Global warming? what is it really, its become so partisan...?

Question

this has been bugging me for some time now. i watched al gores movie in chem class, and i really dont trust most of the things he says, corolations are fine but they dont prove anything. just thinking about a problem does nothing. The population is expected to grow something like 42% in the next half century, which will more than double this problem. Yet we are doing nothing because the issue has become so partisan. Democrats think that by talking about it they might summon captain planet.... And republicans are ignoring it... Now i can't say that i believe all of the hype, but i don't see any harm in cleaning up a bit. and so far all ive heard is how bad it is, or how fake it is... Can someone actuall tell me what it is? someone who isnt a jackass that lives in a house made of wheat, or an oil company ceo?

Answer 1

A fact.

Answer 2

The best, and most unbiased, explanation I've seen is in the link below.

Answer 3

Global warming is a result of many environmental factors. My environmental science teacher says there so similar but there is one thing all in common. Cfc's destroy ozone while aging co2 outputs and methane is being pushed out. the problem lies in the economy and the state. Try researching the new source review. or Bush's Clean air interstate rule. It said that companies could use old, co2 powerhouses if they kept it clean bypassing the EPA limits. So the question is if we kill c02 production, we lose money and jobs go to mexico. Even if we did stop the greenhouse gas production, the gas that is still out would take years to dissipate.

Answer 4

You suggest that Republicans are ignoring it.  Ignoring what?  We clean up the air, water, and soil.  That is what I do for a living.  I clean up polluted sites.  Nobody is ignoring it.  To try to reduce energy consumption is entirely different.  I favor more efficient use of energy and alternate sources but I don't favor cutting emissions out of a fear of possibly warming the climate by a degree or two.  There are many more pressing issues that we could devote our treasure on that would have far more benefits.  To assume that raising the termperature a degree or two (actually moderating the temperature) is necessarily harmful, is rediculous in my opinion.

Answer 5

I'd love to be able to tell you - yes humans are causing global warming and we need to ... or no humans are not causing global warming at all and we don't need to do anything, but I don't know for sure.  



I don't think anyone knows how big of a problem AGW is, or even if it is a problem at all.  You are right in that it wouldn't hurt to be more efficient in our energy usage and it might improve things economically.

My best guess is that humans aren't having any effect on climate that it's not going to be a problem, but that's not going to be enough.  Environmental protection standards get higher every year.  When we put chemicals into the environment, we've stopped asking what harm can they do and started saying how can we make sure we don't change the environment at all.  This is how it is for liquids and solid waste now, it will probably become like that for gasses too in the near future.

Answer 6

Global Warming is a Liberal Hoax designed to take power and money from us and give it to THE Government and Governments around the globe.

Answer 7

The biggest reason people especially in govt promote it is to create bigger govt to control the economies of 'rich' nations so that developing countries can pollute all they want in the name of 'fairness'.  When a dollar amount is attached to 'stop climate change' is attached it is proof that it not real or rather can be controlled.  Man was put on Earth to take advantage of the resources to make our lives better but I am not for dumping raw sewage in the water supply or releasing toxins into the air but I do not buy all the hype especially when bad science is applied to get political gains or grants to perpetrate the myth.

Answer 8

The idea is that we-human beings-are polluting the environment to the point where it is now fighting back. People like Al Gore believe that human made cars, which spit CO2 into the environment, are causing this pollution. They believe that we produce enough CO2 to drastically alter the environement of this planet. They point to various facts that show that the earth's climate is changing:

-the polar ice caps are melting

-sea levels are raising, and more intense hurricanes are resulting from that

-the ozone layer is deteriorating, which allows more ultra violet sunlight into the earth, which increases the risk of skin cancer

-above all, there is more CO2 in the atmosphere then there has been in a long time. CO2 is what causes the greenhouse effect. the more CO2 there is, there more sunlight is trapped in the earth, and the more the earth warms up and causes ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise, etc. 95% of Venus's atmosphere is made of CO2, hence is temperature of 900 degrees F.

That's what global warming is in a nutshell. It exists. That is an irrefutable fact. However, here's the million dollar question:

WHO or WHAT is responcible for the rise in CO2 levels, hence the rise in the earth's temperature? Is it US HUMANS? Or is it a natural cause that we have no control over?

Liberals like Gore insist that WE are the one's causing global warming, and conservatives like me insist that we have NO CONTROL over the environement, and that animals and volcanoes spit much more CO2 into the atmosphere then we do. Conservatives insist that the amount of CO2 we spit is negligable compared to volcanoes, and that even if we were to eliminate cars and everythnig that uses fossil fuels, it wouldn't change a thing about the earth's climate.

