Do you believe in Global Warming?

Here's an interesting story on the front page of Yahoo!

Arctic Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Breaks off

I'm wondering what people's thoughts on Global Warming are. We cannot deny the natural effects that are happening the world over. However, is this a natural occurence or are we as humans really causing it?

Personally I feel like mother nature and this Earth will be around a long time after we're all dead and gone. While we may be able to influence our environment I am skeptic when it comes to our ability to "Destroy" our planet. I believe mother nature is a force humans have only minimal control over, and that Global Warming/Ice Ages are mother nature's natural way of hitting the "reset" button.

I think the earth may very well be raising in overall tempurature. Its hard to say where I live because the winters are so brutal it makes me out of touch with how hot it might be elsewhere. But there is no proof, whatsoever, that man is causing it. None. You cannot show me proof.

This planet has gone through so many intense heating and cooling cycles. Why does one that happens now have to be our fault? The number of solar flares and their intesity have also increased greatly in the past half-century. I'm gonna say the sun has more control over the tempurature of this planet than we do.

Carbon is what regulates what makes the Earth get colder and warmer. We as humans cause 3% of the Carbon emissions on the ozone the other 97% Dead plants, Volcanos, and Forest fires. There is nothing we can do other then enjoy the slightly warmer winters!

This is something I know a fir bit about... Not through choice, my girlfriend does Geography at uni.
Anyway.. I actually believe that if we don't make some drastic changes the chances of the human race surviving in the comfort it is in now are virtually nil.
I'v got to go to work but I'll post more in a bit.
This sort of stuff is intresting!
Good topic man!
I'd prop you but I know for a fact I'v got to spread the love

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Posted by SmileR

This is something I know a fir bit about... Not through choice, my girlfriend does Geography at uni.
Anyway.. I actually believe that if we don't make some drastic changes the chances of the human race surviving in the comfort it is in now are virtually nil.
I'v got to go to work but I'll post more in a bit.
This sort of stuff is intresting!
Good topic man!
I'd prop you but I know for a fact I'v got to spread the love

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Awesome, can't wait to hear your thoughts.

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Posted by Jackelope

Here's an interesting story on the front page of Yahoo!

Arctic Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Breaks off

I'm wondering what people's thoughts on Global Warming are. We cannot deny the natural effects that are happening the world over. However, is this a natural occurence or are we as humans really causing it?

Personally I feel like mother nature and this Earth will be around a long time after we're all dead and gone. While we may be able to influence our environment I am skeptic when it comes to our ability to "Destroy" our planet. I believe mother nature is a force humans have only minimal control over, and that Global Warming/Ice Ages are mother nature's natural way of hitting the "reset" button.

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Totally agree...I will agree that humans do have an impact on the environment, but I think the Global Warming movement has grown into something larger than life, almost like the "Pull Tab/Kidney Dialysis" movement in the 80's. I understand that people want to do the right thing and feel positive about it, but don't just buy into everything the media tells you.

I actually got into a debate about this very topic with a female friend of mine about a year or so ago. Her only argument was that the average temperature was on the rise. After a few minutes, it was obvious that she knew no more than what you could find out on the evening news. I tried to explain to her that it's not that I'm against the idea as a possibility, but that it's far from being fact. I then asked her if we were to have the coldest winter in a decade this year, would it prove that Global Warming doesn't exist. She thought for a minute and realized that obviously the opposite argument wouldn't hold weight either. Fluctuation over a short period of time is nothing to get alarmed about...history has shown that it has happened as far back as we have records.

I truly believe that the media feeds/profits off of our fears and without the "what will happen if we don't change?" factor, this thing wouldn't have nearly the steam that it does. I continue to keep an open mind, but I have seen nothing that has made me a believer yet.

^ I agree.

Here's my things with the whole global warming argument-

1) We haven't been accurately recording temperature for even 50 years now.

2) The world is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old

3) WTF is 50 years of data compared to 4.5 BILLION years of existence?

I'm a big fan of science. Don't get me wrong here. Something just doesn't compute in my mind in regards to this argument, though.

Also, on the flip side of my own argument (So as to be impartial) it can be viewed like this-

We are building more and more things on the earth. Especially metal things. If you analyze the earth like a processor you see the more things you add to it, the more heat it generates. Therefore you need a more advanced cooling system. The Earth obviously hasn't developed a more advanced cooling system and we're only adding more things to absorb heat.

