Global warming! Was it created to destroy our economy? And why? And what about Al Gore!?

Question

Up until this school year I believed in Global warming, But my math teacher was talking about how the northern ice caps are enlarging and that in the 50's people were afraid of "Global Cooling". So we came to the conclusion that Global warming was a shame created to ruine the economy. This is the most reasonable conclusion we could come up with. And it sounds pretty true. Gas prices are through the roof. And Taco's at Taco Bell went up 5 cents! Thats true. OK, back to my point. I believe Global warming is a shame created to ruine the Economy. And I don't think Al Gore has and right going around and talking about this great tragedy "Global Warming" because he flies on a Jumbo Jet that emitts more harmful fumes than my car does in months. What are y'alls opinions on Global Warming, and also Al Gore?

Answer 1

Well, I think you've been listening to the wrong people.  The Global Warming scam was a few guys but it was in the 70's, not the 50's.  Nobody took them seriously, at least not as seriously as they took themselves.  The ones I know by name are deniers today.  The ice caps are definitely melting.  Gas prices are up because middle eastern oil sales fund terrorism and the war against Israel.  Since the USA went to war with them they need more money.  We don't need to be dependent on petroleum technology at all right now, but that decision has been made for us by our leaders,  We need new leaders.

What do these people gain by ruining the economy?  Who are they?  You do know Global Warming has been a scientific theory for more than a hundred years, don't you?  In other words, Al Gore and the liberals didn't invent it.

Sorry about the taco, but if Al Gore bothers you the best thing to do is just put him out of your mind.  That's what I do.  Yes he rides a Jumbo Jet, but he's no more important than any other Jumbo Jet rider.  I suspect you're right about him being a hypocrite but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of those.

**************************************...

Jim z, how old were you in the 70's when all this shrill stuff was going on?  I was in my 30's.  I hear people say "I was around' or "I'm old enough to remember" and I picture them in a high chair watching Captain Kangaroo.  How close to right am I?

Answer 2

The "Global Cooling" thing was in the 70's, not the 50's, and it had virtually no one concerned (it was nothing like today's evidence and understanding of global warming).

Neither that nor any of your other reasoning has anything to do with the validity of the science behind global warming, so your logic is severely faulty.  

If global warming were not happening it would be easy to show evidence of that (so show me).  A large percentage of peer-reviewed papers published in major journals such as Science and Nature would not agree with it (so show me).  Instead, there are virtually no published scientific papers contradicting it:

http://norvig.com/oreskes.html

The consensus was quantified in a Science study by Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Dec. 2004) in which she surveyed 928 scientific journal articles that matched the search [global climate change] at the ISI Web of Science. Of these, according to Oreskes, 75% agreed with the consensus view (either implicitly or explicitly), 25% took no stand one way or the other, and none rejected the consensus.

The history of the science pre-dates Al Gore's birth, as summarized in detail on this site:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.h...

So no, global warming is not some evil plot to harm economies, it is simply an area of science with 100+ years of history behind it.

By the way, every major scientific organization has issued a public statement explaining that that global warming is a serious threat.  Not a single one has issued a statement of doubt.  

NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)

American Geophysical Union (AGU)

American Institute of Physics (AIP)

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

American Meteorological Society (AMS)

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Bazil)

Royal Society of Canada

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Academié des Sciences (France)

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)

Indian National Science Academy

Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)

Science Council of Japan

Russian Academy of Sciences

Royal Society (United Kingdom)

National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)

Australian Academy of Sciences

Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts

Caribbean Academy of Sciences

Indonesian Academy of Sciences

Royal Irish Academy

Academy of Sciences Malaysia

Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

People who think they're better informed than these organizations are severly deluded (or dishonest).  

Even the Pentagon is preparing for our food riots in as little as 12 years from now:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/...

They'll start practicing policing U.S. cities this Summer:

http://www.upi.com/International_Securit...

