Global warming vs global cooling !?!? Political vs Real Scientific facts ?

Question

Everyone is talking about global warming and green house effects of CO2 ( which absorbs more heat from the sun= inducing global warming )produced by industrial activities....

While their warming effect is proven...Global cooling is also a product of these industrial activities and human activities too. The electrical products we are using daily are also producing partiples ( aerosols ), these particles are capable of preventing sun rays from entering the earth surface, hence leading to cooling of the earth...

Actually, there have been contradictory studies saying that their effect of global cooling is potentially exceeding global warming.

What we should be achieving is the equilibrium between the 2, if the scale is tipped on the warming side, we could be ending like Venus ( a planet with lethal greenhouse effect and closer to the sun ) , or Mars ( an ice-age planet, further from the sun). Earth is in the middle , and is just right for life...

what r yr own thoughts on this ?

Answer 1

I don't think there have been any studies saying anthropogenic (man-made) cooling effects are going to exceed anthropogenic warming effects.  There have been some studies recently concluding that short-term weather effects might delay global warming for a few years, and some making the same argument regarding solar output, but none with aerosols.

The reason is that we've gotten our aerosol emissions under control.  They were accelerating rapidly prior to 1970, but then a bunch of countries passed Clean Air Acts, and worldwide SO2 (primary aerosol) emissions have decreased since 1980.  See pages 12-14 here:

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/ext...

The only way anthropogenic cooling would be an issue at this point is if we purposefully emitted a bunch of aerosols to try and counteract global warming (but we're not going to do that, because there would be many other negative consequences).

Answer 2

"Global warming" is a trademark for the latest and greatest snake oil scam.  Don't fall for it.  Climate change is natural, and humans are a part of nature.  The carbon-temperature link has been disproved, too.  Just depends on who you listen to.

Answer 3

Nostradamus is calling for a cold period after the cattle are destroyed. ...have lots of dry food stored up.

Answer 4

It is a big scam manipulated by the governments around the globe to provoke panic and to control societies.

The government prescribes Prozac as the most viable solution.

My 2 cents.

Answer 5

I think global cooling its a lie, cause the poles of the earth everyday are more smaller... and they are the responsible ones of cooling the earth... truth or not i believe that we should take care of our environment cause its obvious we are destroying and polluting earth... me as a designer hahaha arfnd the president of usa..... haha

Answer 6

Give a hoot don't pollute.

Answer 7

Hello sweety -winks-

and I TOLD YOU I cant answer these questions with my small brain

lol

Answer 8

Well you're right, and I didn't know there was a global warming section in this place either lol.

I am like you, I am waiting for hardcore scientific proof of global warming.  Polar bears are dying but that's not "scientific" proof, and besides we put sh*t in the water, which is probably why they are dying.  And about global cooling, apparently scientists are saying it's happened before several times.  I guess it's like the earth is trying to balance itself out.  But true, we need to find the equilibrium between the two in order to keep the earth at a desirable temp.  

You have to remember the 80s and 90s when hairspray was like water to most in terms of importance to survive.  You know what that stuff does to the ozone?  So we destroyed some of it and realized we needed to fix the problem.  Now the problem seems to be that we've fixed a little too much and all these industrial activities are making it harder now for the sun's rays to warm us to the extent they should.  

I am no scientist, but these are my thoughts based on what I've heard, and I've heard such a debate.  Lol people say things about astrology..........then you see this, and it's science.  But oh well I digress.....

Some scientists say global warming is real, some say global cooling is real and I'm sure some would say both are real.  And all would claim to have facts.  It's like, what to think anymore.

Answer 9

The green house gas is not there. The CO2 is used by plants to produce oxygen and food for us. The plants use a lot of CO2.

Then Methane is a light gas so it is impossible to measure. The environmentalist calculate how much they want it to be. It is wrong . Methane is so light it goes very high and the sun is so intense that it oxidizes the gas. That is why they can not measure it. They want U to believe that there is a giant lake of methane up there. If there was a air plane would of run through it. The environmentalist chose these gases as there green house gas.

