Why do some people think they know and are 100% sure that manmade global warming is or is not happening?

Question

to people who are convinced - the reality is not that simple, no one can no for sure, there is no 1 thing that has proved it conclusively

to skeptics- just because we don't know for sure does not make it untrue, nor does it mean we should not take action to mitiagate it

Answer 1

As a skeptic, I would like to respond.  In 2007, a great deal of peer-reviewed literature was published showing that rising CO2 is not going to be catastrophic - at least over the next 50 to 100 years.  Perhaps you are unaware of the research.

Roy Spencer from University of Alabama in Huntsville published his observations on a negative feedback he and his team found while studying the troposphere over the tropics.  They identified this at the "Infrared Iris Effect" hypothesized by Richard Lindzen of MIT.  This is very important and explains, in part, why the temperature has not risen as much as predicted.

http://blog.acton.org/uploads/Spencer_07...

Peter Chylek from Los Alamos National Lab published an article on the cooling impact of aerosols and found it to be much lower than expected.  He also concluded the climate was not as sensitive to rising CO2 as once thought.

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate...

Stephen E. Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab, and the scientist responsible for the Acid Rain legislation in the 1990s, published a peer-reviewed paper with a new estimate of climate sensitivity of rising CO2.  He concluded the climate is only about one-third as sensitive as the IPCC had estimated.  

http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCa...

Just recently, people have begun to do "forecast verifications" on predictions about global warming.  James Hansen offered one prediction before Congress in 1988 (when Al Gore was still a senator) and the IPCC published one in 1990.  It seems both of them dramatically overestimated how much temperatures would rise.  We now have 20 years of data to look at and they were just flat wrong.  

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2602

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/promet...

Why should we spend billions of dollars to mitigate something   the science tell us is not going to be a problem?  We should be investing our money into developing new energy technologies, not into carbon credits.  Al Gore's company will make hundreds of millions of dollars trading carbon credits and we will not be any closer to independence from foreign oil.

Answer 2

you can solve your dillemma at http://globalwarmingheartland.org

Answer 3

They don't believe in it

Answer 4

Note to Dr Jello:

I think that you have missed the point. Most of the celebrity “skeptics” are not interested in science or research; and they are apathetic towards concerns of likely climate change effects (never mind that the effects are evident today). They just wish that all action on global warming to be delayed until it is too late.

Case in point is the DSCOVR project (Deep Space Climate Observatory). DSCOVER is a NASA satellite proposed in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore for the purpose of studying the process of global warming. The scientific goals are the first direct measurements of how much sunlight is reflected and emitted from Earth, measurements of amount of solar energy reaching Earth, cloud patterns, weather systems, monitoring the health of Earth's vegetation, and tracking the amount of UV light reaching the surface through the ozone layer.

The satellite that has been built and paid for by tax payers at a cost of over $100 million dollars. But because of petty partisan politics, the project is doomed. That’s right; the same people who are repeating that there is not enough research to support action on global warming are the same ones that suppress such research.

Faced with political hostility on one side and scientific support on the other, the DSCOVR satellite could neither be launched nor could it be terminated. It sits in a Maryland warehouse, and cost taxpayers $1 million dollars per year to store. The Ukrainian government even offered to launch DSCOVR for free aboard a Tsyklon IV rocket – the most reliable launch vehicle in the world. This request was refused.

But to answer the question: most people do not understand science and the scientific method. No theory can be proven to a 100% certainty. A scientific theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. Scientific theories are essentially the equivalent of what everyday speech refers to as facts. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory.

Answer 5

I think you miss the point.  Skeptics don't believe that they know 100% that global warming isn't real, they know there isn't enough information to say that it is real.

No one can predict the future.  People who say that it will be warmer in 10 years are just taking guesses.  Why listen or spend resources on people who just take guesses?

Yes we should all do what we can to conserve, reuse, and reduce.  These are sound principals.  But predictions belong to soothsayers, not scientist.

