Humans think that they caused global warming: are we just naturally egotistical?

Question

When the parents of a child seperate, sometimes kids end up blaming themselves (using a twisted logic) for all that went wrong when it was simply just the parents' fault.

Right now, humans blame themselves for global warming although science is showing some positive signs that we are innocent when it comes to the planet heating up. Why do people so easily accept the world is ending because of us, but refuse to accept that it may not be our fault?

****

Polar bears are not going extinct: Dr. Mitchell Taylor of the Artic government of Nunavut says that "11 of the 13 Canadian polar bear populations are stable or increasing in number."

As well, spatial cycles such as the Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Brightness Variation, and Cosmic Ray Fluxes are responsible for global warming.

Another thing, CO2 levels went up 800 years AFTER the temperatures went up. There is no scientific evidence to dispute otherwise.

Answer 1

I believe, it gives many people a sense of purpose. Notice that you will not find many liberal skeptics. Look at the statistics in the House of Representatives. I don't think there is one skeptic in the whole bunch. I find that a little odd. Stereotypically, many liberals and environmentalist don't believe in a higher power. God gives mankind a sense of purpose. And because all men need purpose, liberals and environmentalists will ultimately substitute something for the great void that fills them with a sense of emptiness. This time it's man-made global warming. It's not that they want to believe, they must.

Answer 2

Your right. The main reason for some humans to point their fingers is because they have financial interest in Global Warming.

In other words Global Warming is BIG business.

Answer 3

I would say people who honestly believe that humans have a real impact on global warming don't realize the small part that humans play in the world.

Answer 4

Exactly WHY do you consider a quote you found on the web from Dr. Mitchell Taylor credible?  Did you check into his background?  Is he really a respected scientist and noted expert on polar bear populations?  Would that be the same Dr. Taylor that wanted to increase hunting allotments of polar bears in his local area (a significant source of financial revenue for that area)?  Did he perform any actual scientific research and publish it in a journal, or did he merely misrepresent (as so often occurs) a scientific report done by others?

In reality (and you could have found this out yourself if you did any research, instead of merely regurgitating the propaganda that agrees with your ideology), at the 2005 meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialists Group in Seattle, scientists

and managers unanimously agreed to a status report that concluded that of the 13 populations within Canada, or shared with Greenland, two were severely depleted from previous overharvesting and were being managed for recovery, five were declining, and the rest were recorded as stable, except for one which was reported as increasing.

Answer 5

Earth is getting warmer.  But Mars is also getting warmer so I think it is safe to say that the sun has more to do with it than anything we do.

Answer 6

<<The main reason for some humans to point their fingers is because they have financial interest in Global Warming.  In other words Global Warming is BIG business.>>

that's very true.  the coal and oil industries will be in serious trouble when the US addresses the problem.  that's the money connection,  not a measly few bucks associated with some research grant.

the sun is, in fact, cooling slightly, not warming, which has been documented on many internet sites.\

as for <<are we just naturally egotistical>>  we certainly are.  when we think we know more than scientists with PhDs that have been studying the climate for many years, that would seem the height of egotisim to me.

Answer 7

All of your premises are false.  There is plenty of scientific information to dispute all this nonsense.

The arctic ice pack is doing exactly what the IPCC scientists said it would do. They measure the sea ice in the summer, the summer extent of the ice.

It's winter in case you haven't noticed.

This is an example of several skeptic myths that are based on discrepencies that don't even exitst.

The same with the BS about Antartica.

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

"A more recent study based on satellite measurements of gravity over the entire continent suggests that while the ice sheets in the interior of Antarctica are growing thicker, even more ice is being lost from the peripheries. The study concluded that there was a net loss of ice between 2002 and 2005, adding 0.4 millimetres per year to sea levels (see Gravity reveals shrinking Antarctic ice). Most of the ice was lost from the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet."

