Do you believe climate change is a looming problem?

Where is your heads. Are all of you Yes's Scientis? You still believe what Gore is saying to you as he gets richer off people like you. What about his carbon footprint. He will NOT have a debate with a real Scientist. What a coward. WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD CLIMATE CHANGE. FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS OUR CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN CHANGE. Get real people.

You can call it Global Climate Change or not, but the one thing I do know is that the climate is changing.

But people like being clueless, those who do, so we will continue to have simple-minded talks about what to do if we are looking for consensus -- not likely to happen. Or the people who are doing the work now can just continue to do so, and the deniers will be safe too. No brighter probably, but safe.

as well as population growth

Why doesn't anyone talk about the advantages that come with a warmer environment. Longer growing seasons, higher average rainfall, the reverse of desertification, ect...

Because there is still too much downside. If that didn't come with it, you are right, that could work, but till desalination machines stand on every corner like convenience stores, that might be a problem with the rising seas.

Carbon dioxide is 394 parts per million in the atmosphere, it is a piss poor greenhouse gas. The real culprit of the greenhouse effect of our atmosphere is one you have seen directly. Water. Ever notice how clouds keep it warmer at night compared to nights with clear skies. They can't blame water though because people would laugh at them. Instead they completely ignore the effect of atmosperic water in temperature models. I don't deny climate change but we have historical record showing climate change before the industrial revolution. The climate will change you can't stop it. The sea levels rise and fall. The sea levels have been higher and lower than present you can't stop it. Sea level rise has been happening since the end of the last ice age 13k yrs ago. Look at all the antiquity sites that are underwater. Did the Egyptians build Alexandria underwater? Was Venice built in the ocean? Many of these sites are underwater because the sea has been rising for thousands of years. You can't ignore the evidence that before the last ice age it was warmer and wetter than it is today. 1100 years ago it was warmer than it is today. In the 1930's it was warmer than it is today. Just look at the Viking settlements that are found in Greenland. They were farming where there is permafrost today. They buried their dead in ground that archeologist have to use power equipment to dig up, because the permafrost is damn near as hard as concrete. Get ready for nicer winters.

All right, but we are escalating it, and we are not prepared.

How??? Carbon dioxide doesn't drive warming. If we had 10 times the CO2 in the atmosphere, as we have in the past, it wouldn't appreciably cause any warming. Carbon dioxide just isn't an effective greenhouse gas. Mars would be alot warmer if it was. It has an atmosphere of 95.38% carbon dioxide.

Okay, so there are many arguments regarding this. This book I felt, was especially helpful, and free to download the Pdf if interested, as it explains it better than I ever could. It is an excellent though lengthy book on all the subjects relating to global destabilization and sustainability, and used in the online course at the University of Illinois. http://cnx.org/content/col113... It is a great course free to anyone, through coursera.org, or com, can't remember now. Lots of free classes over there. This one was pretty time intensive, but worth it.

You have to buy into the illusion that the Earth environment is a stable system. It is not. If it was a stable system it would be a dead system like Mars. There are so many factors in the environment that the prediction of weather beyond a week is nearly impossible. They can't tell you what the climate will be like next year, but you want to believe they can predict it decades or centuries in the future? The Earth is a dynamic system asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions that blow more polutants into the atmosphere than produced by mankind in our species history have failed to destabilize the environment beyond recovery. As far as sustainability Malthus calculated that the planet would reach its carrying capacity a hundred years ago. Technology keeps pushing out the boundaries of sustainability.

True about Malthus' calculations. Too many factors in that 650 page book to discuss, but I get your point of view, however there are others that make sense too. Your perspective choice is yours.

Climate change is a fact and has been for the 4.5 Billion year history of the planet. We have been in the current warming cycle since the last Ice Age. Is man adding to the speed of the cycle? Most likely but the planet is going to warm with or without us. The average mean temperature of the earth is actually allot warmer then it is right now.
Of all the animals on this planet only man seeks to change the environment for his own purposes and we are not doing a very good job of it.

When I was in elementary school in the 70s, the mantra was "save the planet from global cooling" They warned a new Ice Age was coming. Then when my children were in elementary school, it was "Global Warming" We have to stop global warming.

Now, since the facts show the global temperatures are on a cooling trend, it is now just called climate change.

Can anyone tell me exactly what is the ideal temperature for the earth? Once you can tell me exactly what it should be, then we can talk about trying to ask how arrogant you have to be to think that we could do some of what scientists have proposed to mess with the climate without screwing up and having unintended consequences.

Add that to the emails from the "scientists" admitting they were fudging the data and all the other fraudulent acts surrounding it and the scientists that don't believe it is a man-made problem and you end up with no proof, just a lot of hype.

This is a method of controlling business, shutting down businesses that they don't like (Obama admitting he was going to put coal out of business through carbon taxes) and messing with capitalism in general.

I believe climate change is a problem but I do not believe that it is man made.

I voted yes not because there is a problem with the climate.. but because of the idiots who desire to destroy the economy .. taxing the crap out of everyone and pretty much putting the global community back into the dark ages

I just experienced climate change today!!! Yesterday, it was 50 degrees outside, today it is 38. Oh noes!!!

Does climate change exist? Sure, otherwise our planet would not have experienced ice ages or such. Is it manmade? Hardly.