A couple of years ago the prediction was that Washington DC would be too hot to be our Nations Capital, that it would have to be moved to Duluth Minnesota.  Sounds funny now, especially since the South is getting record snow.

Now we can look back and laugh at those who thought the capital needed to be moved.  It's good that we didn't take action because of some peoples predictions.

Answer 6

Ultimately global temperature is a part of physics where the chemistry of the atmosphere can have measurable results according to known laws in such a way that it can be described mathematically.

Now there's about a century of surface data and 2-3 decades of satellite data to base climate models on. Remote sensing has been refined since the 1970's to gather very accurate data.

So, the current situation in the atmosphere is not up for grabs on raw data. The essential point of this is that now carbon dioxide levels are leading temperature, something that the planet responds to by heating up.

For the past 450,000 years global temperature's rise and fall was consistently ahead of the change in carbon dioxide, yet the two would track closely together in any case.

A very easy to measure rise in carbon dioxide levels has been recorded since the 1970's in Hawaii, to be away from local influences; this data shows a steadily rising carbon dioxide level, a "spike" in terms of geologic time.

The only reason things aren't much, much hotter is that the ocean is a big heat sink and so is absorbing most of the extra heat that the atmosphere is generating while trying to balance the gas levels with temperature again.

The oceans expand as they do this which is about half the measurable rise noted in the data, the other half being melting ice from longer term glacial sources and ice caps such as Greenland and Antarctica; noting that the mass movement of meltwater recently in both as significant (Check NOAA and NASA's sites, especially earthobservatory.nasa.gov for online sources.).

The rising sea is an economic disaster to the coastal world. Already the government of Tuvalu has realized the necessity of moving people off the islands as they become uninhabitable, this in the 50-100 year range. Many oceanic islands have fresh water lenses that are being fouled by brine and becoming useless for crops, reefs are becoming submerged so more storms affect the lagoons, degrading those.

Permafrost is being lost at a very high rate over huge areas where arctic tundra is being turned to shrubs because free water is available all year to the roots; this is much faster than anticipated in most work, and is easily visible to remote sensing graphics in reds for plant types. The tundra supports the caribou herds ...

The sea will keep rising until temperature is again leading carbon dioxide, it's got a long way to go. For a graph of this, reference MIT's Technology Review, July/August, 2006; it has global temperature, sea level and carbon dioxide level for the past 450,000 years, based on Vostok ice cores, oceanic sediment records and such; pretty standard geologic datasets nowadays since it's hard data from cores, used for modeling as a baseline.

So that's the problem, the sea is rising, the planet will continue to warm up fast as long as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations remain above the temperature response because that's where the physics dictates the temperature be.

And what conclusions can be made?

This dramatic rise in carbon dioxide began with the Industrial Revolution and continues today.



The sea will continue to rise as it continues to absorb heat and glaciers continue to melt.

Oceanic people are already losing their islands to how fast this rise is occurring.

Arctic people are losing tens of meters of land a year as permafrost thaws in places with archaeological sites dating to ~9,000 years ago, not to mention this near modern homes that also are being moved.

What rhetoric is good enough to say that humanity is affecting the planet's heat balance?

The planet is way out of balance in terms of the physics, and consider that before this, it was a rather delicate balancing system, going from glacial age to interglacial on the slight changes in astronomical precession and other cycles as Milankovich described early in the twentieth century.

So, unless there's a good reason to drown Lower Manhattan Island, collectively humans have to stop it, then reverse the process, cooling the planet down as much as we are heating it up.

By then as a species we'll be congratulating ourselves on planetary control, but until that humble moment, from an atmospheric and geologic viewpoint the data points out clearly that we're outta' control.

Forcing the temperature to rise so fast is plainly foolish, just because this as a measurement is tenths of degrees everyone yawns, but you calculate in the amount of heat being absorbed to make it rise this tiny amount and suddenly the real problem is too obvious. So, do the math, get the latest CO2 level from the University of Hawaii's website and plot it on this graph.

