How could you NOT believe in global warming?

[Deleted]

Anecdotal evidence just doesn't count. For example," When I was young I went fishing and I caught this 10 footer and nowadays the only fish I catch are 3 foot long" would not suffice as evidence for fish being smaller in general today, no matter how many times you would hear that on the news. It could be that you are seeing a warming trend in your neighbourhood, it still does not necesarilly have to do with global warming.

That is why we have statistics and science. However, you can prove most things by statistics. Also, know that 1000 scientific reports can be disproven by one single report stating the oposite. This is not a democratic business.

My own take on this is that I am not sure. I believe that MSM tends to be very alarmistic, and that there are political reasons to endorse global warming. Those two reasons are big enough to remain sceptic.

[Deleted]

Because people have to use the word "believe". The evidence for an accelerated global warming based on human activity is quite interesting and compelling. The body of research is extremely well reviewed and founded.

From my perspective, I feel that the extent and focus on human activity is greatly exaggerated within certain quarters. You'll often find it goes back into Green Industries. By all accounts I agree we have a real influence on global weather patterns and conditions, but this idea that we're 'destroying the planet' is absurd. We need significantly more funding into research that examines the long curve of temperature patterns on Earth.

I do however support all policies that are of a direct benefit to the ecology of the planet, which includes the move towards "green" industries.

[aeser]

there is cyclical warming and cooling of the earth, it just so happens the earths temperature skyrocketed exactly at the point we developed the combustion engine and started emitting co2. so yea, while the earth does naturally warm and cool, this spike is not natural but rather caused by dumping astronomical amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. you can look at the last 100,000 years and just the last 100 years it spikes almost directly up higher than it's been for 100,000 years exactly when we started emitting lots of co2.

[DEATHETERNAL]

So because you remember more snow in your neighborhood, there is no way that anyone could logically disagree with global warming? How very scientific of you.

The planet will do and has done whatever in heck it wants to do. If you think you fully understand why it is warmer or colder at any specific point in the long and varied history of global temperature change, then I pity your lack of vision.

Also, if the globe is warming drastically, then good. The positive implications are massive for such a change.

[Rhenaya]

its scientifcally proven tha earth has gone and gone again from one extreme to another in hundrets or thousands of years. this is what makes it hard to credit the current change to humanity:
there were two little ice ages in the last 3000 years, there was a middle one 10000 years ago, and 100000 years ago a really big one (dont get me on the actuall numbers)
the small ice ages fall and come every now and then
last small ice age was around 1600 which was one of the main factors for witch hunting -> people starved because of not enough wheat, etc and believed anything to find someone guilty

right now we are in a period of less coldness and it gets warmer of course, while there is without a doubt a noticable effect if you look over the past 30 years, you always had those warmer periods that got even warmer between the ice ages (the one between the last two small ice ages has been hypothetical claimed for the fall of the maya as the extrem weather change was at fault for their demise)


but temperature wasnt messured that easy back then, while the ice ages can be easily geologically proven, its not that esay for the warmer periods, thus hard to explain if it was always like this
and there comes the whole "believe" into the thing: we cant really prove, so you have to believe its humans fault or not

[Doktor Faustus]

It's a fact.

However, it the grand scheme of things man infulence is insignificant compared to Mother Nature.

This is what I rile against, governments and businesses proffessing to want to save the world when they just want to raise taxes or sell you shit.

Look at it over an epoch or two and it's laughable, more long term thinking less now now gief me moar.

Oceans will rise the freeze, the rise then freeze, etc.

Stop building cities in shit locations, run to the hills.

Stop building houses on flood plains if you cannot be arsed to move your furniture up stairs every spring and autumn (as generations have done for centuries).

And don't, DON'T choose to live next a faultline/volcano and complain when it goes boom.

[chadwix]

I may have to turn on my air conditioner today, im a believer again.

Knee jerk reactions based on selective data. Its mostly hype to sustain their field.

