Global warming - beyond debate?

[nomadking]

Something has always happened.

The Ice caps were not always there. Were did the water, now contained in that ice come from? What happened to the past warmer climate that didn't allow any ice to form?

IIRC it was relatively recently possible to grow grape vines in Norway and not the modern hybrid varieties that have to be used in the warm weather of England. Norway has become cooler since that time without the Green Fascists.

[RizzyKing]

I personally am not yet convinced by all this global warming hysteria and i worry when something becomes almost religious so quick. We have many scientists that have supposedly supported global warming who when asked privately say different some saying it's the easiest way to gain funding. We also have had a number of scientists that disagree with global warming basically witch hunted and discredited.

I cannot remember who the explorer was but in the 14th century one who sailed the upmost north atlantic logged that there was no ice and if he was correct then ice formed in the time afterwards. I am just very cautious of all this it seems to me to be hurried science and not always backed up by factual evidence as witnessed by the whole uni of east anglia thing where data that didn't support the premise was removed and being honest i doubt very much they are the only ones that have done that.

Is something happening yes it is and i think it is natural the earth is a constantly changing and evolving planet and blaming any change on anyone thing is highly dubious. I do not believe for one minute we are the sole cause of any problems that are too come although i do believe we are contributing to the change and perhaps accelerating it. Governments were very quick to jump on this when they realised that money was there to be made in the form of tax.

What we have to remember is that our ability to accurately monitor our own planet has been so short that it is not possible to arrive at a conclusion based purely on that. Anything that is rushed, as much of the science involved in this has been and reacts so aggressively to question as the global warming lobby do is not good. What we need is for some truly neutral research into this to rationally investigate and give us something based on solid evidence.

I think this is an issue where there needs to be a step back a lot of deep breaths and then some serious research conducted by people without a vested interest one way or the other. I am dubious of that happening anytime soon as this is an issue that has too many entrenched views and too many benefitting from it in various ways.

[Slybacon]

The Don: Errr, you're joking right?

No, of course I'm not joking. As my later message said (written before I saw your comment), I'm talking about the underlying global warming trend, not short term or geographically local climate changes, which frequently do have natural causes. Historic warming periods would presumably have had natural causes, and if modern day climate scientists could be transported back to those times they would be able to detect what was causing the warming. The problem with the idea that current global warming is natural is that you have to accept that this natural cause has remained completely undetected by thousands of climate scientists around the world.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Slybacon

The Don: Errr, you're joking right?

No, of course I'm not joking. As my later message said (written before I saw your comment), I'm talking about the underlying global warming trend, not short term or geographically local climate changes, which frequently do have natural causes. Historic warming periods would presumably have had natural causes, and if modern day climate scientists could be transported back to those times they would be able to detect what was causing the warming. The problem with the idea that current global warming is natural is that you have to accept that this natural cause has remained completely undetected by thousands of climate scientists around the world.

The problem is ,if you watch any non biased documentary on the subject,is that the scientists are unsure what causes natural global warming ,they assume it may be a very large volcanic eruption ,they have also linked it to certain phases in the sun ,natural heating/cooling of the earths mantel the list goes on .The fact is that to blame global warming purely on mankind is wrong ,no doubt we have an effect on the climate and no doubt there are natural forces at work and quite possibly undetected by scientists because ,as pointed out by Rizzy our understanding of nature ,the climate ,the world in general is still very limited

[Slybacon]

scientists are unsure what causes natural global warming

This statement is just wrong - you may not believe them, but as a group climate scientists are very sure they know what is causing global warming.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Slybacon

scientists are unsure what causes natural global warming

This statement is just wrong - you may not believe them, but as a group climate scientists are very sure they know what is causing global warming.

perhaps i should have said "scientists are unsure of how much of todays global warming is natural " granted they do know the what causes it just not how much is natural and how much is man made

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Slybacon

scientists are unsure what causes natural global warming

This statement is just wrong - you may not believe them, but as a group climate scientists are very sure they know what is causing global warming.

I think the statement should be:

some scientists are sure they know what is causing global warming, but they can't really prove it. Some scientists don't believe global warming is caused by human intervention and some do. Some scientists don't care and some do. Some scientists' research is paid by the green lobby, and some scientists research is paid for by the fossil fuels producers. Some scientists had roast beef and some had none, some scientists are listened to by the government and some are not, some people are suckered into what some scientists say and some are not

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Pierre

I think the statement should be:

some scientists are sure they know what is causing global warming, but they can't really prove it. Some scientists don't believe global warming is caused by human intervention and some do. Some scientists don't care and some do. Some scientists' research is paid by the green lobby, and some scientists research is paid for by the fossil fuels producers. Some scientists had roast beef and some had none, some scientists are listened to by the government and some are not, some people are suckered into what some scientists say and some are not

that's what i meant to say

[downquark1]

some scientists are sure they know what is causing global warming, but they can't really prove it.

What would you accept as a proof? You can't have an earth with humans on and an earth without humans on.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by downquark1

What would you accept as a proof? You can't have an earth with humans on and an earth without humans on.

Not quite sure what you mean,

However, prove the link between raised carbon dioxide levels and warming.

The carbon dioxide levels during the last ice age were much higher than they are now.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Not quite sure what you mean,

However, prove the link between raised carbon dioxide levels and warming.

The carbon dioxide levels during the last ice age were much higher than they are now.

Reference

Looks a pretty close correlation to me.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Pierre

However, prove the link between raised carbon dioxide levels and warming.

But how....?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by downquark1

But how....?

That's for you to work out, I asked the question

---------- Post added at 11:38 ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 ----------

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Reference

Looks a pretty close correlation to me.

I'd much rather have a graph that shows things a bit more clearly, that graph seems to use a faitr amount of extrapolation shown over a much larger scale thatn that of the graph on the left hand side. In order to shock.

Here is some info in plain english:

There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.

The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming

taken from

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Ca...s_climate.html

From a site that has no political or scientific agenda.

[chris9991]

Well we could all stop emitting carbon dioxide and see what happens to the temperature.

Might die for the lack of breathing but we could demonstrate whether there is a link

[Slybacon]

Originally Posted by downquark1

What would you accept as a proof? You can't have an earth with humans on and an earth without humans on.

I guess this worth commenting as the topic of proof seems to come up a lot. Outside the realms of pure mathematics it is impossible to prove anything absolutely. What you have here is a scientific consensus - it's the collective judgement of a very large majority of scientists. In 2009 the University of Illinois did a survey of 3146 climate scientists (all of whom had published papers on climate science), and 97% of those agreed that human activity is a major contributory factor in global warming.

Of course I guess the conspiracy theorists will argue that this just some sort of global conspiracy where thousands of scientists have got together to fool the rest of us. This is so ludicrously unlikely that I do not see how any rational person could take it seriously.

Absolute proof is not relevant anyway - even if there was a 10% chance that the scientists were wrong, who would want to risk the future of the world on such a long shot?

"Don't try and change my mind with facts" - Tom Paxton