Why do people deny global warming?

What I deny is Anthropogenic Global Warming and the idea of runaway global warming. I don't deny that we humans have polluted our environment. Look at China for an example of that. Their air pollution consists of Ozone, Carbon Monoxide, Sulfur Dioxide and a few other things humans weren't meant to breath. The interesting thing I noticed was that CO2 wasn't even mentioned in the news report I saw about China's air quality problem.

I also noticed how much people on here try to twist things for their own agenda. Like taking the 1980 satellite infrared images and putting them along side the 2008 images.

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?...

Instead of looking at the fact the Arctic is rebounding from last years major melt.

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?...

My guess is the problem with people wanting to be right so badly that they'll keep a theory alive even when it's starting to be proven wrong.

What we need to do is start focusing on things we can influence such as oil and gas prices, looking for alternative energy sources (not ethonol.) cleaning up the real pollution in our back yards and stop being blind sided by something we don't have any control over such as the overall climate of the planet we live on.

They don't ignore global warming, they ignore that the human-induced carbon-dioxide (CO2), should be the root of all evil in this case. The earth has always been warming up, and cooling down over and over again, in jurassic time-period fx, it was much warmer than it is today. Even in the medieval times we had a period looong period of warmer climate. In the 70's everyone feared global cooling, and the threat of a new ice-age, because the graph on global temperature had been going drastically downwards after a period where the temperature had been increasing. Furthermore the temperature has since the year 2000 been going downwards again. I just think we have to accept that these climate changes have always been going on, and will keep going on and on and on forever. People deny that CO2 is the greatest sinner of all time, because it simply is against the human logic, when you have a lot of knowledge. Most people just believe what they hear, when it's someone of high authority saying it, because they don't have any background knowledge at all, other than "it's a greenhouse gas". That said, I'm happy to see have this fuzz over us, so that the scientist and engineers will get on with the development in the field of alternative energy. Because nomatter the global warming, we're running out of oil and choal, which there's tons of bad things to say about other than the CO2 produced when burning it.

I deny it mainly for reasons like China just having experienced it's coldest winter in 100 years and this being the coolest summer (where I am) I can ever remember.

Just silly little things like that.

Believe me, I'm into the environment as much as anyone (even named my son after a kind of tree), but I just haven't seen any real enduring proof.

*Just between you and me, doesn't this controversy seem eerily like the evolution debate? Hmm. Politics and big money are heavily involved, so the truth is not easily divined through the corrupted liberal media. Yes, it's up to each of us to find the truth on our own. As usual.

We learned a lot from the oil embargo in the early 70's didn't we, we ignored looking for other energy sources, we ignored drilling more wells here and off shore, we imported about 30% of our oil then.....now we import 70+% of our oil...

And we still are not learning, we continually hear "but it will take 7-10 years for the oil to come in from new wells", it's been 30+ years since we started hearing that.....what have we done except import more and more...

We as a population are too arrogant to stop, look and realize our own stupidity....

The proof is in, we know what CO2 does, the question is how long before the "runaway" effect begins, we "will" wait until it is answered and then it may be too late to care....

Look at Venus twice as far from the sun as Mercury yet it is hotter than Mercury, it's atmosphere is saturated with CO2...

They don't want to be responsible, so they pass the buck. Only thing old people have done for the future generation thus far.

with or without man's involvement it would have occurred anyway, or at least environmental change would still have occurred... the problem is we can't say for certain what damage has occurred and what the effects really are.... the ozone is said to repair itself... species have always died out and been replinished by others, its just hard to say what things would be like when we don't have a viable historical working model to go on that actually corresponds to what is actually occurring

I am certain that the reason is that the majority are stupid people who blindly believe anything they're told without thinking for themselves.

As far as the few who've thought about it and still don't believe, maybe they're right!

People deny global warming because they don't want the thought in there head that in a couple of decades we will all die.. I know that sounds really harsh but it it somewhat true, people think that nobody is doing anything so they themselves don't do anything in turn which results in denying the fact of global warming.

I hope this answers your question,

David R.

I'd say that 90% of people who deny this are just going along with another 5%, who are officials from the Republican party who don't want to let the Democrats attract voters with a strong environmentalist agenda. Further, these 5% are basing their beliefs on the remaining 5% - scientists who are ultra skeptic and/or have been paid off.

Because it's a myth generated by environmental feelgood-ism fostered by aging hippies who crept in to our schools of higher learning. Recorded weather patterns and temperatures haven't been accumulated long enough for this theory (untested hypothesis) to be credible. It's as ludicrous as me blaming Annabel Gurwitch for contributing to rising temperatures because I think she's HOT.