Because liberals believe that we are the cause of global warming, they want the government to step in and pass legislation counteracting it (the US Congress did this by passing the 28 MPG fuel standard economy law). But with conservatives, they want no government action to be taken, becuas they believe it won't make a difference. Thy believe that regulating the economy in the name of "stopping global warming" only hurts us (especially if your a Michigander, as i am)

I hope that answers your question.

Dan

Answer 9

It is just a fad.  

Scientists are denying this to cover their butts, but in the 70's they predicted an ICE AGE...

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

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingw...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/issue_pdf/...

http://download.premiereradio.net/guest/...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qD...

This video shows a compilation of the reports and things.

Here are some websites that show global warming is a lie:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?art...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...

http://www.americanpolicy.org/un/thereis...

Answer 10

Unfortunately, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and both extremes have co-opted the issue for their own purposes to the point where realistic solutions are bypassed for pet projects like hydrogen cars.

Global warming is real.  But the Kyoto Accord is favored by much of the rest of the planet because it represents a way to tie one arm behind the back of the United States for purposes of global economic competition.  

So you get a Kyoto backlash.  However, I think many of the backlashers are doing it for purposes of buying time so that the US can develop technology that will bring us into compliance without stiffling our economy.  The rest are just ditto-heads.

And there is promising technology out there.  I think the US will be on-board for Kyoto by the end of the decade.

Answer 11

danger mike

Looks like you have you eyes open. Can’t say that about to many people in society today. Most of us walk around with blinders until a catastrophe hits, then we wake up pretty quick. Unfortunately we go blind again a few months later…

Let me start off by saying we (my family and I) live 100% off of the grid and are completely self-sufficient with a 0% Carbon footprint. I believe this is the first step anyone can make “help the environment”. Once you convert your own life style to a greener more eco friendly route, you can start helping others.

We definitely didn't start global warming, but we definitely do contribute to it now.

Natural gas (or Methane along with other thanes) for example, is completely a natural contributer to global warming and is derived pretty much the same way as oil. ie. Matter (animal, plant etc) decomposes over time resulting in a anaerobic (hope I spelled that right) decay of non-fossil organic material / gas (natural gas or methane).

One problem with global warming is that the concept is so vague in the minds of the people. The critical interpretation is basically how it’s explained in school and the news. However most of the public see global warming connected with the ozone and pollutants which cause harmful greenhouse gasses, etc. therefore investigating and fighting for things like alternative energy (ie. Solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol, biodiesel, etc)

Greenhouse gases are real and do contribute to global warming. Think of the different gas layers like ozone (o3) that circumference the globe as the clear plastic on a greenhouse. Longer rays of light from the Sun go in and reflect off different thermal masses bouncing back and creating shorter lengths of energy that cannot exist the plastic barrier. These beams then just continue to bounce around inside the green house until they’re finally absorbed completely (some do escape but very few), thereby warming the greenhouse greatly even in cold temperatures.

Basically there are 2 ways that this reaction (or lack of) affects the planet. Global warming and global cooling.

1. as we add to the gases in the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is (Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc), we add to the plastic of the greenhouse, trapping more short wave length energy and heating the earth more.

2. as we deplete the ozone (with chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs), we allow more long wave length energy, which bounces back out to space without heating any thermal masses on earth, thereby cooling the planet.

It’s pretty easy to see the results..

Melting ice sheets & glaciers

Floods & droughts

Great hurricanes & cyclones

Seasonal extremes

Seasonal phenomena’s

Species extinction

New & resurgent diseases

There are many ways to stop both global warming and cooling from accruing or at least slow them down until we can discover a way to reverse it, but Stop burning fossil fuels is the biggest.

I currently own 2 converted h2 vehicles which run on 100% hydrogen and 1 EV (electric vehicle), not to mention our home is completely off the grid, using alternative energy (solar, wind, etc)

If you interested I offer several DIY alternative guides to walk you step by step threw Greener living, how to run your car on alternative fuels and being self-sufficient, at agua-luna com or

www agua-luna com

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at  www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

Dan Martin

Retired Boeing Engineer now living 100% on Alternative & Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World... Instantly Elevating Their Income & Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY... All With Just One Click of A Mouse...For more info Visit:  

www agua-luna com

Stop Global Warming, Receive a FREE Solar Panels Now!!!

Answer 12

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.