kenArchi Loc: Seal Beach, CA

Didn't global warming begin about 15,000 years ago with the melting of glacial ice which covered most of the northern continents?

We weren't even here then to have started it.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Are you trolling or just being willfully ignorant of the current science-based consensus on the impact of humans on the changing climate?

Stan

14kphotog Loc: Marietta, Ohio

And BIG volcanoes don't spew out any bad gas ? Oh I guess the big one in the southern Pacific did not put out more in 4 days than we do in 4 years.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Science doesn't work by "consensus! Let us take a look at that consensus and the Climate History as it is known.

First, we keep hearing “greatest changes in history”! All of history? – Since humans have been around? – Recorded history? – The speaker’s lifetime? – Or the speaker’s immediate recall/memory? Anyone who thinks they know all the extremes of the climate/weather in all of history is a fool or very ignorant. (Well they might be a liar with an agenda.)

The “consensus” claim that "97% of all scientists believe in man made global warming” (Man is the major factor in global warming.) started with a 2009 American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of a two question online survey by two researchers at the University of Illinois. A master’s candidate and said candidate’s faculty adviser. Since then many have jumped on the bandwagon and repeated it.

That survey asked only two questions:
1. “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” multiple choice. Pick one of the three.
Few would answer anything but “risen” because the world has been warming since the “Little Ice Age” ended between the late 18th and the mid 19th century (depends on whose data you pick). This is mostly before the main part of the Industrial Revolution’s spread around the world and the world population got so much bigger. (Reached 1 Billion in 1800s.) And the Little Ice Age itself was an interruption of a warming trend that started at the end of the last great continental glaciation aprx 11,500 years ago. Actually many who study that sort of thing say we are in between periods of major glaciers called an “Inter-glacial Period”. That means we are in one of the warm interruptions of an Ice Age - they even have a name for the Ice Age we are presently in: Late Cenozoic Ice Age and it started aprx 3 million years ago - a baby, the shortest known before was about 10x as long. Remember the earth and climate (and Sun) change on geologic time, not human time/life spans.

2. “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing* mean global temperatures?” Yes or No (not as bad as the Yes or No “Have you stopped beating your wife?” but close)
* What constitutes “significant”? It is an ambiguous and relative term. Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? Does it include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation/planting tree farms or only industrial etc?
A They sent out 10,257 surveys by e-mail.
B. They got back 3,146 (30.6%)
C. 77 of those were by scientists who got 50% or more of their papers published in peer reviewed Climate Science journals in the previous year. This qualified them as “climate scientists” by the rules for the study. (2.4% of all that replied .75% of all surveys sent out) But what about scientists who write/publish in multiple fields so that less than 50% of their papers meet this criteria but they are considered “climate scientists” by their peers? Don’t they count?
D. 75 of them answered Yes to question #2 = 97.4% - 75 repeat 75 of 77, of 3,146 of 10,257.
And yes I have seen different numbers for this survey, but not different by more than a small number and I had to pick numbers to use.

sourdough58 Loc: Maine

Thank you, This is precisely how I feel and know to be scientifically proven to be true. If not for globel warming most of the earth would still be covered with mile thick glacial ice. The melting glacial ice and its movement formed our mountains and lakes. This is proof we can see right now.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I think the question is: do you believe that adding large quantities of various gasses associated with the production and combustion of fossil fuels can change the chemical makeup of the atmosphere in a measurable way and have an effect on our climate and temperatures? Yes or no?

And an additional but related question is: do you believe the supply of fossil fuels is infinite? And if the answer is no, what is your plan to allow transportation of goods and food and not freezing to death in the dark (short of moving near the equator and returning to a pre industrial society)?

Even if your answer to the first question is no, unless you’re living in Wonderland, you must realize the answer to the second is no, and we MUST change our energy infrastructure to a sustainable model. We may not be forced to do it this generation, but we should certainly be making workable long term solutions for our dependents. If we do those things, then any contribution by humanity to climate change is negated automatically, and having removed that variable, we will eventually know the answer to the first question and left a workable energy infrastructure for our children, so what’s the downside? To me, this approach seems much more workable and mature than arguing the cause.

Griff Loc: Warwick U.K.

robertjerl

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Much of the climate change debate is based on what people who flunked 8th-grade science think, the same people who discredit the warning on the cigarette pack. Soon in spite of Big-Oil, Clean-Coal [!!??] and political contributions [bribery] the question of carbon dioxide will shortly be moot, an irrelevant question, a matter of little importance.

On man, Elon Musk, has lit the fire under auto and truck manufacturers and the Battery Powered Auto will be king. Considering energy in general, Safe Solar with batteries, wind with Batteries, Nuke safe power utilizing Thorium reactors** will be the surviving sources. Oil is presently a glut on the market
-------------------------
**For those unaware, a quick read:
https://www.power-eng.com/2019/08/13/is-thorium-the-fuel-of-the-future-to-revitalize-nuclear/#gref

These reactors were successful in the 50-60s but did not make material for bombs so Nixon ordered that the existing units be destroyed and all information be destroyed. Those who worked on the project hid one reactor and kept the information at their homes for many years and then came together to bring these reactors back to the world.

The long history 52 pages:
https://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Understanding%20the%20Atom/Thorium%20and%20the%20Third%20Fuel.pdf

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

Are you trolling or just being willfully ignorant of the lack of current evidence on the impact of humans on the changing climate?

Consensus is not science, and the ‘overwhelming consensus’ is a junk poll.

This has all been demonstrated here before.

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

Nicely put!

srt101fan

srt101fan

Serious request: I admit to having limited knowledge of the scientific basis for the claims made by both sides of this issue. Could you cite references that support the claim that there is no human-caused contribution to global warming?

Curtis_Lowe Loc: Georgia

That is a very clever question!

The proper one (I think) is what is the controlling influence on our climate? and do secondarily influences contribute a measurable difference?

Our variable sun and our variable orbit and tilt have the influence we can measure

Watash

Great comment!!!! 2 people agreeing on something may be a consensus but that doesn't make it fact.
Man-made climate change? It was happening before man appeared on earth. There was a consensus once upon a time that the earth was flat. How did that turn out?

pendennis

One thing to be considered is the fact that geological ice ages are cyclic, about 10K-15K years between them. If this cycle holds to history, we're now on the tail end of the "non-ice age" era. There will likely begin a new ice age within the next 5K years.

People also seem to ignore the greatest factor in weather, and that's the jet stream. How fast it moves and how far south or north it varies, makes a huge difference in weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere. The westerly Asian jet stream in October is the bellwether for our winter weather in North America.

A cold front coming in from Canada in the last few days, has pushed the tropical storms resulting from Hurricane Sally south (Washington, D.C., etc.), keeping it from coming north.