Climate Change, do you believe humans cause it?

Dave!

I've tried wrapping my head around the science but have never really been able to understand the evidence completely. Considering my ignorance on the topic, it would be arrogant of me to dissent from the scientific consensus (and there is an overwhelming consensus) on the issue. So I'm gonna go with 'yes' until such time as the scientific community begins to change their opinion.

Accusations of conspiracy and corruption to follow...

Oranage2

Dave! wrote: »

I've tried wrapping my head around the science but have never really been able to understand the evidence completely. Considering my ignorance on the topic, it would be arrogant of me to dissent from the scientific consensus (and there is an overwhelming consensus) on the issue. So I'm gonna go with 'yes' until such time as the scientific community begins to change their opinion.

Accusations of conspiracy and corruption to follow...

Well the 'Science' is basically stating that the world's temperature has risen since the industrial revolution and thats what they're saying is evidence of man made global warming!!! so a hundred year study and forgetting the other 4.55 billions years is now what is considered 'science'.

Dave!

Oranage2 wrote: »

Well the 'Science' is basically stating that the world's temperature has risen since the industrial revolution and thats what they're saying is evidence of man made global warming!!! so a hundred year study and forgetting the other 4.55 billions years is now what is considered 'science'.

hmmm... I sense that you're not giving me the full picture here...

I'm familiar enough with the evidence to know that you're building a strawman there. I've no interest in getting into a debate on the topic, so I'll let you thrash it out with someone else.

ejmaztec

FearDark wrote: »

Hmm... Do u think cows are really to blame though?

Yep, it's definitely bullsh1t and cowfarts causing the problem.

Kill them all - burger sale of the century.

enfant terrible

bnt wrote: »

I'm just going to sit back and watch as it all falls apart - if I live to see it.

I think you will, humans have been predicting the end of the world since we could communicate with each other.

We will outlast this doomsday prediction too.

smk89

Oranage2 wrote: »

Well the 'Science' is basically stating that the world's temperature has risen since the industrial revolution and thats what they're saying is evidence of man made global warming!!! so a hundred year study and forgetting the other 4.55 billions years is now what is considered 'science'.

The ice cores allow 400k years of climate to be seen and if you accept estimates we have 500 million years. But on behalf of the scientific community I would like to apologise for not having the equipment to draw you a 4.55 billion year graph

Einhard

I take it so, that all the people who disbelieve the overwhelming majority of independent scientists who argue for anthropomorphic climate change, also question and disbelieve their doctors when given a diagnosis in the clinic? Or refuse to accept what NASA might say about the solar system. Or refute the consensus of geologists that the earth is 14 billion years old? Or pick apart and dispute the views of the seismoligical community on the cause of earthquakes? If not, why not? I mean, they're only independent experts in their field, while you have no expertise at all, but have time on your hands and an ability to use google, and a tendency to accept only that which might boost your fantasies whilst ignoring everything else.

If nothing else, the climate change farrago at least proves that a little knowledge can truly be a dangerous thing. At least the over 50% of those who voted against the proposition can take comfort in the fact that they stand alongside the likes of George Bush and JIm Corr in their beliefs. Truly illustrious company.


PS: If someone mentions the medieval ice age I think my head will explode.

KeithAFC

Humans don't cause it. Its just a natural process. The planet is basically cleaning itself out. Let it get on with it.

Oranage2

smk89 wrote: »

The ice cores allow 400k years of climate to be seen and if you accept estimates we have 500 million years. But on behalf of the scientific community I would like to apologise for not having the equipment to draw you a 4.55 billion year graph

I take it smk you're some sort of enviormental engineering/science student? The real world is going to be tough on you!!!

D1stant

Sigh. Acid rain anyone? or just Acid:cool:

smk89

Oranage2 wrote: »

I take it smk you're some sort of enviormental engineering/science student? The real world is going to be tough on you!!!

