Why do people say yes and some say no?

Question

This is a question for AGW skeptics and belivers

"Why are you right?"

Couldn't the earth just be getting warmer and then could cool down in a couple of years

or hey with agw getting the world hotter we can just do NuKelure Winteeer(redneck)

But, i mean how can you prove you're right i mean

Yeah it could be caused by man

but

It could be just a phase

or just random warming

Answer 1

No one can predict the future.  No one knows if it will be warmer next year, 5 years, or 10 years from now.

Believers will say that since it was warmer for the last 3 years, then next year will be warm as well.  However this is their guess.  There is no objective science to show a relationship between ghg's and temperatures.

I'm neither a skeptic or believer.  I hold objective science as the standard.  Global warming is not objective science, as it requires a consensus.  Consensuses have been wrong so many times in the past, that we should never use a consensus as a standard.

Answer 2

Because the AGW "Theory" is just that. It is a valid theory, but many scientists and average people are not yet convinced because there are to many holes in the logic and conclusions used to create the theory.

The majority of people obviously do not believe it, or massive changes would be taking place around the world. Very little is happening.

Answer 3

What's wrong with being wrong?

Well, if we think it's true, and we're wrong, then we lose some money. Some people benefit. All in all, it's a waste of time and resources for a myth.

If we think it's false, and we're wrong, then we don't live an eco-friendly life, and we continue to destroy. All in all, we save some time and resources, and lose the planet.

Answer 4

scientists know very little of climate changes from the past...compared to what actually happened....we were not there either...funny how they find wooly mammoths in Siberia and Alaska....and plant remnants in the arctic....gee, ya think!?!? maybe...just maybe things do actually go in cycles?? not to mention the volcanic activity of the past, and present, and future....maybe something beyond man and what little effect he has really...pretty insignificant compared to natural events...we(humanity) just like to give ourselves an ego boost by thinking we can make an impact....

Answer 5

Francis - is that you Susan?  Or is it Nancy? Just how many identifies have you created on Yahoo in the last couple days?  It really calls into question your intentions when you keep posting under different identities ;-)

I'm a Skeptic (that means I don't accept any new claims without independently searching out verification), trained Computer Scientist (working in the world of Physics), have no affiliation or fondness for any environmental groups, have no affiliation of fondness to the Rush Limbaughs of the world that refuse to admit humans can impact their own environment (that's a no brainer), have followed closely the scientific literature on the subject for over 3 years, and have determined that there is no other theory being put forth that stands up to scrutiny and can adequately address the various observational data.

The "explanation" that it's natural is an empty explanation unless the natural forces can be explained and actually account for the observations around the world.  Someone could say "natural invisible rays from Mars are heating up our planet", but unless someone can explain the source of those rays that's not a serious hypothesis, let alone a tested theory.

The problem with most AGW doubters is that they are driven by:

A) Fear of government intervention into their lives;

B) Hate Al Gore;

C) Are funded by the Energy industry to obfuscate the science;

D) Don't understand the difference between opinion pieces by non-scientists and peer reviewed journal articles by real scientists;

E) Simply don't want to take the time or have the ability to read the actual science.  

Possibly all of the above.

The basic physics of Global Warming has been understood for well over 100 years.  People who haven't studied Physics in-depth usually aren't aware of that.  And early calculations on the effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere were quite close to what we're seeing and what modern models are predicting.

Answer 6

Some people say no and some people say yes.  The people that say no are people that think they know more about this then the scientist that are currently reseaching and studying about it. Now... that people that know for a fact that is happening are people that are educated.

Answer 7

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 8

There is a lot of science that goes behind these theories.   Of course it's possible that it's all wrong, but scientists who study these things know what they're doing, and they examine all the alternatives before reaching conclusions.

Answer 9

There are very few skeptics left.  A lot seem to have ties with oil companies or the coal lobbies.

We've got governments that are too foolish to act now.  We're still building huge fuel sucking monster vehicles.

It's getting too late to protect our Earth from a great change.  I guess your kids will suffer for it.  Big money buys skeptics and big money is winning.  You're just a pawn.  It really doesn't matter what you believe.

Answer 10

no and yes

Answer 11

Scientists know all about climate cycles.

And 99+% of them say global warming is real, and mostly caused by us.  Proof:

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

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

The wiki article is just a collection of easily checkable facts, not opinions.

Many people who deny global warming do so for political reasons.  Even fellow conservatives recognize that:

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

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

Most all of the political arguments from right wing blogs are answered by scientists here:

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

The bottom line:

"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