations have already been noted. Publications

that highlight the causes and consequences of the

rapid loss of the reefs now occurring around the world

include those of Bryant et al. (1998), who estimate that

coral reefs provide support to ecosystems worth more

than $375 billion per annum to the global economy,

and, very recently, Pandolfi et al . (2005), which provide

an update on the degradation of ecosystems of 17 coral

reefs around the world. The wider impact on marine

life and on the food chain, including the human food

chain, is an area requiring urgent further study.

See more on the following page entiteld: Climate change the science and the policy, by David Kind.

I believe also that we can not face something without knowing very well about it, global warming or Climate Change (scientifically better) is an International issue we are all people of the earth concerned we have to be wise enough to stop those who are not from destroying our planet!

Answer 3

Global warming, yes. AGW, no. Somehow, I just can't see 0.0037% of ANYTHING in the atmosphere as being enough to do anything to the climate.

That really IS tiny!

Answer 4

Humans have emitted CO2 and CO2 is a greenhouse gas; therefore, theoretically humans have contributed to global warming.  That being said, there is no evidence that humans have contributed significantly to global warming.  It almost certainly would have warmed anyway.  The harmful effects of warming have been rediculously exaggerated and the obvious benefits have been ignored.  The left likes to pretend that they are more knowledgeable and important than the are.  In fact, our current state of knowledge and technology doesn't allow us to evaluate accurately our impact on the environment.  In my opinon, we are not having as much of an impact as alarmist suggest.

Answer 5

Yes and No.

Answer 6

Global Warming is true, there are Natural fazes but we are affecting that to a great extent ,with deforestation ,desertification and pollution., especially air pollution.

A few weeks ago one of NASA's top scientists concluded that the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free within five years, much faster than all previous predictions.

when the north pole is gone , you may have polar bears soon in America ,looking for a home ,

Calculations do not include the accumulative ,speeding up ,factor with time. the increase in water temperature will get faster all the time as well as the melting, when the ice is all gone the deeper cold Ocean currents will be drastically affected,which in turn will affect the warm currents,since all moving bodies of water are connected in series.

This will affect coastal climates ,world wide ,almost instantly. All aquatic flora and fauna will be affected,many dying off and others becoming invasive,

And recently In Chiapas ,and Tabasco in Mexico .more then a million people became homeless overnight with water coming up to their roofs ,because of rains from super evaporation from the forests,this had never happened before. Millions of animals died.

In India 3000 people died because of super storms .

.A few years ago in Europe 3500 people,died during a heat wave ,many of them in France .

Right now the average death toll annually is 150.000 due to Global warming

. these figures are already out of date and are expected to double soon.

In Northern China millions of people are running for their lives because regular dust storms so far have buried 900 villages under the sand and the whole of northern China is turning into a dessert.

The Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year all around the edges ,like a slow burning fire shriveling up their neighbors In the Kalahari huge rivers have dried up and thousand of species are gone due to their habitats disappearing .

The biggest changes are invisible at micro biotic levels species are becoming extinct ,others are multiplying ,

This affects the insect populations that follow ,and changes in that ,affect all that follows in the food chains ,

All life is interrelated of both flora and fauna, And since we are on the top of the food chain ,

we are always the last to know.

So Global warming has its toll there are incidents all over the world ,

However

confusion rules the day ,i am beginning to think that SCIENCE HAS BEEN INVADED WITH POLITICS AND HUMAN EMOTIONS

The truth is being distorted at high levels,

And lies have been weaved in.

Some of the real dangers are being hidden because there are no solutions , Public could panic.and Authorities would loose control .

Besides Corporations have other priorities and changes will cause loss of profits ,this also affects the truths being published

Others facts are exaggerated so that the phenomena can be used to milk the people.

This is further complicated with Arrogance that will not admit that mankind could be guilty, or that Gods could be out of control ,unloving or incompetent

But I do not think we can make a real difference anymore to change the tide.

On a Global scale,Humanity is not co operative enough .

The poor regions have other priorities such as daily survival.

There is a lot we can do about being more responsible with what we got ,

In the first world countries many do not care or are more interested in Global Control than Global Warming.

Answer 7

No GW is a scam and is part of why U are paying such high gasoline prices.

Answer 8

I think Global Warming is part of a natural cycle, yes we may speeded up the event but we're only a minor cog in the bigger picture, the same ones who are doing all the shouting now are the same ones who will be shouting ICE AGE when things start to return to normal.

