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Do you believe in global warming?

What is your opinion on Climate Change?

40K views 778 replies 114 participants last post by  redshift 
#1 ·
Everybody has an opinion. No matter how well informed, please share.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (7-18 December) is fast approaching.


Do you believe in global warming?

No, there's not enough hard evidence.
Maybe but I'm not so sure. Need more research.
Yes but it's a natural cycle. Will cool down later.
Yes but there's no proof it correlates to CO2 emissions.
Yes and it's definitely the result of human activity.
I really don't know. Let the experts decide for me.

How catastrophic will the potential consequences be? With the melting of the ice caps difficult to predict.
 
#3 ·
(x) yes, and while it might be part of some natural cycle, man-made emissions make it much worse.

i don't think the first world (europe, north america, japan) will be directly affected. to some extent we might even turn out to be winners. natural resources in the polar regions are gonna be available etc.

however, hundreds of millions of people from africa and south east asia will try desperately to reach the first world, so the indirect impact will be equally earth-shattering.
 
#4 ·
however, hundreds of millions of people from africa and south east asia will try desperately to reach the first world, so the indirect impact will be equally earth-shattering.
that's one thing. the other one is the rising sea level because most big cities are built along the oceans. so big resettlements will be a major problem in the future which will take place for sure.

however, imo it doesn't matter because it will happen anyway sooner or later. to happen now would be better than in the future when the cities are even bigger. in the cretaceous the sea level was up to 300 m higher than today which means it can happen again.

many people think the situation as of now is bad but it will happen anyway sooner or later. people think if we "save the world" now we will have no problems.
 
#5 ·
While I and you can have an opinion, as we are dealing with a very complicated scientific fact, our opinion has as much weight as our opinion on whether dark matter exists or whether the Riemann hypothesis is true - i.e. none at all.

This is a topic which huge political implications (unlike the validity of the Riemann hypothesis), so that scientists working on it have no doubt a large amount of pressure, but I will still defer to the smart and prepared people that devote their life to researching this topic. The current consensus among the vast majority of this community is "Yes and it's definitely the result of human activity.".

If you want the truth, this is the best approximation we currently have (like all of science, it can be perfected and even corrected as our understanding and evidence improves). If you want to continue destroying the planet without hurting your conscience, feel free to hold any of the other opinions :wavey:

PS. I am well aware that there are divergences within the scientific community. But the overwhelming consensus is that there is warming that is at least partly caused by human activity. There is no question also that "more research is needed" to get a better picture.
 
#9 ·
I believe it is a mixture of cycle and human activity. It's inevitable that the earth cools and warms in uncontrollable cycles, but I believe human activity surely exacerbates that.
 
#20 ·
What do I think?

I think that most scientists believe it is happening and that man is having an impact on it - how serious an impact seems to be ranging from pretty bad to appallingly frighteningly bad. There's still a few holdout scientists but the vast majority of the scientific community believe it as a fact.

I think, you're never going to get 100% agreement on it, but it's not like we're talking about a small-scale issue here, we're talking about nothing less than the future habitabilty and sustainability of the planet and its eco-system. This is not small beans. So it seems to me that, if there's even a *chance* we're doing serious damage to the planet, then we have to change our behaviour to try and reverse or mitigate that. It's not the sort of issue where doing nothing and later going "oops it was a big deal after all, my bad" should even be an option.

Which is why I find baffling these idiot politicians who say "we can't do anything about it, it will damage our economy." Newsflash - in a matter of decades your economy will probably go down the toilet anyway when the sea level rises, crucial species in the food chain become extinct, extreme weather events worsen dramatically, the planet's population is out of control, and the oil runs out. That's not a recipe for aggressive economic growth anyway.
 
#23 ·
your economy will probably go down the toilet anyway when the sea level rises, crucial species in the food chain become extinct, extreme weather events worsen dramatically, the planet's population is out of control, and the oil runs out. That's not a recipe for aggressive economic growth anyway.
The drastic sea level changes are not happening. Probably all the alarmist data came out of the discredited University of East Anglia.

The problem on earth is overpopulation, something that can not be discussed because of the religious taboos. So instead it has been decided by ''scientists'' that all the blame will go on carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is to plants and forests what oxygen is to humans.
 
#21 ·
I think we're having an impact. I have no idea how severe.

This is a classic externality problem. The actions of one person alone are unlikely to affect the climate received by future generations. But of course, if we all do this, it will negatively affect. So without a proper market mechanism to disincentivize actions that cause harm to the climate, it is very difficult to have coordination on this issue. Everyone wants to cheat to make their own lives more comfortable, hoping that others will pick up the slack for them.
 
#22 ·
Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Division at East Anglia has stepped down, because of emailgate. It is now clear that this group of scientists has been corrupting their data to convince governments of the effects of man-made climate change. And they also went out of their way to stop the data getting released to the public. Now we all know why.
Paul Mann, the guy responsible for the hockey stick graph that was the main force behind convincing the public of the danger of carbon dioxide, is being investigated by his university.