Answer 10

The earth warms and cools over time. We do not live in a stable environment, but one that changes over time naturally. The studies where man is effecting the environment are highly political.

Global alarmists leave out certain critical facts when presenting their data to the common layman. Factoring out water vapor, when showing slides shows is irresponsible. Also; Leaving out the sun as a driver of global warming is also a gross misuse of presenting global warming.

Answer 11

"Global Cooling" is an invention of the denialist to obscure the global warming issue.  I have never seen anything about this in a Journal, only on Yahoo Answers.

I am aware that clouds, aerosols particulate matter in the air and such may help offset global warming, but these are feedback mechanisms and many are already incorporated into the warming predictions.

Answer 12

Be sure to read the questions at the end!!

>

>  

>

>  

> -----

>  

>  

> Into the wild green yonder

>

>

> May 11, 2008

>

> By Walter E. Williams - Now that another Earth Day has come and gone,

> let's look at some environmentalists' predictions they would prefer we

> forget.

>

> At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel

> Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside

> nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for

> mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said,

> "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and

consistent enough

> that it will not soon be reversed."

>

> In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, former Vice President Al Gore's hero

> and mentor, predicted a major food shortage in the U.S. and "in the

> 1970s... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death."

> Mr. Ehrlich forecast 65 million Americans would die of starvation

> between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have

> declined to 22.6 million. Mr. Ehrlich's predictions about England were

> gloomier: "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England

> will not exist in the year 2000."

>

> In 1972, a report for the Club of Rome warned the world would run out

> of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and

> petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992.

>

> Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book "The Doomsday Book," said

Americans

> were using 50 percent of the world's resources and "by 2000 they

> [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them."

>

> In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, "The

> World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000."

>

> Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, "civilization

> will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken

> against problems facing mankind." That was the same year Sen. Gaylord

> Nelson warned, in Look Magazine, that by 1995 "somewhere between 75

> and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."

>

> It's not just latter-day doomsayers who have been wrong; doomsayers

> have always been wrong. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced

> there was "little or no chance" of oil being discovered in California,

>

and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In

> 1939, the U.S. Interior Department said American oil supplies would

> last only another 13 years. In 1949, the interior secretary said the

> end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight.

>

> Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the

> U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year

> supply of natural gas. In fact,, according to the American Gas

> Association, there's a 1,000- to 2,500-year supply.

>

> Here are my questions: In 1970, when environmentalists were making

> predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and

> millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government

> policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity?

>

> When Mr. Ehrlich predicted England would not exist in the

year 2000,

> what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent

> such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the Interior Department warned we

> only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should

> President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think

> environmental alarmism is any more correct now the tune has been

> switched to manmade global warming?

>

> Here are a few facts: More than 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is

> the result of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. Without the

> greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees

> Fahrenheit. Most climate change is due to the orbital eccentricities

> of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural

> wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all

> human sources combined.

>

> Walter

E. Williams is a nationally syndicated columnist and a

> professor of economics at George Mason University.

>

Answer 13

i don't worry about those cause it's not gonna happen in my life time

Answer 14

"A tug-of-war between positive forcings (influences that cause the climate to grow warmer) and negative forcings is a hands-down "victory" for the predominatly human-induced forces that lead to warming"

-- Scientific American, August 2007, page 67

Aerosols are the main contributor to cooling, but they have far less affect than CO2, Methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons and Ozone that create warming.

Answer 15

I don't really like the term "global warming" because it is somewhat misleading.  "Climate change" is really a more accurate label for what is happening.  