Then think it over, by the end of this century NYC's subways will be submerged at the current rate, the stations will get flooded seasonally by then unless you have the bucks for dikes like the Dutch maintain. New Orleans is long gone unless you do the same ... along with much of the world's estuaries and deltas. And where are all those people going to live and work?

The government of Tuvalu has approached New Zealand, Australia and Fuji to get agreements to take its citizens and is already having some difficulty.

I'd suggest a sustainable version of the planet puts the sea level rise in check asap. Pour big bucks into greenhouse gas removal and recycling, implement the leading ideas quickly to gain practical knowledge.

Then, cool it back down to where there are good snow packs, not too radical a winter, not many extended drought regions ... we'd be so cool, so awesome, so green.

Just like the sci-fi novels or bust, since we have no second chances and we as a species are in control with our foot to the floor on the gas 'em up accelerator and the planet is just real slow to heat up so it looks like nothin' much is happening yet, so, rhetoric can exist.

The planet doesn't care what we do, it'll just respond according to the laws of physics.

Answer 7

There is a lot of "science" for both sides of the global warming debate.  Some of the "science" is flawed.  Some of the "science" is sound.

The "man-did-it" folks have spent many millions of dollars marketing their cause.  There are Billions to be made from this ever-growing 'green' industry.  Where there is money to be made, those who stand to gain will insist that their cause is sound and legitimate.  They will not make money by questioning any of the so-called "facts" supporting their industry.  I'm afraid that the "man-did-it" cause has duped a lot of people, but I maintain that the vast majority of literate people have not fallen for it.

Let's face it..... even the so-called climate experts exposed themselves as frauds when THOUSANDS of them boarded pollution-spewing jet planes to resort locations in Bali to discuss how WE should be more responsible in our use of energy.  Those Brainiacs have never heard of video-conferencing!!??

Answer 8

This news item should clear up any doubt.

  

  http://newsweek.com/id/82363

Answer 9

Nothing is proved 100%.  Just because something - like global warming - is a "theory" doesn't mean it is not true. Even gravity is just a theory.

Global warming, however, is a very respected theory which virtually no credible scientist challenges. Lots of conservative politicians and commentators act as if there is no agreement in the scientific community about global warming, but this is not true.

Ask yourself what these people have to gain or lose by admitting that global warming is real? It reminds me of tobacco companies saying that cancer risk is not proven. Everyone knows that is BS and that they have a vested interest in denying their responsibility.

Lots of people have philosophical issues about stuff like global warming, so they tend to have strong opinions one way or another.

My personal feeling is that we have definitely changed the climate on this planet, and have done ourselves harm as a people which we may never be able to fix. But we can stop it from getting worse - it just won't be easy.

Answer 10

Because eco-business is big business these days. I'm not denying that we should try to lower our CO2 emissions, but people are so damned naive that they "know for a fact" every statement that is made to them on television is true. The whole business of selling eco-friendly items like solar and wind power, hybrid cars, etc, is big money business. The goals of these major corporations is not to help the environment, it is to make as much money for their company as possible. That has been the goal of any business as long as there has been business. And if they can make the problem seem worse than it is on television, then they can make more money. I am really not trying to downplay the problems we cause for the environment, but people should take everything they hear, on either side of the argument, with a grain of salt, and just do whatever they personally can, to make the world a better place.

Answer 11

Note to Dr. Jello

Who predicted DC would need to be moved?  The creditability of the predictor needs to be taken into account.  A fair number of well educated scientist support the global warming theory.

I though the original statement was very balanced, if you cannot find some truth in it perhaps you are on one of the fringes.

Answer 12

Nothing is 100% certain.  But scientists are 99% sure global warming is mostly caused by us.

So, while we're not "certain" we're certain enough that we need to take action.