Global warming: Is it not true that the earth has always gone through cycles of warming and cooling?

Question

Studies of climate show cycles of warming and cooling long before industry and machines could have had any possible effect. As one scientist put it, effects of industry could have no more than .01 degree (one hundredth) rise in temperature.

Also, for the past 10,000 or so years, earth has had a relatively stable climate, even with the "little ice age" of medieval times. Before then, the climate showed instabilities beyond anything we have experienced or imagined. There is the possibility, even probability, that these times could return, with hurricanes of 400mph winds and as large as a hemisphere, with flash freezes that occur in minutes bringing

-100 degree temperatures. Man does not know or understand everything about our climate. We are lulled into a sense of security and safety with the stable climate of today. Read and study climatology. Don't just go by what politicians and the news networks say; they don't take the time or effort to do their homework and be objective.

Answer 1

Your right on!  It seems to be little more than a scam being used  to control the population and limit freedoms.

Over 1300 climate experts have demanded their names be removed from the list that supports carbon based global warming but the U.N refuses to meet these demands.

Lets never forget it was actually George Bush Sr. and Margret Thatcher who introduced and really funded the first "carbon based Global Warming" theories and research.

The planet is actually now getting colder since 1998.

This is why they are now changing it from "Global Warming" to the vague "Climate Change"

Geological evidence clearly shows that carbon has never dictated the temperature of the earth. Al Gore's famous graph if examined carefully shows actually the opposite.  He justs frames it deceptively and says "it's rather complicated" as an excuse to bend the facts in support of global taxes on energy use.

'The Great Global Warming Swindle" so far is the best expose' of this scam.

I am all against pollution, but I am also against crushing taxes on existence that will go directly to those fat cats who polluted the environment in the first place and helped to suppress alternative energies for their own control and gain.  Who do you think will be charging the brokerage fees on these "carbon credits"  I think everyone should take a very good look at Al Gores motivation for promoting a panic based on a easily debunked theory.

These tax exempt "foundations" like the Suzuki foundations are all funded by Big Oil. It is completely hypocritical.

Even Royal Dutch Shell Oil has it's logo all over these "green" pages.

Glad to see this scam is being slowly reveled in spite of the control of the media by those who will benefit from those carbon taxes.

I am all for reducing pollution however. A global tax on carbon to benefit the oil companies and big bankers will do nothing to save the environment. If anything it will give them more leverage to continue their assault on the planet and humanity.

Keep asking question!

Answer 2

Very true. The link is for a study that was done by NCASI. The study left out data from tree rings from my understanding because a tree, being a plant, is affected too readily by weather which the alarmists say is not "climate".

Answer 3

the o zone is what it's all about

Answer 4

No, its true that the earth has gone through many cycles before. The argument of today's warming is "What is the cause?". I'm not sure about those hurricane things and so on but if they happen, lol, I'm going to move to......................................... Mexico, I guess. It should be the safest country. *SHOULD*.

Edit: Well said Jello.

Answer 5

This is a good high level explanation from the National Academy of Sciences...

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

Answer 6

Yes, the earth has gone through cycles of warming and cooling.  Mass extinctions also occur simultaneously with these events.

Answer 7

You will not find many scientists who says it is an absolute certainty that we are causing global warming.

They will say that there is a 90% chance that we are causing it. There is always a chance that it is just one of these cycles.

But let me ask you this: If you were to place ALL your money on a team to win the superbowl, with there being a 90% chance one team would win, and a 10% chance the other team would win... which team would you invest every penny you own on?

Sure, there is a chance that it is just a cycle. But do you want to risk the lives of everyone on the planet on a 10% chance?

Or would you rather take precautions that would not only reduce the chance of us destroying the world we live in, but also decrease energy costs, reduce the amount of garbage in landfills and help make the air and water quality much much better?

Answer 8

Okay about every 10 000 years there is something called an ice age so yes but because of global warming our ice age the one to come is going to be coming sooner or later if it comes later we are not going to be around that much longer.

Answer 9

BIG hunks of ice carved out the great lakes, but the darn things melted, where have all the glaciers gone ?

How can the nut jobs, explain how GW is made/stopped by recycling, lower energy cost, landfills, etc.

Answer 10

The ozone layer protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. There is a big hole over Antarctica, scientists predict that the ozone layer will heal over it in about 60 years. Lots of that car exhaust, smog, littering is sources of it, there is a whole lot. Lots of bad weather conditions like lightning striking buildings making them catch on fire, that makes the smoke come out and goes into the atmosphere. If the whole ozone layer was gone, then we'd be burned into ashes.

Answer 11

Sure it has.  What we are having now is just normal weather.

The climate was 0.5 degrees below average for 130 year and for the last 30 years we're just 0.5 degrees above average.

Would you consider the long term climate change +/-0.5 degrees a normal temperature range?  I would as I can't even keep my home or refrigerator in limits that tight, and they're computer controlled!

