Global warming: is mankind at the source of this phenomenon or are we amplifying a natural evolution of Earth?

Question

(110)

Answer 1

We collectively amplify a natural, global process about as much as a child's helium balloon amplifies the lift of a 747 jumbo jet.  Before blaming man, everyone should look to the source of our warming trend:  The Sun.  It's no coincidence the Sun is experiencing the most active period seen in over a thousand years precisely when we detect a slight rise in temperatures.

Answer 2

The environmentalist have based the temperature averages to indicate that we are getting hotter. Look at the calibration of the thermometers, They would be luck to fine that the accuracy was +,- 2 deg.F. They say it has changed 1/5 a deg F. Any system that is not calibrated is worthless...

Answer 3

This global warming phenomenon has happened many times before and will happen again.  It's a normal occurance.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.vie...

Answer 4

A lot of people will talk about natural cycles and claim that we are in one.

Except that we are not in a warming cycle right now (we know when the natural cycles occur, they aren't called cycles for no reason) and the current global warming is happening far faster than any past natural warming.

Not to mention that CO2 is known to be a greenhouse gas and we have been emitting CO2 (all of the CO2 increase can be traced to us humans).

Answer 5

The answer is mankind is for the most part responsible, because we our out of touch with ourselves and nature. We forget that our eyes are in front. Which means we are predators. We take more than what we need and upset a very delicate balance. On the other hand, the earth is alive just as you or I. When we catch a virus our immune system jumps into action to attack the virus. This is the same for the earth. I don't mean to sound negative,  but we do in a lot of ways resemble a virus. We live on a living, breathing, planet who's immune system comes in the form of earth  quakes, tidal waves,  deluges, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters. Man assumes that he has made great technological achievements, when actually he has regressed. I live in the country and I don't watch the weather on the news. I watch the animals, the listen to the wind, and the earth speaks.

Answer 6

Previous natural warming have been caused by natural occurences (increased volcanic activities, increased solar radiation, milankovitch cycles, etc...)

Only in the case of the increased volcanic activities, CO2 levels have risen first and temperatures later on as a reaction. In other cases, mostly temperatures have risen and then CO2 concentrations:

-> CO2 can be the result of a warming and the cause and there is a feedback of one to the other.

In our case, we do not have an increased volcanic activity, we do not have an increased solar activity over 100 years and we are not in any extreme period for interglacial periods.

CO2 concentrations are presently increasing at a speed 5x higher than they have been in the last hundred of thousands of year (roughly 11ppm per decade).

We have in turn to really assess the impact of this increased CO2 concentration. We know for sure that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

So far other causes for the increased temperature have not produced a convincing evidence or have been proven wrong.

So I would trust what most scientists think and say that CO2 looks like the suspect N°1 in this case.

Answer 7

Global Warming is being affected by our activites. So yeah we're amplifying  a natural part of Earth. Our Earth is always changing, but we're making things worse.

Answer 8

We are in the relief period of the last ice age so of course we are warming.  Otherwise we would still be in the ice age.  We should consider ourselves lucky.

Mankind's contribution to this is on the order of one part in 15,000 compared to the sun's energy recieved by earth.  So, if the human race could figure out how to live with out any energy at all we could slow this down by (1/15000)*100%.

This is about 0.0066% improvement.

Not enough to risk my granddaughter catching a cold by living in an unheated house.

Answer 9

The world does go through periods of cooling and warming, which is why we have ice ages and warm periods.

The greenhouse effect will not amplify this, it is a different sytem. At the moment the planet should be cooling not warming........