Climate change naysayers

[IDrinkaRum]

I'm not a nay-sayer nor am I a aye-sayer to the global warming stuff.

However, 30 years ago, scientists and environmentalists said where saying we were in a time of global cooling, meaning we would be seeing another ice age.

Also, I know I have mentioned this before, the temperature fluctuates in the world, this is normal. From the time Maryland was settled until sometime in the early 1700's, there were orange groves in Maryland. Maryland had a climate like Modern day Florida and Modern day California. (And for those who live in NoVa and DC and MD, that is a little hard to believe, right?)

Global warming may or may not be happening, but we really do need to do something about saving the human race and making sure the Earth doesn't implode in the future.

[CancelMyService]

From wikipedia, emphasis mine:

Global cooling in general can refer to a cooling of the Earth. More specifically, it refers to a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to press reports following a better understanding of ice age cycles and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s.

It's like nails on a chalkboard to hear the talk radio types bringing up Global Cooling as the trump card to win any battle with someone arguing climate change.

Granted I was born in 1978, but I personally never heard about Global Cooling before the right wing types started using it as a catchphrase and making it sound like it was accepted fact until those wacky unreliable science people changed their minds and made SUVs evil.

[Seshat]

Science, as has been discussed in the Creationism/Intelligent Design thread, is the process of making hypotheses and trying to disprove them through empirical testing.

Weather and climate are incredibly complex systems, and our human understanding of these systems is very imperfect and limited. However, the global warming hypothesis has not yet been disproven to the satisfaction of a majority of climate scientists and meteorologists.

That said, it is possible that there's a Darwin or a Galileo or a Columbus in the scientific community, holding an empirical test in his hands which will shed a new light on climate theory and overturn the currently accepted 'probably-truths'.

But for the moment, global warming is a theory which is not yet disproven, and thus as true as the human race is currently capable of figuring out.

[AFPheonix]

From what I've gathered from the journals, the scientific community is not at all torn on the fact that global warming is occurring. They pretty much all agree that it is. There is still debate on the overall cause, although almost all do think that the actions of humanity are most definitely contributing and that it's not all part of a common cycle.
Frankly, most of the ones who ARE disagreeing with it are often in the pockets of Big Oil.

[rahmota]

I was talking to a friend and he made an interesting claim. Just thought I'd throw it out here as I've never seen/heard this anywhere else but he said that part of global warming is all the microwave towers for cell phones and stuff are heating the atmosphere. Sort of like having a microwave oven working on the thigns. I've never heard this one but was wondering if anyone else did?

Suffice it to say that regardless of if a person believs in global warming or not it is that the world is changing and we are goign to need to do something to deal with the issues in both the short term and the long term. Otherwise thigns will happen and there will not be 6 billion people to worry about anymore and the ones left will be able to try and pick up the pieces. With their 8 legs and antenna if things go too bad......

[Seshat]

If as many people as are willing do what they can to use renewing resources sustainably, and minimise our 'footprint', we'll improve our situation regardless of whether Global Warming is true or not.

By 'renewing resources', I mean things like forests, fisheries and topsoil - resources which have a self-renewing rate. If we use them at less than or equal to their self-renewing rate, we can keep using them forever. If we use them at more than their self-renewing rate, we'll destroy their ability to self-renew.

I've known people who call the idea that we're all connected 'hippy crap' - I don't understand how anyone can not see this. We all breathe the same atmosphere, and drink water from the same water cycle. It confuses me.