Poll: Do you believe in global warming?

[Shymer]

If, by insulating my house, choosing a perfectly acceptable but more economical car and reducing my mileage, using less electricity/fuel, avoid air travel, eating less meat and recycling I can help, even if it is in a microscopically small individual way, then I am pleased to do so. I also save a fair bit of money at the same time.

The evidence for climate change caused, at least in part, by human activities, is very strong. As a fallibalist I accept that we can be wrong about things. Often. However in this case it seems better we act as if we can make a difference now - so if we are right, we may well have been doing the right things to change the situation and if we are wrong, we didn't cause ourselves any individual issues - and actually saved money and became more efficient. Efficiency is good - because then we are not contributing as much to the rapid depletion of finite stocks of fossil fuels - and reduce the scale of the energy generation/distribution challenge that we are facing.

 

[kurokotetsu]

Yes? it has been proven once nad again, and the anthropocentric nature of the change is only disputed by a few misguided individuals. And as said before, you don't need to believe it, it is happenning. And more thatn "global warming" it is refered to as "climate change" because although the average temperatures are rising, this way the colder winters aren't used to "prove" it isn't happening (it is a result of more extreme climates that come with these changes). We need to do something, now, and denying it is clowe to gross niglicence by the goverments

 

[deeman010]

Yes, I believe that global warming is real. I'm not sure how to prove it to people who won't believe unless they see it though. Besides whether its real or not the end product is mankind being more responsible for his or her actions.

Off topic: FML it rained for 4 days straight here in the Philippines. F this I'm not looking forward to it raining for a week straight in the future or for a duration longer for that matter. I should move somewhere else or something.

 

[Lightknight]

Yeah, it's absolutley real. We just don't know for sure if it's man-made or natural. It could also be some combination of the two since we do know that there are natural climate trends that are global cooling and global warming.

I really do hope it's natural causes that won't get too serious because I have too little faith in mankind due to its production greed to see us conquering the man-made side of things any time soon. Hopefully this will spur on new technologies that will provide a long term resolution.

 

[elvor0]

by human activities, is very strong. As a fallibalist I accept

Y'know, I've always found it odd how that's a stance that needs to be stated, not that I'm calling you out for stating it, but that in this day and age it exists as a concept/"philosophy". Not only does science use it by default, if I have an opinion on something and someone shows me some evidence that disproves that notion, I should as a rationally thinking, 21st century human accept that my view was wrong. To err is human, right?

I mean global warming quite clearly is going on, it's "debatable" whether or not it's human influenced (though it would seem as it is and I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't think that), but at the end of the day it's all a Pascal Wager, we're responsible and we may help slow it down, we're not responsible, hey it's gonna happen anyway, but at least we've got clean resources, recycle materials and a few more trees/wild life knocking about, right?

 

[Yopaz]

I don't believe in manmade global warming

The earth has been changing over years and years and years ever since the beginning of our existence, at some point earth was much warmer than it is today its a natural occurring part of the earths eco-system, I would reword the poll to "man-made global warming"

Personally if you read any non biased research not made by crazy environmentalists with their own agenda to get rid of any and all types of "pollution" (a.k.a. ban oil and gas) You will find that yes at the moment earth is going through a warming stage, but its no higher than any natural warming or cooling of our planet

So personally man made global warming=bogus and people like Suzuki have their own agendas to basically ban oil and force the world to rely on much less reliable energy sources

I get especially pissed when people talk about man made global warming because most of my friends parents work in the oil and gas industry and if oil/gas were ever banned (like some idiots want) they would undoubtly lose their jobs and be totally financially screwed over

I think that we need to drop the "Do you believe in global warming" and start asking "Do you believe in man-caused Global warming"

Also don't think I hate environmentalists, some of them are super smart good people that actually want to do something productive like say, stop overfishing in parts of the world

In conclusion Man-Caused Global Warming is Bogus, but natural climate change is totally normal

Congratulations on writing the best post in any of the threads of global warming ever. This is pure brilliance.

