Is global warming a natural change like throughout time or a death sentence for our planet?

Question

Is it really all manmade or could astronomical events play a role and is it any different than historical climate changes?

Answer 1

Neither.

It's not ALL manmade, but mostly.  The data proves it's very different from a natural change.  For example, measurements of the Sun PROVE it's not due to changes in the Sun:

"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...

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

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

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

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

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

EVERY major scientific organization has issued an official statement that this is real, and 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.

But, we can reduce it enough to cope with the remaining effects.  Here's the plan:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3.h...

Answer 2

Tell that to all the people who die Frozen every year because they can't afford to pay their heating bills.

Mom and Pop-sicles.

Yer killin' me!

Answer 3

it is a solar thing but i think we are slowly contributing to it =[

Answer 4

Taking a scientific approach, I researched several scientific databases. After reading the NASA data where they talk about how the surface temperature of all nine planets in the solar system is rising in direct relationship to their distance from the sun (except Jupiter which is also warming from it's own internal heat), and how they measured that - I don't worry about global warming anymore.

I can't change the heat output of the sun nor the solar cycles, nor can I change the surface temperatures of the other planets. These things are simply beyond my power to even influence.

Answer 5

The current media frenzy over this topic in my opinion is largely hype.  There is no doubt that climate change exists and that our planet goes through both warming and cooling trends.  The problem is with this and other activist causes is that we rarely examine ALL the science surrounding the issue.  For example, other questions you might ask regarding warming would be:  What would the impact on the continuing cycle of species development if we stopped a global climate change?  Has the earth been hotter than this before man (yes)?  Has it warmed up at this rate before men produced what is being called greenhouse gasses (yes)?

so, the real answer is we just don't know right now.  Instead of trying to bundle a bunch of causes under global climate change, we should just independently address things that we know are bad.  For example,  air pollution is bad and has proven and known health implications.  It should stand on its own merit.

Answer 6

No death sentence for our planet, but humanity ?   Well.........

This is a natural earth cycle and we take notice now because we've had an almost perfect weather condition the past 10,000 years.    And nothing ANYBODY does or doesn't do will stop what mother nature has in store.

Sit back, relax and enjoy the show she is about to give.

Answer 7

Lets see.....historically speaking...we were industralizing from the 40's to the 70's...a period we could care less about pollution and were spewing tons of sulfer dioxide, arsenic, nitrous oxide, along with Carbon Dioxide......and if you look at the temperatures from the 40's to the 70's...they were going down.

The news media was claiming we were heading for a mini ice-age. If you go back 100 years in the media, you'll find them touting 2 separate heating / cooling cycles.

So why all of a sudden a bunch of johnny come lately hack enviromental whacko's claim we have to do something...and do it NOW, is beyond me.

Cap and Trade is a scam, going green is a good idea regarding the conservation of energy, but there are many out there on the "green" side that are nothing short of lunatics and would rather see nature take over our cities and the non-existance of man.

Until the credible "green" movement kicks the whacko's to the curb and eliminates the doom sayer morons that love to spread opinions and lies.....the movement will be slow in gaining support. Not to mention the backlash that might or might no happen in the future from all the people that feel they were lied to and taken advantage of because they were willfully ignorant and willing to jump on someone's bandwagon because their life just was seemingly so useless before they found a cause.

Bob for instance links one link above and makes the claim that it isnt due to changes in the sun. Unfortunately bob doesn't know what he's talking about. I'll bet he hasn't read the report that temps dropped 1/2 a degree in 2007 due to less sunspot activity. ......hmmm...sunspots.....the sun.....ya, that's where they come form Bob. He also isn't a meteorologies or well studied on how the magnetism of the sun and the earth are in constant flux, and a change in one results in a change of the other..thereby causing changes on the planet which we have just begun to study more in depth.. Yet you will always have the people like bob...touting they know what's going on, all because they have a YouTube link, or stick to something showing their side of the arguement rather than know it all.... and a little information is always more dangerous than someone that know's nothing.

Answer 8

The heating and cooling of the earth results from solar activity.  The earth has warmed and cooled throughout time....that will never change.  Man has no part in it.

