Do you want to know the real cause of "Global Warming"?

Question

I may be wrong, but my hypothesis is.......

All the hot air and rhetoric coming out of the paranoid "Left" has gotten to critical mass, thus, sealing our warm fate.

The irony of it all is .....All you have to do is stop blabbering on and on and on, and it will quickly cool down. (untill the new catostrophic event is dreamed up. Like 30 yrs. ago, there was going to be an Ice Age, for sure, remember?)

Seriously, my real question is......

Why do the proponents of G.Warming feel the need, to so grossly, exaggerate the statistics? It only validates their total lack of credibility. And worse than that, They don't correct their miscalculations. They just let them linger so people will be more frightened.

That won't work, you need credibility,and they lost it in alot of peoples eyes. What do you think? about the credibility issue.

Answer 1

"Having eyes, they see not; and having ears, they hear not; neither do they understand."

-- Jesus describing the Pharisees of his day, in the Gospel

    According to Matthew

If you don't want to believe in what the climate scientists are saying about CO2 and global warming - well, no one can convince you of the truth if you just don't want to believe in it.

And if your parents work for a big oil company or coal company, maybe, you have some great reasons for not wanting to believe in global warming.

The same if you have great dreams of living in a perfect material world where you can drive a big gasoline-guzzling car as much as you want.  

Or if your parents work for an auto company that wants to sell people these big energy-guzzling cars -- the same thing.

So you may as well believe what you want about global warming; don't let the truth stop you.

But you ought to know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after a huge review of the scientific literature, has said that GW is real.

Similarly with the editors of the Scientific American, the journal "Nature," and most other scientific publications.

Similarly with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.  And even if you look at the White House web page of George W. Bush, you're going to find statements there where even the conservative president of the United States recognizes that climate change is real, and a real problem.

Of course, President Bush doesn't propose to do very much about it.  But even he is no longer denying the reality of the issue.

You go on and believe whatever you want, though.

After, "ignorance is bliss," and "what you don't know, can't hurt you."   Or - can it?

Answer 2

hear hear

Kathryn - if climate is so hard to predict, why are the AGW  believers and the government telling us that is that it's definately global warming and it's definately caused by man? And who said you have to do the research before you ask a question on here?

Answer 3

I will be glad when this global warming  henny penny science goes away.

Answer 4

amen! I have no doubt the planet has been warming for 10k years ( by 5 to 6 k ago it had warmed enough for farming & civilization to begin)& probably will continue to do so at least in the immediate future.

I also agree that  civilization probably has had some effect on climate change probably begining in the late bronze/early iron age when huge areas were deforested to make charcoal to smelt copper & iron before they discovered coal was much more efficient.

but their blind adherence to their saviors dogma & their insistance that this is the first time global warming has happened or its all our fault this time(but not all the other times) despite all the evidence of established science that its a repeating cycle that we dont fully understand, makes them appear to be halfwitted religious zealots.

conservation of finite resources is a very sensible goal, but these hysterical alarmists constantly shouting obvious lies like" your all going to burn up or drown within 50 years" does nothing to further that goal.

they only make people more resistant to things that actually could & should be done.

Answer 5

I think if you're going to make such accusations you should have some sort of evidence to support them.  Otherwise it's just empty rhetoric, which personally I don't find the least bit convincing.

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 6

The world is full of people who will argue over an issue because of their vested interests, but sometimes a problem comes along that is so potentially catastrophic that it needs people of all political persuasions to pull together and be objective. If Global Warming doesn't very quickly come to be seen as one of those problems, well, our children and grandchildren will be left with the consequences because this is one of the gravest threats to our civilization. You don't have to be an environmental scientist or a climatologist to understand that, you just have to put aside your prejudices and be totally objective as you look at the growing mass of evidence. And that means challenging the proponents of G.W. who feel the need to exaggerate their statistics because we need the statisticians and we must do all we can to prevent them losing credibility.

Answer 7

The most credible scientists have validated the theory of global warming. Sometimes environmentalists stretch the truth a little bit to get people's attention, but the statistics are there.  It's hard to tell which statistics you're referring to, those in scientific literature or those in the popular press (like Gore's).

Answer 8

Incredible.

Answer 9

Ich, forget the details and your actual question. The real cause of global warming is.....*drumroll* Al Gore!.....Someone was talking about it earlier in Health Class. Go with it :3

Answer 10

Yes.  Greenhouse gases.

The lack of credibility is with the "skeptics" who have no scientific evidence and say this is a "left" issue.  Lefties like these?

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air.  We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

"I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

Or how about these?

The National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Meteorological Association, the American Geophysical Union, etc.  EVERY major scientific organization.

This is science, and what counts is the data.

"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

Answer 11

Yes indeed, you are wrong.  The CO2 output (e.g. "hot air") coming from the "left" and "right" (it would bias the data too much if we didn't include the "hot air" of people like Rush Limbaugh) could not possibly be responsible for the 100+ ppm atmospheric CO2 rise since pre-industrial times.

When you also consider the fact that isotope analysis of the atmospheric CO2 demonstrates conclusively that it comes from fossil fuel sources, the truth becomes clear.

Greenhouse gases have always kept the planet warmer (by about 31 C) than it would be without them.  Humans (including CO2 coming out of some big mouths, but mainly from power generation and transportation) have raised the level of greenhouse gases significantly.  Therefore, the planet is warming up.  

It's really quite simple.  All one has to do to understand the reality of AGW is to put their anti-environmental  Al-Gore-hating Rush-Limbaugh-Dittohead-loving Government-conspiracy bias away for a few moments and look honestly at the evidence from actual climate scientists.

Answer 12

They only have credibility with those who are weak in a science education or aptitude.  Those who take the time to look at the numbers know what a crock of soup Global Warming is.

Answer 13

i don't really have an answer to your question but i just want you all to notice that on dana's graph how small a the percentage i so before you go wow the temperature has risen so much! just notice that since 1880 the earth's temperature has risen 1 degree

Answer 14

Sun flares ?

Answer 15

I think you're crediting scientists where it's really due to the media. The data isn't bad and neither is the interpretation. If you've ever taken a climatology class you'd understand this. It's literally impossible to model the entire planet as far as climate's concerned because there are just too many variables. All the scientists can do is use the data to find general trends and use those to predict the effects.

It's much more complicated than you make it sound. Think about that next time. And please do some research before posting.

Answer 16

The real cause is, Greenhouse gasses.

Or.... George Bush. Haha.