[aeser]

the kicker is it doesn't even matter if the stone age global warming deniers get with the program or not. i am all for using exclusively green energy to at least try to not ADD to the problem but just about all prominent scientists agree we've already done the damage and there is no undoing it now, there is just remaining ignorant to the cause and adding to it to speed up the effects, or completely changing our ways and emitting NO co2 but either way the polar caps still melt, ocean levels still rise, and we're going to lose NYC, LA, most of florida, tons of islands, and most beachfront areas, this you cannot undo at this point, it's already in motion.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence for or against global warming. There is a phenomenon known as weather cycles. Sometimes the planet or a region trends warmer or cooler in a span of years. Sometimes there is drought. Sometimes there are floods. The REAL question of global warming is not whether it occurs or not (obviously it does, just as global cooling does) but whether the change is caused by man made pollutants or not. Are we accelerating warming to the point of possible catastrophe? Or does Mother Nature compensate for cyclical changes from whatever cause? The real question (world changing question) is if humans ceased to create any "greenhouse gases" would the earth continue to warm anyway? Or would there be a noticeable reversion of the current trend? Quick answer: we may never know. Ceasing all operations that produce these "pollutants" would crash the world economy faster than you can say "Bingo"! Personally I tend to disbelieve all the sky is falling pundits, but I have not made up my mind in respect to this issue with a comfortable margin of error. Besides the world ends on 12/21/12 anyway according to the Mayan calendar...

No, no and just NO!

The fact you joked about that Mayan Calander nonsense in the same reference as actual scientific data which clearly shows that the temprature of the earth is changing and even the slightest is causing for unseasonable weather patterns all over the globe, the Polar ice caps melting, and whales changing their migration habbits. But maybe you rahter a F6 Hurricane or a 8 point Earth quake to hit a few more times before you realise " OH Guess what, This is really bad, we should do something" Honestly we may already be at a point that it is too late, and making jokes about it while we might be destroying the very planet we depend on isn't funny.


Money the economy is an imaginary idea, that is set up to divide those into have, and have nots, to ensure the production of the wants of few on the backs of many, a construct that is already unsustainable in and of itself, but rather than take actual science and knowledge in for what it is, and make some course corrections to fix, things, you have people a little too married to their People Magazine, Wendys and NASCAR. Seriously if you don't care just say so, but don't suddenly start caring when those things i mentioned do happen, and you want answers for the why things are happened, that you just ignore anyways.

[Theodoxus]

The really sad news is, atmospheric changes in CO2 lead to very slow heat increases - we're already doomed, given the amount of CO2 we've produced - but the effects won't be felt noticeably for 20-30 years. By the time they are felt - to the point where everyone is complaining about how hot it is in December (northerners) or July (southerners) - it's beyond too late to do anything.

We really needed to slow down and retool our energy creation methods about the time the US stopped making new nuclear reactors. Not that this is entire the US's fault - hardly - but no one wants to make the hard decisions. We all stand around gabbing about Global Warming/Climate Change and do nothing - meanwhile we spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

I suppose there are worse ways to die that heat stroke and oxygen deprivation... but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

[Animalhouse]

A volcano produces more bad stuff than humans do for a whole year in a matter of days when there's an eruption.. I'd believe it's more nature changing the climate due to volcanic activity. Just watch yellowstone when that has an eruption, then we can talk about climate changes..

You are absolutely right. So few people realize this. CO2 levels have been much higher than they are today frequently throughout the history of this planet. The earth tilts 2 degrees on it's axis over 26,000 years causing ice sheets to decend and recede. The main reason this global warming CRAP is being pushed is so that the central banks can tax us all for breathing.

Lord Moncton (spelling) broke down the Copenhagen treaty pretty well...it is a very evil thing that is being packaged to the blind masses.

[Deleted]

I believe in climate change caused by natural cycles of Sun and Earth. We're still recovering from the latest Ice Age period and planet's gonna get warmer regardless what we do.

No, this is the whole thing, we can keep it as it is if we do certain things.

Lol its just the fucking planets fucking cycles..there are cycles when it cools down alot and heats up alot... our little shit on this planet only speeds the process up... but its inevitable either way :*


EDIT:Governements and people just use this to milk alot of money from people..

Yes, the problem is that we may be accelerating the cycle. And a global warming would be devastating for nations. The entire Africa would become a desert, not just northern half, all those rainforests in Asia, India would have droughts, etc. Basically the people living close to Ecuator are fucked. But there's more. So is the coral banks, and without them, less air is produced. Without that, less fish is produced. So less air and less food for the nations that do survive as well as immigrants in the number of billions.... I don't know, it doesn't sound so good. Sure, it won't happen over night, but in the last 20 years we've seen some major changes already.