I think because of the dishonesty that has seeped through the climate change activists, it will now be necessary to start all over. Everything they have published is now suspect.

Copenhagen should be cancelled.
 
#27 ·
the truth: we are all fucked up. in some years, the earth will be so hot that we'll gonna fry here, but no one is giving a damn about it. having kids right now is condemn them to an early death. let's continue acting as if nothing had happened,like a bunch of selfish assholes and soon as possible we are all dead. I think it's just 10 years till the end or not :wavey: make your prayers!
 
#28 ·
the truth: we are all fucked up. in some years, the earth will be so hot that we'll gonna fry here, but no one is giving a damn about it. having kids right now is condemn them to an early death. let's continue acting as if nothing had happened,like a bunch of selfish assholes and soon as possible we are all dead. I think it's just 10 years till the end or not :wavey: make your prayers!
There's no way we're making it past 2012.
 
#34 ·
It's the result of American activity
 
#35 · (Edited)
Professor Jones, the leading climate change activist has stepped down from his post because of the email scandal.
Michael Mann, the fabricator of Gore's hockey stick graph is being investigated by his own university, Penn State.

What I fear is that people fell for the man-made global warming fiasco so completely that they are finding it difficult to admit there is a big problem
My otherwise intelligent friend said, "I don't care if the science was bad as long as the global warming message was getting out." Sad logic, I fear.
 
#37 ·
Yes there have been cyclical patterns in the Earth's history that make some mention that it is only a result of Solar activity.

While some parts of this are true, it is also true that human beings are accelerating this process and quite likely messing the cycle up, making moments of peak heat hotter than they would be had it not been for c02 emissions.

Anyone who completely dismisses the harm humans are doing to the planet are missing the point and supporting the status quo and the current capitalist system.

I mean, let's take this argument to an extreme (which I do not agree with):

Suppose we are not contributing to this "global warming phenomena", we are clearly polluting and destroying the planet and all the creatures that live in it.

That much, is undeniable.

A cleaner Earth is better for all.
 
#38 ·
Suppose we are not contributing to this "global warming phenomena", we are clearly polluting and destroying the planet and all the creatures that live in it.

That much, is undeniable.

A cleaner Earth is better for all.
We are polluting yes, but destroying the planet and the creatures on it? LOL. What a completely unfounded "truth". If anything it will be the human race that saves the planet and its creatures.
 
#49 ·
oil will run out in 50 years and all the carbon dioxide will fall onto the rocks so how can anyone be bothered with it? Carbon Dioxide is pretty good because without it entire planet would be cold as ice or like Mars. Carbon Dioxide also helps many plants and by extension food to grow.
 
#50 ·
Fads in science and Climategate

Speaking of Climategate, what people fail to understand is that "science" is a job. It is subject to the same pressures any other job is. Sure, it has an intellectual component. But, by far, politics, money, and power outweigh truth. One of the worst thing that happens is a scientific fad or a bandwagon. Stem cells for instance. Or string theory. Whole slews of people make their PhDs, postdocs, tenure track work - entire scientific careers - on a particular topic which is generally cast as a _____ (insert: cure, catalyst, theory, what have you) of everything.

The worst part of it is peer review. The mechanism meant to prevent falsehoods or unsubstantiated speculations from entering "the literature" is abused to screen out data that is perceived as unfavorable to the fad idea/topic/goal. All this does is create an almost insurmountably high burden of proof for the sceptic. Any experiment must have every potential control, and then some, and even with the controls confounders will be invoked and used to merciless blast away the sceptic. These are all complex systems, that is, life, the universe, or the earth.

After 5 or 10 or 30 years the fad fizzles out when it becomes clear that other, perhaps more interesting, topics, have been neglected and that what was promised did not fulfill. New blood must approach the problem, perhaps after more years and decades, and must attack it from a fresh perspective.

Climate change is just another fad, another bandwagon. A bunch of scientists craving for grants, promotions, and fame, are pushing AGW roughshod over evidence that contradicts the theory. What is most dangerous is that unlike string theory, which has little impact on daily life, or stem cell research, which has a low impact on the world (the use of human embryonic stem cells being the most controversial part), the climate change theories are being implemented into a political agenda, one that will affect economies of whole countries, overall production, the use of fuel and disposal of waste on a massive scale, agriculture, and the lives of hundreds of millions of people. We are being asked to "save the earth" and to "make the sacrifice" with hardly any evidence that we are responsible for changes in the earth's climate.

Resist the temptation to bow to "science." Read the papers yourself - any intelligent person can comprehend them - and read what the sceptics have to say. Inform yourself before you allow your government to reorganize your life entirely to suit a bunch of fraudsters and hysterics.
 
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