What do you think about global warming?

Global warming is overblown. The chief tellers of this spook story, Al Gore and Laurie David are amongst the wealthiest people on the planet. Do they walk or take the bus, do they live in little two-bedroom flats? Or do they travel by limo or jet and live in large fine homes? If they ain't practicing what they're preaching, should we really be believing?

If oil company scientists dispute global warming, wouldn't we question their motives? Shouldn't we also question the motives of scientists angling for government grants. And should we also question the motives of aspiring politicians.

Greenland was greener 1000 years ago, the Vikings settled and farmed there. At the same time England's wine industry exported to the continent. The cooling that led to the little ice-age put both out of business. Earth started warming up again about 150 years ago, prior to the rise in CO2. The climate changes, often very quickly, and without any help from us.

Global warming is a spook story, whose spread is abetted by the very industrialization it vilifies. Like any good spook story there is some grain of truth, but around that grain is a fat layer of baloney.

The problem with this spook story is that it is meant to frighten us into doing something stupid like handing over power to self appointed experts who will decide for us how we should live. It's the same scare story retold over and over in human history. It's an impending catastrophe, we must act now, and we need to give power to a few so they can solve the problem. Isn't that how the Iraq war got started?

What should we do about global warming? How about don't allow ourselves to be frightened by this or any other spook story told by politicians who want power over our lives.

The issue of global warming is serious and deserves media attention, but the severity of it is definitely NOT exaggerated.

The science behind global warming is based on facts and real data people; what else do you need before you believe that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, which trap increasing amount of heat as the concentration in atmosphere goes up? The measurement of atmospheric CO2 concentration has been steadily going up for as long as we have data. Knowing that it traps heat based on science, it is not hard to make the connection.

Global warming is not entirely caused by people, but what we do here on Earth has really made it a lot more severe than what it would have been without us. Human activities have already caused too many imbalance in the ecosystems here on Earth and you smart people know what they are. Global warming is not reversible but what we do can slow it down by reducing the carbon footprint of each and everyone of us.

A lot of skeptics say the same thing: you can't prove it that GW is caused by human. Well, think about this: for a long time the tobacco industry claimed that smoking was not proven to cause lung diseases, until it was proven...

Mike, you ask some good questions.

There is a considerable amount of data that people will link to you that will support their biased opinions.

I've read it all, and I stay objective (choice of careers).

Yes, global warming is real. It's also very natural.

Yes, humans can influence global warming. All GW is influenced by something.

Yes, The affects are of GW is irreversible. The earth has natural fail -safe methods of correcting any influence.

Yes, the media, environmentalist, bureaucratic government, and profit seekers have over blown GW. They all stand to gain from the global warming scare, and when our planet naturally starts it's cooling trend, I'm certain that they will not fail to take credit.

What can you do? When the cooling correction happens, and it will, please remember you were forewarned.

Lets start by asking these questions.

1 Who do you trust?

I will leave the first one to others for debate.

2 This is science and what counts is the data!

Data can be incomplete, left out, ignored, manipulated and

missed altogether.

3 Who is interpreting the data?

What is their agenda, money for more research, power,

control of others, special government regulation which

will require industry to purchase a company's expensive

product?

4 Follow the money.

This usually will tell who the real players are.

5 What is the speaker's financial interest in the point being

presented?

This on may be harder to determine. May be less direct

such as; I got mine, so, keep others out!

I hate to be such a cynic but I have heard that the polar ice caps on Mars are melting. Does that mean that Mars has global warming and man is responsible for this mars effect?

I think the earth has warmed mostly by natural cause and a little by human influence. Global warming is definitely overblown by the media. I think we are in the peak of a warming period and getting ready to enter a cooling period. I don't think we should try to reverse GW, but I do think we should get away from fossil fuels and any other form of pollution.

Well, here is what I have to say. I know for a fact that humans cause global warming, but only 10-20% comes from humans. The other percentage happens over time. Global warming should be happening over time.

Real, mostly caused by us, and a serious problem.

The proof, from all angles, is massive so this will be long. And the real proof is in the links, one of which is a thousand pages long.

This is science and what counts is the data.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate...

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

summarized at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It's (mostly) not the sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2...

And the first graph above shows that the sun is responsible for about 10% of it. When someone says it's the sun they're saying that thousands of climatologists are stupid and don't look at the solar data. That's ridiculous.

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html

There's a large number of people who agree that it is real and mostly caused by us, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy". Just three examples of many:

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/ho...

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

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

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570...

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/

http://www.realclimate.org/

"climate science from climate scientists"

Mike,

We made a mess in space and we need to clean it up. If you go to coolingearth.org you will see our mess and how to clean it up. When asked how we pay to reduce GW, I respond, "we will spend 3 trillion dollars over the next 10 years-we have the choice of getting it right or wrong." The Government thinks we need to build 290 coal power plants over the next 20 years at 500MW-I think this is wrong way to spend $.

Yes, I believe it, all of it, and it will probably happen, due to litter, and pollution. And the sad thing is, it's almost irreversible, but not yet, only if the government and its people make the change, along with the world.

No, that's ridiculous. We're ruining Earth. For details, view my source.

The only way we can stop global warming is if people accept that it's real and we're doing it- and conciously make efforts to stop it.