Ice ages, melt downs... Are we driving a climate change? Or is the Earth doing it?

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The climate can change naturally, or humans can cause it to change.

We have a good understanding of the natural causes, and none of them can explain the recent warming. Human emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels can. See the link below for a summary of the scientific evidence....Show more

I really wish I had an answer for your question but the truth is I don't think in reality it could be answered. The reason I say that is because no one can predict anything. All the scientific thoughts and people worries are not going to change what we have coming at us. The earth is going to do what it does because it wants to and it can. I do believe personally we are responsible in some way but who's to say what the earth would be like if we weren't responsible. I will ask you this tho, based on whats happening does this make the world more interesting or scary?...Show more

I think the answer is both.
There is no denying that the Earth goes through climate change, ice ages, warming, cooling and sea level changes on a regular basis. We are currently in a cycle of natural warming, and the ice caps are suffering a natural melt.
However, human behaviour is altering the rate that this is happening. We have sped it up and affected the natural balance. Who is to say that the changes we have fed into the system won't screw the whole lot up completely? The rate of change is also accelerated.

Humans and animals have indeed lived through these changes before, but you need to remember there were a hell of a lot less of us back then!

The Earth will go on whatever happens, as indeed will life. However I expect unless we change our ways we will not be part of that life in another 5000 years.

EDIT: Andy, are you then content to sit back and wait for that incontrovertible truth before we act? If so by then I am sure it will be too late. It is a fact that man has polluted the Earths air & water, and continues to do so. We have covered the planet in our junk and all the other species are paying the price. Whether global warming is caused by us or not we have commited enough other environmental crimes and it is time we took some responsibilty....Show more

the earth was covered with a cloud of water vapor. People lived hundreds of years because of protection from the suns rays. I believe the earth captured the moon a long time ago which tilted on the axis at 23.5 degrees and caused the great flood recorded by all civilizations. The big question is why the moon does not spin and constantly faces the Earth. When the Earth became tilted the ice caps formed from the new seasons and the great floods. It is not understood how the sun functions in relation to the earths climate. we do know there was a great flood. The best I can figure is the Legend of Atlantis must be true. I'll take Aristotloes word any day. The earth expands and contracts; much like the tides of the ocean. We should try to not pollute however we can not live our lives without envoloping

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The human population is growing at a faster than exponential rate and has been doing so for the last century, this means that there are now many many more people then ever before at any point in the past, also these people are using much more energy, fuel, food and water per person than ever before and this use is growing. People have lived through climate changes before, it is thought that the drop in sea level caused by an ice age allowed our ancestors to leave africa by routes which were previously blocked off. But it seems that in this case the global warming is as a result of increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (among other things) caused by human activity.

If you look at the surface of the planet almost all of it shows the signs of human actions, is it so hard to imagine that the sky would show similar signs if we could see them...Show more