First of all, global warming is real. The world's glaciers really are retreating. Polar ice caps really are thinning, and the polar ice shelves really are breaking up. The average world temperature really has increased 0.6°Celsius in the last 100 years. Howsomever, the cause of global warming is a matter of considerable debate. If you want to claim that greenhouse gasses from the industrial age have caused the warming, then you need to explain why we cannot find the factories left behind by Homo erectus 800,000 years ago. We have had a series of ice ages mixed with global warming called interglacial periods, but there was no industrial greenhouse gasses back then to cause this. You would need to explain why the temperature rise curve of the current global warming exactly matches the previous eleven interglacials when no industrial greenhouse gasses contributed to their rises. Finally, you would need to explain why the industrialization that causes this interglacial just happens to coincide with astronomical reasons for global warming. You would need to explain why these astronomical causes cannot be responsible for this interglacial, but then you would have to explain why the others coincided with these astronomical events. In discussing global warming, it is easy to point to the costal community that would be innundated with water and say that the warming is bad for humanity. However, the peoples who would benefit from the vastly greater areas of the world receiving greater rainfall and experiencing longer growing seasons usually go ignored. If you wish to say that global warming is bad, you need to explain why more food is bad. The idea that greenhouse gasses cause global warming is a hypothesis, meaning that it is one possible explanation for the observed increase in global temperatures. It strengthens because it is a plausible mechanism. However, it requires that you set aside other observations such as the cyclic nature of ice ages and the coordination with astronomical causes. It suffers because we have been unable to test the idea, and it suffers because the hypothesis is unable to separated this cause from the others. It also suffers because we are unable to quantify the effect with any working model, and it suffers because we are unable to demonstrate that it is significant as compared to natural sources of greenhouse gasses such as volcanism. The hypothesis has a great many holes. Before we go chasing our kyoto-tails trying to solve the problem, we should have a better idea that we have in fact identified a real problem.
but it is a GAMBLE isn't it? do you admit you don't know?........that you are not sure?...........What then is LIKELY? And can you not entertain the fact that we MIGHT be reponsible--what with the massive deforestation, gas guzzling cars, and their massive increase, industry---the whole approach to Nature seen as being a mechanical playpen for the Western world--especially I have noticed a pattern when talking to people about this subject. The people that are of a physiclaist persuasion, athiest, and white-light-religiious don't seem to care, or side with the ones who say global warming is a natrual occurance. whilst those who are more Earth religious DO care frantically about it, and want things to radically change. Having said this i am aware of many scientists who DO believe we are a major contributor to global warming But i am hearing much denial here. Well, maybe when you are up a tree (if there is one) grabbing hold of your child for dear life as the waters rage below you may wake up, but then it's be too late to hypothesize
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Duendy Why should we voluntarily damage our economy and way of life for something that is unproven? If human behavior really was causing the Earth to warm it would have happened earlier in the 20th century when we had no environmental regulations. During the industrial revolution it was common to have entire cities engulfed in smog from the many smokestacks rising up from factories. The cars back then were much dirtier than they are today. Global warming proponents demand we spend trillions on a problem that even they admit if we spend the money it would only have a slight effect. Millions of jobs will be lost. Poverty and misery will skyrocket. Human's will be a lot worse off and get nothing back for our efforts. Let's not act like a bunch of Chicken Littles crying that the sky is falling. We cannot literally risk our lives and well being for something that at least for now is only theoretical. There needs to be solid indisputable proof that one global warming is happening, and two that humans can affect it one way or the other. There is just too much at stake.
Yes it has been warming a bit the last few decades, roughly after 1980-1985, before that there was a distinct cooling trend, especially in the northern hemisphere. Now what happened? A friend told me that around 1975 the "North Atlantic Oscillation" (NAO) shifted from strong negative to strong positive. Simaltaneously the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) shifted from negative to positive. This caused the sea surface temperature of the Pacific ocean in the tropics to increase structurally. This caused eventually temperatures to change in all the oceans, inducing an decrease of cloud cover and a measured /confirmed decrease of Earth albedo (reflectivity) as well as a increase of insolation. All of this caused changes in the Walker/Hadley cell circulation as well as the parallel temperature trends of troposphere measured by weather balloons and surface. Finally as the surface is warming, the upper troposphere (tropopause) is cooling due to the limited reflection (lower albedo). Now what causes global warming? Did anyway notice something in that story above that justifies answers like: We do not know. It is greenhouse gas. But perhaps all that waisted money on Kyoto and other fallacies may be good for something, to satisfy human nature.
Ok, so how to determinate what really is causing the warming? Do we know what caused the last ice ages, what causes our planet to have long periods of cold and shorter ones of warmth? Because the warming is a fact, quarelling about co2 leads nowhere, if we could understand the process we if not stop it could better adopt to it.
Well there are many indepent cycles as well as interconnected cycles in a very chaotic process. Temperatures have been rising and dropping all the time. Why do we think that it were ice ages in the first place? Because we still accept an almost three centuries old theory that stubbornly continues to defeat all our attempts to understand and explain it? At present there are a few people who begin to understand that the ice ages may be something totally different. Some start to understand the process of the big picture of the ice age and they have to concede that there is nothing that can be done about that. About the macro picture of the continuing climate changes, we have to accept that the process is chaotic and it will continue to surprise us.
The science dogma has been that greenhouse gasses cause global warming. We see the greenhouse gasses increasing, know that human activity releases them, and we see the temperatures rising. It's hard to argue against cause and effect. The problem is that none of these concerned scientists have a good model of world climate. We know that these industrial greenhouse gasses are one factor, but there are many others which probably overwhelm Man's effects. Since we do not know how to evaluate the worth of industrial greenhouse gassses against all the other factors, we cannot honestly claim that they are meaningful. It is right to be concerned about them, but incorrect to claim that they are the answer. The sun is not constant in its output, but changes over decades and centuries. The Earth's orbit elongates and circularizes, and the angle of inclination to the sun rises and falls over tens of thousands of years. Sometimes these factors combine to give us extreme climate, and sometimes they work antagonistically to give us mild climate.
