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Global Warming the great myth?

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Perkypete | 01:09 Thu 28th Sep 2006 | Science
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If man IS responsible for global warming, then what caused the global warming that ended the last ice age 10,000 years ago??
This was thousands of years before the invention of the internal combustion engine, so how do scientists explain this?
The truth is that the earth's climate is cyclical and goes through hotter & cooler periods.Trouble is that man, particularly recorded evidence, only dates back say 2,000 years at most?
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cascarelli, what I'm on about is that Perkypete's argument appears to be that as the earth has warmed in the past without man's intervention, then any warming taking place now must also be not due to man's intervention. The stupid statements I listed were all examples of the same faulty logic.

The fact that something was caused on one particular occasion by one set of circumstances, doesn't necessarily mean that every time it occurs the cause is the same.
Fantastic at least we agree on something!

Now obviously there is no "right" temperature for the Earth but we have to think about what the effects would be.

Firstly although the change in conditions is relatively modest now it's likely to accelerate.

Icecaps are white (Doh) they reflect a lot of light without them more light would be absorbed and re reradiated as IR and things get warmer faster.

We all know I'm sure how high temperatures feed hurricanes and what how an extreme rise in temperature could shut down the gulf stream.

We're not talking necessarilly about the end of human life but we are talking about some pretty extreme conditions .

So that leaves us with the question are we going to try to stop it or are we going to stick our heads in the sand.

Since 1850 CO2 has gone from 240 to 380 ppm

The US federal climate change program says "natural causes cannot explain climate change"

Lets be really conservative and say there is a better than even chance that human activity is causing it.

Are we not even going to try?

I guess if you don't have kids sacrificing cheap flights or big cars to try to halt climate change in 2100 doesn't sound too attractive.

I wonder if it's not sheer selfishness that's at the root of a lot of this denial
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Well what a hornets nest I've stirred!!
I think anyone who can categorically state that man IS responsible for global warming is in as much denial as anyone who thinks man ISNT responsible.
My point is that the earth has cooled & heated a number of times in the past (therefore showing evidence of a cycle & not just a random one off as someone suggested), therefore it would be hard to argue against, neigh foolish, to suggest that our current global warming is merely the earth entering another of it's climatic cycles.
Unfortunately lots of scientists are either in one camp or another (those in the man/CO2 camp are usually the loudest), but I must stress that we cannot produce CONCLUSIVE evidence to say either way.
There is a theory, and it is just that, that the whole eco -save the planet thing is just to distract from that fact that in say 50 - 100 years our natural resources of oil/coal will be gone - that solves the problem nicely
surely if bush and blair stopped blowing up dozens of countries the smoke from their bombs and the resources used to make weapons including the fuel that raf and army are using,surely this would help the environment a great deal
i am by no means a treehugger just sick of 2 people thinking they can rule the world..reminds me of the secret society of the illuminati.......not far wrong
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Well pete that's exactly what climatologists are telling you and the reason is that when you account for all the Earth's cycles as known in the past the orbit changes, the Sun's output etc. the expected temperature follows it pretty closely until you get to the modern era.

Even the US federal comitte on climate change says

Trends in the last 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/sci/tech/4969772.stm

We know the Earth's getting warmer and nobody has a better explanation that stands scrutiny - all your Milankovitch variations, all your sun spots are already taken care of.

What would you consider CONCLUSIVE evidence?

Right now you sound like a man in a tunnel asking for conclusive evidense that the thunderous roar really is an oncoming train

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Well Jake I don't think there is ANY conclusive evidence, in spite of your research!
If I'm a 'man in a tunnel' then the defeaning roar could just as easily be that of thunder as of an on coming train??
The current global warming MIGHT be the onset on the earth's next natural cycle of climate change & NO ONE can effectively argue otherwise.
The reason is that the evidence of how previous cycles start & finnish is as much theoretical as fact as they happened so long ago.
To suggest that the current global warming is purely down to the effects of man is to COMPLETELY ignore the previous climatic cycles the earth has been through.
That's not to say that POSSIBLY man has influenced/acclerated the onset on the next cycle, trouble is that there was no one around at the time of the last onset to scientifically record data etc as is being done now.
For all we know the current rate of global warming MAY be perfectly natural?
The 'faulty logic' tag is a misnoma as we scientists only deal in fact & probability. Therefore the earth has had many previous climatic cycles - FACT
Therefore it will PROBABLY continue to have others - no 'logic' involved!
The conservationists etc who think that by cutting/stopping the output of CO2 it will stop or slow down the global warming have got their heads so far in the sand it's up to their necks!!
Over the past few centuries there have been many large seismic and volcanic eruptions, Krakatoa, Mount St.Helens etc, each one MAY have minutely effected the earths axis and/or orbit which COULD be far more significant than all the CO2 which man has produced.
FACT - the hole in the ozone layer over Antartica has reduced in size by two thirds in the last 18 months; showing that the hole is self repairing naturally and therefore MAY have been the result of a natural phenomenom in the first place!
The problem folks is that in the life span of the earth, man has been
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See "How hot will the earth be in 2100?" on page three of this category

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