With all of the talk about global warming, is it possible that this is a natural cycle of the earth?

The overwhelming affect of climate change is due to "mother nature" (ie, ocean currents, atmospheric gas changes, solar radiation, etc.).

Humans know that there have been radical climate changes over the history of the planet. The changes have been from extreme cold to extreme warmth. These are natural changes the planet undertakes.

Even since people have been recording temperatures (only about 150 years) we have seen swings in climate. Since the industrial revolution we have still experienced decades where it has warmed and decades where it has cooled.

There is no clear scientific data that proves humans are having any affect on climate and/or temperature changes.

Of those scientists that believe humans have some impact on the warming of the planet most of them say it is probably around one half of one degree Celsius. Again, this is a guess and there is no scientific method that can prove it.

Now, all that being said. Even if the planet is warming and even if humans have something to do with it, what is the harm? Why is global warming assumed to be a huge problem? A warmer climate gives rise to longer crop growing seasons, larger crop yields, more hospitable living conditions for humans, etc. More people die from cold than die from heat. Would we rather have global cooling?

You have to take everything with a grain of salt. Whether the planet is warming or cooling the fact is humans have little to do with it. Whether the planet cools or warms humans will adapt.

We simply can not put our economy, our standards of living and our future at risk to try to combat something that we can not change and something that isn't a problem anyways.

Only continuing to invest, invent and move forward will we be able to overcome whatever will present itself to us in the future.

1) The average global temperature is increasing. Probably though the data is very much skewed to the northern hemisphere and especially N. America 2) Any global temperature increase is due to natural cycles only. Any significant global increase is probably due to natural cycles. 3) Mars is warming so any warming on Earth is due to the sun. Again any significant warming 4) In the 1970's the alarm was about global cooling. Irrelevant except that it shows the alarmist are always there and interestingly it is essentially the same group of people that are still alarmists. 5) Volcanoes contribute as much, if not more, to global warming than humans do. Probably true. There are also other natural sources that are little understood. For example, you cannot tell me how much methane migrates upward and is released through the soil. Don't even try, any numbers you give won't mean anything. 6) Levels of the so called 'greenhouse gases' are increasing. Yes. They have been for thousands of years. Some global warming hysteric tried to blame that on humans as well though I don't think it would explain previous cycles. Humans have probably added some, maybe 50 parts per million. Is this what has caused the earth to warm since the 70s then why did it cool in the 40s to 60s? Thank you for your time.

That is exactly what it is...Global warming is a farce by liberals just like global cooling was in the 70's.....It's just the earth going through its own natural cycles and at the moment we are going through a natural warming period....Scientists recently said that even if everyone in the US stopped driving cars for the next 50 years, the actual change in temperature would only amount to 1--700th of a degree over those 50 years....Not much of a change considering what everyone would have given up over those 50 years..

No, the way things are going it is obvious that it is caused by things we are doing. The many years of use of aerosol cans, unknowingly caused such a rift in the ozone that we know of no way to fix. This is not something that is natural, that is man-made. We have done too much with our use of too much natural energy, or our over use in many ways to natural fuels,, the burning of oils and coal to create CO2, which forms the Greenhouse effect, which causes the whole idea of global warming. This is our fault, not something that is a natural cycle, it is something we have created. We don't have to look past the last 100 years to know it's not a natural cycle of the earth. It's not a cycle of the earth following in the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

Yes, It is very possible. The thing is, us humans are still putting way too much pollution into the air, whether you believe in Global Warming or not. A natural cycle of the earth's temperatures would not be as drastic as I believe they are right now. I think Global Warming AND a Earth's natural cycle both have an effect on the Earth's temperatures.

When you throw money at scientists and then provide incentives for certain outcomes, like the Natural Selection, those theories that produce scenarios where further research or action is required will be favored. Those scenarios that don't get ignored for obvious reasons. So what you end up with is a bunch of scientific theories presenting gloom and doom and we are all going to die scenarios unless we give this or that scientist more money for additional study or if we don't follow some social or political agenda. Science has very little to do with man caused global waming. It is a phenomena manufactured by an agenda driven media and political movement.

There are natural cycles of temperature change throughout the earths history. These have actually been measured for the past tens of thousands of years using carbon dating. The truth is that CO2 is proven to absorb electromagnetic radiation and trap heat in the earths atmosphere.

You are right though, the argument for global warming is incomplete but there are enough pieces of evidence to suggest we MAY be having a negative impact on our atmosphere.

I personally doubt that it is a natural cycle of the earth for reasons explained below: 1) When industrial age came about no one was the wiser about how it would aventually impact the earth. 2) It wasn't until recently that environment studies showed how global warming was even occurring. 3) As of now we're not even sure if what we do to help save the environment will eventually turn back some of the damage done over time. With luck we all can make a difference If we try.

Yes, check back more than a few Hundred yRS, it is just that the natural warming trend is happening in our imediately life time and we are not knowing what to expect.. The chemicals and ozone,holes, and all the rest does have an effect on the warming, but there were no factories, cars etc millions of yrs ago and the warming trend occured anyway, Modern people of today never had the experience to really see what really happens in nature. and they panic.

When this first became an issue I was of the same assumption. I even went as far as to research and place the "cycles" the earth goes through from "Ice Ages" to tropical climates. I even had the argument that the amount of heat radiated by the sun from severely overshadows the minimal increase in temp from greenhouse gases. In recent time though I have started to review the evidence that scientist after scientist provide and it's becoming more evident that the green house gases are having a greater and greater effect. When an entire panel of today's top scientist all agree that it is happening (and they don't agree on very much) then there may be some merit to it. The Earths atmosphere is becoming a great big magnifying glass/ thermal insulator. We need to accept that we need to change our game plan or end up having to manage the problems of our environment's adapting to this phenomenon.