Why do people insist on fighting over whether humans contribute to global warming?

Question

Whether or not humans are the main cause of global warming is beside the point. If we can take relatively simple steps to alleviate it, we should. When people get cancer they don't debate over whether or not it's their own fault- they fight it. Global warming is the Earth's cancer.

Answer 1

The playing field has changed considerably in the last 5 years.  Universities have scores of research programs involving human-related activities to climate change.  The U.S. government, so absent in leadership in a public/international way, has devoted millions to research and planning.  Internationally, many governments have developed programs.  Some are limited in scope, others are far reaching.  The devil is in the details, and that's where the fight is currently, in trying to hash out enough of an action plan to do us right in reducing emissions and coping until more research is in and scientists and politicians have had time to compare notes and rally the troops, so to speak.

On this site, the arguement -- we can't really call it a debate -- is way behind the times.  There are a few politicians hanging on to archaic opinions as well, and some scientists who fervently believe that the mainstream is off target -- but by and large business and government can't afford to wait and see.  If they do, the physical and financial costs could be catastrophic.  So they plan, based on the knowledge they have.  They mitigate.  They plan to adapt.

Check out the game plan being put forward by the City of New York, or the state of California.  Look at what Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and universities throughout the world are doing.  Take a peek into how "business as usual" is changing, how some corporations are stepping up to protect their future profit margins, and get into the game when they have a chance to help define the terms they play by.

Global climate change is like a cancer, but the fight now is to ensure we take a strong enough course of action to ensure that future generations can cope and life as we know it can go on.  

Answer 2

It is a fight to prevent having your cost of living doubled with no benefit to you or anybody else. What they claim is happening is not, the climate is operating in same range as it has for almost 90 years now and the only change experienced people are seeing is a possibility of returning to the cooler temperatures of the late 40s and mid 70s. When people get rich off of having the general public in a panic they will say things to make people panic. Stop and look around and see who is really making a huge killing financially out of this and you will know without a doubt who started it.

Answer 3

Well this would include new laws. The EPA (Environment Protective Agency) is not doing their job like their suppose to, instead they are being bought. We need new laws and let's face it many will not vote for these laws because many people are ignorant and unfamiliar with Global Warming. Instead of beer commercials or fast food commercials we need more that have to do with the causes of global warming and its outcome this will make some changes in our habbits.

Answer 4

Whether or not humans are the main cause of global warming is PRECISELY the point. If we cannot stop it, instead of spinning our wheels with useless and ineffectual remedies, we need to be working on how to deal with the reality of what is. You can stand on a railroad track and try to stop an oncoming train, but the end result is pretty much assured.  

Answer 5

because if we decide we need to stop it, the money wasted will bankrupt us. There will be a huge shift of wealth, from the poor the the rich.  and from the average to the government which will employ bureaucrats that will suck us dry.

Answer 6

Obviously you are a good little 'greenie girl', so it would be a waste of my time and disc space to attempt to point out that what you describe as 'fact' is of course, conjecture...conjecture is what you are promulgating-you speak as if you are convinced of AGW, or global warming, however, you should be concerned to know that a new poll reported on MSNBC, has found that you are in the definite minority...so, I guess you can say, 'the vast majority of scientists' believe in AGW, which of course is not correct either, but in a uncommon show of common sense, the American Public, does not believe what you do...do you think you might be incorrect???  After all, the 'vast majority of the American public does not believe global warming is important'-so it must not be if we use the same reasoning you do..  

Answer 7

I'm saying that arguing over whether or not we're the main cause of it or if it would have happened anyway is a waste of time- we know there are certain things we can do to help, so we should.

If you put 50,000 people out of work for nothing was that the best ideal you could have came up with?  What if one of those 50,000 is you or your family and they must now move or work at McDonalds to feed their family all for a mistake, is that ok too?

Answer 8

"Global Warming" is something that YOU as a person cannot control. The U.S. has a population of a little over 300 million while the world population is over 7 billion. Now if 300 million people went "green" and the rest of the world didn't (Especially China, Russia, India, and the middle east) it makes no difference. Everything from Cars to Cow farts are blamed to cause "global warming".

The earth has cycles it warms and cools. Remember, there was an Ice Age before humans were around.

Global Warming is just a way to extract money from the American tax payers, with the Carbon tax and all. Al Gore started this whole thing, he made millions, plus got a noble prize for a lie. Do you think he really cares about the environment?  

