Global Warming - Fact or Fiction?

[Holden]

Seeing Al Gore being presented with the Nobel Peace Prize has caused me to think very hard about about the merits of the current award and even more, about the merits of his hypothesis. He proposes that the planet is undergoing rapid warming and that the main cause of this is 'greenhouse gas' emissions such as CO2, etc. As an arch skeptic and having seen his 'Inconvenient' movie I am still not convinced but I thought I'd find out what my fellow forum members thought. Do you think that Al is right, are you undecided, or is this a load of media driven hogwash?

[M forever]

Dunno specifically about Al and what he says, but global warming appears to me to be obviously a fact - or is it? I know median temperatures drift up and down ("ice age") over longer periods of time, but it is very obvious to me that something about the weather changed very quickly and drastically during the last 20 years or so. When I was a kid in Berlin, we had 4 distinct seasons, there was always snow in winter (typically a week or so before Christmas, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, ad it usually staid until some time in February) and there were distinct transitions between seasons. Now, I guess it has been like that since sometime in the 90s, there is a short, very hot summer, and the rest of the year is mostly drifting undecided between moderately warm and moderately cold, and then sometimes, but only for brief periods, in winter it tries to get really cold and sometimes it snows, but the snow usually doesn't stay that long and melts off. One might think warmer=nicer, but, nope, it's just messed up, unpredictable, no more real seasons.

[Florestan]

When I was a kid in Berlin, we had 4 distinct seasons, there was always snow in winter (typically a week or so before Christmas, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, ad it usually staid until some time in February) and there were distinct transitions between seasons. Now, I guess it has been like that since sometime in the 90s, there is a short, very hot summer, and the rest of the year is mostly drifting undecided between moderately warm and moderately cold, and then sometimes, but only for brief periods, in winter it tries to get really cold and sometimes it snows, but the snow usually doesn't stay that long and melts off. One might think warmer=nicer, but, nope, it's just messed up, unpredictable, no more real seasons.

Yes, this is my experience too, here in Bucharest, Romania, except the very hot summer is long. The weather is obviously changing all over the world.

[Montpellier]

I don't know if it's fact or fiction but it seems wiser to be prudent for the kids brought into the world.  It's pretty obvious that the planet is increasingly unsupportive of humanity - resources such as oxygen and water are finite.  If the scientists happen to be right about the Amazon - they tend to be conservative so their speculation about the Amazon going under by around 2075 may be somewhat out, then where's the oxygen coming from to supply around 16 billion pairs of lungs?  Where's the sink for the exhalations of so many?   No good saying "grow something else, then" because the richness of these forest regions is held in the trees so the likely long term result is desert. 

I'm ambivalent, however.  Sometimes I think I ought to be prudent and do my bit.  Other times I think fuck it, I'll just do what I will and leave the next generation to sort out my mess...the prevailing attitude since the industrial revolution. 

Why should I take the arguments seriously?  Here in the UK the gov is persuading us to buy low energy light bulbs, turn the heating down 5 degrees, get an energy assessment at £500 when moving home....meanwhile countless offices leave the lights blazing all night in empty rooms, leave the computers on at 150w per throw.  Some offices have dark glass windows so more lights have to be on necessarily during the day.   

[beer]

I certainly dont believe in *it*

I acknowledge that global temperatures rise and drop over time, but not because of human but rather because of the Sun, and the Earth's complicated system of spheres.

[BachQ]

I absolutely believe in the scientific models that predict global warming, and a majority of the current scientific community agrees that some level of global warming has occurred (or will be occurring).  The only point of contention is the magnitude and ultimate effect of an otherwise inevitable onslaught of global warming.

As an arch skeptic and having seen his 'Inconvenient' movie I am still not convinced but I thought I'd find out what my fellow forum members thought. Do you think that Al is right, are you undecided, or is this a load of media driven hogwash?

Have you seen any credible scientific evidence that refutes the inevitability of global warming?

Please share.

Seeing Al Gore being presented with the Nobel Peace Prize has caused me to think very hard about about the merits of the current award and even more, about the merits of his hypothesis.

It would be a mistake for you to conflate Al Gore's crusade with the meritorious scientific hypotheses which support and undergird the scientific theory of global warming.  Don't allow your dislike for Al Gore to taint the scientific realities facing the planet.

As an arch skeptic and having seen his 'Inconvenient' movie I am still not convinced but I thought I'd find out what my fellow forum members thought.

