Are there really people who think global warming is a hoax?

I believe in global climate fluctuations, both naturally occuring and man-exacerbated.

However, I don't believe the version Al Gore, and his scientific payroll, are peddling.

There are millions of people who deny climate change and the subordinate corollary, warming, which is really selective warming.

None of them have read the literature in detail, none of them know the science, and they are pretty much all concentrated in the more ignorant parts of the United States.

And of course, there are the "long range" guys, who very correctly point out that the tilt axis history of the earth and other factors mean the long-term trend--say, 30,000 years or so--is toward another ice age.

Trouble is, I won't be around in 30,000 years, I read the long-term science, I saw the charts for the next fifty years, I read the statistics, and the data shows the polar ice caps disappearing at an astonishing and unprecedented rate.

Everything accumulates toward the poles. Now, that doesn't mean that in Ashtabula or Saskatchewan, it isn't colder, even for months at a time, than historically has been the case. Indeed, the science makes VERY clear there may be areas which are more characterized by increasing COLD weather rather than hot, and by weird precipitation and storm patterns.

There are scientists who make wishy-washy statements that the overall thesis is "flawed". These, the oil companies and the ultra-right construe to mean "Global Warming is Bunk" and suggest we should all start bonfires immediately to fly in the face of the non-commercial science and prove the "godless liberals" wrong.

Trouble is, all the climatologists and geographers who are legitimate AGREE. Human-caused climate change is HERE, and will damage us ALL within a lifetime.

The ones who claim otherwise are sometimes called "whores". That is a very crude but essentially accurate description.

This isn't really about "liberal" versus "conservative" or reactionaries or commies or your weird neighbor. It's about survival. I encourage everyone to examine the scholarly literature in detail. It varies with the balderdash that Limbaugh and other crackpots have been selling, under the direct financial impetus of those who are fueling the problems. And it is very solid.

How could I possibly not belive in global warming. I mean temperature has been on a decline in the last ten years or so and our carbon levels are as low as they've been since the time of the pilgrims. As well as the fact that HALF of the global warming formula has been guess at do to natural variable and some of the left over data is flawed do to measuring devices that actually have the arctic ice shelves INCREASING not decreasing. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_re_la_am... I'd be a fool not to believe that people in cars have destroyed the Earth in less than a century. I'd be forced to ignore our unseasonably cold winters, our unseasonably cold springs and summers and the snow fall in the Middle East.

After all Al Gore has a movie with cartoon polar bears dying, that's the hard proof that the scientific community needs.

Yes. You have to stop throwing the word "fact" around. There is not a lot of fact and a whole lot of conjecture on the issues of Man Made Global Climate Change. There is no provable scientific methodology demonstrated to "prove" this theory.

Science is not about "consensus" it is about proof. For many centuries, Scientific consensus was that the world was flat and that the earth was at the center of the solar system. All it took was solid scientific proof by a few scientists to prove it was not and what do you know? Suddenly, thousands of Scientists over thousands of years were wrong.

I really do not care how many scientists "believe" mankind is causing climate change. Where is the proof? It is just plain ridiculous to begin massive changes that cost trillions of dollars and waste valuable resources to address a problem that A) may not even be occurring B) may have nothing to do with CO2 emissions C) cannot be "fixed" no matter what anyone does.

I submit that believing in using florescent light bulbs or driving electric cars will change the global climate is just not reality.

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I do not think Global Warning is a hoax because where I live we used to get snow of up to 6 inches every Winter in January or February. The last very heavy snow and frost I can remember was in the 1970's Global warming is a fact.

However I think all the propaganda suggesting we can do something about it is somewhat suspect and when out beloved UK government increased petrol tax to help the environment (John Prescott) I think it said it all particularly when as far as I could see nothing was spent on the environment. i think that one act said it all.

However I would like to see us use less fossil fuels if only to make the air in our cities cleaner. That just seems sensible

Will you qualify supposed man made global warming from natural cycle global warming please because man made gw is a hoax and any global warming that is occurring is natural.

Not everything they teach you in school is correct or see on the news or hear on the radio or read on the Internet.

They say carbon is now a pollutant. How is this since everything that is alive is made of CARBON and CO2 is absorbed by green things called plants which then expel Oxygen which again supports life.

Edit: I have been hearing arguments for and against man-made global warming and here are some things physicist have to say about the earth and the climate.