I'm not actually, I just take an interest. Especially in the social reaction to climate change. Remember when "climategate" came out and the belief in global warming dropped significantly. The researched did nothing different than oil company sponsored scientists in the 80's. Yet one news story made so many change their belief.
Half the arguments made on here are opinions e.g. KeithAFC "The planet is basically cleaning itself out." If this were the affected theory what would we do? Give the planet a colonic irrigation?

Einhard

DaDumTish wrote: »

you do know its called global warming , not global colding , yeah ?

at this stage we should be knee deep in water , and toasty as fook.

yet its been ice cold and snowing ???
global warming me hole .

and 'climate change ' is not human caused
its arrogant to even think its a human caused problem.

No, what's arrogant is to take such a definitive position on the matter when you clearly have no idea about climate change theory, nor even the most basic understanding of climate itself. Jesus, if this is the standard of refutation, then I fail to see how this debate has limped on for so damned long. Brrr, it's cold=no global warming. My God...

Pace2008

DaDumTish wrote: »

you do know its called global warming , not global colding , yeah ?

at this stage we should be knee deep in water , and toasty as fook.

yet its been ice cold and snowing ???
global warming me hole .

and 'climate change ' is not human caused
its arrogant to even think its a human caused problem.

It's hilarious and worrying in equal parts that you think your knowledge of climate change, or complete lack thereof, trumps that of the majority of trained climatologists. It's obvious you've never read a paragraph of the considerable volume of literature on the topic. You don't even understand the basic concept behind it. You are no more capable of discussing it than you are advanced astrophysics.

The first step on the road to enlightenment, should you wish to walk it, would be Googling the terms "climate" and weather," and appreciating their respective differences.

Pace2008

Snap.

antidark777

Einhard wrote: »

No, what's arrogant is to take such a definitive position on the matter when you clearly have no idea about climate change theory, nor even the most basic understanding of climate itself. Jesus, if this is the standard of refutation, then I fail to see how this debate has limped on for so damned long. Brrr, it's cold=no global warming. My God...

Agreed

steddyeddy

yes I think humans do cause it however I think climate can change on its own, the last ice age killed thousands.

eightyfish

Oranage2 wrote: »

Well the 'Science' is basically stating that the world's temperature has risen since the industrial revolution and thats what they're saying is evidence of man made global warming!!! so a hundred year study and forgetting the other 4.55 billions years is now what is considered 'science'.

Nope. The whole point it it has risen faster, much faster, in the last period than it ever has in the last however-many-million years. So the argument pays full attention to the pre-industrial data rather than just ignoring it, as you claim.

Irish Halo

It's not real?
:pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:
After Hours always cracks me up, you get some right morons posting. To be fair it is the, scientifically illiterate, head in the sand, "I'm Alright Jack" attitude which means we are more or less ****ed

m@cc@

Oranage2 wrote: »

Firstly people believed the world was flat!

This in itself is a myth. There is no evidence to suggest it is/was true.

Monty Burnz

Einhard wrote: »

I take it so, that all the people who disbelieve the overwhelming majority of independent scientists who argue for anthropomorphic climate change, also question and disbelieve their doctors when given a diagnosis in the clinic? Or refuse to accept what NASA might say about the solar system. Or refute the consensus of geologists that the earth is 14 billion years old? Or pick apart and dispute the views of the seismoligical community on the cause of earthquakes? If not, why not? I mean, they're only independent experts in their field, while you have no expertise at all.

I personally don't believe in electronics. I think the whole thing is myth cooked up by a similar cabal of scientists by a similar process to the global warming scam with the intention of making money from gullible proles like you guys.

Lumen

Thread title: Climate Change, do you believe humans cause it?
Poll question: Do you believe humans are to blame?

You should work for MORI. Not.

W.Shakes-Beer

This is a hard one to call.

Regarding the climate changing naturally, I understand that the earth goes through cycles of global temperature fluctuations so this may be the case.