Answer 9

If we're not doing it, then how could we stop it?

The suggestion is that we're doing too much of X, Y and Z, and that is causing global warming - that means that we should do less of X, Y and Z, to fight global warming.

But if X, Y and Z don't cause global warming, then doing less of them won't stop it.

And it gets a little old when it's the umpteenth theory about how the same X, Y and Z that these groups hate cause this or that calamity, it's never been accurate in the past and there's no actual, tangible proof to support the present iteration of the "X, Y and Z are bad" theory.

We shouldn't even call it "global warming" - it's really "industrialization sucks, part 114."

The scientific community has NOT ruled out everything but CO2 - - - we can't prove it's something else.   Not the same thing.    We don't know what caused all of the earlier warm or cool periods.  

At a trial if the prosecutor says "I can't prove a case against anyone else, so you must convict the defendant" do you vote to convict?   Then I sure hope I'm never in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Well curio there IS a question as to whether CO2 contributed materially to the 20th century warming.    CO2 traps heat.   So on some level it must contribute - but we don't know if the contribution is material.    1/11,000th of the atmosphere is CO2 that wasn't when Jefferson was President.

1/11,000th.

We cannot assume that that is material.

We cannot assume that it's not, either.

We need proof one way or the other.   Tangible proof.  

And the burden of proof has to be on the people wanting to limit otherwise free activity - otherwise one is never for practical purposes free, because anyone can shut down any activity he doesn't like simply be lodging assertions about it.

And after 20 years and tens of billions of dollars being spent, not in an open-ended search for truth but SPECIFICALLY to build a case for man-made global warming, all they really have is the assumption, the inference, of causation.

No direct, tangible evidence of it.

Answer 10

On the surface, saying that we shouldn't worry about it because volcanoes have caused it naturally in the past almost sounds like a valid argument, but it has some fatal flaws:

1) Natural phenomena such as volcanoes and meteors also caused mass extinctions.  Do you really want to be a contributing factor in our own mass extinction if we can avoid it?

2) This is exactly the same argument people use when arguing that there's nothing wrong with wiping out endangered species.  They say extinctions have happened naturally in the past, so we shouldn't feel the least bit guilty about causing more of them.  In this case it should be even more clear that there's a distinct difference between naturally occurring extinctions and willful extermination of any species that "get in our way".  Likewise, our contribution to global warming cannot be considered a natural phenomenon if we're aware of it and continue to do the same things.

Answer 11

The earth has been much warmer in the past than it is now, and may be again in the future.  Man has nothing to do with it...no control over the climate.  It would be nice if he did so we could maybe get a bit of warmer weather where I am.  Fighting it is a complete waste of money and is capable of bankrupting the economies of some countries.  Especially given that there has been no more waming in the past ten years.

Answer 12

Calling global warming the Earth's cancer is a emotional and not especially rational demonetization of a phenomena that we don't really understand and which indeed may prove beneficial to us.

As for taking steps to alleviate it, those steps are not free.  They represent the lost opportunity to solve other problems.

And back to your cancer analogy.  What could be the harm of chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery on someone not afflicted with cancer?

Answer 13

Because man did not cause it and can do nothing about GW. Besides now the scientists are shifting to global cooling scenarios. Who knows what will happen no one.

Answer 14

You answered your own question.  If we are not the cause then we cannot alleviate it.  If global warming is real, caused by humans or not, why is it the "Earth's cancer"?  What is wrong with warmer temperatures?  More CO2 and warmer temperatures are good for plants, which in turn is good for animals.  Where is there more bio-diversity, within the arctic and antarctic circles or within the tropics?  A reasonable person would look on a slight warming of the Earth as a good thing, not a global catastrophe.  It was warmer during the Medieval Climate Optimum than it is now.  There is no historical record of unprecedented disasters, but there are records of great prosperity during this time.  Vineyards were in England, and farmers were in Greenland.  Why do you Greens like cold so much?  I bet Canadians and Russians would be happy to have a bit of warming.particularly

Answer 15

boy thye have the wool over your eyes,, its all a hoax, a fraud.  

Answer 16

If we're going to reverse or stop global warming we'll need to know what is causing it so that we can go after the cause.

The scientific community has already ruled out everything but excess CO2 from human burning of fossil fuels and has basically stopped fighting over it.

Answer 17

For anyone to stand up and make a claim that mankind can control mother nature is absurd. We have oil leaking into the ocean from the bottom, and they are all totally powerless to stop it.