You go on about how you can't trust researchers who claim evidence for man made climate change because they're biased (having no examples or any kind of evidence to support this stance) then go on to explain exactly why you are biased.

 

[Something Amyss]

Thats like asking do you believe in gravity. Global warming is a fact, and while you can pretend it is not real, you wont float away. The actual discussion is whether it is man-made or natural.

Considering I saw this immediately after being dressed down in another comments section because Global warming is "just a theory," well...

Let's just say I much prefer the guy who doesn't know and asks.

However, yes, global warming is occurring whether you believe in it or not. I don't believe so much as accept the measured evidence that the planet is indeed getting warmer.

 

[Something Amyss]

Congratulations on writing the best post in any of the threads of global warming ever. This is pure brilliance.

You go on about how you can't trust researchers who claim evidence for man made climate change because they're biased (having no examples or any kind of evidence to support this stance) then go on to explain exactly why you are biased.

Isn't that basically the way 99% of debates go these days? One party screams "YOU ARE TEH BIAS" while not even making an effort to hide their own?

 

[lacktheknack]

Well sure.

I'm not sure I buy the doomsday scenarios, though.

A. Doesn't carbon dioxide/methane/etc trap extra heat logarithmically?

B. Aren't we about to run out of available fossil fuels anyways?

C. If we "fry" the planet, then doesn't the Earth just reset itself? I mean, the blasted thing was covered by lava at one point. That's markedly more "completely screwed" than humans can even try to do to it.

D. Why do modern people, who apparently "care about the environment", keep buying gas instead of taking transit, buying cheap instead of high-quality, asking for more electronics, buying more stuff, increasing their carbon footprint, etc?

E. Why does Al Gore travel by jet and have a massive utility bill? D:

E was meant entirely as a dig at Al Gore, and not as an actual argument against Climate Change Doomsday.

 

[Genericjim101]

Thats like asking do you believe in gravity. Global warming is a fact, and while you can pretend it is not real, you wont float away. The actual discussion is whether it is man-made or natural.

... Shit. I logged in to say this exact point when I seen the topic. It's true, there's actual measured evidence that we're fucking the climate yo. But I'd prefer the term "climate change" be used. Because then people get indignant every time the weather is fucking cold "Oh so much for that global warming bullshit". Calling it climate change would make it easier for people to accept.

 

[Frission]

Is there a still hung up on climate change in the US? Every other country I've visited are now debating on how to deal with climate change, not whether or not it's real.

I hope everyone understands the greenhouse effect. It's simple enough. Climate change itself isn't, but the greenhouse effect is. Gases absorb infrared radiation. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has grown from 288 parts per million which was approximately 200 years ago to 391 ppm in 2010. Not forgetting that a degraded environment reduces the capacity of the biosphere to remove and store carbon, this means that the system is getting overloaded.

The capacity of various gases to affect the energy entering and leaving the atmosphere is referred to as radiative forcing. A major fraction of the trapped heat is transferred to the ocean and raises its temperature as well, although the ocean has a large heat capacity. This retention is what makes the earth habitable, but it can also be taken to an extreme.

Of course there are complications. There can be a feedback loop from the melting of ice caps and permafrost and the disappearance of lower atmosphere clouds which are responsible for a lot of the earth's albedo. Due to the way factors like wind, clouds, ocean currents and albedo affect the climate system makes it far too complex to test in a conventional laboratory. Instead scientists use computer simulations to test how the earth systems work. The temperature change is well known, but the effects that it will trigger are being studied in different scenarios. That's why there are worst and best case scenarios, although I would to say that even in the best case scenario, the changes could be pretty destructive to humanity.

Small note: Solar variations, which may account for an increase in the ultraviolet range of light, is only a very small part of the solar spectrum. Across the eleven year solar cycle, it varies less than 0.1% and even during the "ice age" of 1750, solar output climbed no more than 0.12%. It's likely that greenhouses gases wields more influence than the total solar output in driving the last fifty years of warming.

The various areas of the world are linked together. Investing in measures against climate change is not trading "the economy for nature", it's investing in long term sustainability over short term gain.