So in that simple sense (without getting into greenhouse gas effects) one could make an argument for global warming being fact.

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Posted by Jackelope

Also, on the flip side of my own argument (So as to be impartial) it can be viewed like this-

We are building more and more things on the earth. Especially metal things. If you analyze the earth like a processor you see the more things you add to it, the more heat it generates. Therefore you need a more advanced cooling system. The Earth obviously hasn't developed a more advanced cooling system and we're only adding more things to absorb heat.

So in that simple sense (without getting into greenhouse gas effects) one could make an argument for global warming being fact.

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Are you suggesting that we should start designing our cars in the shape of a Heat Sync?

Naww, just that we should put giant fans on top of them all

Here in England in the winter we don't get snow, we just get a lot of rain, Ever since I've been alive we haven't had a strong amount of snow where I live. In summer we probably get about 10 days of decent sunshine, the rest of the time it'll just be cloudy or rain.

Global Warming my ass.

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Posted by postman

Carbon is what regulates what makes the Earth get colder and warmer. We as humans cause 3% of the Carbon emissions on the ozone the other 97% Dead plants, Volcanos, and Forest fires. There is nothing we can do other then enjoy the slightly warmer winters!

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over the course of the Earth's history the Earth has always gone through periods where it has warmed up and cooled back down again. like it says abov humans account for only 3% of the carbon released into the atmosphere so there really isn't anything we can do. there is an episode of Penn and Teller Bull$hit about this. they went into how being "carbon neutral" is one of the biggest scams on the planet. i think we are having some effect on the environment but it's not significant enough to cause the entire climate to change. that would be something that happens naturally and there is nothing we can do.

Great topic and thats why i like this site so much better than most esp. sherdog to say the least by now on shitdog there would have been 5 trolls making some ignorant response to this post. I usually only post when there is a good topic.

Altough i am no scientist by any means i i have to agree with y'all they have done multiple studies in the ice cap where they drilled into the frozen ice that dates back hundreds of thousands of years and what we are experiancing is nothing new to our planet. However in the past 100,000 years it has never happened at the rate that it is now. Is that from us i speculate we play some role in the rapid increase. but with tha being said how much of a role have we played in the cooling of our planet we have had 2 mini ice ages in the last 10,000 years. Our time on earth is a pimple on the ass of time.

I agree the media is feeding us and like a school of fish we just follow where we are pointed to go. Damn our media is so powerful we can lok at who we have running for our president right now and how the media played the biggest role in there party's race. From a 2nd possibly 3rd best canidate to the next coming of JFK.

IMO I agree with the arguements stated here already global warming is nothing more than a cycle our planet goes through every 50,000 years or so. Typically we can thank volcano's or astroids or some major catastrophe. Watch in 50 years we will be on the verge to having an Ice Age.

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Posted by postman

Carbon is what regulates what makes the Earth get colder and warmer. We as humans cause 3% of the Carbon emissions on the ozone the other 97% Dead plants, Volcanos, and Forest fires. There is nothing we can do other then enjoy the slightly warmer winters!

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Im trying to figure out how we only contribute 3%... Might be a Republican spin of sorts. Get on biased scientist to say 3% and people just say "welp, nothin we can do,,, lets burn some tires" Not being a dick, is there any backup for the 3% claim you heard?

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Posted by Ben_Hutch

Here in England in the winter we don't get snow, we just get a lot of rain, Ever since I've been alive we haven't had a strong amount of snow where I live. In summer we probably get about 14-20 days of decent sunshine, the rest of the time it'll just be cloudy or rain.

Global Warming my ass.

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You can thank the gulf stream for the lovely weather you get. If what they say is true about global warming (altough i highly doubt it). In 15-20 years the gulf stream will shift or possible stop (depending upon who you listen to or believe) and you will really feel the effects of global warming. It will be like the great potato disaster, Also i belive during the dark ages Europe was wacked with a mini-ice aged caused from global warming. If i remember correctly it lasted a couple hundred years with colder than average temp. and some glaciers advanced as far south as Denmark. So if the earth warmed up then did they call that global warming as well. No wait they blamed a volcano eruption that caused a nuclear winter.

