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Could someone who is smarter than me, and better at finding good/reliable information (maybe you've done research on this) point me to some good information on why Global Warming/Climate Change (or whatever it's being called now) is NOT a hoax (i.e. it's true). This is not for homework, but from everything I've read it makes perfect sense to me that Global Warming/Climate Change is true, and I'd like to be able to argue the point more effectively against people who don't think it is true.
I've looked up some of the information, but most of what I find (beyond what I already know) is way too technical for me to understand. So, if someone could help me out with this, that'd be awesome.
The reason I ask is that a friend posted a blog on FB (which I shouldn't really care about, but he's got the Glen Beck attitude towards everything, which pisses me off in most cases) bashing global warming, claiming the 2 degree increase is nothing, and that the intensity of the sun has increased and that's why it's getting warmer, blah blah. I posted some charts from NASA that are pretty clear cut, but I figure there has to be information out there that I am not finding, other than Wiki...
 
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Here's a really good summary of global warming from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462
It answers most of the counter-arguments to human-caused global warming and explains why it is happening and what the future holds.
God damn, I love New Scientist! :D
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People who argue that it is not man made are idiots. Not because of that idea but because it doesn't even matter. The globe is warming either way, and pollution is bad.
That article posted above mentioned that (microscopic) animals can cause climate change so how hard is that to believe that almost 7 billion humans can change the atmosphere? I mean we change the land, the ocean, and everything else why would the air be any different?
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On October 08 2009 07:54 CharlieMurphy wrote:
People who argue that it is not man made are idiots. Not because of that idea but because it doesn't even matter. The globe is warming either way, and pollution is bad.
That article posted above mentioned that (microscopic) animals can cause climate change so how hard is that to believe that almost 7 billion humans can change the atmosphere? I mean we change the land, the ocean, and everything else why would the air be any different?
It is comments like this that fuel the skepticism.
Unqualified statements, instant assumptions and illogical analogies all in one.
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News scientist is good. Keep looking, keep up to date and try to verify the sources. Give appropriate amount of trust into the source you read it from.
Keep a scientific mind about your head. And please, PLEASE put on your best bullshit filter when reading articles and information.
Consider also, what are the real solutions, and what the bullshit solutions (paying it off by planting trees? you got to be kidding me...)
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My personal view has changed from "unsure" to "probably" over the last 5-9 years, flittering back and forth with new evidence as it comes along
It is a tough subject to research as an individual. And mainly, this is because you DO have to consider the other point of view, as origional skeptecism was founded early on shaky/contradictory evidence. Note how this has changed drastically over the course of 15 years with new research.
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The movie "an uncovenient truth" is exactly what you're looking for.
It's very well explained and even funny at some parts.
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On October 08 2009 08:48 SagaZ wrote:
The movie "an uncovenient truth" is exactly what you're looking for.
It's very well explained and even funny at some parts.
An unconvenient truth is a bunch of sensationalistic crap. It's based on drawing out people's emotions rather than hard scientific fact.
Al Gore, on record, said that Greenland will melt in the next 50 years (he said that in 2005 i think). I can't take anything he says seriously after that.
I would recommend them just look up the page on global warming controversy. Most of the myths and arguments against "climate change" are given proper perspective there, which is kind of funny.
There is no question that the world is warming. However, I think what should be debated is how much damage global warming will actually do, and the root causes of the warming. Calling it the "greatest threat to humanity today" is a load of bullshit. Nuclear war remains that greatest threat. However, a SWIFTLY (climate has ALWAYS changed) changing climate will certainly cause significant ecological and economical damage.
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On October 08 2009 08:48 SagaZ wrote:
The movie "an uncovenient truth" is exactly what you're looking for.
It's very well explained and even funny at some parts.
the problem with the inconvenient truth is that now you have people with a political agenda behind it.
While it's pretty obvious that there's global warming to some extent, I sincerely doubt that soon polar bears will become extinct, people will die in hoards, and we'll be in a Waterworld-type scneario. However, I do believe that it is causing damage to some speciies that are already under other human pressure and could collapse.
Again, however, I don't think that having governments (whom contributed substantially through production of war machines and the like) will do anything that will help to reduce global warming. I don't know what a better solution would be, but I'm philosophically disinclined to have politicians doing things about science.