OT: I'm not sure how many times I've recopied my own post.

 

[Rblade]

anyone who doesn't hasn't been looking at a lot of grafs and or listened to a lot of trained scientists.

 

[Silvanus]

A. Doesn't carbon dioxide/methane/etc trap extra heat logarithmically?

I'm not exactly sure what this question means. "Logarithmically" refer to a method of measurement, does it not? So, the increase in heat could be expressed either logarithmically or on a standard scale, with equal validity.

B. Aren't we about to run out of available fossil fuels anyways?

We are indeed. That's another reason to find alternatives.

C. If we "fry" the planet, then doesn't the Earth just reset itself? I mean, the blasted thing was covered by lava at one point. That's markedly more "completely screwed" than humans can even try to do to it.

It would "reset" itself over a period of millions of years, if at all. In the meantime, humanity, and almost certainly most other species, will have died. (Well, depending on the severity of the "frying" you mentioned).

Saying, "Meh, it'll just reset itself", rather undersells the severity of that situation.

D. Why do modern people, who apparently "care about the environment", keep buying gas instead of taking transit, buying cheap instead of high-quality, asking for more electronics, buying more stuff, increasing their carbon footprint, etc?

Sometimes, it's because those people value convenience over decreasing their carbon footprint.

Sometimes, it's because even the greatest personal sacrifice an individual could make, would not equal one millionth of the impact of a properly-enforced treaty.

 

[Kaymish]

global warming i don't "believe in" but climate change on the other hand yes as much as facts can be "believed in" also its not a matter of belief or not its a question of facts its not even deniable anymore there has been so much evidence amassed that only the most brain dead of fools even try to deny climate change
i have seen people blatantly twist and lie about the evidence they are using to go up against it and if you have to resort to lies you know you are on the wrong side

 

[Foolery]

No. But I do believe in climate change. This planet has gone from subtropical temperatures when dinosaurs roamed the earth, ice ages, etc. I'm still all for trying to keep the air clean. The environment needs respect and due care.
We're also changing from an circular orbit around the sun to an elliptical orbit, like an oval. We're going to be closer and farther at certain points.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

In the man-made sense, no. Why? Because we don't have an accurate model of the world prior to recorded temperatures. A few of the numbers are skewed due to urban areas retaining more heat due to concrete structures holding more heat. And the whole debacle where e-mails surfaced with top researchers admitting they were artificially messing with the numbers to support the current theory.
Yes the world goes through hot/cold phases. As far as man being the sole cause? I think thats a bit arrogant but I won't deny we do affect the environment around us.
Personally I feel we don't have enough information to say definitively that humans are the cause of warming. Read the appendix of Michael Crichton's State of Fear. I do find it interesting that some charts and graphs of pre-1940's temperatures that were available on the internet disappeared shortly after the publishing of his book. I also feel that a lot of politicians use global warming to advance their own agendas when they really could give a shit less. And some of them who are liberal democrats own a lot of stock in companies that would make a killing off global warming sanctions and laws if they were to be enacted. THAT alone makes me leery.
In no way am I a republican by the way, I have my own viewpoints and don't believe in a party system that just divides the US into (no pun intended) US vs. THEM.
By all means, I would love to see us move away from fossil fuels and into cleaner energy for efficiency and environmental concerns but there's been a lot of things like the ethanol project which did nothing but lower fuel efficiency and drive up corn prices and deprive the food market of a large chunk of the product.
Do I care about the environment? Shit yes. I grew up in South Florida and have watched as the Everglades, a unique ecosystem, slowly die off because of the diversion of the natural runoff from Lake Okeechobee which also has led to a bad algae bloom in the Florida Bay (which is literally my backyard because I am from Key Largo). So yeah I do believe we can affect our environment. I just don't feel we have enough info to plot the extent of that or the actual long term impact.

 

[IronMit]

Manmade* global warming. There is a difference isn't there?

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I'm pretty sure it's general consensus that Anthropological Global Warming exists, it's just that the severity of it is under debate.