Keep in mind all of this stuff is just a theory shit 500 years ago there was no gravity the earth was flat and also the center of the universe we, and we all know the difference between theory and reality. My 5 year old son came up to me last weekend asking what the difference between theory and reality are i told him go in the kitchen and ask your mom if a stranger offered her 1 million dollars if she would have sex with him, so off my lil boy runs to the kitchen and asks mommy for a million dollars would you hump a stranger. She quickly responds i would do just about anything he asks for a million dollars. So my boy all excited runs back to the living room and says yup she would Dad. I then ask him to go upstairs and ask his older sister the very same question so off he runs up the stairs as quick as his lil legs will take him he gets up there and says Mia for 1 million dollars would you do it with a starnger she said I would do it for 500,000 dollars and i would make his wildest dreams come true. So my son returns with a half a smile and gigles as he said yup she will do it too dad. he asks with quite a bit of curiosity what does that have to do with theory and reality.
I responded well son this is what it has to do with theory and reality.
In theory we would be millionaires but in reality we live with 2 ******* sluts.
I know that was a bit long of a story to get my point across, however it is one of my favorite analogies when discussing something like this.


I make my choice on facts, and the facts remain we are not experiancing anything the earth has not experianced in the past 4 billion years period.

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Posted by StevenSeagal

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Posted by postman

Carbon is what regulates what makes the Earth get colder and warmer. We as humans cause 3% of the Carbon emissions on the ozone the other 97% Dead plants, Volcanos, and Forest fires. There is nothing we can do other then enjoy the slightly warmer winters!

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Im trying to figure out how we only contribute 3%... Might be a Republican spin of sorts. Get on biased scientist to say 3% and people just say "welp, nothin we can do,,, lets burn some tires" Not being a dick, is there any backup for the 3% claim you heard?

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Here's something to read
Link

my own personal view is if the damn icebergs are melting, i really dont care if its the methane cow farts or donkey burps or volcanoes fault... I just know that "we" are inclined to fix the problem... Not say ah well its natural, let it go... (dont believe this but go with me here).... So either liberal or conservative view still needs human intervention to stop whatever the cause is... screw the arguing of whos exact fault it is and start to fix it (cough republicans haha)

Nobody is saying "screw it. Theres nothing we can do to fix it." While if we aren't the cause (or primary cause) then there is nothing to guarantee that we can fix the problem. However, I, and every other human I've ever met, am in support of doing what may help to fix the problem. But... as stated before, if we can't prove what we're doing is causing the problem, how can we know that things we do will fix the problem?

The Earth does seem to be heating, the warming itself isn't really up for debate.

It's the cause of the heating is what the debate is over.

It's unfortunate that the debate has broken down into people arguing over business and hiding it as a global warming debate. It's too bad that it's become a nonsensical left/right issue (both sides are to blame) because of money.

Fear ManBearPig

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Posted by Jackelope

Also, on the flip side of my own argument (So as to be impartial) it can be viewed like this-

We are building more and more things on the earth. Especially metal things. If you analyze the earth like a processor you see the more things you add to it, the more heat it generates. Therefore you need a more advanced cooling system. The Earth obviously hasn't developed a more advanced cooling system and we're only adding more things to absorb heat.

So in that simple sense (without getting into greenhouse gas effects) one could make an argument for global warming being fact.

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I've never heard this "metal things are heating up the planet" theory, but not getting into greenhouse gas effects seems to be deliberately avoiding the crux of the topic you opened, because it's greenhouse gas emissions that are (or are not, depending on your view) contributing to global warming.

We humans manipulate our environment. It's what we do.

- Forests in parts of the United States don't have any young trees because the ground cover is too thick; the ground cover is too thick because there haven't been any big forest fires for the last 50+ years; there haven't been any forest fires because we've adopted a policy of putting them out instead of letting them burn.

- The city of New Orleans is getting hit with hurricanes because the Mississippi delta wetlands are shrinking; the wetlands are shrinking because the river is no longer carrying enough silt to rebuild them; the river isn't carrying enough silt because we've built so many concrete embankments along its length.

- The Mississippi River valley is flooding worse and worse every year; part of the reason is because the land along its banks isn't absorbing enough rainfall; the land along its banks isn't absorbing enough rain because we've replaced the grasses that used to grow there with concrete and food crops that don't use water as efficiently as the grass did.

- Plants absorb water and sunlight to produce energy in a process called photosynthesis; the sunlight is used to process the water and carbon dioxide into sugar, expelling leftover oxygen, which we animals then breathe and turn back into carbon dioxide. The Amazon rain forest, the largest concentration of plant life on the planet, has been described as "the lungs of the world." By some estimates, we've destroyed as much as 20% of the Amazon rain forest.