There will always be people who would rather believe in conspiracies, such as the 6% of the population believes that global warming is a hoax, and the same percentage of people believe that the lunar landing was a hoax:

"Seventy-one percent say that global warming is probably happening, 6 percent believe it is probably not happening..."

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/conten...

"A 1999 poll by the The Gallup Organization found that 89 percent of the US public believed the landing was genuine, while 6 percent did not..."

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

Being in denial however only lowers our odds of effectively dealing with the issue and accelerates the negative effects and brings the consequences sooner.  If you're not going to stop it, you'd better prepare for it instead.  You'd better join the Army soon, because that's where the first share of our failing crops will go in the future, to protect our "leaders" (politicians and the ultra rich).

If instead you ever get curious enough to educate yourself, try reading several of the documents here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

Such as this:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...

Answer 3

YOU ARE RIGHT

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/artic...

Answer 4

no, global warming is real.

its not just the ice caps its the decrease in population of animals. the more and more that are going on the endangered list. its the cancer rates rising because of the whole in the ozone layer allowing UV rays to harm our skin. its the water temperature rising, killing of species of fish that can no longer adapt to the temperature [the barrier reef is in extreme danger] storms are going to be X times stronger because of the climate change. global warming is not fake, its real.

your math teacher need to realize and study up on what he is talking abut;

the green house affect. Gases that we are using, for cars, factory- anything are rising up and ripping whole in our ozone. therefore allowing ultra violet rays from the sun to get in our earth atmosphere and bounce around- gradually heating up the earth and causing all those problem. the wholes are over the Australia. -and know that cancer rate in Australia has increased.

We have advanced greatly in the past 100 years. With new technology and expanding our knowledge we have achieved countless obstacles. But even as sophisticated as we are now, we’re also quickly destroying our planet. One of our biggest issues is water pollution, our main supply of oxygen comes from plankton living in the water; if we pollute it we kill plankton as well as other important marine life. Another problem we face is the burning of fossil fuels and destruction of the rain forest. I believe we can fix the damage created. Though continuing to carelessly pollute, will rapidly decrease that chance.

The greenhouse effect is caused by pollutants such as methane, aerosol, and carbon dioxide gathering near the surface of the ozone layer. Oxygen is normally used to balance this out, but there is not enough produced to do this. Thusly creating holes in the ozone, allowing U.V rays inside to bounce around, gradually heating up the earth. As result, we have global warming. Residuals triggered by the greenhouse effect include; melting of the icecaps, rise in sea level, mass extinction, change in climate, violent storms and an increase in droughts.

The government and public are constantly thinking of ways to help the issue at hand, now we just have to apply those solutions to fix it. We do this limiting use of fossil fuels, possibly purchasing a hybrid or using bountiful fuels that create little or no harm to the environment. Conserving energy, reducing our impact, reusing our materials and recycling wastes. I believe if people adapted now, just getting into the habit of helping the planet rather then contributing to destroy it, we wont have to worry about extreme adaptation or even struggles in near future.

By making even the simplest adjustment to our life now, can have a huge impact on the future of our planet. It is in our hands though, to choose whether we can make it a positive or negative outcome. Reversing the problems created by the greenhouse effect, we cannot only backset global warming, but can make our planet better for generations to come.

-tell that to your math teacher.

Answer 5

jason,

I would suggest your math teacher stick to his/her field.  Ice in the high northern latitudes is clearly declining significantly (see linked for instance), but there is some increase in the *interior* of Greenland.  Same with Antarctica, but the melt at the edges is more.  This is a prediction made by global warming (not an inconsistency), as a warmer atmosphere generally means a bit more precipitation, and glacier mass balance is set by precipitation vs. melting.  

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/20...

BTW, for the above poster, depletion of the ozone layer does not cause global warming; the depletion of ozone and the accumulation of greenhouse gases are two very different issues.  Sample Chapter 4 provides a decent introduction

http://forecast.uchicago.edu/samples.htm...

and my site

http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/03...