"Contrary to what you might expect, the third IPPC report predicted that global warming would most likely lead to a thickening of the ice sheet over the next century, with increased snowfall compensating for any melting cause by warming."

There is no conflict between what they said and what is happening. Another imagined skeptic argument. this includes all the nonsense about hurricanes and the severity of the weather or lack of it. These are all made up conflicts, where there are none.

"General climate models are not detailed enough to accurately predict the effects of warming on hurricane activity. Instead, modellers have tried to feeding in predictions from general models to detailed regional models of hurricanes. This has produced some widely varying results, but the consensus among experts is that global warming will not lead more hurricanes overall, but will increase the average intensity of storms."

"A growing number of studies of hurricane records suggest this trend can already be seen. In 2005, for instance, Kerry Emanuel at MIT published a research suggesting that tropical cyclones in the West Pacific and Atlantic have become more powerful over the past 50 years. That same year, another study concluded that the frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones has almost doubled globally since the early 1970s."

"There are problems with such studies. For starters, tropical cyclone activity in some regions seems to rise and fall in cycles lasting many decades. “This variability makes detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult” concluded the 125 members of a World Meteorological Organisation international workshop on tropical cyclones and climate change, held in December 2006 (see pdf report)."

"Researchers studying past activity are also only too aware of the shortcomings of the databases. For example, the techniques for measuring storm intensity have changed dramatically over the past 30 years. On the fundamental question of whether global warming is affecting tropical cyclones, the WMO group decided: “no firm conclusion can be made at this point".

the global cooling predicted in 1972 was in reality just a few scientists and the lead scientist recanted in 1975, admitting that he under calculated the amount of CO2.

Case closed, another skeptic argument that actually has only one side, becuse there is no argument other than in the mind of skeptics.

CO2 levels and temperatures and climate change

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Polar bears

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

"Recently there have been claims that polar bear populations are increasing. So what's going on? There are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 population groups around the Arctic. While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don't really know how the rest of the populations are faring, so the truth is that no one can say for sure how overall numbers are changing."

"The two populations that are increasing, both in north-eastern Canada, were severely reduced by hunting in the past and are recovering thanks to the protection they and their prey now enjoy."

"The best-studied population, in Canada’s western Hudson Bay, fell by 22% from 1194 animals in 1987 to 935 in 2004, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. A second group in the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s north coast, is now experiencing the same pattern of reduced adult weights and cub survival as the Hudson Bay group."

"A comprehensive review (pdf) by the US Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that shrinking sea ice is the primary cause for the decline seen in these populations, and it recently proposed listing polar bears as threatened (pdf) under the Endangered Species Act. The World Conservation Union projects the bears' numbers will drop by 30% by 2050 (pdf) due to continued loss of Arctic sea ice."

Another skeptic argument that has no basis, other than their imagination.

  Cosmic rays are demystified here

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Websites that debunk skeptics claims about global warming.

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report....

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/a...

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.a...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwar...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbo...

Answer 8

But those d**n polar bears are so cute!  Don't you care about the poor little polar bears?

Answer 9

Nope.  The fact that we're mostly responsible is just solid science.

You mentioned Milankovic cycles.  The cycles are not magic, they cause an increase in solar radiation which would be easily measurable.  Scientists have checked - it's not happening.  Scientific proof:

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar

climate forcings and the global mean surface

air temperature", Lockwood and Frolich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A

doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pro...

News article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.st...

You also mentioned the historical lag of CO2 behind temperature.  That's actually a strong proof that THIS warming is not natural.

In the past, changes in solar radiation started the warming, and CO2 rose hundreds of years later, as it was released from warming oceans.

This time, THERE IS NO LAG.  CO2 and temperature are going up simultaneously, because CO2 is mostly causing the warming.

All of these organizations agree that global warming is mostly caused by us.

The National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Association, etc.

They're not stupid or ignorant.  There is no imaginary "conspiracy".  Just solid science.