That's just four examples, off the top of my head (sorry, I don't have any links handy), of the massive impact that people have on the Earth. Even if there was no evidence of a human role in global warming, I think it would only be logical to assume that we have one, and then put the burden on science to prove that we aren't at least partly responsible.

I used the metal things argument as a very simple explanation of something extremely simple that can be overlooked. Basically what I was alluding to is the fact that any minute changes we make to the earth can make very small adjustments to the environment which no doubt has an effect.

I live in the desert. The airport is generally where local media outlets take the temperature. However, if you were to go out and take the temperature in a desert field outside the city it would often times be even up to 5 or 10 degrees less. So one cannot deny the conduction heat effect that structures add to their environments.

As for greenhouse gas effects- I didn't want to go there because people will steer it into a political debate. It's my personal belief that should we fill the earth with so many greenhouse gases that we choke the life out of all humans we will simply die or find a way to stop producing them. Either way, I believe mother nature will live on long past that day and will naturally adapt to the changes in the environment. However, I don't see it ever getting to that point. Mother nature will rise up and squash our pathetic asses.

I firmly believe in Global Warming simply due to the fact that North America was once completely covered in ice and over the course of thousands of years has melted due to ,get this: the Sun. So the Antartic ice shelf's that are melting are supposed to melt. Maybe human involvement may be speeding up the process, but it was going to happen whether we advanced as a civilization or were still huddled in caves drawing wooly mammoths on the wall.
This may be a simplistic view, but why does it need to be more complicated? Oh yeah, b/c we're modern humans and we can't stand the thought of the world not revolving around us.
If you check record temperatures you may find that alot of those holding the record or runners-up are early 20th century, long before mass automobile/industrial production.

-OUT-

Global Warming is such a narrow yet broad term, I find it incorrect to use it. The word implies that the global temperature is increasing, yet it is often used synonymously with anything to do with a negative impact on the environment.


Do I believe the global temperature is increasing? Yes, but I am not convinced that we understand/know enough of the world's temperature cycles that we can be convinced for the reason it is increasing. Hell, scientists say the world is over 4.5 billion years old. Our existence as a species is only a fraction of that. To what do we compare our tiny frame of time?

Do I believe that humans cause a threat to the overall well being of the global environment? Yes, I do. If you look at human activity, especially in the last couple hundred years, there is no other species in the world that causes as much damage to the Earth as humans. Everything from carbon emissions, dumping toxic and unnatural waste, killing off floral and fauna at an alarming rate, etc. The world has an amazing resilience. Like our own bodies, it can adapt to rather large insults. However, there comes a time where things cannot be compensated for and the straw breaks the camel's back.

Can we stop it? I don't think we can, but I think we can slow it down. It is ironic that humans are clear cutting rain forest to get to oil, but in the process they kill of fungi that secrete gasoline (yes this is a fact). Humans may be the straw that causes the next extinction event.

I hate the thought of big money going into fixing something that is not scientifically proven while thousands ofpeople starve and die of preventable diseases every day.

If it's proven someday, and shown that we can make a significant impact for the better, then great, spend away. But until then, I'd rather my money go somewhere else where it can (and does) have an immediate effect.

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Posted by three_days_of_grey

I firmly believe in Global Warming simply due to the fact that North America was once completely covered in ice and over the course of thousands of years has melted due to ,get this: the Sun. So the Antartic ice shelf's that are melting are supposed to melt. Maybe human involvement may be speeding up the process, but it was going to happen whether we advanced as a civilization or were still huddled in caves drawing wooly mammoths on the wall.
This may be a simplistic view, but why does it need to be more complicated? Oh yeah, b/c we're modern humans and we can't stand the thought of the world not revolving around us.
If you check record temperatures you may find that alot of those holding the record or runners-up are early 20th century, long before mass automobile/industrial production.

-OUT-

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damn it... you pretty much said my exact views on this subject. Damn you for being smart enough to put it all into one paragraph!

Proof that Global Warming doesn't exist

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Posted by Rush

Global Warming is such a narrow yet broad term, I find it incorrect to use it. The word implies that the global temperature is increasing, yet it is often used synonymously with anything to do with a negative impact on the environment.