As you know the Earth is in the orbit of the Sun. The Sun emits heat, radiation and solar winds. When all of this reaches the Earth the Earth is then warmed in relation to where the Earth is in relation to the Sun. The Earth spins on an axis that allows the Northern Hemisphere is opposite (closer for instance in the summer) than the Southern Hemisphere which causes "Seasons". In the summer when the correlating hemisphere is closer to the sun it is warm and just the opposite in the southern hemisphere. Ocean currents help propagate heat to different areas such as the gulf stream allows Great Britain, France, Portugal and Spain to have a warmer climate than the latitude that it sits on England is farther north than Maine) which allows people to habitat there without the harshness of New England winters. The Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans also absorb heat and create Typhoons, Hurricanes and not so powerful thunderstorms.

The Sun has activity measured by the amount of Sun Spots and as of right now the activity is as the lowest point since the 70s which indicates we are in th middle of a cooling period not a warming period as per last winters record breaking snowfall in much of the northern hemisphere and the Southern Hem. has the coldest recorded winter in it;s history last winter.

Ice at the south pole is increasing not decreasing and has not reached above 32 degrees this year.

The Earth is also influenced by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the Sun at the same time which can cause the Earth to be further from the Sun by 2-3 million miles which can cause climate change also. See examples of past ice ages which occur every 60k-100k years and man was not in the industrial age during the last ice age so it melted somehow. The Earth's orbit to the Sun is not perfect and the same every time around again due to the influence of the giant gas planets Saturn and Jupiter so again this influences the global climate. Another factor is the magnetic poles. The north pole which currently is magnetic north has changes to the south pole more than once again influencing the climate.

Now lets talk about plate tectonics. As you know the Earths Crust sits on top of lava and have changed from one giant landmass called Pangea to what we have now. The Andes mountains in South America in Peru have grown over the millinea thus cause the Desert to form by blocking rain from the Rain Forrest and the current from Antartica no longer goes up the coast (bringing rain) and now goes around Argentina thus changing the climate of South America as a whole.

I dont neccessarily believe that global warming is a hoax, but I do believe that the changes the earth is experiencing are natural occurrences. Every 3 thousand years or so the earth goes through a major climate change and we are now entering that era.

There is even evidence of pole shifts happening at unknown intervals that cause massive changes in earths magnetic field causing all tyes of natural disasters. I think people have more to worry about then how much pollution there putting into the air. things are a little more complicated then that.

Yes. Some people do believe it's a hoax. Most of these people, though, only think it because they have been around for so many different "scientifically proven" crisises that they're sick and tired of it. In the 70's there was supposed to be another ice age, which was also based on "scientific fact." while global warming is happening, the liberal media has heightened it to a crisis level...

I don't know much about global warming, but it seems to me that man isn't responsible. But im willing to listen to other arguments. As far as Horner being on the payroll of Exxon/Mobil, I don't know that he is, but the scientists you quote are probably on the payroll of someone like greenpeace, everyone has a salary my friends. They don't do it for free. I do know that for every scientist that says it's caused by man, another doesn't think so. That report the left always likes to quote, some of the scientits on it sued to get their names taken off of it, because they didn't agree with the summary, only the part they had written.

I find it a little hypocritical Jared for someone like yourself to go around calling people trolls when you purposely post questions attempting to provoke people, and then block them when they return the favor. Global warming and cooling has taken place for thousand of years, and that's the only scientific fact concerning this issue there is.

A lot of it has to do with Al Gore. People simply get offended by a man who tells them their lifestyle is wrong and even more so when he asks them to change it. But rather than realize that he is just one single man, and instead of hating this single man, they started to question the whole idea of man-made global warming in general. This is quite ridiculous, since he of course did not invent it and is not even a scientist, but people don't need an excuse to be ignorant.

There are a host of other reasons too. Some people enjoy the thrill of being different, of thinking they are smarter than the masses by not letting themselves get duped into something everyone else believes (many global warming deniers also believe 9/11 was a conspiracy).

Some people hate absolutely anything that has to do with being environmentally friendly (the older, very right wing conservative folks who have absolutely no idea what the environment even is or why it's important.)

Some people saw one minor error in some obscure aspect of global warming, and immediately felt every single part of global warming science is incorrect.

Some (actually a surprisingly high number of people) even think that the whole point in global warming is for people to take over the world. Who these people are, and how something as obscure as global warming will make that happen has never really been clarified.

Oh, and the final reason is that they say there is no concrete "proof" for it, as if global warming could somehow be proven in three steps like a geometry theorem. I've asked several times what exactly "proof" means to them, what it is they are waiting for, and not a single person has ever given me a concrete answer. I swear they are waiting for us to build a second planet Earth next to our own and conduct the 300 year experiment again, but even then I'm sure they'd find ways to criticize the results.