Look back to the Medieval Warm Period between 950 to 1250 AD. This was a case of warmer climate about where we are now. No cars, no electricity, none of that. What caused it? Or how about the Little Ice Age from 1350 to 1850? Again, a recent climate change that is all natural.

The MWP and LIA were natural, as were all previous ice ages, interglacials etc. We've only become the dominant influence on global climate in the last century or so.

Right, so over 4+ billion years, all climate change was "natural" but now over the last century all changes to climate are a result of human activity and absolutely not because of anything natural.

This is of course, not considering that as animals and part of the ecosystem everything humans do IS part of nature...

Sorry, the whole notion that the planetary and solar systems that control the Earth's climate went on cruise control 100 years ago is beyond absurd.

Where did you get that ridiculous idea from? Natural forces still exist, it's just that our influence is now substantially stronger than any of them - it overwhelms them. According to most studies, the rapid global warming we've caused since mid-20th Century actually offsets what would otherwise have been a small natural cooling trend.


Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate - Meehl et al 2004: http://www.cawcr.gov.au/staff...

I got it by reading what you wrote! I got it from you! (humorous play on drug commercial)

Your graph cuts off before the 2000s. Any warming that we have had has leveled off since the early 2000s.

I reject the premise "our influence" is stronger than any natural sources when it comes to climate. Let's look at CO2 for example. This is the bogey man of climate science. Humans contribute 6 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. There is something like 720 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere already. That's like worrying about flooding the river by spilling a bottle of water in it.

I said "dominant influence" if you recall, not "sole influence". See the distinction?

Unfortunately the planet warmed twice as fast in the last decade as in the previous two - that's why we keep having record melt of Arctic sea ice, mountain glaciers, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. It's why global sea level is rising faster than ever.

We have added around 1,200,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere - that's compared to 2,189,600,000,000 tons in total in the atmosphere prior to the industrial revolution, i.e. 54%. Luckily, due to partial absorption by the oceans and surface biosphere, CO2 has only risen by 40%... but that's bad enough.

The earth goes in cycles~ we are so arrogant as to believe we are in charge of it~ I too, remember being told we were to have another ice age when I was a child.

Yeah, yeah. I remember that too. We can't tell for sure if it is going to rain or snow 10 days out, but man we sure know that manmade global warming is a thing!

As demonstrated with ClimateGate, the whole notion of manmade global warming is a hoax. The IPCC is admitting it now.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/20...

Don't forget that there of been glaciers as far south as what is now Mexico. The polar caps have been where NYC is now, the magnetic field have switched many times the oil and coal we dig out of the depths was once a rainforest on the surface. What melted the glaziers, more then a few times??? WAKE UP KIDS YOU HAVE BEEN BOONDOGGLED BAMBOOZELED HOODWINKED LIED TO AND STOLEN FROM and you don't know it. REMEMBER AL GORE WAS ONLY A MILLIONAIR WHEN HE LEFT OFFICE NOW HE IS WORTH HUNDRES OF MILLIONS. He ,Soros, GE and some other CHARLITANS have bought up millions of acres of Brazilian rainforest because each tree is a carbon credit that you a home owner will have to buy if you use more then your allotment of carbon units. WE ARE BEING FLEECED,CAP AND TRADE WILL EXIST IN THE FUTURE and will make a few enormously rich at the sheepole expense.

You're the one who's been hoodwinked - by the architects of the global warming denial scam.

Oh your a SHEEPEL please go back to the mall and play with your friends.

If you trust a creep like Al Gore and George Soros Then you have been BAMBOOZELED
BY THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM

200 years of science confirmed by decades of observations... no I don't think the scientists are wrong. By all means have a go at proving them wrong, if you can.

bahhhaa bahhhaa
200 years wow that's like not even a blink of the eye. Don't forget The hockey stick scientist backed off of his calculations.
don't fly to close to the sun now son

We should take better care of the planet but cc is also attributed to cycles

That there are natural cycles simply does not preclude human activity from impacting the environment, even the climate.

True. But how much?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Note that sunspot number increase with solar irradiance, and while solar irradiance has dropped of during the twentieth century Temperature continue to rise even though previously temperature was sensitive to solar variation. Which suggests something else is happening, like CO2 levels increasing forcing(the amount of warming that is consequential for a given factor in this case CO2).

Interesting but why the decrease in sunspots? Isn't that also a disturbing trend? Is our sun dying out?

The sun has it owns cycles. Perhaps, but not relevant to the observed effects seen on Earth.
As the sun ages, the long trend is for it to get hotter as internal pressures increase and fusionable hydrogen depletes, eventually it will cool and explain engulfing the earth, before producing a nova explosion in about 5 billion years, we should should be fine for the next 2 billion - if we don't screw things up or endure some other calamity.

Thanks - good info

Apply Pascal's wager to climate change. Which is worse; acceptance of global warming and it turns out the changes are a scam or denial of any changes and the Earth gets cooked?

The scam is far more dangerous. Higher global temps are hardly catastrophic. Trying to control CO2 is just an excuse to control human activity and redistribute the wealth from richer democratic nations to poor third world dictatorships, while the insiders get rich off the carbon credit trading exchanges.