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Also, I think its always best to keep things in perspective. At the end of the Paleozic era, around 250 million years ago, there was a mass extinction that killed over 95% of the world's species. The world didn't collapse after that extinction; instead, the dinosaurs thrived. Just because we lose a couple species doesn't mean the entire world ecosystem will suddenly collapse.
I guess my point is that it is not our duty to protect every species that walks the earth. Evolution means that species must adapt to their environments. Climate change happens all the time. Glaciers melt (ice age); species go extinct. Wooly mammoths and sabre-toothed cats are no longer around. We do not have some "mandate" to halt the evolutionary process.
Also, the world at times has been much warmer in the past.
Edit: The one thing I really don't like about environmentalism is the amount of emotion attached to it, on both sides of the subject. Never before have I seen science turned into such an angry, heated debate where both sides employ such vasts amounts of pseudoscience and sensationalism to prove their points (perhaps once during the AC vs DC debate between Edison and Westinghouse). Glenn Beck and his angry rants, environmentalists and their ridiculous preaching without all the proper facts. I say leave the research to scientists and stop debating so much about things you (not talking to you specifically  ) don't know anything about. It's like arguing about string theory when you've only taken high school physics.
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United States24634 Posts
On October 08 2009 07:41 Wohmfg wrote:Here's a really good summary of global warming from New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462It answers most of the counter-arguments to human-caused global warming and explains why it is happening and what the future holds. God damn, I love New Scientist! :D
Wow that was an awesome page. Thank you very much for linking it.
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On October 08 2009 09:28 Try wrote:
Also, the world at times has been much warmer in the past.
No offense, but it hasn't. The newscientist article (and others) debunked it.
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On October 08 2009 09:48 Nosmo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2009 09:28 Try wrote:
Also, the world at times has been much warmer in the past.
No offense, but it hasn't. The newscientist article (and others) debunked it.
It is certainly true that Earth has experienced some extremes that were warmer than today, as well as much colder periods. In some cases the main factors that caused these past warm periods - and the ebb and flow of ice ages over recent millennia - are well understood, though not in all. Many of the details remain unknown.
P.S. I appreciate the civility. Usually any discussion about climate change always results in a flame war.
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On October 08 2009 09:28 Try wrote:
Just because we lose a couple species doesn't mean the entire world ecosystem will suddenly collapse.
Laugh out loud. I think we stand to lose far more than that, but I think you have the right sentiments in your post.
My own contribution is that you should just trust the consensus among smart people. It sounds like a feeble attempt to get at the truth, but considering that these smart people have spent their lives studying theories you'll never begin grasping, the closest you'll get to truth is arguing ridiculously dumb-downed ideas on forums like teamliquid.
In many matters of public debate, like politics, public ethics and even to some extent economics, we as the laymen can join in the debate and make fairly educated remarks. But when it comes to science, you are really making a mockery of the whole process when you try and find flaws in arguments that are informed by years of research and even genius.
There is no reason the public should have serious debates about science. You don't see public debate about quantum chromodynamics, so why about climate change? The mathematics and models are just as complicated. One has far more implications for the immediate future of mankind, but surely that's all the more reason to the question to those who know what they're talking about.
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I guess my point is that it is not our duty to protect every species that walks the earth. Evolution means that species must adapt to their environments. Climate change happens all the time. Glaciers melt (ice age); species go extinct. Wooly mammoths and sabre-toothed cats are no longer around. We do not have some "mandate" to halt the evolutionary process.
That's not the problem at all though. The problem is that rising ocean levels and prolonged droughts will displace millions of people and leave many more in hunger and poverty in the poorest places in the world. I agree that we do not have a mandate to try and preserve every species that exist today, but we need to be a lot more conscious about using fossil fuels that have accumulated over millions of years - in a matter of decades.
However I would also like to see more science behind the modeling - more than just PPM levels of CO2, but how they actually affect average global temperature. We need more accurate models before we develop solutions.
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Try I'd like to point out that any system will at least severely contract, which is one meaning of collapse, with the complete removal of 95% of its elements. We definitely owe nothing to other species, but we also don't stand to gain anything from a mass extinction.