However, here's the thing, we don't know if current events will lead to an ice age or a global warming. Why?
The ice from Antarctica and the North Pole is melting faster then it would in a normal cycle, and this is fully because of human influence.
"So what?"
Well, the water from there isn't automatically heated when it goes in the oceans, it's still freezing cold and enters the current that runs all around the globe. So in the oceans there's an increase in cold water. This can actually lead to an ice age in the end.
This is why in winters it's colder and in summers it's hotter, because it's... how to explain... take a scale, put a 1 kg weight on one arm and 1 kg on another. Then add 1 more on one side. Then add 1 kg on the other... you'll see the scale doesn't instantly go to equality, it first goes further down on the side of which the weight was added then it starts to become more stable. But as the difference in weights increases, that movement is greater and greater, one side or another.

This is how climate is going now.

[chadwix]

i am all for using exclusively green energy

Dont fall for the hype, this is why they are pushing their global warming agenda. A ton of money to be made by these green companys.

[Auton]

As said before, the fact that the climate is changing isn't disputed or even disputable. What is disputed is the cause. For some reason many people living today seem to think that climate never changed at all prior to industrialization, and since the climate has been changing since industrialization, then the CO2 associated with industrialization must be the cause. They don't stop to think about the fact that a rise in CO2 in historical records has never led to a rise in temperatures, the fact that generally in the history of the planet the temperature is much higher than it is right now, or the fact that we are currently in an ice age ("By this definition, we are still in the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist."). Would warmer be "different" than what we have ever known? Yes. Would warmer be "bad" for the planet? Based on the fact that it has usually been warmer than it is right now, I would say "No".

[Chrispotter]

I just simply dont give a fuck. The planet will get hotter, the planet will get colder. Either way anything bad is thousands if not millions of years away.... Im sure in the year 2196 there will be a galactic war or something which will do 100000x more damage to the earth than me not recycling or driving my car for the ~60 years of my adult life.

[Daelak]

You are absolutely right. So few people realize this. CO2 levels have been much higher than they are today frequently throughout the history of this planet. The earth tilts 2 degrees on it's axis over 26,000 years causing ice sheets to decend and recede. The main reason this global warming CRAP is being pushed is so that the central banks can tax us all for breathing.

Lord Moncton (spelling) broke down the Copenhagen treaty pretty well...it is a very evil thing that is being packaged to the blind masses.

No you and your volcano friend are completely wrong. CO2 levels have been higher than where they are now, but guess how long it took for that to NATURALLY HAPPEN. A span of over 10 million years. Guess how fast the C02 levels have been rising recently?, in less than 200 years.

No, we are the cause of increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and the particulates that a volcano puts into the atmosphere is nothing compared to what the collective actions of seven billion primates put into the atmosphere every second since the turn of the last century.

[Deleted]

I do believe we're into a warmer climate change, I do not however believe that humans have any significant part in it. It's just how earth works, and always have, in cycles.

[s_bushido]

My favorite sentiment on the subject:

[Doctor Amadeus]

So because you remember more snow in your neighborhood, there is no way that anyone could logically disagree with global warming? How very scientific of you.

The planet will do and has done whatever in heck it wants to do. If you think you fully understand why it is warmer or colder at any specific point in the long and varied history of global temperature change, then I pity your lack of vision.

Also, if the globe is warming drastically, then good. The positive implications are massive for such a change.

No it isn't and the positive implications you suggest come from your ignorance at the idea of OHH, that just means instead of it being a little colder its going to be warmer thats all. Maybe put the Fantasy book down for a moment and actually do some REAL research and reading on scientific theory ,and the evidence that is mountains high concerning global warming and how IT IS NOT GOOD.


There is nothing positive about the implications, unless you like having droughts, Tomatos cost a 1.50 Each, or a pound of ground round or bread to sky rocket. Yeah I guess its good if you think famine starvation, homelessness, disease, rising sea levels, Hurricanes and Earthquakes that cost millions of not billions, why don't you ask the victims of Hurricane Sandy how swell they find this unseasonable weather. But as long as you think all global warming consist of, "Oh well that just means it will be a little warmer out".

[Salarius]

It's a natural process, not manmade, that's the difference. The people who say its bull-crap are referring to the idea that it is uniquely caused by humanity. Its simply apart of the natural processes and recorded previously in atmospheric record (glacial ice cores). It has more to do with solar rays/ozone depletion and geomagnetic reversal we are only about 3-10% of that.