Actually, the hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere is the main cause of concern for me.  The by-products of one of the most popular refrigerants (used in most businesses and homes for A/C), freon, has been one of the biggest offenders for the degradation of the ozone layer.  These holes have been studied and analyzed quite a bit by scientists - I hate it when politicians try to refute their findings.  It is like politicians trying to get in on the life and death decisions that physicians must make.   Although less damaging refrigerants are being developed  and laws are being enacted to require recovery and recycling of refrigerants, not all or even most A/C companies, in some places, are doing it.  It is expensive and time-consuming.  

One of the big problems of climate change is melting polar ice caps - one reason that polar bears have recently been listed as threatened.  Their habitat (ice sheets) is disappearing.  Even 1 or 2 degrees can make a huge impact on the environment.  Now when ice caps melt, ocean levels rise and coastal towns all over the planet will be  threatened.  I believe that the increased intensity and frequency of disastrous cyclones and hurricances is also a result of this climate change.  

There will always be the "global warming" deniers who will argue the reason or effect, but I can't be bothered with them too much.  There is too much at stake to take a wait and see attitude, and I function mostly on common sense more than any scientific vs political debate that is going on.

I haven't heard too much about "global cooling."  There were a couple of years when several erupting volcanoes clouded the skies so much that it provided a false negative reading of the temperature.  

The greenhouse effect is also problematic and a result of the of emissions. It pollutes the air with particulates and traps in the heat

I've gotta run - maybe I'll finish this later.

Answer 16

"What we should be achieving is the equilibrium between the 2"

This would be very difficult to do, seeing as aerosols only have an atmospheric lifetime of at most a few decades, while CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of up to several hundred years, with some (very few) molecules lasting up to several thousand.

"if the scale is tipped on the warming side, we could be ending like Venus ( a planet with lethal greenhouse effect and closer to the sun )"

Could we please stop comparing the climate of Venus to Earth's climate? You already mentioned one difference between the two planets (Venus being closer to the sun), lets look at a few more:

Earth:

1 AU

Magnetic field

1 Satellite

Orbital period 365.256366 days

Sidereal rotation period 0.997258 d

Average orbital speed 29.783 km/s

Axial tilt 23.439281°

Inclination Reference (0)

7.25° to Sun’s equator

Surface pressure 101.3 kPa (MSL)

Water clouds

78.08% Nitrogen (N2)

20.95% Oxygen (O2)

0.93% Argon

0.038% Carbon dioxide

Trace water vapor (varies with climate)

Venus:

.7 AU

No magnetic field

No satellite

Orbital period 224.70069 day

Sidereal rotation period −243.0185 day

Synodic period 583.92 days

Average orbital speed 35.02 km/s

Axial tilt 177.36°

Inclination 3.39471°

3.86° to Sun’s equator

Surface pressure 9.3 MPa

Sulphur clouds

~96.5% Carbon dioxide

~3.5% Nitrogen

.015% Sulfur dioxide

.007% Argon

.002% Water vapor

.0017% Carbon monoxide

.0012% Helium

.0007% Neon

trace Carbonyl sulfide

trace Hydrogen chloride

trace Hydrogen fluoride

And Venus' atmosphere is around 90 times more massive than ours. There is no possible way we could end up like Venus (or Mars).

"and many of my professors say for the time being , global warming is more like a political idea than a real scientifically proven one."

Theories cannot be proven, and anthropogenic global warming is a theory, but your professors are correct in saying that AGW is mostly political at this time. Too many holes in the theory and too many uncertainties with climate in general. Increased CO2 should cause some warming, how much is not known.

Answer 17

Global dimming was theorized to result in cooling.  The problem is that alarmists use whatever logic you bring to the table and suggest it is more reason to be alarmed.  If you demonstrate that not only are we causing warming but cooling too, they only fret more and say, "See, global warming would be even worse if we didn't emit aerosols.  The only thing we can honestly conclude is that the temperatures haven't risen very much, that CO2 has not been shown to drive temperature changes in the past, and that we don't know enough now to make any definitive conclusions of how much if any we are changing the climate.    Those that suggest otherwise almost always have an agenda or think with their hearts and not their heads.