I've seen the movie a few times, and I admit that some of its scientific "facts" may be questionable ...... but the movie is a good starting place for basic information as to the scope and nature of the problem.

[orbital]

A fitting article from bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

[BachQ]

A fitting article from bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

"*** it is has become apparent in recent years that the real, observed rate of summer ice melting is now starting to run well ahead of the models. The minimum ice extent reached in September 2007 shattered the previous record for ice withdrawal set in 2005, of 5.32 million square km.  ***The implication is that this is not a cycle, not just a fluctuation. The loss this year will precondition the ice for the same thing to happen again next year, only worse. There will be even more opening up, even more absorption and even more melting. In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040."

[PSmith08]

Here's my stance: Global warming is happening, but we don't know why that is or where we're headed. The bad-boy greenhouse gases, like methane and water vapor, are not necessarily human-produced. Carbon dioxide, furthermore, is in the atmosphere at much smaller percentages than CH₄ and H₂O. Fossil fuel combustion (well, really any oxidation of a hydrocarbon) yields CO₂ and H₂O, but there are much, much bigger sources for water vapor than human hydrocarbon consumption, like - say - the oceans. We don't have a broad-enough view of climate change to say what is happening, and we certainly don't know where we're going. We just got out of an ice age (Wisconsin-Würm, 10000 years ago, which is not all that long), and we could be returning to the normal climate.

Temperatures are increasing, but we aren't in enough of a position to say why and to what extent.

[Gurn Blanston]

Here's my stance: Global warming is happening, but we don't know why that is or where we're headed. The bad-boy greenhouse gases, like methane and water vapor, are not necessarily human-produced. Carbon dioxide, furthermore, is in the atmosphere at much smaller percentages than CH₄ and H₂O. Fossil fuel combustion (well, really any oxidation of a hydrocarbon) yields CO₂ and H₂O, but there are much, much bigger sources for water vapor than human hydrocarbon consumption, like - say - the oceans. We don't have a broad-enough view of climate change to say what is happening, and we certainly don't know where we're going. We just got out of an ice age (Wisconsin-Würm, 10000 years ago, which is not all that long), and we could be returning to the normal climate.

Temperatures are increasing, but we aren't in enough of a position to say why and to what extent.

The OP (Holden) is stating 2 different things. 1 - is global warming occurring? and 2 - Are we causing it?

Like PSmith, I certainly have no doubt that some measure of global warming is occurring. I grew up in "cold country", where snow covered the ground unbroken from mid-November to mid-April. This is no longer the case. And from just watching world-wide weather reports (not things posted in the alarmist press), it is obvious that we are going through an upswing in temperature.

Are we causing it? I have seen nothing to prove or disprove an answer to this. As a natural course of action, I would always and ever recommend that we minimize pollution of our atmosphere. It may or may not be causing this current problem, but in the long run it will cause a problem, and delaying that as long as possible, until we find a way to prevent it happening at all, is the prudent course. I would give this same answer to either side. If you say "yes we are", then it is patently the right thing to do. If you say "no we aren't", then this will minimize future damage.



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Now playing:
Haydn Symphonies 45 - 47 - Tafelmusik / Bruno Weil - Hob. I: 047 Symphony in G 1st mvmt - [Allegro]

[PSmith08]

Are we causing it? I have seen nothing to prove or disprove an answer to this. As a natural course of action, I would always and ever recommend that we minimize pollution of our atmosphere. It may or may not be causing this current problem, but in the long run it will cause a problem, and delaying that as long as possible, until we find a way to prevent it happening at all, is the prudent course. I would give this same answer to either side. If you say "yes we are", then it is patently the right thing to do. If you say "no we aren't", then this will minimize future damage.

We have to, of course, target the kind of pollution that we want to reduce. For example, cutting down carbon dioxide emissions will help - to a degree, but not necessarily to the same degree that cutting down on CH₄, H₂O, NO, and NO₂ emissions will. You can't go in and change everything, as not everything is as big of a problem as some might want to make the man on the street think. Do what you can where it will make the most difference.

It's win-win from there.

[Holden]

A child at our school asked a science teacher a very interesting question. If CO2 is heavier than air then how come it gets into our upper atmosphere to cause the greenhouse effect? This question stopped the teacher in her tracks - she couldn't provide an answer. So, as a skeptic, I'm asking the same question.

This one question makes me have serious doubts regarding the information we are being fed via the media from our scientific community and also the motivation that our scientists have to really tell the truth about climate change. This very intelligent child also raised a couple of other points which makes the whole "our planet is getting warmer - panic now!" rhetoric look like a very nebulous proposition indeed.