The Scientific Basis for Anthropogenic Climate Change

http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2007/12...

Answer 6

This isn't about Al Gore...

But, please specify which Chemical and Physical laws allow you to conclude that anthropogenic alteration of atmospheric chemistry via the introduction of vast quantities of greenhouse gases, will have no subsequent Thermodynamic effect.

Answer 7

As is usual, J.S. is wrong.  I was around in the 70s and it was the same shrill cry that petroleum burning is causing us to go into an Ice Age.  How rediculous to claim that someone claiming that isn't worried.  

I would say that global warming is real (mostly natural), that it has been probalby increased slightly by human activity but the left has then used this to push their agenda.  We have been a warming trend since the 1970s when their was a cool period.  It has been warming generally since the late 1800s as well and also generally since 10,000 years ago.  There have been minor periods of warming and cooling since then.  Alarmists exaggerate the consequences of warming to a rediculous degree and fail to mention the very obvious benefits that outweigh the negative consequences in almost any reasonably likely scenario.  Kudos to your math teacher for not falling into line with most other educators.

Answer 8

the ice is thickening in the arctic and antarctic theres lots more info here that you and your teacher may be interested in http://www.iceagenow.com

Answer 9

Actually, our economy helped create this cycle of GW. Our economy is run by fossil fuels. When burned, fossil fuels emit CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gasses trap heat. Excess Greenhouse gasses trap more heat. Earth's temperature rises. Voila, Global Warming.

Your math teacher should stick to math. The artic is not enlarging.

http://www.nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html

Answer 10

There's no evidence of global warming. It's the earth's cycle. Warming and cooling have been happening for millions of years..............

Answer 11

Thank God you have a good math teacher. I am old enough to remember global cooling and we laughed at that too.

The only factors we know are increased solar output and distance from the sun. NASA research shows ALL of the planets are warming in direct relationship to their distance from the sun. Except for Jupiter which is warming twice as fast - NASA's guess is this is from Jupiter's internal heat being added to the solar exposure.

There's been a lot of lunatics making up stuff about pollution causing global warming, but there's not one scientific report worth of support for this, just a lot of assumptions and hysteria.

What are the consequences? Probably not much. Less ice caps means more water in the ecosystem which means some of the deserts will turn into forests. More water in the ecosystem also means more rain, which means more land to grow food on. But, it also means the Earth will reflect the sun's heat better (It's called planetary albedo) so that will cool the Earth resulting in an effect which cancels the warming. The solar cycle has been going on for a long time and we're still here.

Who's to blame? Well, I guess the biggest person to blame would be Al Gore - he's the one who seems to be lying and spreading unnecessary fear the most. He is also the one who seems to be benefiting the most. As they say - follow the money.

Answer 12

The rise in costs are due to oil depletion, not global warming or regulations designed to curb global warming.

If we are serious about saving our economy in the long run, we should be promoting a rapid transition to renewable energies (solar, wind, cellulosic ethanol, wave power) which will have the side benefit of reducing carbon emissions and slowing the pace of global warming.

Answer 13

Why would anyone try to come up with a concept to ruin an economy? I'm not American and I can't understand how there is still many Americans who thinks this is some evil plot aimed only to destroy America and the American dream.

This is a world wide issue, like you can figure out from the word "Global" and it's definitely not about Al Gore. Al Gore is just a messenger bringing the message based from almost all climate scientists around the world. (Some times his message is a bit distorted, but not at all to the extent to which most messages from the skeptics are distorted.)

B t w I hope your math teacher is better at teaching maths than these issues. He seems to have got every fact totally wrong.

Answer 14

Totally agree. Even a bunch of the celebrities endoring the idea of Global Warming drive Hummers ... which guzzle gas and pollute the environment. I think it does exist, but I don't believe that humans have anything to do with it. The Earth naturally goes through warm/cool stages. Al Gore is a nut. Making people fear the warming of the Earth is ridiculous. Children are more afraid of Global Warming than they are of anything else these days.