However, there is part of me feels we are depleting the earth of natural ozone. We are burning the earths natural resources which is all well and good but its the rate at which this is occuring that is the problem. The upper atmosphere is basically fúcked by NOx and SOx emissions.

m@cc@

Lumen wrote: »

Thread title: Climate Change, do you believe humans cause it?
Poll question: Do you believe humans are to blame?

You should work for MORI. Not.

The poll is too black and white since I'd hazard a guess that a large proportion would say that humans are not the sole reason.

Lumen

m@cc@ wrote: »

The poll is too black and white since I'd hazard a guess that a large proportion would say that humans are not the sole reason.

A lot of people would also say the question is irrelevant.

Personally speaking I think that fear of climate change is a massive distraction from more important issues.

Monty Burnz

Climate scientists, by the way, are not claiming that humans are the sole cause of global warming (thanks by the way to those who don't believe that humans are responsible for telling us that the climate has changed before: how do you guys know that? Oh yeah, the climate scientists told you). They are saying that (as I understand it) that the earth is warming up at a far far higher rate than has ever occurred up to this point, coinciding with humans dumping millions of tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Apologies if I've made any major errors there, but as far as I can see it's not rocket science.

Mr Cawley

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Can those who think it is a myth explain what happens to the 30 odd million tonnes of CO2 that are pumped into the atmosphere every year by human activity?

carbon cycle, converted in atmosphere and by also plants. it's a small part of the atmosphere in reality.

Vicxas

I think its bull, im sure humans arent helping, but i dont think we're solely to blame, the planet tilts and pivots, its bound to change climate once in a while ffs! Just wish ireland got more heat

iPlop

I think most of it is bull.It's about taxing at source and raising revenue.An admission of fake data

Monty Burnz

Mr Cawley wrote: »

carbon cycle, converted in atmosphere and by also plants. it's a small part of the atmosphere in reality.

Um...thanks for that answer, but I think we all know what the carbon cycle is. Can you demonstrate that this 30 million tonnes is in fact being absorbed by the world's (shrinking) forests? And if it is, how come the amount of CO2 in the air as a percentage is increasing?

Monty Burnz

Sink The Banana wrote: »

I think most of it is bull.It's about taxing at source and raising revenue.An admission of fake data

I don't hear anyone refuting the actual arguments behind human-caused global warming. I just hear 'I think it's BS'.

Not the strongest counter-argument, I would say.

biko

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

so my question is do you believe in this myth?

It's not a myth, it's true and you have no evidence to support your stance.
Did you post this thread here because its too crazy for conspiracy theories forum?

CMpunked

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I don't hear anyone refuting the actual arguments behind human-caused global warming. I just hear 'I think it's BS'.

Not the strongest counter-argument, I would say.

This is AH, personal opinions FTW!

Mr Cawley

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Um...thanks for that answer, but I think we all know what the carbon cycle is. Can you demonstrate that this 30 million tonnes is in fact being absorbed by the world's (shrinking) forests? And if it is, how come the amount of CO2 in the air as a percentage is increasing?

Your graph does show that ice age cycles are elongating anyway regardless of increased carbon, if i've looked at it right.


The earth will cool again, regardless of carbon policies.

Referring to my old point, climate is always changing and the purported doom due to carbon is biased due to potential revenues; it's too early for conclusive scientific proof.

Hence, reverting to cyclic theories.

The scare mongering among lay-people is excessive.

Monty Burnz

Mr Cawley wrote: »

Your graph does show that ice age cycles are elongating anyway regardless of increased carbon, if i've looked at it right.

You've lost me there, I didn't post a graph. [edit-I've gone back and put a graph into an earlier post - are you psychic? ]

Mr Cawley wrote: »

Co2 is increasing because of burning of fossil fuels, I think everyone accepts that.

The earth will cool again, regardless of carbon policies.