So is the planet actually getting warmer via the greenhouse effect? If it was then surely rainfall would be increasing; areas that are currently desert would be showing mores signs of being fertile. Is this happening? Readings from NASA Satellites show that the atmospheric temperature has remained stable for quite a few years now. Where is the hard evidence that the planet is actually warming up and if it is, what's wrong with that? Imagine being able to grow fruit in Greenland? Is that a plus or a minus? I don't know but I'm very skeptical about what the media is feeding to us as gospel that is unsubstantiated by any formal scientific process.

[head-case]

The tendency of a mixture of gases to become stratified by molecular weight is very weak.  The atmosphere is violently mixed by the jet stream, storms, atmospheric convection, and this distributes the gases.  Aside from that, greenhouse gases don't have to be in the upper atmosphere to trap heat.

A child at our school asked a science teacher a very interesting question. If CO2 is heavier than air then how come it gets into our upper atmosphere to cause the greenhouse effect? This question stopped the teacher in her tracks - she couldn't provide an answer. So, as a skeptic, I'm asking the same question.

This one question makes me have serious doubts regarding the information we are being fed via the media from our scientific community and also the motivation that our scientists have to really tell the truth about climate change. This very intelligent child also raised a couple of other points which makes the whole "our planet is getting warmer - panic now!" rhetoric look like a very nebulous proposition indeed.

So is the planet actually getting warmer via the greenhouse effect? If it was then surely rainfall would be increasing; areas that are currently desert would be showing mores signs of being fertile. Is this happening? Readings from NASA Satellites show that the atmospheric temperature has remained stable for quite a few years now. Where is the hard evidence that the planet is actually warming up and if it is, what's wrong with that? Imagine being able to grow fruit in Greenland? Is that a plus or a minus? I don't know but I'm very skeptical about what the media is feeding to us as gospel that is unsubstantiated by any formal scientific process.

[Todd]

I'm not a climatologist, but from what I've read global warming is real.  The ultimate impact is unknown; anyone who claims otherwise is a fool.  Anecdotal statements about changes – usually "dramatic" – that have occurred in the last few years (or ten, twenty, or fifty, for that matter) are basically irrelevant since climate change is a long-term phenomenon.  Short-term variances in temperature and precipitation, etc, have been with humanity since humanity has been around.  It's odd how people now automatically want to associate some short-term weather pattern changes with a process that takes centuries (ie, industrialization) and is piggy-backed on a process that takes millennia (ie, natural temperature cycles).

To the poll: option two is the obvious choice.

[orbital]

To the poll: option two is the obvious choice.

We can never be certain how sincere he is, but I don't think he is one of those who jumped on the bandwagon if we think back to 1970's where he started raising awareness on the issue when it was decades away from becoming a headline. I'd give him the benefit of doubt simply because the cause is right.

[Don]

We need to pay attention to the applicable segment of the scientific community.  From what I've read, the majority of "experts" support the premise that humans are causing a significant change in the climate.  And what's the point of having experts if we don't listen to them?

[Todd]

I'd give him the benefit of doubt simply because the cause is right.

You certainly can; I have far less faith in politicians than you do, and I recognize that politicians can pander to specific groups for decades for a variety of reasons.

[Grazioso]

I'm no scientist, but I've also noticed a marked change in weather patterns during my lifetime, moving from fairly predictable rainfall (you could almost set your watch by the afternoon summer rains) and distinct seasons to unseasonable heat, odd droughts, unpredictable rains, and generally warmer temperatures. A natural phenomenon or one influenced adversely by man, I can't say, but it is annoying!

[Sean]

The material oil comes from was laid down in rather specific geological times when the climate was hot and sea levels high: nature got rid of it and restabilized the world, but idiot-rules democracies have pumped the stuff back into the atmosphere in a few decades. So what can you expect?

See youtube vids on peak oil.

[drogulus]

The material oil comes from was laid down in rather specific geological times when the climate was hot and sea levels high: nature got rid of it and restabilized the world, but idiot-rules democracies have pumped the stuff back into the atmosphere in a few decades. So what can you expect?

See youtube vids on peak oil.

      The Communist and former Communist countries are among the most polluted places on earth. Democracies are breeding grounds for environmentalists. If you want idiot rules, you can't beat dictatorships.

      As for peak oil, I think we passed it a few years ago.