Complete ignorance of the issue by all parties not specialized in relevant research also does nothing to help society. Politicization of the issue is necessary because each side has something crucial at stake, at least in their minds: humanity's survival and humanity's standards of living. Clearly this isn't optimal as it contributes to rampant misinformation, but that does not imply that discussion is irrelevant or counterproductive. Communication's primary purpose is the dissemination of information. Much can make it fail, but that is no reason to refrain as a rule. (Of course, if a discussion has or will imminently fail, it is useless to participate.)
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The question isn't whether or not Global Warming happens or not--it does--but rather, should be does it matter? Somebody else pointed it out, but why do we have to have a responsibility to save every species on the planet? We ARE part of nature, so what we do is natural. We come from billions of years of evolution, and billions of years of evolution has told us, at this point, that what we do is OK. That being said, the green movement might be natural whiplash to centuries of industrialization.
A second point, from the economics standpoint, is about the scarcity of resources. If everything is self sustaining, what resources are we going to compete over? How is society going to grow?
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Calgary25975 Posts
The gases in our atmosphere form a kind of insulation. The long waves of the sun's energy can easily pass through the gases and heat up the earth. Because the earth has temperature, it emits radiation (as all things with heat do); however, the radiation is short waved, which largely gets reflected by the gases. When you have a system with energy in > energy out, it heats up. Equilibrium will occur when the earth heats up enough that, despite only a percentage of the radiation getting out, it is emitting enough radiation to balance the energy coming in. Because we have more gases doing this (CO2, CFCs, etc. etc) (you can check the research, we can tangibly measure that the majority of greenhouse gases are up), we are reflecting more energy inwards. That means Ein > Eout. That means there are only two possible outcomes:
1. Earth heats up
2. Earth absorbs (transfers) energy - ie a material absorbs energy and undergoes a state change (ice -> water).
So global warming (although in scenario 2 nothing is actually warming so let's calling it "energy storage") is happening. It's undeniable. What is left to happen is whether we should care (it might actually be adventageous) or whether we were the major cause of it.
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On October 08 2009 10:09 Try wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2009 09:48 Nosmo wrote:On October 08 2009 09:28 Try wrote:
Also, the world at times has been [B]much[B/] warmer in the past.
No offense, but it hasn't. The newscientist article (and others) debunked it. Show nested quote +It is certainly true that Earth has experienced some extremes that were warmer than today, as well as much colder periods. In some cases the main factors that caused these past warm periods - and the ebb and flow of ice ages over recent millennia - are well understood, though not in all. Many of the details remain unknown. P.S. I appreciate the civility. Usually any discussion about climate change always results in a flame war.
My point was that you said it was much warmer in the past. I never said it wasn't warmer, period. Could you cite a time where it was much warmer(preferably supported by peer-review).
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Hi, I've been reading up on global warming myself, and I am not a big fan of it. Right now, I'm thinking the Earth is just going through a phase. I've read that the Earth had ten times the Carbon level...two-thousand years ago? (Sorry, forgot source) Also, what's up with the water rising material? Where's all the water coming from? The ice caps? Well... if that's the case, think about this: If you have a cup of water, and you put ice in it then you let it stand until all the ice has melted, did the water level rise?
I'm still in the dark, so please enlighten me. I really would like to hear some good arguments as to why my opinions aren't exactly true.
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First, @ the above post, think about this: The water levels will rise a great deal when ice shelves break off of land masses and displace water. Also a considerable amount of ice that is above sea level. Using your analogy, think of it as holding the ice above the water and letting it melt. Will the water rise?
The following does not answer your question as such, be warned:
People who say global warming is a hoax are full of it. In Colorado there is visible evidence of global warming. There is a beetle that kills pine trees, only lodgepoles I believe, that has been running rampant the past several years. The explanation of their proliferation is that they were previously killed annually by cold winter temperatures. Warming winters, or more accurately less consistently cold winters, are denying the main check on their population and the result is dramatic. There are entire mountains, whole clusters and ridges of them, that are brown at a distance. I was backpacking in the Rockies around a month ago and walked through forests of dead pine trees still standing.
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EPT