Answer 9

I don't like the word "believe", since to many people that's the equivalent of "faith" or merely an "opinion" based on no significant information.  I prefer the term "convinced".  I'm convinced after looking at the preponderance of evidence that Global Warming is happening and humans are responsible for the majority of it.

Anyone who says it's part of a natural cycle, simply hasn't looked at the evidence.  There have been many natural cycles in the past and climate scientists are well aware of them.  But the current cycle of warming is caused by the known physics of greenhouse gases (increased by human activities) trapping the suns heat.

Answer 10

This rounds out my entire point.  Global warming is a cult religion.

Look at the number of Wikipedia references... Wow, I think that I am going to edit every single one to reflect the truth....

Answer 11

EXTINCTION ON POLER BEARS AND OTHER BAD THINGS!

Answer 12

I don't believe in it, because we have had ice ages before, and heat waves and the world naturally warms up and cools down.  Remember Al Gores Inconvenient Truth?  The data used was 800 years out!  So our carbon dioxide emissions have nothing to do with ice melting.

However, I still do my fair share of eco friendly things, merely because I don't like the packaged, disposable world we live in.

Answer 13

It does exist! Has anyone seen Inconvenient truth? In the last 50 years or so ( i think ) the rate of global warming has gone up more than 300% yes we have had ice ages before, but duh we didn't have stupid gas guzzlers and other stuff then! It does exist and nobody can be stuffed to stop it. So when im older i'm going to be left with a flooded London - thanks grown ups!!!

Answer 14

I think the best arguement on acting on global warming is made by this guy

http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argu...

Its 9min long but he has a good point.

We have proof CO2 levels have never EVER been even a third as high as they are now and we have proof it is effecting storms. I dont see how the earth has done this before is a valid argument when it never has reached this point before (although the CO2 levels have slightly declined since the 80s but thats because of the refrigerators)

Either way I think going green would be much better for our economy. We can pull more profit off of things like corn in which goes to waste in products as high fructose corn syrup. Plus fuel would be cheaper because it would be our product. I think acting is the only safe bet no matter what will happen.

Answer 15

I agree with you. And I also believe that people should think about pollution more than global warming, though they are related.

Answer 16

I BELEIVE IN GLOBAL WARMING. i think that it isgona disappeer in a while . how? there r cars that r giongto work on the su n

Answer 17

i do believe it's real. but i also believe it can be a stage in the world too, like the ice age. we do need to help stop global warming tho cuz it is effecting our world and environment.

Answer 18

I think that the earth is going through a phase that will cool itself off in a couple millon years. The earth has gone through many phases. I think that we are just speeding it up.

Answer 19

i agree with your view point.  i also belive in global warming and that we are sending the earth more quickly into a stage it was going to go thru anyway and has been thru before!!! as my boss tells me time and again "they used to grow grapes on orkney!!! its all been done before"... in case u are not british ill just add that orkney is a scottish island and WAY too cold to grow grapes on!!!!

Answer 20

There are many basic scientific facts which can only be explained if the current global warming is being caused by an increased greenhouse effect due to carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from humans burning fossil fuels.

For example, the planet is warming as much or more during the night than day.  If the warming were due to the Sun, the planet should warm a lot more during the day when the Sun has influence.  Greenhouse gases trap heat all the time, so they warm the planet regardless of time of day.  Another example is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because the greenhouse gases trap the heat in the lower atmosphere.  If warming were due to the Sun, it would be warming all layers of the atmosphere.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

We know it's warming, and we've measured how much:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science...

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming.  What they found is:

Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming.  This is during a very rapid period of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/62902...

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pro...

A recent study concluded:

“the range of  [Northern Hemisphere]-temperature reconstructions and natural forcing histories…constrain the natural contribution to 20th century warming to be <0.2°C [less than one-third of the total warming].  Anthropogenic forcing must account for the difference between a small natural temperature signal and the observed warming in the late 20th century.”

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104...

You can see this in the third graph here, where the dotted lines are just from natural causes, and the full lines are natural + human causes:

http://www.pnas.org/content/vol104/issue...

If that’s not enough to convince you the Sun isn’t responsible, consider the fact that no scientific study has ever attributed more than one-third of the warming over the past 30 years to the Sun, and most attribute just 0-10% to the Sun.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming.  They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a cooling period right now.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitc...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles.  They looked at volcanoes, and found that

a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight

b) humans emit over 150 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man....

So it's certainly not due to volcanoes.  Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions.  We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna...

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels.  We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%).  You can see a model of the various factors over the past century here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clima...

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

Answer 21

Well for a while we had jokes about it not being real because we had over 17 inches of snow.  I really have no opinion... i don't think about it much.