http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+Less+Than+...article8641.htm



This post has been edited by Spectatrix: Aug 30 2007, 09:06 AM

hmm... media reports that there's a consensus that global warming is our fault... scientists don't come to that same consensus.... hmm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/302204_warming02.html

looks like it's our fault to me...
regardless of who's fault it's happening. doesn't take an idiot to figure that out. just walk outside.

But the report you posted is generalized. It just says "scientists".

Just walk outside? We've been cooler this year than we have over the last 10 years. We've had less tropical activity than we have in a long time (if there's warming, we should have more).

and i suppose you do?

you're right. i don't. but chasing tornados doesn't make you an expert either.

ski season is starting later and ending earlier. that ones very obvious to me. snow is harder and different texture than it was 10 years ago. it's getting icy in the afternoon sooner. glaciers are melting. oceans are rising. are you saying you actually don't believe in global warming? people that don't boggle my mind.

tropical activity? the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years or so. i'll find a link later.

i believe global warming is quite real, but i think the cause is natural instead of man-made

that doesn't let man off the hook though, we should start thinking about renewable clean energy now, fish are dying in our oceans, rivers are polluted, and we're killing off large numbers of species

i don't think anyone is saying that. what people (including the vast majority of scientists apparently) don't believe is that we're the cause of it. the earth has been around for what, like 4-6 billion years? there has been temperature cycles recorded of warming and cooling that go back thousands of years. of all the reading I've done and data I've seen says there's cycles that go say, about every 40 years, which then exist inside larger cycles of ~500 years, which then exist inside even larger cycles of 25,000 years, etc etc. If you look at data from the past 1000 years, it shows we're coming off of a cooling cycle into a warming cycle:

so the global warming could be due to one of two things:
1. human industry, which has existed for barely 150 years, is the cause
or
2. the natural cycle of cooling and warming is continuing on this planet as is has for however many million years

we definitely need better forms of energy, and i have the upmost confidence that sometime in my lifetime we'll see stuff we can only dream about now. (MR FUSION! )

i'm finding conflicting info on the hurricane frequency.
one article said that overall hurricanes are down but number of 4 and 5s have tripled in the last 30 years.

another one just said that all hurricane numbers are up. with this graph:


frankly i don't care. i don't even care how it's happening. i just know that it is. and i think that there are a few things that humans can to do help it.

i just thought that this thread was started to say it's not occurring.

This.

i've just heard the argument that man is causing it.
what is the argument that man is not causing it?
history?

The fluctuations of the little ice age were small compared to the increases we're seeing now. Not to mention that indications point that it was more of a regional effect moreso than a global one.

As for the research in the first post, I'm betting it's some conservative hack considering it's getting little mainstream attention from scientists (a google search only reveals conservative sites reporting this). However, there's no way to tell considering that the report hasn't even been released yet.

1) The thing is that water vapor dissipates much much more quickly than CO2 does. While water vapor does contribute much to the greenhouse effect, there's no slow buildup of it like there is CO2.

2) Yes, most of the CO2 in the atmosphere isn't from humans. This is part of the earth's cycle. However, natural levels of CO2 don't change much. The earth has mechanisms to keep natural CO2 levels in check. However, industrialization overloads this mechanism creating a slow buildup of greenhouse gasses that causes the earth's temperature to go up.

3) Haven't actually seen data on this, so can't comment.

This post has been edited by pebkac: Aug 30 2007, 10:41 AM

It's actually global climate change now.

I've always just figured that all of these global warming scientists wouldn't have jobs if they said that there was no global warming. My very uninformed opinion is that it could be caused by natural cycles the earth goes through.

A good argument I've heard is that they say the temperature has risen a few degrees over the past 100 years. Well excuse me if I'm skeptical of the accuracy of temperature readings taken in 1907.