Answer 9

The present climate change is a consequence of human actions superimposed on the natural background.  The present warming appears to be proceeding much faster than previous natural ones.  The rate of change is what will make this particularly difficult for humans and ecosystems to adjust to. The problem is not so much that it will destroy the Earth, the problem is that our infrastructures are dependent on climate being the way it is now, and to adjust to different Earth will cause a lot pain and trillions of dollars in expenditures.

Answer 10

Stupidity is a death sentence to our minds.

Answer 11

Global warming is the emissions of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere. Trapping the suns rays that were usually allowed to escape, and thus rising the Earth's average temperatures, melting the glaciers, or 'ice caps'.

Whether Global warming is man-made or natural or non-existent, has been an argument since the heating around the 80s, disturbances have been occuring, for a while. I believe and know, that 10 000 years ago, a comet hit, pushing the Earth in a stage called A cooling system, otherwise known as an "Ice Age" killing off the dinosaurs.

Now I believe, NO I know! that global warming is both, man-made, and natural, every 10 000 or so years, the Earth does this, it goes through a stage of heating before cooling, but we aren't helping, you see, we are speeding up the process.

Now, Ive heard many people on here who deny global warming, is existant, and I take care of the environment and care about it, but I GIVE UP! i have realised that, people shouldnt have to believe things. Now I understand you 'non-believers' thats you pushing what YOU believe in, but I know global warming is real!

And neither, us nor you should make fun of eachother, because one of us will prove our point, when Earth takes its course.

Thanks,

Courtney D. SaVe ThE tReEs!!

Answer 12

It is not manmade, nor has anyone credible ever claimed it was.  It is the ignorant folk that confuss global warming with what I dub "Man-enhanced global warming" to avoid confussion.  Global waming, the literal definition that has been used before this whole political feasco, is the warming of the earth on average.  Meaning the pattern the earth goes through goes back and forth from warming and cooling.  I mean this is Geology 101stuff I don't understand why everyone gets this confussed.  Global warming will never be a death sentence for our planet, unless you mean a death sentence for life on this planet.  Then it's only a perceivable possibility, but not a probability.  There are many factors that play a roll on it.  Astronomical phenomena is a huge factor.  The question here is man a contributor?  The easy answer is probably yes, but the severity of how we contribte to the warming of the globe is unknown.

Right now (according to the accepted views) we are suppose to be in a inter-glaciation period.  Meaning between a global warming and global cooling, with a global cooling (or glaciation) period approaching.  The data (recorded since the late 19 century) shows that we are still warming.  This is the argument.  Humans may be the reason for this unnatural phenomena.  It's a theory.

Answer 13

If the system Gaia is compromised - and it has been compromised quite a few times in the past - we know what happens. The carbon dioxide in the air builds up, and the temperature goes up with it, and it can go up by as much as 8C (14.4F).

Gaia will respond as it always does. It has a goal, and it has had from the beginning - to keep the planet habitable for whatever life forms happen to be in its contemporary biosphere. It will respond to what we are doing, global change, by moving to the hot state that it was in the last time - 55 million years ago - and stay there for anything up to 200,000 years, slowly sinking back to normal.

- Dr. James Lovelock - distinguished scientist and originator of the Gaia hypothesis.

Explanation of Gaia:

In simple terms, the whole of planet Earth - biosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere - can be thought of as one giant living organism. Here 'living' is meant in the sense that the hole system appears to have evolved together and to be self-regulating.

Mechanisms which keep conditions stable are described as homeostatic.

The Gaia hypothesis suggests that it is the interactions between living organisms and eachother and with the atmopshere and oceans, that have kept conditions more or less stable for the last 3.6 billion years.

There is currently no evidence to suggest the Sun is heating up ENOUGH (if at all) to cause the current rate of warming. It is true that greenhouse gases change the temperature of our planet and always will due to the properties of such gases.

Global warming is what keeps the mean global temperature stable, but since humans began to industrialize in 1700 greenhouse gas concentrations have been increasing - increasing the amount of reflected and re-radiated solar radiation being reflected back to the Earth's surface and not escaping into space.

This is why it is widely believed humans are causing the increased rate of global warming. Depending on what can we do about it in the next 15 years will determine the severity of the impace global warming will have on global climate change.

Answer 14

The earth warmed and cooled before humans were here and will continue to do so long after we are gone.