Is global warming all a media hype or is it really happening?

Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.

• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

Global warming has been observed using over a dozen different tests I can think of (thermometers, satellites, weather balloons, sea level, tropopause height, seasonal arrival times, animal migrations, melting ice, expanding tropical Hadley cell, boreholes, ice cores, outgoing radiation etc).

So it's pretty much beyond doubt that it has occurred. Other research has concluded that human activity is the most likely cause.

As for polar bears; there is some discussion over that. In some places where melting has happened a lot, polar bears seem to be doing quite badly and populations are going down. 1 or 2 populations are increasing though. This may be explained by how there is still ice, and melting/thinning ice gives them more area to hunt in. To be honest, the impression I've got is that polar bears are doing ok at the moment and it'll be decades before they might see serious decline.

People who concentrate on the imminent destruction of the species are probably exaggerating.

Vastly exaggerated. There has been about one degree of warming since the end of the little ice age around 1850. That's it.

People like Dana 1981 (above) make claims such as "polar bears need sea ice" to hunt with the strong implication that less sea ice will lead to the extinction of polar bears. But here's the thing: polar bears as a species have been around for a very long time - they have survived a couple of interglacials when there was NO summer sea ice already - so what happened then?

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The thing to remember, my friend, is this: DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!

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I think it's safe to say that we're past the point of "global warming" being considered myth. Whether it goes by another name or no name at all, something in the weather patterns and the Earth's temperature is changing slowly over time.

It's definitely something everyone needs to be aware of, because Earth's resources are finite, and with the rising seas and changing climates, this fact will be much more apparent when farmlands and crop production starts to diminish. The media will always tend to hype things much more than they should, because they're all about ratings and how many people are actually watching them, but it's hard to ignore changes you can see with your own eyes out in the world.

http://dreamer.me/ to find out more about your environment, what you can do to help, and what's really going on.

Well!!!!!!!!!!!

Global Warming is reality !!!!!!!

You can see that the world over temperatures are increasing!!!

* Glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 50 feet (15 m) per year,

* More than half of the 4,000 lakes in the Qinghai province, China are disappearing due to drought

* Temperatures in the high Himalayas have risen 1 degC since the mid 1970s.

* The Gangorti Glacier is retreating 98 ft (30 m) per year. At this rate scientists predict the loss of all central and eastern Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

* Land slides in hilly areas like Ooty

* The sea levels are raising very much

*Severe FLoods during rain

* Heat Waves in South India

It's 100% myth. Think about this. Way, way, way, back in time there was an ice age. No humans. Just animals. Which means there was no trash, and no bad gases being realesed by humans, because there were none! Now how did all that ice melt? Because according to todays top scientists, todays ice is melting because of humans carbon foot prints. well how did it melt back then if there were no humans? Now this is what happened before people. Ice age --> ice all melts--> water freezes again. You see the only logical explaination is we are between ice ages. A lot of ice is going to melt then its all going to freeze again. Didnt you feel how cold it was this winter. so its already started get colder for the next ice age. The past holds a lot of answers. And the more you know about it the more you know about the future. So if the pattern continues all the polar bears will be safe and sound as time goes on.

hey buddy, its all true and all the negative effects explained are also true only. it is not a media hype at all. it is the worst ever phenomenon happening in the world. but remember that this is not the first time. we have had another global warming 1000 years back and that is why the U.K is separated from the rest of the Europe. nevertheless, global warming is also said to have positive effects. the average temperature of the earth over a geological period of time is 22 deg c. but now its temperature is only 156 deg C. so this is a clear sign that we are marching towards the past! increased global temperature means increased CO2 in the atmosphere which means increased plant growth. global warming is also due to another yet to be investigated phenomenon called the El nino cycle.

Yeah! It's just like global warming. Last week, here in the USA, over 100,000 people lost their jobs. Yeah, just LAST WEEK. Just because you have not been affected... yet ,does not mean it is a real threat to you and your family's well being. (You do live in an isolated part of the world.) It is just a matter of time, on both issues. Just wondering, you speak as though you have knowledge of geology. What are your credentials? I lean toward the opinions of experts. Heads up, mate! When you ask for the opinions of others, (Polls and Surveys)then procede to voice your position, it is obvious that you are not looking for knowledge. You are wanting someone to agree with your opinion.

So-called “global warming skeptics” are indeed getting more vocal than ever, and banding together to show their solidarity against the scientific consensus that has concluded that global warming is caused by emissions from human activities.

Upwards of 800 skeptics (most of whom are not scientists) took part in the second annual International Conference on Climate Change—sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank—in March 2009. Keynote speaker and Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen told the gathering that “there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.”

Most skeptics attribute global warming—few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature—to natural cycles, not emissions from power plants, automobiles and other human activity. “The observational evidence…suggests that any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential,” says atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, an outspoken global warming skeptic and founder of the advocacy-oriented Science and Environmental Policy Project.

But green leaders maintain that even if some warming is consistent with millennial cycles, something is triggering the current change. According to the nonprofit Environmental Defense, some possible (natural) explanations include increased output from the sun, increased absorption of the sun’s heat due to a change in the Earth’s reflectivity, or a change in the internal climate system that transfers heat to the atmosphere.

But scientists have not been able to validate any such reasons for the current warming trend, despite exhaustive efforts. And a raft of recent peer reviewed studies—many which take advantage of new satellite data—back up the claim that it is emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing potentially irreparable damage to the environment.

To wit, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences declared in 2005 that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise,” adding that “the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” Other leading U.S. scientific bodies, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union have issued concurring statements—placing the blame squarely on humans’ shoulders.

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

DUDE! Look out the window and see how hot it is than before. Global Warming is reality and is something that is happening right now. It is not "media hype" or "fake".