Answer 12

Yes, and past changes were associated with elevated levels of greenhouse gasses, so those past warmings are evidence that our increases are contributing to the magnitude and pace of warming this time.

Unfortuantely past warmings did not happen this fast, so we're taking the planet into entirely new territory:

New Research Confirms Antarctic Thaw Fears - Spiegel Online

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk...

"...the Pine Island Glacier has shrunk by an average of 3.8 centimeters annually over the past 4,700 years. But the Smith and Pope glaciers have only lost 2.3 centimeters of their thickness annually during the past 14,500 years. Satellite measurements taken between 1992 and 1996, though, show a loss of 1.6 meters in thickness per year on the Pine Island Glacier -- a figure that represents 42 times the average melt of the past 4,700 years."

Even the minimal warming case studied will lead to a large number of species extinctions.  It's not clear how seriously these species extinctions will affect the ecosystems that we rely on.  

http://www.killerinourmidst.com/methane%...

A careful examination of a large number of species in numerous parts of the planet projects that a stunning portion of them will be "committed to extinction" in just 50 years, with only modest global warming (Thomas, 2004). "Committed to extinction" means that, in the language of poet Pedro Pietri (1968?), "their names [are] listed in the telephone directory of destruction," that is, the book of death. It does not mean that 50 years from now all these "committed" species will be gone, but rather that they will no longer have a habitat in which they can survive. The demise of the last members of such species may hang on for some decades, but their ultimate doom is assured.

The findings are the result of a comprehensive examination of more than a thousand terrestrial species -- plants, insects, mammals, birds, frogs and reptiles -- in regions representing about 20% of the Earth's surface. The regions studied are located in all continents except Asia, and represent a wide variety of environments: boreal (northern), temperate, and tropical forests, tundra, grasslands, savannah, deserts. The amount of warming that was projected in the study was shockingly small. Three projections were used: 0.8 to 1.7 °C (1.4 to 3.0°F) in the minimal warming case, 1.8 to 2.0°C (3.2 to 3.6°F) with mid-range climate change, over 2.0°C (3.6°F) at maximum (Thomas, 2004; Pounds and Puschendorf, 2004).

But with only this rather minimal amount of warming, and even with an assumed ability to disperse to more favorable environments, 11, 19, and 33 percent of total species (in minimal, mid-range, and maximal cases, respectively) will disappear. Mortality among those species with little or no ability to disperse will be considerably higher (34, 45, and 58 % in the respective no dispersal cases). Moreover, the "minimal" case (0.8 to 1.7 °C/1.4 to 3.0°F) represents the minimum expected warming by 2050: as the study's authors point out, this means that this level of extinction is inevitable (Thomas, 2004). In 50 years, more than 10% of terrestrial species -- at minimum -- will be on a one-way path to extinction; in 100 years, almost all those species will be gone.

"Contrary to previous projections," the authors note, "[climate warming] (which they attribute to human activity) is likely to be the greatest threat in many if not most regions." The study did not examine the "historically unprecedented" carbon dioxide levels with which organisms will have to contend, or interactions between climate change and other ecological threats, which the authors indicate are likely to be even more severe than climate change in isolation (Thomas, 2004). The message of this study is simple: climate change kills -- and kills extraordinary numbers of living things -- even when it is minor.

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We do know the actual outcome of climate change, since it has happened before:

Permian–Triassic extinction event

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Tri...

It was the Earth's most severe extinction event, with up to 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct. Because approximately 25 percent of species survived the event, the recovery of life on earth took significantly longer than after other extinction events. This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions".

Climate Model Links Warmer Temperatures to Permian Extinction

http://www.physorg.com/news6003.html

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Even the relatively stable period of the last 10,000 years has caused mankind some serious problems:

Medieval Warm Period: a Time of Productivity and Prosperity?

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

So wouldn't the greater changes and challenges that we appear to be setting in motion be a rational cause for concern?

If you've done any "homework" at all (if you've studied climatology, as you advocate for others), why is your post all talk, showing nothing credible?

Answer 13

Of course it has.  Do you think climate scientists haven't considered this rudimentary fact??

So what's your argument here?  Global warming has happened in the past so we can't be causing it?  By that logic, because forest fires happened before humans were around, we can't cause forest fires.  Then how do you explain Smokey the Bear?

Nailed.

Seriously, you have to do a lot more research than just 'climate has changed in the past'.  Do you know what caused the previous climate changes?  They were started by variations in the Earth's orbital cycle and solar irradiance, and amplified by feedbacks such as CO2.

Okay, so the next question is can these factors explain the rapid warming over the past 100 or 30 years?  The answer is an obvious 'no'.  Solar irradiance has remained unchaged on average over the past 30 years as the planet has warmed 0.5°C, and we're in a stable long-term cooling portion of the Earth's orbital cycles.

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

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

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

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

As you can see, scientists have considered that climate has changed in the past, and they've considered A LOT more information than that.  The scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause of the current warming.

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/...