What is your position on global warming?

Question

im writing a research paper and want to include a poll.

more answers the better!

i just want to know your position on global warming. do you think it is happening? and is it directly caused by humans?

Answer 1

Global Warming is true, there are Natural fazes but we are affecting that to a great extent ,with deforestation ,desertification and pollution., especially air pollution.

A few weeks ago one of NASA's top scientists concluded that the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free within five years, much faster than all previous predictions.

when the north pole is gone , you may have polar bears soon in America ,looking for a home ,

Calculations do not include the accumulative ,speeding up ,factor with time. the increase in water temperature will get faster all the time as well as the melting, when the ice is all gone the deeper cold Ocean currents will be drastically affected,which in turn will affect the warm currents,since all moving bodies of water are connected in series.

This will affect coastal climates ,world wide ,almost instantly. All aquatic flora and fauna will be affected,many dying off and others becoming invasive,

And recently In Chiapas ,and Tabasco in Mexico .more then a million people became homeless overnight with water coming up to their roofs ,because of rains from super evaporation from the forests,this had never happened before. Millions of animals died.

In India 3000 people died because of super storms .

.A few years ago in Europe 3500 people,died during a heat wave ,many of them in France .

Right now the average death toll annually is 150.000 due to Global warming

. these figures are already out of date and are expected to double soon.

In Northern China millions of people are running for their lives because regular dust storms so far have buried 900 villages under the sand and the whole of northern China is turning into a dessert.

The Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year all around the edges ,like a slow burning fire shriveling up their neighbors In the Kalahari huge rivers have dried up and thousand of species are gone due to their habitats disappearing .

The biggest changes are invisible at micro biotic levels species are becoming extinct ,others are multiplying ,

This affects the insect populations that follow ,and changes in that ,affect all that follows in the food chains ,

All life is interrelated of both flora and fauna, And since we are on the top of the food chain ,

we are always the last to know.

So Global warming has its toll there are incidents all over the world ,

However

confusion rules the day ,i am beginning to think that SCIENCE HAS BEEN INVADED WITH POLITICS AND HUMAN EMOTIONS

The truth is being distorted at high levels,

And lies have been weaved in.

Some of the real dangers are being hidden because there are no solutions , Public could panic.and Authorities would loose control .

Besides Corporations have other priorities and changes will cause loss of profits ,this also affects the truths being published

Others facts are exaggerated so that the phenomena can be used to milk the people.

This is further complicated with Arrogance that will not admit that mankind could be guilty, or that Gods could be out of control ,unloving or incompetent

But I do not think we can make a real difference anymore to change the tide.

On a Global scale,Humanity is not co operative enough .

The poor regions have other priorities such as daily survival.

There is a lot we can do about being more responsible with what we got ,

In the first world countries many do not care or are more interested in Global Control than Global Warming.

Answer 2

This is the funniest thing yet on Yahoo Answers.

"  AGW is an unproven theory just as evolution is still an unproven theory (example, still no Missing Link found to prove conclusively that man evolved from apes)  "

Answer 3

Man made global warming is a hoax.  The Earth heats and cools along naturally occurring cycles.  At this point the Sun is burning hotter than it has been which is causing an increase in Earth's temperatures.  Back in the 70's the Earth was experiencing a cooling trend.

Answer 4

If you want a recent large-scale poll on the subject, you might want to go here:

http://environment.yale.edu/climate/

Click on the link (right side) for "International Public Opinion, Perception, and Understanding of Global Climate Change"

You'll find that over 75% of the people (from 34 countries in the world) consider it "very serious or somewhat serious".  You'll also see that a significant increase in the level of concern occurred between 2000 and 2006.  This makes sense, as a lot of solid scientific evidence was reported during that time period.

Answer 5

The warming that is occurring is natural, not man made.

Man made global warming is a scam to make money and gain political power.

Just one major volcanic eruption could put us into an ice age.

Answer 6

Global warming as presented in the media, especially in a certain well known movie, is a fraud.

It is a hijacking of legitimate environmental concerns by a small group of questionable people who have their own agenda, primarily the enrichment of themselves at everyone else's expense.