It will, and the earth will survive just fine. The question that bothers me are what will the consequences for human civilization be? Back to the stone age, anyone?

Mr Cawley wrote: »

Referring to my old point, climate is always changing and the purported doom due to carbon is biased due to potential revenues; it's too early for conclusive proof.

I agree - but then we don't have conclusive proof of a lot of things. We have no conclusive proof that the sun will rise tomorrow. We have no conclusive proof that we will crash our cars, yet we stump up for insurance.

I think being say 20% sure is pretty good reason to be concerned when the future of civilisation is at stake. And I imagine climate scientists are (on average) closer to 90% sure.

bobblepuzzle

biko wrote: »

It's not a myth, it's true and you have no evidence to support your stance.
Did you post this thread here because its too crazy for conspiracy theories forum?

Where's the proof that it's true? Give us the evidence... :rolleyes:

Kev_ps3

Its a smoke-screen to switch to other sources of energy before China/India and the rest of the world start using oil like we do.

eightyfish

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

Where's the proof that it's true? Give us the evidence... :rolleyes:

see the new scientist link a few posts ago.

bladespin

I find it very hard to believe humans could cause it, surely there would have been a much more dramatic and pronounced change to our climates after the industrail revolution, if you believe in CC then that would have been a catastrophic output of CO2 -to go from virtually nothing to outputs a thousand times more CO2 than even today, but yet they say the change is happening now, not in the 18th century.
The new scientist report is little more than opinion and reporting of (very) recent trends, the planet went through an ice age before and came out of it too, that would be considered significant climate change IMO too.

Monty Burnz

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

Where's the proof that it's true? Give us the evidence... :rolleyes:

You realise that there is no proof of the theory of gravity either?

Min

Man made climate change is a theory. Even a member of the Green party said he was only 90% sure it was real.

In the past the Earth had CO2 levels that were 5 times the current level, we did not end up with a runaway greenhouse effect.
The amount of CO2 has gone from around 280 parts per 1,000,000 to 385 parts per 1,000,000, or from 0.028% of the atmosphere to 0.0385% of the atmosphere.
In the past this was over 0.2%.

In the past we also had an ice free Arctic, this was before Panama was formed which closed off the access of the Pacific in that region to the Atlantic.
There is plenty of evidence that the Alps has more ice now than when the Romans ruled that area.
Low sunspot activity is associated with colder winters for this part of the planet.

Humans may be responsible for a tiny amount of warming but most of it is natural.

Monty Burnz

bladespin wrote: »

I find it very hard to believe humans could cause it, surely there would have been a much more dramatic and pronounced change to our climates after the industrail revolution, if you believe in CC then that would have been a catastrophic output of CO2 -to go from virtually nothing to outputs a thousand times more CO2 than even today, but yet they say the change is happening now, not in the 18th century.

Ok, here's a question for you: how much CO2 was being produced before the industrial revolution, how much do you think was produced 50, 100, 150 years into it? And how much is being used today?

The amount of C02 produced by humans has been rising spectacularly more or less every year since the industrial revolution started...link

Monty Burnz

Min wrote: »

Man made climate change is a theory.

Gravity is only a theory. Electromagnetism is only a theory. Evolution is only a theory. A 'theory' in science does not have the same meaning as it does in everyday speech.

If anything, this thread shows that science education in Ireland is failing. Smart economy my arse.

Min wrote: »

In the past the Earth had CO2 levels that were 5 times the current level, we did not end up with a runaway greenhouse effect.

I'm not concerned about runaway greenhouse effect. I'm just concerned about temperatures rising the few degrees that would result in human civilization being decimated. The world will be fine, we on the other hand won't.

Min

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Gravity is only a theory. Electromagnetism is only a theory. Evolution is only a theory. A 'theory' in science does not have the same meaning as it does in everyday speech.

If anything, this thread shows that science education in Ireland is failing. Smart economy my arse.


