Is global warming mostly about poltiical issues or science issues?

Question

How does election politics factor in this subject and what does it have to do science?

Answer 1

It should be a science issue.

Unfortunately it has become a political issue.

Answer 2

It's about the misuse of science to promote political agendas, much as Tom Clark said above.

A few quotes:

Jacques Chirac pointed that climate change is less about saving the planet than the real agenda behind the environmental movement and global warming: “creating world government.”

"This is a big global problem, and we have a deficit in global governance," says Vattenfall's Josefsson. "If we could solve this, it could be a model for global governance.”

Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated in his article "State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era," that a system of world government must be created and sovereignty eliminated in order to fight global warming, as well as terrorism. "Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function," says Haass. "Globalization thus implies that sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but that it needs to become weaker. States would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves..."

As far as US election politics is concerned, in a democracy, if greenery is what the people want, politicians will understandably provide it. They are not scientists and don’t really care if the pop science is bogus. They just lean which ever way the political winds blow.

Answer 3

SCIENCE, ice caps melting, oceans rising, temperature changes, ozone depletion, these are not politics.

Answer 4

both

Answer 5

More on the level of a cult than politics or science.

Answer 6

Politics. The right wing talk radio heads are still trying their damndest to find ways to deny it. They mistakenly give their listeners the impression that there is a thriving 50-50 debate about whether mankind is causing it by cherry picking certain guests who come on their shows repeatedly. They seem to have a very serious agenda with making sure nobody takes action to stop CO2 emissions. Hmmmmm.... wonder what that might be.

Answer 7

Science.  Here's some.

This is science and what counts is the data.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

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

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

summarized at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report...

It's (mostly) not the sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-...

And the first graph above shows that the sun is responsible for about 10% of it.  When someone says it's the sun they're saying that thousands of climatologists are stupid and don't look at the solar data.  That's ridiculous.

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater...

There's a large number of people who agree that it is real and mostly caused by us, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy".  Just three examples of many:

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

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...

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know...  Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point.  You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

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

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

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 8

Global Warming is both political and a scientific issue.  Any hot button issue will be exploited by politicians to get votes.

Unfortunately, many politicians will use highly exaggerated or biased scientific studies to catch the attention of their intended voters and to get more votes.  Remember that politicians are not scientists and do not use the "Scientific Method" in trying to prove the legitimacy of their position.

Global Warming is a theory only, and has not passed the test of falsifiability under the Scientific Method.  However, data does suggest the possibility of major climatic changes due to fossil fuel consumption.

But it should also be noted that the earth, relative to the geological history of the earth, is in a period of warming due to the fact that the earth just came out of an Ice age.  So it does make sense that the earth is warming because of that fact.  

Another factor is that the sun orbits around the center of the Milkyway galaxy every 250 million years, and some scientists suggest that this  coincides with Ice ages and warming cycles.

Answer 9

Political

Answer 10

Global warming maybe partly to do with actions of politics and scientific. But if you believe in creation, that God created the world and everthing living and non-living there is on earth, in the sky and the beyond the universe, and tasked humans to look after it, but man has failed. Look, there is suffering everywhere, poverty in all nations, greed on every rich nation's political and scientific agendas, wars on every part of the world, and I suppose God does not like his people to suffer more and is again moving in that direction to re-create a new world. Humans have abused the creator's creations and, believe it or not, this is no dooms saying, God is slowly but steadily moving in that direction to restore order in this world.

Answer 11

The earth's climate itself is a scientific issue - gathering data and interpreting it.  How (and whether) to deal with it has become a political issue.  The politicians will play the facts in order to please and gather voters, and find the scientists whose findings support their agendas.  For the most part, the science right now is research and looking at the data trying to determine whether the warming is cyclical, or due to our own misuse of the planet and its resources.  Or both.

For my two cents, we should be responsible about it anyway, even if it does turn out to be a natural occurrence in the life of earth.  It'd be stupid not to.

Answer 12

It's all about politics now.