I don't see much leading by example from this group.  Mohandas Ghandi was a lawyer, he could have had a comfortable life while protesting the British.  But he realized that the only way to get them out of India was to break the economic link between the two countries and that meant personal sacrifice, something he willingly undertook.  The man walked instead of taking British trains.  Does a certain former official in the Clinton administration eschew private jets to travel by bus with the people who would be hurt the most by his ideas?

You will hear statements like, the science is in, we know the answers.  Anybody who has ever actually studied science will tell you that is a load of bull.  The science is never in, we never know all the answers.  There are new discoveries everyday that overturn established knowledge.  

CO2 is a trace gas, by geological standards it is still at a very low level.  A ten fold increase in CO2 levels would still make it a trace gas.  But it's a vital gas, if CO2 levels were falling I would be more worried.  Plants and the ocean easily swallow up these modest rises.

The thing that galls me the most is what I said at the top of the post.  This is a hijacking of the environmental movement.  There are real problems.   Soil depletion, toxic metals and carbon particles from air pollution, water pollution, loss of forests.  These are complex problems that need complex and generally technological solutions.  Wasting time and money on  bogus schemes like carbon trading is a harmful distraction from these issues.  

What's my position on global warming.  I'd like to put Al Gore, Heidi Cullen and Laurie David on a private jet and have it crash land somewhere in northern Canada where they can then spend the rest of their lives fending off supposedly endangered polar bears.

Answer 7

i think we should legalize it

Answer 8

The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat

by Richard Harris



Stuart Westmorland

Oceans hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. Corbis





Morning Edition, March 19, 2008 · Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.

That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.

Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.

One possibility is that the sea has, in fact, warmed and expanded — and scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data from the diving buoys.

But if the aquatic robots are actually telling the right story, that raises a new question: Where is the extra heat all going?

Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.

That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.

"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.

It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate.

"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."

Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.

Answer 9

What we are experiencing is a natural cycle of the Earth..not anything that is man-made.  There are various sites, that prove the politically, special interest or governmentally funded groups wrong.  The only reason they say that g/w exists is to obtain further funding in order to keep their jobs. Their science and computer models are flawed.  With flawed science you get flawed results and thats why more and more people are realizing that real science is proving the "alarmists" wrong. Don't  forget, these same people were crying "Ice Age" 30 years ago. Even Al Gore's "co Nobel winner" believes it is natural and not man made.

Answer 10

AGW is an unproven theory just as evolution is still an unproven theory (example, still no Missing Link found to prove conclusively that man evolved from apes). That being said someday in the future there might be conclusive evidence to prove both theories but probably not in our lifetimes.

Ockham's Razor states the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.  There are two main theories about the current global warming issue.

1. This is part of a natural and well documented weather cycle that has been going on for millions of years.

2. Man has somehow in the last 100 years become the primary cause of global warming. This comes from the same people who can't even tell  you what the weather will be like next month let alone in 10 years

Ask  yourself which is the simplest and therefore more reasonable explanation.

Glad you found it funny Tuba, what I find funny is that you can't prove my statement is incorrect.  It's hillarious that you accept AGW or Evolution as fact when even the Scientific community still refers to both as THEORY.

Answer 11

The idea that global warming itself is a hoax is a childish argument:

"These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:

NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis

CRU direct surface temperature analysis

Both trends are definitely and significantly up. In addition to direct measurements of surface temperature, there are many other measurements and indicators that support the general direction and magnitude of the change the earth is currently undergoing. The following diverse empirical observations lead to the same unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:

Satellite Data

Radiosondes

Borehole analysis

Glacial melt observations

Sea ice melt

Sea level rise

Proxy Reconstructions

Permafrost melt

There is simply no room for doubt: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend."

The other issue is that yes, there has always been ups and downs in temperature, the problem this time is how FAST it is changing. One might think that a little extra heat is OK, but you would be forgetting that even slight changes in temp can cause havok on certain types of animals and plants. Plants that for all we know could cure something, or play an important role in history.

Answer 12

No GW is a scam and is part of the reason why U are paying such  high gasoline prices.

Answer 13

Its happening, its real, people are pigs

Answer 14

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.

Answer 15

Yes, I believe it is happening. Look at the wierd weather lately!! Last it was snowing here and the temperature was 45 degrees!! The droughts, increase in hurricanes, the list goes on!!

I believe humans are contributing, as time goes by people are having more and more kids, our planet is filling and QUICKLY!!