I'm not concerned about runaway greenhouse effect. I'm just concerned about temperatures rising the few degrees that would result in human civilization being decimated. The world will be fine, we on the other hand won't.

ok but you did not quote the bit where I said it was not 100% proven.

You think you are being smart? I am just stating some facts and some aspects of science.

If the Earth cooled 5 degrees we would be back in an ice age and be under 2 mile of ice.
There is no evidence the Earth is going to warm as much as some scientists said it would, they had a hockey stick graph, that is proven to be not accurate.
We were told by scientists who support the belief of man mae climare change that the Arctic would be ice free by 2013, this has been continously pushed out and no doubt will be again - currently pushed out to 2040.
When I was going to school, the climate scientists were telling us we were heading towards another ice age.

There are many aspects of the climate that the scientists do not understand, they can only work with what they know, guess on what they don't and then they put it all into supercomputers and it tells them that x is the result.
Given it is based on mathematics, the problem is some of the key figures are missing due to what I stated above - the scientists do not have a full understanding of the climate.

Monty Burnz

Min wrote: »

Given it is based on mathematics, the problem is some of the key figures are missing due to what I stated above - the scientists do not have a full understanding of the climate.

To be fair though, taking all your points into account (and scientists have to allow for all that if they are publishing in a peer-reviewed journal) I still think that climate scientists have a much better understanding of all this stuff than you or I do, and they overwhelmingly believe it to be true.

Ouchette

Min wrote: »

ok but you did not quote the bit where I said it was not 100% proven.

I am just stating some facts and some aspects of science.

Nothing is 100% proven. Not gravity, not the Earth going around the Sun, not even our existence. Doesn't mean there isn't massively overwhelming evidence for it though.

Min

Monty Burnz wrote: »

To be fair though, taking all your points into account (and scientists have to allow for all that if they are publishing in a peer-reviewed journal) I still think that climate scientists have a much better understanding of all this stuff than you or I do, and they overwhelmingly believe it to be true.

Well, you have scientists on both sides.

It is a bit like the Irish economy, you had some economists saying we would have a soft landing, others who were more concerned, one can now say the public were mostly listening to the wrong people.

I think the best thing for the climate would be to stop allowing the rainforests to be cut down and try and cut pollution which is something that should be done whether we are or are not affecting the climate.

jackiebaron

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

I believe it's all bull****, and a lot of people make a lot of money out of trying to prove the myth... so my question is do you believe in this myth?

Hasn't it already been proven.
Why would not-for-profit scientists say that it's a fact and "scientists" on the oil industry payroll deny it?

Monty Burnz

Min wrote: »

Well, you have scientists on both sides.

True. You but have about 98% of scientists on one side.

Min wrote: »

It is a bit like the Irish economy, you had some economists saying we would have a soft landing, others who were more concerned, one can now say the public were mostly listening to the wrong people.

Well, not quite - firstly because economics is not a science in the strict sense of the word. And secondly because if you actually look at the people who were telling us everything was fine, they were all being paid by banks, estate agency firms or other organisations with vested interests in fooling the public. The public should learn to distinguish between good advice and bad advice.

And for the record, I was flying against 'conventional wisdom' with the people who were predicting a crash 7 or 8 years ago.:(

Min wrote: »

I think the best thing for the climate would be to stop allowing the rainforests to be cut down and try and cut pollution which is something that should be done whether we are or are not affecting the climate.

Agreed.

wolfpawnat

Last I checked my gerbils aren't the ones turning on the gas heating. Nor are cats and dogs burning coal and fuel since the Industrial Revolution!

The Earth has had fluctuation in its temperatures, we have had Ice Ages in the past, but I really think humans have sped up the process with the hapless way we have used the primary resources of the world. We need to use more renewable sources and cut our dependency on fossil fuels!

smash

If you can control carbon, you can control the world. Everything we do produces carbon...

So what do governments do? Create a myth and tax the sh!t out of people based around the myth!