Do I believe the global temperature is increasing? Yes, but I am not convinced that we understand/know enough of the world's temperature cycles that we can be convinced for the reason it is increasing. Hell, scientists say the world is over 4.5 billion years old. Our existence as a species is only a fraction of that. To what do we compare our tiny frame of time?

Do I believe that humans cause a threat to the overall well being of the global environment? Yes, I do. If you look at human activity, especially in the last couple hundred years, there is no other species in the world that causes as much damage to the Earth as humans. Everything from carbon emissions, dumping toxic and unnatural waste, killing off floral and fauna at an alarming rate, etc. The world has an amazing resilience. Like our own bodies, it can adapt to rather large insults. However, there comes a time where things cannot be compensated for and the straw breaks the camel's back.

Can we stop it? I don't think we can, but I think we can slow it down. It is ironic that humans are clear cutting rain forest to get to oil, but in the process they kill of fungi that secrete gasoline (yes this is a fact). Humans may be the straw that causes the next extinction event.

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Great post! I was going to write something along the same lines. Granted I probably would have made some sort of gay joke that would ruined my point but I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I'v been thinking a lot about this in work and trying to remember some of the good points my girlfriend had told me.

Another way to look at this is with the huge economic boom in the east. Countries such as China, Japan and many of the middle eastern countries are using huge amounts of fossil fuels. I'm unsure of the exact figures but if i recall correctly combined they have used in the last decade what the west has used in the last 100 years. (Don't quote me on that, I'll check it out when Sarah gets here and maybe edit it) Add to this the constant use the west uses and it is without doubt having a impact on the earth.

This will have a huge effect on the amount of gasses trapped in the future. Which in turn will speed up the melting of the ice caps, which has a effect on how much land people have to build, farm, live and many other things upon. Then theirs the fact that the earths atmosphere is clogging with poisonous gasses produced solely from us. This has never happened before and scientists are unsure how the earth will react.

As Rush said above the phrase "global warming" is a very narrow yet broad term.

Many people don't realize the over all effect of the planet warming up. It doesn't just mean warm winter evenings and longer summers.
If the world doesn't wise up to the fact that the planets climate is changing the way we live will have to drastically change.

The best example I'v ever heard of the human effect on global warming was something along the lines of this...
"Imagine the earth as a athlete for years its been training, evolving its game to near perfect level, then its introduced to drugs."

This basically means we are poisoning the earth. Many off the effects of global warming as a whole are natural and as its proven the earth moves in cycles, but add to this the alarming amount of waste we produce coupled with a upswing in temperature and we are alarmingly close to a disaster.

This is a subject I am very interested in so I can't wait to read more on it.

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Posted by StevenSeagal

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Posted by postman

Carbon is what regulates what makes the Earth get colder and warmer. We as humans cause 3% of the Carbon emissions on the ozone the other 97% Dead plants, Volcanos, and Forest fires. There is nothing we can do other then enjoy the slightly warmer winters!

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Im trying to figure out how we only contribute 3%... Might be a Republican spin of sorts. Get on biased scientist to say 3% and people just say "welp, nothin we can do,,, lets burn some tires" Not being a dick, is there any backup for the 3% claim you heard?

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I have ready many times that the number produced by humans is low I remebered the 3% from a guy that was on the episode os Penn and Teller Bullshit.

There is a great deal of scientific evidence that refutes global warming. The general scientific community should be screaming at how this branch of science seems to have been hijacked by eco-freaks.

Report from the European Space Agency:

"New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

"Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

"Since the connection to the island... helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk," it said.

"Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, covering around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles), or about the size of Northern Ireland, before it began to retreat in the 1990s."


How this presentation is flawed: Part of Antarctica HAS BEEN warming: The Antarctic Peninsula. But the Peninsula -- to which this ice shelf is attached -- in actuality represents only 2% of the Antarctic Continent. The rest of Antarctica (that's 98% of it) has seen flat and even declining temperatures. Don't believe me? Go here and check out the temperature data yourself:

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/07/yes-its-another.html

Data from http://vortex.nsstc.auh.edu where you'll find more numbers that show that the southern hemisphere does in fact have a trend of cooling.

It's absolutely moronic to believe global warming is a farce. There is scientific data to support global warming. Research it. If you don't believe, suffer the consequence of Al Gore melting your face off with global goring. He invented the internet , he's watching.